#2165 - Jack Carr

33:51Yeah, so there was a couple you and you didn't know if one was gonna come next year the year after so is it pressure that comes from Does it come from the publisher does it come from you do you like make hey what the sunshine in I think maybe there's a little bit of that But I think it became what was expected for recurring characters So it became clave cussler maybe it was one of the first to start doing it with the dark pit series that he started I think the first one was back in the back in the 70s early 70s Um, he passed away a couple years ago, but he started doing them more frequently And then that Tom Clancy was every two two and a half years and then we get up to the late 90s And you have Daniel Silva book a year you have it's Flynn book a year and so it became something that was normal And now people expect it so I think it's more that than anything else Yeah, if people get hooked on a character they want a new book every year.

34:38Yeah, like grainy does a new gray man every year Yeah exactly so that's kind of the but the audience expects and it's fun and again it is you know It's a it's a timeline that you can hit Two a year would be difficult to do That would be extremely difficult to do. Yeah, does anybody do two a year? I think there's a couple guys who have done it Well, I think when you get a little maybe when you get a little older like like uh John Grisham So kids out of the house that sort of a thing right and you don't do all of the other things trying to avoid the wife podcast Lockheed, you're words. I've got uh, but uh, but I think you can get to that stage where you're not doing if you're not doing a podcast And you're not doing social media and you're not writing a blog and you're not updating your website Zero of those things, but you'd love to write and all the kids are out of the house And you already have established a readership from the 80s the 90s early 2000s when there were less distractions Well, we didn't have all these video games didn't have social platforms Didn't have YouTube didn't have on demand any movie ever made where you can have anytime So that's essentially what you're competing with with books so people read less now So if you have that base established back in from the old days like a John Grisham Then he can do two a year so you get two John Grisham books every year every now and again I think Michael Connolly does the same thing But uh, but they're not doing the other things.

35:51They're not doing that podcast. They're not doing right They're not doing that sort of yeah Especially like the script. I mean the amount of how much time does it take or how much time do you have to spend work on the terminalist a lot It's uh, so the first one I was the learning so I was new to Hollywood So I was learning but Chris Pratt when I'm involved and for one for cool and I'm involved showrunner David to Giulio when I'm involved So but essentially I'm learning I'm seeing how this adaptation to film works And now after that it was a few year process Now I can add more value this time around so this time I'm involved in all the casting which I wasn't before other than Chris So this time involved in all the casting all the creating the show with David to Giulio writing the outlines going to the Oh nice.

36:34Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Getting those things going They nailed it man. That that show is as close to the actual book as you're probably ever going to get without it being like a hundred hours long That's the thing you know some people get upset that there wasn't us this scene or that scene or these characters get more together or that sort of a thing Clip on the back. Oh wow look at this is oh wow No way Clipper like this Oh, it slips out. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, it's great dope. Oh, yeah Built in so you never have to wonder if you have a clipper. Yeah, that's fantastic Yeah, shout out to foundation cigars.

37:10Is that it? Oh nice. Oh look at that Get your own cigars right there. I love it. They're good. Nice. Let's check this out There I was very skeptical when he first made it for me. I'm like oh geez Uh, yeah, that's uh, I did a whole cigar lighting scene in this one in this book. I have one of my favorite chapters In previous books was James Reese talking to Caroline Hastings who's the matriarch of this Hastings family It's just a conversation so it's not nothing's blowing up no one's getting their head chopped off with a Tom a hawk And he liked that it's just a conversation and passing on a wisdom and I did that again this time with the patriarch And so it's Jonathan Hastings talking to James Reese and they go through he's he's rolling a cigarette like old school The way he would have done it back in Africa in Rhodesia back in the day and then James is doing a cigar But he's lighting it in the way that he learned from Jonathan Hastings brother and what was then Mozambique?

38:04Yeah, people get real dorked out on how to light up cigar. I have Had conversations. I've done it the right way. I've done it the other way. I can't tell the difference I'm too stupid So it's like the same way I feel about wine. I am not never gonna be a wine connoisseur I like a nice glass of wine. Someone tells me what the good stuff is. Yeah. Yeah. I'll drink that Yeah, you can tell the difference though. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I have my friend Matt. It's like a real wine connoisseur though He's he has like a seller in his house and he looks so he puts on his reading glass When we go out to eat and he goes over all the different Ventages he knows exactly what the fuck he's ordering.

38:43I don't know what I'm ordering. I asked the The lady at the yeah, that's what they do there. What's good to know all that stuff? Yeah, a full -bodied Cabernet yeah, yeah, I don't know what the fuck anything else. I put some wine in these I like to do I like to weave in food. He inflemming did it kind of like my nod is my double -o seventh book So there's a lot of the references to bond in here in three really some that like the most casual Watcher of a film will get and some that probably even the most ardent fan will get so I there's something for everybody That I put that I put in here, but so that's your seventh book seventh book double -o seven That's a accomplishment.

39:14Thank you seven books seven books. That's incredible. Thank you. Thank you I just think about how many hours that is of just sitting in front of the computer. Oh my eyes are gone I mean, do you still use a laptop? Mm -hmm. I would encourage you to not I need to not yeah You know why for the keyboard keyboard. Yeah, the keyboards on the MacBook suck. Yeah, I do most of my writing even when I write I either write at home on an apple with the it's it's a really nice keyboard There's a lot of trigger travel and it's ergonomic that's separated or I have a think pad I don't know if you ever use one of those Lenovo think pads the keyboards are superior Superior to the apple ones first of all all the keys have like a little dip in them.

39:58Yeah, so your fingers Fingers settles into that little valley. Yep, and then there's a lot of travel It's like 1 .8 millimeters one of them one of the things I have is 2 .2 millimeters of travel So as you're typing you're feeling it some guy so go so crazy that they want a mechanical keyboard Yeah, I'm not there yet. I do have a really I have one that Hemingway actually eroded movable feast on somebody a fan sent it to me When a tie brighter. Yeah, you wrote a movable feast on it It came up for auction right before covid so January 2020 the guy that started Newman's own with Paul Newman. He was also kind of a manager.

40:34It's this A .E. Hotster I don't think I'm pronouncing his last name correctly But he was like a mover and shaker in those types of circles back in the day And so he had all this Hemingway stuff and it went up for auction after he passed away And so I have yeah Hemingway's typewriter So I typed a a Hemingway quote on it when it arrived and then I let it sit of course the kids have walked by and like you know So it's not exactly Yeah, that makes it funny. It's pretty cool. So I had that right there But I need I need to get a dear and after we talked about this once and so I went out and I bought another computer Like we talked about the one he recommended so I got it But it wasn't an apple one and like apple got me like did everything is it cloud and friggin phone and computer Like they've just got me you can get around that though.

41:18I'm not good at that sort of thing. It's not that hard It's not that hard just relearn it and then once you relearn it you already have it in your head You know, I have a lot of cross -platform things that I like that I use which helps a lot Okay, but apples notes is one of the best things ever because when I have an idea I'd like to just talk it into a note and then if it's on my apple notes then it's on my computer notes So if I have an idea for a bit or something like that I can say it in my notes and then when I go on my computer and I just press the notes it's there I need to get better at that sort of thing.

41:48I have note pads everywhere yellow stickies everywhere. I get cats You don't have it on your phone. Oh no, I just for some reason I just don't I don't know if there's something about it The best thing about the phones today is that you could talk to it You know like you can on both like the apple one and this one too you just you you just open up a note And then when you open up a note when you're writing a new note you press you go down there and you press the The microphone thing and when you press the microphone thing it just lets you talk like here we go I need to do that. I need to get better all that stuff It's not yeah, I'm not good at it.

42:21I send myself emails. I have an email account that I just send notes to I thought your emails to like I could do this. Yeah, Jack Carr is a bad motherfucker. And this is his seventh book Bam look how quick that is look at that. I do. Hey, let's close pretty fucking close close Oh, they look at they they they they sit blocked out bad mother fucker. Look with mother fucker. It's already controlling you Why is it doing that? That's probably the thing about androids those I should stop this it's still recording This thing about androids though is like they have so many Options of things you could do you can customize things so much more than you can on an iPhone.

42:56Okay Now if you're a person that's already busy like yourself. That's probably not attractive to you. No It's just too much. Yeah, but like I've watched like 10 videos on this phone Just trying to figure out all the different stuff See you could use it in split screen mode We can watch two different things at the same time two different websites You give an email in the bottom while you're watching a video at the top Dude, I don't know and also I think that would be too much for me. Oh, you can pull it. Oh, yeah Just and not only does it have a stylus, but the stylus it doubles as a remote control So like if you want to take a picture with the family you set up the phone and then you hold on to this So you go like that Press the button and it takes the picture and that does take that has a better Camera than I wouldn't say it's better.

43:37I would say it's just as awesome. Okay. I mean there are people that debate things Yeah, the Apple camera is amazing. I still have this iPhone 15. It's fucking great Don't get me wrong and one thing that I really love about Apple is it works with Apple TV so the best remote for Apple TV is your iPhone really yeah Yeah, yeah, I'm learning so much today syncs up So if you have Apple TV you scroll down like this and you press this button right here and it shows you the remote Says choose it TV you choose it TV and then you control The screen with you with your remote so if you want to look something up on YouTube or yeah, it does it you type it Instead of like do do do do do do looking for the fuck it's like old school old school texting all right worse It's horrible.

44:26It's horrible way easier Yeah, type it on your phone and then also you can slide back and forth to wherever you want in the movie exactly Yeah, it's the best remote all right I'm gonna try phones the best. I will try that the other stuff. I don't know about but I will try that because it's Yeah, I'm not good at all that stuff. I'm always like you only my wife. What the the best word and what's the It's attached to your email. It says like Didn't we buy this movie already on another thing like right? I'm not good at all that yeah, that's always an issue There's a lot going on today That's why I like to take a breath go upstairs, but I do need that other computer Because I'm feeling it for the first time.

45:03I'm feeling it in my hand Well for the thing is if you use like across platform Word processor Like say if you use Microsoft. Yeah, if you use Microsoft word you can access Microsoft word through Your phone you can access Microsoft word through a laptop a windows laptop a mac laptop It does not matter you can access it. Yeah, so you have an a Microsoft word account And so then if you store things in the cloud like if you store your script in the crowd or your book in the cloud You could access it from anything you want I know it's so bad. It's not difficult. Not that's not difficult. That's where essentially the same age, but you're so good at all this stuff I'm not good.

45:45You are you know you know better than me and red bands better than Jamie. Yeah, it's That's a lot I said I said that just the drinking Yeah, I set up a competition. Oh, red bands super nerd though. They're both super nerds. It's a lot But I need to do something you need to get it definitely another computer for for typing But I've won this just for writing so a whole other computer just for writing that smart new one every time This might not be so smart. I get a new one for every book really yeah Just so it's a clean and it's like a clean piece of paper and as if it's blank slate and I start again And I know that's not necessary today.

46:19You could probably make a new screen or minimize everything or do it a better way But I just like it in my own head like I'm starting a new. Yeah. No, that's a good thing to do like rituals are good Yeah, especially for creative people. Yeah, you know, that's a big part of Steven Presley's book Excuse me. I'm sorry. Excuse me. I asked field. Yeah with the war of our are amazing. Yeah His book, you know, it's kind of all about summoning. It's about discipline focus dedication But also summoning the muse yeah, and then part of that is like this ritual of like showing up Showing up at a very specific time every day like this And if you do that enough the ideas will come to you.

46:57Yep, and it is true. Oh exactly. It's doing the work Yeah, I'm doing the work. You got to do the work or that's not gonna Obviously if you don't do the work you're never gonna get where you want to go when I first read it I felt like Pressfield was using the term the muse as like just sort of That Maybe it's not a real thing, but you treat it as if it's a real thing and it works that way It worked because of the time and focus that you put like it will accumulate Over time you will get creative ideas But now is I'm getting older I'm not convinced that I was right that it's not a real thing I have a feeling that This is gonna sound so weird But I'm just gonna say it.

47:40I think ideas are an unrecognized life form This is what I think I think creativity is very a very strange thing like what is it where is it coming from? Where do ideas come from? Where's a great song come from? Where's a great concept for a book come from? It comes from your mind right in your mind pulls it out of a lot of things like your life experiences your current state of You know depression or happiness and all the things you've read your whole life There's like so many things that you're pulling creativity out of right But there's a thing that enters into your mind sometimes when you come up with an idea where you're like that is not from me That's not from me.

48:20I know this is just popping up and maybe it's just as my ignorance of the way synapses fire But I'm not sure because My thought is Everything that exists that human beings have created came from an idea Like all cameras all houses everything was an idea that we got and then We worked at it and manifested it into form. Yeah, and if the universe has a driving force when it comes to intelligent life that driving force seems to be creating things. Yeah, and I have a feeling that ideas themselves are almost like a life form that Injecs itself into human consciousness and then encourages and guides People to do things to make things and then they appear and those things Encourage more people to make more things And I think it works that way with music.

49:24I think that works that way with comedy it works that way with literature With pretty much everything. Yeah, everything that's really good encourages more people to do those things And then more things happen and better things get made and I think that's how these things Will themselves into existence they do it through our minds like almost spiritual I don't know if I like that work because it's been co -opted by hippie chicks And dudes pretending to be spiritual try to get laid. Yeah, yeah I think so much spiritual hippies are being girls are being honest the guys are probably 80 % of them are not being honest But yeah, whatever that word means.

50:05Yeah, it's something that there's something more to it than this sort of reductionist view Of what an idea is and if someone says that what's your proof? You know, we have evidence of I have no proof. Yeah, it's not I don't I think the world is way stranger than we think yeah, and I think our existence here is way stranger than we think I think people have been wrestling with that forever and for me to just think oh the muse is just like airy fairy concept That you give to the results of hard work and dedication no, I think hard work and dedication are important because you summon the muse I think the muse is a real thing And you've come to this over time.

50:48Yeah with age experience I just don't know You know, I mean if the muse wasn't a real thing boy. It sure behaves like a fucking real thing It really does behave like a real thing and when you're living your life right It seems like it rewards you It seems like it rewards you Like both mentally, emotionally, physically like there's some there's a guiding force It's just we don't know how to tune into it and I think that guiding force also exists creatively I think there's a guiding force in terms of like the things you do like if you're living your life right And you're you're doing things you're supposed to do and you're good to your friends your discipline and you get to a certain point in your life You're like wow, it's almost like faith's real.

51:33Yeah, you know like there's some Guiding forces that are not exact. Yeah, there are almost like a like a Radio signal that you're tuning in but you can't quite get it It's like it's kind of there, but you kind of have a sense It's not saying everyone head to the exit. It's not that clear. Yeah, it's just like this very vague thing It's like I think I'm supposed to do this. Yeah, well fate's an interesting thing obviously I thought about it. You know, I thought about my whole life I'll get my daddy gave me a book a long time ago And I was a kid called the bridge in San Luis array and it's about these people that are on this bridge it collapses and Since central thousandth South South America somewhere and All day I'll die and the stories about why are all the why are these people?

52:18It's hey there's seven there might there might be more or less but regardless about that number a group of people Why were they on that bridge at that time when it collapsed? Yeah, it's just an interesting thing to think about and I thought about it again in Iraq back in Really 2005 2006 time frame because anything could have been an ID and you're going down the road You're heading to a target. You're doing a convoy whatever you're doing and anything a dead donkey on the side of the road Trash whatever any just a disrupted piece of dirt whatever anything could be an ID back then So we got there and I thought you know what I can either be worried about that sort of thing or I can just accept the fate part of it And do my job as at that time as an officer and and do my job as a best leader an operator I can possibly be and focus on the mission and focus on the guys And crush this thing and and that's where my focus needs to be not on whether that thing's an ID And got somebody up in the turret as we're going, you know, they're looking they're doing that thing We have some technology that's that's helping counter some of these things there.

53:14Of course the enemy though is adapting to that technology That's warfare. You're always adapting to the enemy enemies always adapting to you You're looking for gaps in the enemy's defenses. You're trying to capitalize on momentum But they're clever and they know exactly how we counter things and they adapt in in turn we have to adapt to that So I decided to resign myself to fate as far as that stuff goes So I could just focus on the mission and be the best leader I could be so if it's an interesting thing It is and it's interesting hearing that from you because you're talking about it in the most extreme environment That exists which is war and that in order for you to be completely focused You kind of had to give into that.

53:52It's the only way you'll be able to do your job And then also if you're not completely focused it could wind up costing you or your teammates Exactly Exactly. That's the same reason while I was in all I focused on and they I had to talk to my wife about this But she understood it The pendulum's on the side of the team when you're in it's we're bringing guys down range Maybe you're in a staff job somewhere maybe not But if you're taking guys down range you do not want to be 10 years on from whatever's going to happen down range and a Rack Rough, Afghanistan or somewhere else around the world sitting on that couch after something goes sideways Wondering if you did everything you possibly could have done in preparation for that event to be the best Or make the best decisions under fire and possibly could so that's why on on the weekends I was training There are people going around the country and the civilian side of the house So I'd be out there training pistols training rifles on the weekend Always working out always reading military history always reading about a rack, Afghanistan So that I was not going to leave anything on the field Because it was just something that I was very aware of just reading the histories of Vietnam and thinking about the guys when they came home from that Just how the enemy gets a vote you can also do all those things I just talked about and things can still go Sideways, but I wanted to know that I was as prepared as I could possibly be And in the margins and the far ends that those Hard days that you put in and training could be the difference between your life or life mates life for your teammates Exactly like now it's easy for me to say I don't think I need to work out today.

55:21I need to write a book Back then no I'm gonna work out. I'm gonna do this Ron I'm gonna hit that obstacle horse again. I'm gonna get to the range With the guys I'm gonna do whatever whatever it is I'm gonna read this other book about Afghanistan or read this thing about insurgencies counterinsurgencies terrorism I'm gonna know the enemy is belt well as I possibly can because that's what I owe the guys and not just them but their families And by default the mission in the country. So I think that differences what makes your books so special that you have that real life experience This isn't just something you're dreaming up and you've done research on like your real life experience serving as a Navy seal Is a big part of why your books are so compelling?

55:59Yeah, I appreciate that and it's uh It's one of those things. I also saw as I was getting out so I went to the training command buds As in my last couple years in which was when I started writing the first first book and that's when I wasn't taking guys down range anymore I knew I was getting out So I didn't have to be solely focused on that and I can start doing these these other these other things And focus focus on that But I didn't know through my executive summary through my outline Until I started to write those first words how personal it was gonna be A very personal writing experience initially I thought oh I'll get the sniper stuff right if I don't know something about an aircraft or a submarine I can call somebody and I'll at least at least I know people to reach out to can to connect me with someone who's been Timing the submarine for us or in an aircraft I need to write about or something like that But I didn't know how personal it was going to be from a feeling and emotion standpoint So if I if my character gets ambush somewhere I can remember what it was like in Baghdad 2006 to actually get ambushed and then I can take those and apply them Right here to this fictional narrative.

56:58So it's a fictional story James Reese in the first book gets gets Amish on the streets of LA by this assassin guy But I can remember what felt like to be on the receiving end and then those feelings and emotions go directly on the page So I don't have to find a sniper from let's say Ramadi at the height of the war and interview him And then have those answers get filtered through movies I've seen other interviews. I've done documentaries other books Whatever it might be and then fictionalize it and put it on the page It goes all for heart and soul right in here So it was very personal much more person and it's remained that way even though this is the seventh book It's still just as as powerful when I'm writing it and I'm feeling it as it was for that first one Did you write any short stories first?

57:36No, no, I was a reader. So I read my whole life So I got to read all these guys David Morale Nelson to Millage Aquinnell JC Pollock Mark Olden Tom Clancy The inflemming John Le Carrer All these guys were the masters were my professors in the art of storytelling from a very early age So certainly by sixth grade fifth grade was one hunt for red October came out Which is why I have a submarine section in the beginning of this as a nod to the 40th anniversary of the hunt for red October For Tom Clancy and everything you did for the for the genre But it's it's I just yeah, I just absolutely love it But I had that foundation and I had that foundation from an early age So it wasn't at age 40 when I like thought oh maybe I should be if I'm gonna be a writer What should I have been reading or what what can I read that you read knowing you were going to be a writer but Because I loved the magic in those pages not because I was like oh I'm gonna learn this in sixth grade so that then 30 years later I can use it now.

58:27It was just I loved the magic and the pages of all those novels And it just became a part of me a part of my being a part of this foundation that I can now build on and so I don't think I could have prepared myself any better to be a seal or to do what I'm doing now as an author because reading is really the foundation of all of it That's such a great lesson for people listening that you can apply it almost anything in life They just focus on something be super dedicated to it cover all the bases and then go for it And you nailed it if the terminal is your first book that's crazy Yeah, that's what it was how many rewrites were there or edits I thought there was gonna be a lot because you're sending this to Simon and Schuster It's a publisher of all these books that I've read growing up and they're I thought oh they know what they're doing back there So they're gonna make all these changes Very few the questions that I got back are still the ones that I get content edits today Which are like explain this for somebody who wasn't in the military or now Hey explain this for someone who hasn't read the previous six books Put another sentence in there too just to explain who this person is and why they're here So those are the kind of edits that I get but no real big content edits at all and I didn't know it You know, I'm stepping into this for the first time back then and I didn't know if it was gonna be like Hey, you know what you should lay off on the violence or do you have to have so many guns in there or Do you have to describe them nothing there's zero see the thing is about books You can kind of go ham in a book like and people don't really cancel books, you know, then okay, you know I'm saying like you can with with written fiction You can get pretty fucking crazy.

1:00:00Oh, yeah, the point where that was in a movie people to like what kind of asshole made this Because we totally different. I think we think about movies as movies shaping our narrative of Reality in a good way like the good guy always wins, you know bad guy always dies like it's kind of predictable Yeah, that's why we like superhero movies, right? But in a work of fiction like a novel you can get pretty dark Yeah, there's I have a hundred percent complete creative control no one and I love that My agent or my publisher never suggests anything And I love that I know that was how it was gonna be going in because I saw you know you're watching Like a California Cation, you know, and you're seeing David DeCoucini in his relationship with his agent or you're watching What was that other one?

1:00:45The one about the agent Nla with Ari oh Yeah, that one fucking So that's what kind of thought agents were But that's Hollywood it's also different. I think literature agents they understand creativity a little bit better Yeah, also Hollywood agents can you know, they just it's a different animal. Yeah, I have an experience those ones that are kind of a caricature of an agent Oh, I have a bunch of them. Yeah, I haven't experienced that yet They're different just those guys don't read They're really dealing and they're doing their thing they're doing coke and fucking fried for our east in up time for reading no In our reading so I have not I'm sure that they exist I just have not experienced that yet because now there's like five agents now.

1:01:25There's one forever There's a there's the literary agent There's the book adaptation agent. There's unscripted agent. There's podcast agent And then I'm forgetting So there's there's a lot now, but none of them give me advice on what to do So that's very good having complete creative control. I absolutely love that and then there's no one to blame Yeah, people hate this all on me. It's not like My agent I knew I shouldn't have done that because she said I needed to put this other character in or something There's none of that zero. Yeah I mean unfortunately, I think it has to come from you like I think that's what makes Work of fiction and really good books makes it so unique is that you know it's coming from one person's mind That this thought this this these ideas that they had they they they wrote it out and they They sat there and they some of them used and they put it all together and then it's I know it's coming out of you So it's like part of the buzz of it.

1:02:19Yeah is that this person make that's one thing that I think is always gonna exist Even when AI starts writing insane books You're always gonna want a book that came from a person's mind. Yeah, it's like you want to put your handmade boots. Yeah, good point Yeah, yeah, no very good point Holly with the different though screenwriting so I just sent off episode one of seven right before I came over from the hotel I should hit the button on send for episode one of seven for this new It's not really a spin -off. It's its own series, but a prequel origin story Taylor Kitch playing Ben Edwards His origin story that gets him to a place shows his journey to get him to a place where he can do the things that he did in the terminal List in the book and in the in the show Because he was so good and that's The writing those things is a team effort for sure Obviously as you know from writing scripts they're out there constrained budgetary constraints the location constraints Yeah, there's a story arc within that episode and then overarching story arc for the whole whether it's seven eight or whatever Have any episodes there are so there's all those things to consider and then there's notes from senior level executives All the way back down very collaborative.

1:03:21So it's good though that you're collaborating because the other option is you just sell it And they do and that's never fun like everyone that I've ever talked to that ever sold a script Yeah, sold a book idea and they turned it to a movie and they didn't have anything to do with it. They fucking hate Yeah, I mean you have buying and it's good and bad because it's not gonna be a strict adaptation There's gonna be changes like the Grammy like the movie the Grammy Yeah, yeah, if you read the book the Grayman and then you watch the movie the Grayman you like what is this? Yeah, this is not the same thing It's a totally different movie.

1:03:52Yeah, there's like all these people that don't exist. There's all these things that don't exist Yeah, like the characters not as complex. Yeah, I mean it it's a thing It's a thing and there's gonna be changes obviously the book first blood very different than the movie first blood And it's it's great. So different. I mean you get you get to share a T -Slew's perspective There's no there's no knife in it yet. No knife. So Vester Stallone brought that to the He knew the importance of props. Yeah, he brought it to the to he knew the importance of props Which is why I gave James Reese the the Tom Hawks I knew the importance of props as well from that and And actually Stallone was this was so cool.

1:04:28I got to talk to Stallone. He was fantastic He was awesome. He wanted to jump on a zoom with me Was like oh my god, it's a child of the 80s. I was so fired up. So I was just like trying to play it cool Right, like trying to play it cool. I have my phone down in the corner trying I'm taking some pictures You know just to commemorate this this moment, but he was funny. He was wise And past it was he passed along some lessons and yeah, we just got to hang out and talk and see if there was something that we could do together So I wrote up a a little treatment for him specifically You know probably nothing will ever come of it because you know how He'll it works and you never you never know But it was cool to do that was a big moment.

1:05:05That's very cool. That was fine Yeah, you never that guy was fucking doing stunts into his deep into his 60s. Oh yeah broke his neck. Yeah, I'm expecting an expendable yeah Like literally broke his neck. Yeah, he had to get it. Yeah, his neck fused like when he moves He's kind of stiff and then that's why his neck is fused. Oh, yeah, what an animal though in his 60s amazing And he's done. Yeah, and now late 70s still question like fucking John Claude Van Damer. Yeah, yeah, like what? Uh -huh Yeah, but that's how dedicated that guy and such a great writer people to understand is what a great writer He is what a great mind that is all those all those movie films coming from that mind and yeah, what a great what a great guy It's funny that people assume that a certain point in time someone doing something awesome is gonna want to stop Yeah, like that's the like why is he still working?

1:05:49Yeah, isn't he have all the money in the world? How fuck are you doing? I think he just loves it He must yeah, that's what you get it off on now. It's not a thing It's like most people think about work as like a thing you do for money and then you get eventually get enough money Don't work, but if you actually do something you love like why would you stop? Why do you want to stop? I think that's a difference between thinking of something in terms of a career and thinking of it in terms of a profession Yeah, there's a difference. There's precision in language reflex precision and thought someone told me a long time ago And that's a different thing a career is something let's say you walk in and you're working your way up that ladder and you have a plan and Profession is something that's a calling it seems so the profession of arms There's a reason we call it a profession of arms and not the career of arms.

1:06:31Although there's a lot of careers in the military There are working their way up that ladder and you cover that and I do cover that and I get to take them out and So it's a creative way. So it's right there. I put it for me to write these things Yeah, there's a lot of grossness. That's what's really sad is that you would think that the military would be like the most pure of all institutions Because it has to be because you're literally Taking the strongest amongst us and having them go and fight for our country Yeah, I'll fight for our interests and you would think that there's no room for bullshit Yeah, but apparently there's a lot of room for bullshit.

1:07:02Well, there's a lot of room for advancement I guess if you Simply don't pop positive on a piss test Don't get too many d .w .Is and don't get rested for let's say domestic violence or something like that You can stay in the military for a long time So you don't need to excel when you hit certain certain Right certain rank and I think that when you that's what we see it play out in Afghanistan August of 2021 that's 20 years of being able to plan for that withdrawal and that's the best that our military leaders could do 20 years to prepare for that so I somebody can look at that who never had any touch point with the military and Apply common sense and logic to that problem set and have a much better plan to extract forces from Afghanistan That whole thing seemed insane ridiculous.

1:07:49It seemed insane and it's for whatever reason. It's not being discussed When people are talking about this presidential race. Yeah, that was one of the more insane things of our time And then when you talk to people that were there like Tim Kennedy has told me some horror stories Oh, yeah about what was going on there those babies throwing over the fans and the bar wire He saw worse things during that time than all of his tours Geez They were like Taliban just killed a woman in front of them just openly like put her head on a on a truck and shot her in the head In front of everybody and it was unnecessary.

1:08:23That's the whole thing. It was unnecessary. I just don't understand How you can do that. I don't know. I don't understand like I mean If you're gonna execute something that's as complex as removing all the troops from a place that we've occupied for 20 years Yeah, like it seems like that would involve a very thoroughly reviewed plan one with many many experts and come up with What's gonna cause the least likelihood of casualties? Yeah, now I thought about it the early days So in 2003 in Afghanistan I thought I was catching the tail end of it then Because the flashpoints before that we had Mogadishu.

1:09:06We had Panama or Neda desert one so after Vietnam you had these flashpoints And this was now we're moving into extended combat operations But from the end of Vietnam up to then our our model is a flashpoint essentially So we all thought if we weren't there essentially right after 9 -11 that we were gonna miss it And then we have essentially 20 years But I remember being the back of a high looks pickup truck with with Afghan guy and I've always asked him if they were back then I could ask him if they were moush if they thought the Soviets because I was always interested in that history and their backstories and what that life was like in the late 70s through the 80s into the 90s and so I was always Essentially collecting information just because I was curious But as I'm talking to this guy distinctly remember thinking man one day we're gonna leave this place And this guy is helping us right now what's gonna happen his family when we leave this place and Yeah, we saw that all play out it was 20 years later, but we didn't that play.

1:09:59There's no reporting on it No, it just disappeared. Yeah, we hear about it from soldiers We hear about it from people that are you know like deeply embedded journalists that were there, but most people that Know about that story don't know about all the people that worked with the United States over there Fucked and we don't even know what happened to them. Yeah, no, that's it's awful We have a history doing that though. I mean we did it in Vietnam did it with the Kurds after the first Gulf war So we don't have a very good track record as far as taking care of those and their families who help us No, they're when they get left behind typically and then family slaughtered.

1:10:32It's just hard to imagine that that's how we approach things Yeah, like you don't want to think that the people that are in charge are that incompetent Hmm or that are that callus yeah, or that are that they just look at a numbers thing instead of look at bodies and in human lives Yeah, well all that stuff I get to yeah, I get to write about these guys meeting their ends in a In horrible ways in the pages of the novels. So it's I guess that's that's my way to do my part to kind of keep that history Live because you can go back to fiction Let's say you can go back Inflaming we talked about him earlier You can go back and read those books from the fifties and that really is a portal back to post -World War 2 Great Britain and they're changing place in the world I mean empire decline and that's in flamming his way to keep that old empire alive is through James Bond And his creation so it's their time capsules back to the time in which they were written go books in the 70s Books in the 80s go back to love being the Tom Clancy read There's time for October Patriot games whatever it is It's like snapshot of what's going on there geopolitically and then also things like searching for a for a A phone booth and looking for a quarter that sort of a thing so all those those things So I like to weave a pop culture and In history into the pages of the novels as well because they are their time capsules for the time in which they're written But it's also a constraint because now you have to think about Teslas and GPS's in cars and GPS's in phones and video cameras everywhere So you have to think about that especially when you're writing a like espionage type of a thriller You have to think about all that stuff and weave it into every chapter same thing with film and screenplays You have to be like oh man this script Why wouldn't they just pick up his phone and call this guy and tell him to like wave off or something like that Whereas in the 80s or 70s like that guy's gone.

1:12:15How are you going to contact this guy? So it's just a different dynamic and you have to think about that as you're writing these things. So it's just another Another interesting thing that you need to Think through and creatively solve for I was thinking about this the other day when I knew that We're gonna talk how complicated is it to try to make a Residible storyline where some of the vades capture today. Yeah, it's a thing because if someone is using a phone They know where you are. Yeah, if you're running around in a city They're gonna have access to security cameras. They're gonna have street cameras in some countries and You know you're you could be tracked so easily.

1:12:58Yeah, no, I'm gonna track from fucking space. Yeah It's a it's a whole thing. So you're seeing those photos that they take satellite photos from space I've seen a lot but I don't know if I've seen the ones you're thinking license plate license place read a license plate from space Oh, yeah, you gotta think about all this stuff and this is like from years ago. Oh, yeah, you could do your license plate So a while back it's probably full scale video now or facial recognition technology Oh, yeah, in the 60s or something like that you're forging passports and all that sort of thing. That's a no go right now I saw the fucking crazy story about this guy Who got a bunch of plastic surgery and changed his appearance and changed his name so that he could try to date his girlfriend Who had a restraining order on him what yeah what this fucking psycho changed his face bleached blonde If died his hair lost a ton of weight look like a totally different guy So he could date his girlfriend that put a restraining order on that's a little creepy It sounds like it should be a movie or a law in order Yeah, that should be a hole in the desert.

1:14:01That's the guy. What yeah, that is crazy crazy. What year is this is this recent 2020 tweets bring it up. This is wasn't recently but 2020 four years ago It gets plastic surgery and name change to date his ex girlfriend after she obtains a restraining order did it work? How far did it get? That's a good question Did she find out that's a good question? It seems like there'd be a tell Or it seems like he just be too creepy to even reengage really or with anyone actually Yeah, I mean maybe he knew like what creeped her out. So he like started slowly Yeah, I'm just the opposite of what my real personality would do but it might be a real story Oh Did not look up there says no this man did not Was not successful or he didn't do that said he didn't get it.

1:14:49It's bullshit. Uh -huh these sons bitches. What's the actual truth? That's the thing how do you even figure this out? Just be one of those urban legends and someone just took it too far We found a disclaimer world news daily. Oh, that's a silly. Yes, it's here. It's a paper. Oh, that's a silly newspaper That's how I got okay. They got us sons of bitches. Still. It's a good idea for a script or so It wasn't script you're working on back then. It was a werewolf movie. Yeah What happened? I just have it sitting around on my computer. I should do something with it eventually. Yeah Yeah Um, we should do something.

1:15:22Speaking of which Patrick bed David was It's a play there was some video where he was showing Obama and He thinks Obama has a mask on and not I keep seeing guys. Yeah, Biden He thinks Biden is not really Biden. Yeah, someone pretending to be Biden that has a mask on yeah Because he was like talking very clearly Uh -huh. They were just reviewing it. Does that technology exist? Yeah, I mean Does that technology exist? Is that pop up makeup? I think it's makeup. It's makeup I think they can use prosthetic masks and they can do an insane job of changing your appearance But these guys are like accusing Biden of having this on which I think like boy, that's a loose end If that's true like there's too many people out there that would know I know I think all like that So I can look weird.

1:16:13I mean it looks like people now claiming that Joe Biden has different skin color on his face than his neck Yeah, well they do do the makeup. Let me see what it looks like Well, there's the collar okay, there's a shadow on the collar. Yeah, no see that's just the shadow I think that what you see about I can't look at the end right but that's just look weird But that's a bunch of different lights. That's all that is lighting makeup. It looks bad But that's also low resolution video. Yeah If they were gonna do that do you think they would keep the fucking net color different? I would think that they would be smarter than this and they can even do that But if you can get that good where you can make the face look that good And they keep comparing his old face to his new face first of all the guy got plastic surgery clearly He got a facelift He's got his face pulled back to try to look younger which never works.

1:16:59Just makes it look weird It makes it look a little lizard But the boshanos to me look like studio lighting You have multiple cam multiple lights coming from a bunch of different angles That's what it looks like like he's moving around But it's because he has a collar and the collar is catching the light So there's light down here. There's light above. That's why it looks weird That's why it looks like two -tone because it's essentially getting a shadow But then the shadow is also getting light from the upper light from the upper care. Yeah, so he looks fake right there But that's just shadows.

1:17:30It's because he's being lit from below. Right. Yeah, it looks it does look odd Yeah, you think he's probably being lit from a couple different spots. Yeah, I don't think you can I mean, I definitely think you can get a face Like mask and make you look like him, but how are you gonna talk like him? Yeah, they probably just gave him a solid dose of Adder All that I've ever seen this clip. I saw the very end of it where they had about expert of some kind this guy He says that like they've been using body doubles since yes They have again, and he's like it's plausible that they could maybe have Well, I know but I doubt You would have to so you would what you would have to do is you'd have to go have the person in the mask and they'd have to talk in their voice And then what you could do with AI is Change the voice to be exactly like Biden's voice.

1:18:15Yeah, you could do that But that requires so many people to be in on it including the person being interviewed or the person interviewing Biden They're all the people that are watching right that's a lot of loose ends there. Yeah, that's where a lot of these things I think fall apart. Yeah, in that case That's a lot of loose ends especially like Camera guys and a lot of hardworking folks a lot of fucking probably Republicans They're involved in normal people That's what I think you know, you'd have to sign NDAs but people talk. Yeah, it's like especially something like that Like oh my god, they had a fake president give a conversation And that's what you're seeing you're seeing a fake president.

1:18:50This is crazy. Yeah, that's a lot Benjamin Franklin said three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead And so that's there's something to that there's certainly Something to that Yeah, like you're at all those other people that actually do the work the tactical level work Yeah, I guess what I think about in for Hollywood now when you see let's say a star of a show say something on social media that makes everybody Crazy, I'm never gonna watch that person show again. I see that movie. I'm never gonna watch another movie by that person That's one person like that's the one person who goes up and accepts the award But there's 300 other people 400 other people even more than that doing all that tactical base level work the hair and makeup people That stunt people all of those people are part of this thing part of this project and that's their jobs too So I think about that now and you see someone say something kind of off the wall.

1:19:36Okay, that's that's that that person is the essentially the spokesperson for that show of their star But there's so many other people that help bring that then put in so much work and then that person can go spout out some political opinion and then I mean like look what's going on right now with Robert De Niro. Oh, yeah, Robert De Niro because like There's something about being a star where you think your opinions more important than anybody else's and you can go give a press conference And he obviously has been very vocal from 2016 that he hates Trump for whatever reason. Maybe they have some personal thing.

1:20:08Yeah, whatever it is But now he's like holding press conferences. Yeah, so now everyone's heckling him everywhere he goes Like you opened up this instead of just being this cranky old liberal which I know a lot of them. Yeah, you know instead of that now you're this guy that is yelling at other people that are Trump supporters and they're yelling at you Like you've opened yourself up to this nonsense. Right like why do that at that age even like why yeah now every movie you go to 50 % of the population is gonna not want to go see that movie Yeah, instead of just you know I Think there's a certain thing Involved in being an actor at a very high level and I think that's one of the reasons why you never see like Daniel Day Lewis do give conversations You know like he disappeared.

1:20:57Yeah, where did he go? He's very rarely talking about things that are in the news and he's not doing one of those fucking Imagine there's no heaven videos and everybody's get COVID remember those You know most and there's a bunch of Celebrities were telling you how important is to not vote for Trump there was all these videos from 2016 You're not gonna see Daniel Day Lewis knows now because and for Daniel Day Lewis for the master of masters to be able to Embodied these completely different human beings. Yeah, you kind of don't want to know much about him as a person Yeah, we don't and yeah, he's pretty much did he retire?

1:21:31He became a cobbler. Yeah, a cobbler I think he stopped doing that. I don't think he acts anymore though. Yeah cobbler in Ireland, right? I don't know He became a boxer for a full year. Whoa. Yeah, he did that movie. I think it's called the boxer. It's about the IRA It's about a guy who goes to prison and comes out and he looks like a legitimate boxer like better than anybody else Who has ever been in a movie about a boxer really well? He's he goes all in yeah the other the guys in other movies They box like no one's punched him in the face. Yeah, you know or no one's going to punch maybe somebody has But no one's going to punch them in the face.

1:22:10So they're throwing punches and it's not It doesn't look real to me. Yeah, that's why you've a hard time with Rocky, right? I've hard time with Ryan. I know you do I mean, it's a great movie. I loved it when I was a kid when I was a kid I drank raw eggs and I ran around the block. Yeah, oh, it's fantastic It was awesome and so that's that's that's what I miss. I mean, I miss those days I miss that the feeling of watching those movies and getting just fired up and then going out and doing pull ups and sprint Hill, just hoping to know something. Yeah, when you know something like if you were watching a movie about the military and they were doing shit That's just absolutely never going to happen and not real.

1:22:41Yeah, it takes you out of it. You're like Yeah, I can be talking out of here. I know and that's what we that's what was important to Antoine Fuqua It's a Chris Pratt David to Jillio of me was doing something that when somebody who served in the military or law enforcement fire fighter intelligence officer somebody that did these things for real can pop that beer and sit on their couch and watch the show One of them to know we at least tried right at least tried to get it right. Yeah, some Hollywood hot sauce of course Chris talks about it in terms of like 80 % authenticity and 20 % Hollywood hot sauce Gotta move that gotta move that story forward.

1:23:13Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, gotta move it forward. That's a great term Hollywood hot sauce Yeah, yeah, but the problem is sometimes there's too much hot sauce. Yeah, overwhelmed the meal where they don't know and it's it does take another breath and Take you have to take a moment to try to get these things right. It's easy not easy It's still hard to make any show And that that's why I appreciate all shows out there now because I know how much work goes into making even the bad ones And how easy it is for things to go off the rail so it's a shocker that anything gets made or anything good gets made certainly But it's so you do have to take that extra moment to think about hey, how is this gonna look to somebody who does this for real?

1:23:48Yeah, you have to respect that as soon as you make a film about something and the people in the film like you have a movie about dancing and they dance like shit This is stupid this movie sucks If you're a professional dancer you'd be mad you'd be like this is horrible and like they do that in some karate movies But there's a suspension of disbelief aspect of those movies where you jump up and kick two people at the same time Yeah, that's kind of fun. Yeah, I know it's a fun. There's the fun aspect But if you're trying to make a serious film and try to do this like that's why Daniel Day Lewis is so great because he becomes that character Yeah, you have to talk to him on set like he's that character exactly.

1:24:23Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he was Abraham Lincoln for like a year right Right, it's so interesting because I don't see that I've not seen that yet Well, let's fucked up because nobody even watched that movie Maybe wish your time being Abraham Lincoln for a year and nobody ever talks about the movie. I know that's tough That's why I write this one page executive summary when I start these things and I ask myself is this worth the next year year and a half of my life And if it's if yes, then I go all in but I read it again And I say is this worth someone's walking by Hudson news and grabs this off the shelf and reads the back of this paperback or whatever Is it interesting enough for them to devote time?

1:24:54They're never going to get back to this story I have a hard time with those movies about real people where you don't know what they said to their wife behind closed doors like Abraham Lincoln Like how the fuck do you know what he said? What are you doing here? You just put a bunch of words in his mouth? Little or circle fiction you take a little little bit of a license and I don't like you like that Or documentary or we're going here. What are you doing? Yeah, we're making it up. I can't get behind these movies about like real people Yeah, you have them talking to their kid There's an unfortunately no recordings of Lincoln's voice exists since he died 12 years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph the first device to record and play back sound if anyone had an educated guess as to how it sounded though It would be holzer who's written 40 books on Lincoln 40 40 books on Lincoln the Civil War what a psycho that kind must be You know that guy's out there reenacting the Civil War That is wild 40 books on Lincoln in the Civil War That seems a little crazy, but just being down the at least though.

1:25:56I like that like I love IRA movies. Oh, yeah These IRA 70s like IRA movies. I think those are those are good. Yes. Yes, even the bad ones are good I just started watching peaky blinders. Oh, I've not watched it yet. I need to watch it. Fuck it's love great Yeah, it's fucking great. I burned through the gentleman which is Guy Richie's new show on Netflix. It's amazing It's fucking great. Nice prime guy Richie. It's great and then A lot of friends have been telling me like you got to watch peaky blind and Jamie keeps telling me I got to watch the wire and that's next Yeah, the wire is next, but I got to get through peaky blinders Yeah, I gotta watch that too.

1:26:28The peaky blinders is fucking great. Where do they say they're there? There are two people times types of people in this world those who have watched peaky blinders and those who have not really I think that's something that me somewhere tell that someone in Africa Yeah, probably having a watch peaky blinders. I know what's going on Not even what there's so many things I want to watch, but I have just having a time because well Today is the craziest time ever so much for television and films and so many these incredible series Yeah, you know like these things where they take like Ozark where they you follow the entire storyline for years and You know like the soprano started that yeah, still like one of the greats Tony Hinch live just started watching the soprano Yeah, I don't miss that too because that came out right around when did it come out when the soprano's yeah right around Nelsonish so right around September 11 So as soon as that I remember it was starting up Peaky I was like the first season.

1:27:20I think was 2000 and then of 99 or something like that Lossed to 2009. Yeah kind of lost a lot of that that during that time frame because sure right 9 -11 Going down range focused on that starting a family all that stuff. So we kind of missed a little bit in there So I need to go back I know I see scenes all the time you see scenes all the time they pop up on your feet and all that stuff and it's fantastic It's hard to believe that you root for a guy who's a criminal and a murderer. Yeah, yeah Like he's your hero. Yeah, like like I'm right about that in here my guy goes off the you know kind of Little his is understandable.

1:27:55Yeah, Tony soprano's a criminal. Yeah, his lifelong Mafia guys robbing people stealing things yeah, reservoir dogs here watching reservoir dogs and you're loving all those guys Conversations and right all the rest of it. They're all bad guys. Yeah, I mean a lot of those a lot of parents you know stuff Well, yeah, well, that's I like that. Yeah, it's a complicated movie. Yeah, yeah, where people are complicated Yeah, exactly real interesting. Yeah, interesting people And I like you want to like somebody too, so you can even like that's what you're saying You're saying yeah, you like these guys who happen to be criminals are doing bad things or whatever because of the way the way they're written way They can't you get to know them.

1:28:30Yeah, these things he being it was crazy everybody wanted to be in the mob Hey, the mob probably recruited quite a few people during those days. Well, there's the whole story behind Godfather and all that stuff too Oh, I bet I bet I mean that wasn't amazing. Yeah, I bet that made a lot of people want to become mobsters probably or you if you heard Danny trailer talk about doing there's a couple movies that came out about gangs and his his affiliation there with those but he's acting in the same things and having to go and actually get like Permission from the different gangs to chew them. Yes, it is biography.

1:29:08It's pretty pretty interesting stuff Similar type of a deal wasn't that a deal also with Edward James almost when one of those was an American me there's American me and then there was Blood and blood out came out about the same time Is that the same thing I think there's I don't think those Edward James almost though. No, it was James Right, right American me. I think he got in trouble with some of the Mexican gangs for the way things are depicted Yeah, you have to have permission for stuff. Yeah, well, I was gonna go to Macau for this one so I'm really trying to and I don't think I can go there now.

1:29:41I think I need to do it before I wrote this book Uh -oh. Yeah, so I think I that luckily I went to Russia before for my third novel for Savage Sun I went over to come chocolate peninsula did a hunt over there and a crazy experience with a bear over there, but I got I don't think I don't know if I should go back I don't know exactly. Yeah, have you Exactly American Patriot actor Danny Trejo said in an interview He was aware of ten people having been murdered for their involvement in the film holy shit, man Holy shit the first killing occurred 12 days after the films premiere well one of the films in sultan's Charles Charlie Brown Manrequés a member of la ma was killed in Ramona Gardens L .A.'s oldest public housing project another consultant the film 49 year old grandmother Anna Lazaga Lazaga commonly known as the gang lady was murdered when she was gunned down her east Los Angeles driveway while loading luggage to her car the day of her mother's funeral.

1:30:43Dang. Wow Wow, yeah, they were peaceful. Yeah, it's like Dangerous people you're making nice about give a worry about that with stuff you talk about on here Yeah, you could always worry about that. Yeah, I mean if you're gonna talk about things that are consequential right You know, I mean we live in a weird fucking world right now. Yeah, we live in a weird world of all kinds of insane things happening simultaneously You know, yeah, it's pretty wild. I got a plane yesterday and I hear this jack and it was a guy walks up and he We ended up being an Austin detective. Oh, so first I thought I was in trouble and he's just he liked the the books and everything We have apparently have some mutual mutual friends, but yeah, it's crazy out there and people can find you So much easier now.

1:31:30Yeah, I don't like that It's a it's definitely not a safer time to be alive, but it's also It's interesting that we're moving towards some I mean people can find you we're moving towards some very weird thing Where there's not gonna be any secrets anymore? Yeah, and I don't think it's that far from now Now and I think it might be the only way human beings that we truly understand each other No, really I think it's gonna happen through technology and I think it's going to happen in our lifetimes that our relationship to each other is gonna be Incredibly different than what it is now Neural link we got that coming up.

1:32:04I talk. I think that's a part of it I have Alice this character I introduced two two books ago for in the in the blood and an AI quantum computer and people really liked this character But I didn't want I had a sideline her for the next one for the last book because I didn't want to rely on her like Michael Knight in the 80s calling Kit Kar and his watch and having it Jump in those trans am and zip off so I sideline her last book But I knew I couldn't introduce a character like that and not and just ignore her forever So she comes back in this and even since I did the research for the last book and that's only two years Things have increased such an exponential rate as far as AI quantum computing and in the military side of that Autonomous control of platforms so all these new things that are coming out whether it's submarines or it's aircraft or Surface ships whatever it might be they're all being built so that they can be autonomously controlled They may not be yet, but they have that ability.

1:32:54Have you seen that insane new ship that's autonomous? It's all controlled it looks like a manta ray. Oh, yeah Yeah, I've seen that one that one's no passengers. No, no crew. Nobody hundred no one on it at all It's just a machine and it looks like a damn spaceship. Yeah, see if you find it. Yeah It's crazy looking. Yeah, you look at it You're like if this was not ours if you were living in like 1970 and someone saw something like this. Yeah Dang, look at that. It's crazy. That's wild. No windows. Yeah, I'm like oh my god. It's spaceship It's from another planet all new stealth stuff Stealth bombers the speed that this thing's go at the altitudes that they travel.

1:33:32Yeah, it's wild I also think there's new ones that operate on geothermal energy Oh wow and they can make hydrogen out of water like they can do wild shit with some of these new Devices that they're creating and this is the future is the future right here. So that's what I'm exploring this In this thing is like what happens if you turn over autonomous control or have one of these things just take control right That is a real problem that that's that's a real problem that people are terrified of when it comes to weapons systems And if you're doing it what is China doing so we're doing it China is doing it And you have to get inside your enemies to send his decision making process and they're making decisions so fast Using AI to make them I mean you can have missiles raining down on the west coast before our generals and elected leaders Sort of like I take calling the leaders elected representatives because they're not really they don't seem like leaders to me Elected representatives who are supposed to represent us before they're even at a bed.

1:34:25Yeah And not only that but these supersonic ones can change directions So you can't even picture where they're going hypersonic ones hypersonic missiles passive targeting So you have all of these things so I got to explore all that in the past by was book took so long because I was Doing that research and it's just new things coming to light every single day And then people you're talking to in that space giving you little hints about what's really out there And then you talk to somebody else who gives you another little hint and you get to put this mosaic together like a reporter might and I think what I describe in the book.

1:34:56I think we're way past it We're already way past it as far as quantum computing AI and what the ability of those platforms What what what they have what they can do? Yeah, I think so too. I think what we know is probably really the tip of the iceberg And I think they're probably far more advanced than we think they are right now I think that's what a lot of the UAP stuff is yeah, I've been thinking that for a long time. I think it's very possible that we are visited It's very like Tucker Carlson seems to think their spiritual beings that they've always been here like their devils and angels That might be true too.

1:35:30I don't know. I mean But also probably we do get visited but also probably some of those are ours Probably there's something about the government telling you that these are off -world crafts that we go. Oh, you made it instantly right my brain goes you're Not square about anything Technology, you know, and they finally unveiled it thinking the maybe late 80s Part of that was to let the Soviets know that we do have this capability because they didn't have theirs yet And so we can get there before they even know my fears that they're not ours Yeah, the big fears that not only do they exist, but maybe some of them are not ours And so some other countries have the ability to have these things that move in these insane ways that we can't quite do Yeah, that might be possible too But if they're telling you that they're from another planet.

1:36:18They're not from another planet That's my feeling okay, they're not they spent three years lying about the Russia collusion story Yeah, and they got mainstream media to repeat it all they spent all these years lying about like fill in the blank Everything pretty much everything why the fuck we believe they're telling us the truth about UFOs exactly I just think the whole thing seems It seems as you suspect it just seems too obvious You know, I just I don't believe that they would just start telling you that there's off -world crafts I just like I don't think so right either all these years. Yeah, you guys are just gonna start Oh, it's these brave whistleblowers are you sure?

1:36:58Are you sure? Because yeah, yeah, I smell bullshit Some of this is bullshit. I don't know how much of its bullshit though I think I think there's too many stories from the past when this technology was impossible the Kenneth Arnold Scydings when they first started calling them flying saucers. Okay, I think he saw them and was it washed in state? Is that is that a long time ago? Yeah, it was in the 1950s Most of them started happening after we dropped the bombs That's why my comedy club the rooms are named after the nuclear bombs Yeah, it's fat man and little boy. Oh, yeah, yeah, because in UFO folklore It's obviously the comedy mothership maybe UFO you walk in the front doors of UFO fantastic in UFO lore They all started appearing shortly after the UFO the the bombs are dropped see 1947 and that's when we'd reorganize the military and intelligence agencies right there We changed the Department of War the Department of Defense and Secretary of War to the Secretary of Defense and everything gets reorganized right 1947 is a very pivotal year So look at what it says here Kenneth Arnold and UFO siding occurred on June 24th 1947 when private pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a string of nine shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at Speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1200 miles an hour So he saw these things flying at a rate, you know in 47 there are propeller planes and there's no way Anything we had can move like that and he's watching these things go at an insane rate of speed And so he said they skipped across the sky like flying saucers on the lake And so it became flying saucers.

1:38:37Yeah, and so but people back then that saw those things There's no way that was a Soviets. There's no way that was the Germans. There was no no no no That's not ours. So whatever the fuck that is if that was real if they got really did see those things And then there was a string of them that were over the White House in 1950 something really yeah, there was a there was photographed ones there were over the White House There's actually like a new story about it that these things flew over the White House, okay And I think they moved at a bizarre rate of speed too So those ones give me pause because look the universe is that's it obviously a drawing That's a drawing But I think there is a photograph of it.

1:39:20Yeah Nothing that's is at the photograph They might not be Okay, saucers over Washington DC. So what is the story saying? Looks like a comic book. Senior air route traffic controller for the Civil Arianotics Administration was in charge of the National Airport Washington DC ART control center on the night of July 19th 1952 briefly he states in newspaper article our job is constantly monitor skies around the nation's capital With electronic eye of radar shortly after midnight of that day seven pips appeared suddenly on the control center scope Ed Nuget Jim Copeland and Jim Richie all experienced radar controllers check the the observations The airport control tower radar operator verified the same sightings They were over the restricted areas of Washington including the White House and the Capitol So those kind of things yeah, yeah, you got to go well, what is that right?

1:40:12look the universe is Big beyond our wildest imagination. There's no way we could even fathom how big it is. Yeah, it's not possible Go ahead Yeah, so they move as such sudden bursts of intense speed that radar could not track them simultaneously Those objects seem to head for the White House the Capitol building and the White House triangular form And the White House in triangular formations the lighting made the front page The sighting rather made the front page headlines in all newspapers. Dang Yeah, so those kind of things I mean you go okay. Well, what is that right the universe is It's impossible for us to even get our heads around how big it is.

1:40:53Yeah, so if there is some Planet out there that's in the Goldilocks zone now that's gone through what we're going through currently But it is 10 ,000 years ahead of us right and finds the signature of nuclear bombs on this planet and they realize okay These crazy fuckers yeah come into this new age where they could split the atom And so we should probably take a visit. Yeah, those interesting hearing Tucker talk about that part on here Like where that technology came from yeah, that was that I hadn't really thought about that before That's Diana Pasalka's work Diana Pasalka and Gary Nolan Who is you know legitimate professor?

1:41:30I believe it's Stanford and They Diana Pasalka was also a professor. She's a professor of religion and they Have investigated a lot of these crash sites and the way to describe them The people that are investigating the crash sites the actual scientists. They call them donations. What yeah Donations that's how they they just they don't even think they're crashing Like as an accident they think some of them. They're just sending down here like hey figure that out stupid You know send them to some remote place yeah slam it down there and then the government has to rope off the area And you can still find parts in this one area of New Mexico where this one crash site was they didn't tell him where it was They blindfolded them took them out to this crash site let them investigate it and you can still find these pieces of this Some kind of metal that you can take and you can crumple it in your hand like tin foil and then it It goes right back to the original shape really This is the same thing that was described in Roswell, New Mexico the people that The Roswell thing is very hard because there's so many people involved and There's so many similar stories But the problem is When a story's been told for so long people repeat a story They're told in towns when there's you know, there's no recording devices.

1:42:49There's no, you know You don't know one has phones. This is a long time ago. They have you know regular phones But no no cell phones obviously And what they're doing with all this stuff is they're all talking about it and then a narrative gets established And then people tend to repeat narratives that are established It's hard because you're talking about something that happened in 1947, but There's a lot of things that come almost right after Roswell one of them is a transistor and the other one is You got the microchurch maybe What does that stuff call fiber optics fiber optics fiber optics seem to emerge after that It's one of the things that's described in the crash.

1:43:29Yeah, the people that have described it But the thing is like again, you're hearing these things decades later. You're hearing it's It's very difficult to figure out what the fuck actually happened But something seems to have happened because the Roswell daily record I have a framed cover of the front page of the Roswell daily record from 1947 where it says that we there's a crashed UFO that the government flew to the base and that you know It's like in the news. Yeah, which doesn't seem like something back then that you would just make up. Yeah I don't know unless there's a reason behind it distraction.

1:44:04I mean who knows it's yeah Who knows it could be something that the United States was working on they but it seems like they were trying to cover it up So much so that they flew the wreckage in two separate Plains to write paterson air force base and Truman met him there Things yeah 47's a big year 63 obviously a big year with the Kennedy assassination 59 is a huge year a lot of things happening Fifty -nine there's a book was a true or eyes now are met him there I forget but The all that that time is so filled with deception and weirdness right? It's also when operation paperclip was going on And so they took all these Nazi scientists from Germany and they brought them over and integrated them in NASA Isn't that wild all those people?

1:44:48Why had those backgrounds did the things that they did back there? Yeah Bring them over and they all a lot of them had those dueling scars on their face. So they look sinister Oh, you know about the dueling scars So Nazis I guess when they were going through this right of passage when they were in Whatever university they were going to they they would have duels with real rapiers like real swords And they would slice their faces up wow they were goggles what and yeah, and they would have sword fights I feel like I should know this these guys got their faces all cut to shit And that was like part of the the pride of being a Nazi was you had these dueling scars on your face That you had done this and a lot of the guys we brought over had that from operation paperclip had these dueling scars on their face And it's one of the ways that future historians Identified them is clearly being Nazis.

1:45:37Okay, they want just like freak accents guys all had them They all like crazy like slices and their cheap ones show them some pictures because it's fucking crazy to see I can't believe you don't know about this. I put this in a book. I know. It's awesome. I love it I forget who told me about it. It's gonna make it into a book It's a weird thing that they all did and there's photos of them all sliced up like see they all had these cuts on their faces Like look at that. That's what it looked like after the fact The were these goggles on and nose protectors and they slice each other's fucking faces apart looks like a bad idea And that's it's a terrible idea, but it was a sign of being a badass Just like a lot of jiu jitsu guys today.

1:46:16They like to have cauliflower ear right? Yeah, back then your face sliced up You're a psycho. Oh wow. That's crazy. Yeah, it's fucking nuts. They could wear like fencing helmets or something No, they didn't want to they didn't want you they wanted to get cut up those part of the thing. That's the thing. Yeah Damn weird. That's why the I feels like that needs to make it into one of my novels So I'm gonna step that background you'd probably want to dive into it deeper than I have But it is there was the point is there was a lot of deception. Yeah, that was happening in the world back then So who knows what the real story was about Roswell?

1:46:49I I like to think That there's something going on that's real. Yeah, but I also like to think that If the donation thing is true and that's been going on since who knows how long well, you know Bob Lazar claimed in the 19 late 1980s that he had been working back engineering one of these things And the way he described it is exactly how they see them move today exactly how there's a video of these things moving in bizarre ways No heat signature. They seem to be like shooting across the sky. They can hold still at 120 knot winds He's like a terminator to hand, you know going back in t2 and Reverse engineering that technology from right interesting how's how movies and books Eventually become reality.

1:47:32Well, it'd be a good if you could travel back and forth through time And you realize that human beings are gonna take x amount of steps to get somewhere But if you can inject some technology into the equation you could speed up the process considerably leave let them do it on their own Let them figure this out like oh transistor Uh, and all sudden electronics get far smaller. Yeah fiber optics. Oh, okay. Oh Why didn't I think of that bam everything gets way quicker And the other thing that Lazar said about the crafts that was baffling to him in the 1980s He said there was no seams. He said there was no welds.

1:48:10There's no rivets. There's no seams But now we know about 3d printing now they can 3d print anything And if you conceivably have a machine that's large enough you could 3d print a spacecraft Well, he wouldn't have any seams. I mean Well, come back to 1963 to hear like Trump saying he's actually gonna Release all the JFK documents, but he said that the first time. Yeah, he said that the first time He also said that if you knew what they told me you wouldn't tell people what could that be The CIA killed Kennedy, but that seems like we already have it. Yeah, but it's not clear Yeah, there's a lot of books that are saying that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

1:48:47There's still pretty good books Yeah, you know you Yeah, people read them and they believe it. I don't believe it I think Lee Harvey Oswald was involved and I think that's the the thing is people think it's either one or the other Either Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or You know someone else was involved and Lee Harvey Oswald was a Patsy Lee Harvey Oswald went to Russia Like during the height of the cold war or odd. Yeah real odd. They let him come back over here Lee Harvey Oswald was clearly involved in some sort of shady espionage type shit and you know married a Russian woman like the whole deal the whole thing is crazy It's insane.

1:49:25He the odds that here he was completely innocent very low right it seems like he was over here doing some shady Shit he'd always been involved in some shady intelligence type shit But I think there was a lot of people and I think they wanted to really make sure that Kennedy got killed And I think there was probably a lot of people involved and I think Lee Harvey Oswald probably was a Patsy And I think that's probably why Jack Ruby shot him Yeah, and all you have to think about as far as mob involvement goes and that is look at Jack Ruby Yeah, his background. Yeah fully mobbed up. Yeah fully mobbed up There's also eHoward Hunt who confessed to the killing on his deathbed said that they were in the grassy knoll There's other people like Woody Harrelson's father apparently was supposedly involved Interesting.

1:50:07Yeah, Woody Harrelson's father was a bad person or a bad guy like an assassin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no one murder And so I think there was a lot of people that wanted JFK dead. Oh, yeah, you know after the Bay of Pigs There was a lot of people that wanted JFK dead You know, he wanted to get rid of the NSA. He wanted to get rid of the CIA He wanted to get rid of the the the federal bank He wanted to get rid of everything. Yeah, I'm sorry if you wanted to get rid of the federal reserve It's like the whole thing's crazy. Yeah, like the commission report should have been called the Dulles Commission Yeah, right.

1:50:41I mean now in Dulles the guy you essentially fire Now in charge of this investigation insane You fire the guy now he's in charge of investigating who assassinated you and you know The best book that I ever read about it was David Lifton's book best evidence And David Lifton was an accountant and they hired him to go over the Warren report And so he goes over the Warren Commission report and he finds all he read the entire thing Which is like insanely long and he read all it finds all these inconsistencies and all these things don't make any sense The difference between the way they viewed the body at Dallas versus the way they saw it Bethesda Maryland when they brought the body there And then there's the magic bullet which anybody was ever shot anything with the gun knows that's horseshit I know is there so much 1963 was a very pivotal year Yeah, nothing's been the same since not that things are gonna always stay the same things are always gonna evolve But that was a turning point no doubt about it when it comes to the power of federal government no doubt about it And you know I didn't know until Tucker explained it on the show about Nixon About how they forced Nick Nixon who's the most popular president in history.

1:51:44That was a government Worker treated cool. Yeah to get him out. That was super interesting I'd not heard that until I listened to Tucker on your on your show and have him talk about Bob Woodward more he came from Crazy that wild that was why I'm not that level intelligence Yeah, and I listened to that right before I went back to all the Sunni is the number one story Yeah, a brand new guy a brand new guy number one story. It's a great story. It's a great story So Hollywood story right but it is now when you hear it in those terms the way Tucker talked about it That it is suspect the whole things crazy.

1:52:14Yeah When when Tucker explains that the whole thing makes you go what yeah, it was interesting I listened to that show right before I went back to New York for the Simon and Schuster 100th anniversary Celebration event and I was speaking there and so was Bob Woodward. I was sitting next to him in the green room Yeah, I know I didn't I didn't feel as appropriate to To bring that up But I think about it. Not really not really more like I had nice to meet you type thing nice to meet you suspect personally You know, it was looking eyes, you know, I was looking it was wild, but how's Bernstein? What's his deal?

1:52:46I don't know. It's a good question. Yeah, yeah, you get dragged along and see a part of it. I gotta have them on the show But you see work. I don't know. Yeah, this guy's real life But everybody looks at that as like the seminal work of you know investigative journalism right? Seminal like What they developed the story they put out there. Oh my god the president of the United States is a crook I'm not a crook. I know, you know, and it's wild I have to resign and then Gerald Ford the only unelected president ever who also was on the war commission report exactly Exactly. I mean, it's all you know connected.

1:53:18It's all crazy It's like we a great script to be a great movie if it was fiction right people I might even believe it if that if it wasn't out there And you wrote it in a book back. Let's say you wrote it in 1960 before all that stuff starts happening You're like, yeah, the fun. That's not how the world works. Sun the world is beautiful In fact, it's good. That's why it's so hard to do these things because Fact is stranger than fiction and it's and all these things that work in spheracy theories are being proved to have been true Yeah, so it's harder to Empower of always manipulated the truth if they can if they can get away with it I think it's part of the fun of being in power being able to get away with shit It's awful.

1:53:57It's awful. I can imagine running for something I mean, it's very anti -American which is shocking because of the people that run America. That's what's weird That's what's so weird about yeah, I think it sounds worse to me than being a politician It sounds horrible. That's why when I see a good person doing it. I'm like wow well Good luck. Yeah, good luck to you, sir Yeah, you've decided I mean, there's very few left. There's very few compelling leaders That step up to the political arena and you go wow that's someone who I really like. Yeah, it's generally in almost every regard the You know lesser of two evils.

1:54:32Yeah, that's what amazing when you see I mean you see let Tulsi get sidelined Yeah, she's I mean not it what's great about her is that she has changed positions on things yeah, and And she's but she get because of that she gets it from both sides now So you get the people that say oh look she once had this view of what of second amendment or whatever And now her change so I don't trust her type thing. Well, how are you gonna ever convince someone or talk to someone or Open somebody's aperture about how to think if you don't want them to change sides and don't bring them into the fold Yeah, it seems silly to make people stick to their original idea on something if they don't their flip flopping That seems silly like if you're a human being and you see things Like there's a lot of people that were pretty hardcore leftist liberal progressives that lived in California That were like okay These policies are insane Like I'm getting the fuck out of here like Jillian Michaels was just she just did a podcast recently.

1:55:28She she discussed it Yeah, you know and she was saying like I If I am saying you're out of your fucking mind maybe you're out of your fucking mind So like people change their perspective based on new information The people that bury their head in the sand it pretend everything's amazing and we're eventually gonna Pull out of this and our philosophy's correct like you're not course correcting. Yeah, if you're not course correcting You're not learning and if you're not a changing your opinion in light of Insane information like if you live in California you get insane amounts of information showing these policies are not working That this approach to law enforcement this approach to Dealing with criminals and it's not working.

1:56:07Yeah, it's not good. You can do this No, it's crazy and that same trip back in New York. I went to this place for dinner called the Times Square Cafe. Yeah, so not being from New York and not really knowing the area that while I assumed it was fairly close to Times Square And apparently it was once near Times Square not anymore. So once a dinner there and with my agent then a doctor Her the department and thought I'll just walk my hotel is close to Times Square. I'll just walk Yeah, Times Square Cafe is not anywhere near Times Square. So put in the phone I'm like, I know the buildings are kind of sending in circles, you know, I'm like oh, yeah I walk at night across New York like a long like 30 minutes maybe even 40 and I'm like on eany You know, I'm like I'm on on edge and I'm making my move here across and it's it's it was sketchy So move forward another month a couple weeks ago.

1:56:55I was in Budapest so we're filming the show over in Budapest Budapest is amazing It's kind of it's going to make its way into one of my future novels. There's so much it seems like Russian money there Ukrainian money there, which is probably our money Chinese money there. I mean there's bet two bent leaves in front of the hotel every day two for our ease two Lamborghini's Portia's everywhere But I had to walk across the city we watched the first episode the director's cut of the first episode of this new series So watch it to buddies apartment because everyone's been over there for the last few months filming the show So some are living in hotels some are living on the economy in town and apartments So we watched it and it was awesome and I just like to walk across Budapest Totally different late at night past midnight walking across totally safe.

1:57:33I felt so safe walking across that city It was clean. There was nobody I knew what's the population there. I don't know. It seems pretty packed It's pretty it's but but yeah, like any city, but it's not like the size of New York, right? No, no, no New York's its own animal as far as that stuff goes. Yeah, what is the population of Budapest? Yeah, what's guess? Oh geez. I'm the worst at that. I'll say two million look at that. Oh one point seven five six look at that Nice. Yes, that was good. So that's kind of like Austin You know Austin's about a million and then the surrounding outside area of Austin's like a million.

1:58:04Yeah Nice, and there's not you know, it's a lot safer here than I think there's just something happens when you have large populations and then also, you know, New York is Yeah, they're doing this no cash bail thing where they just letting people out of jail including people that assault police officers including illegal immigrants that assault police officers on video and they just letting them out. How do we come back from this? He come back unfortunately by going too far in the other direction until you want to bounce back and be liberal again Unfortunately, this is what happens if people get unreasonable.

1:58:37Yeah when they go that far then you usher in some totalitarian hard -nosed sort of right -wing person who Also comes with a stripping of certain civil liberties You know like thing and and also has a more cruel approach to certain social issues And then people go we need more kindness. We need more this then we you know, it's but generally it's like It used to be at least that you would get the right wing that we're pushing for war The most bizarre thing about our time is that the left is calling for A to Ukraine and that you know, I think they just signed a commitment to help you crane for the next 10 years.

1:59:18Oh wow 10 wasn't that true? I don't know. I think I think there's just something that Biden just signed and I think they're they're promising like 800 billion dollars Or they're gonna need 800 billion dollars over the next hundred billion dollars chicken feed of our money Yeah, we have plenty of money money. We have a lot of money. We've spent on Cheetos Just send a little bit of that to our friends Ukraine like the whole thing is nuts Look at this That's not a bright $50 loan nice little loan. Yeah, they'll pay that back with a side of what are they called a low battle? They called alone. Yeah, it's funny a series of pledges of military and financial aid made by Western allies this week Including a 10 -year security agreement with the United States and a $50 billion loan issued by Washington and the European Union So interesting.

2:00:02I was in Normandy for the D. Day commemoration events a couple weeks ago Well a few days last week, I guess, but it's it's not just one day. It's not just June six It's like two weeks of events went back there with the best defense foundation took I went right from Budapest over to there 48 World War II veterans So they're all creeping up on a hundred at a hundred or over a hundred years old and a week worth of events So I'm volunteering helping them get in other wheelchairs making sure they're taking their medicines Eating getting them to the events all that sort of thing But totally inappropriate during the speech is that even during the benediction or the uh the Prayer at the beginning Mentioned not Ukraine by name, but like the storm clouds are coming So you have these all these veterans of World War II D.

2:00:44Day on this stage at the American cemetery They're overlooking Omaha Beach and these politicians the eight up there to give speeches can't Help themselves they have to mention storm clouds coming mentioning. Oh, they have to mention it They didn't mention it by name. I think The French president did but I was speaking in French, so I'm not 100 % sure He I think he mentioned it by name Biden Austin So the users a political tool they did they couldn't help themselves It was disgusting to sit up be there and hear that and you have these guys on stage and they did so much for our nation Given us all these freedoms that we have today freedoms and opportunities like first out of their land and crafts coming over the beach at Normandy across that beach Machine gun positions up high and now you're using them essentially as a political prop On this it was that part that part Was hard to stomach But interestingly enough we went from there to the international ceremony down on Omaha Beach So from the cemetery down to the beach and the international cemetery has all these different world leaders there and So lensky's there oh wow Yeah, so it's a visual type of a thing and trying to Wait what happened in World War II on D.

2:01:53Day to what's going on with Ukraine? Yeah, yeah, not appropriate for the 80th anniversary of D. Day for these guys that jumped out of planes landed gliders Back then imagining landing a glider at night It on June 6th in these fields where the Germans have put these poles up so that if you land you can just get crushed in your glider My guy was talking to his glider came in he went right between two of these poles that ripped off the wings Oh, and then you have to figure out where your guys are because you know obviously there's no GPS's He just landed somewhere in northern France you're alive now and now you got to link up with people and figure out how to get to the town or the bridge that you're supposed to To defend or take So those guys did that and then you have the audacity to bring up current politics They can't help themselves every opportunity they have to do it.

2:02:43Yeah, but I'm did it the the person doing the prayer was a great My prayer to start everything off. I was like wow, this is amazing and then she had to bring up these storm clouds on their rise and type of a thing And certainly Austin went up there and did it Biden did it and just then they have the lensky sitting there It's just very disturbing. It's very disturbing that we don't learn You know Really is you know All the way back to Smebli but there's war circuit. Yeah, we don't learn You know and money always motivates everything and there's always some way to make some sort of a moral argument Why we need to do certain things why we need to act and why we need to fund this and fund that But ultimately there's a lot of money being moved around and we know that once it gets over there We really don't know where the fuck it's going.

2:03:27Yeah, we really don't a lot of nice cars and We're lost. Yeah, another place is in Europe too. I've talked to people in the intelligence services There's a lot of money rolling around over there and it's not easy to track and it's not really something that anybody's Like trying really hard to document now It seems also very dangerous to point out if you were an official person and you started pointing out the fact that this Money is moving around in a certain way. Yeah, like Tucker Carlson said they try to kill him So that there was an assassination attempt on him really when he was there. Yeah, there's something something was that What was it was like a bomb someone set up in the basement or something we talked about it on the show?

2:04:05Yeah, yeah, and he kind of had a feeling something was gonna happen and you like this intuition to stain his room No way. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna ask him about that. We just texted him the other day. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask him about that. That's crazy. Yeah, it's I mean, that's interesting wild wild time that the left is the one that the left side. Yeah, the the the Democrats Yeah, the progressives are the ones that are calling for this crazy war. I know because when we grew up back in the day It was the exact opposite. You're trying to get us out of everything. I know they didn't want to have anything to do anything They want no wars and everybody's like great because this was after Vietnam You know, and if you wanted to be a Democrat and you wanted to win back then you had to be anti -war You know, you had to be anti Anything remotely close to what's going on right now Yeah, especially when you know the history of like NATO and moving arms closer to the Russia's border and Saying that right like Kamala Harris saying that Russia's gonna or that Ukraine's gonna join NATO like what That's pretty wild great.

2:05:04That's a crazy thing to say openly in the world You know put yourselves in the uh the other person shoes There's something looking at things from their perspective and that's what we that's what we do in the military Trying to put ourselves in the enemy shoes figuring out how they're gonna adapt to what we're doing right now And you have to do that at the strategic levels too But unfortunately you get people at these levels who just stuck with it And they've never created anything in their life and they don't understand the history But guess what they can do they can they know how to manipulate a population yeah through through their words and through all these things all these Different verticals and institutions that support them to get them into these positions in office And it's tough.

2:05:40I mean it's a machine and that machine is hungry What do you think about what's going on right now in Cuba off the coast of Cuba? I saw that the other day and we told we have Russian submarines. Yeah, geez Russian submarines that are like you know how many miles I think they're right there at some point time They're like 30 miles away from Miami right there. It's wild. What's the closest they got to Miami? I think that well Russia or excuse me Cuba is what 90 miles I think so 90 miles from the point the third is south point of Florida. That's close That's nuts. That's like here to say that so that's sending a message and of course we have I think I saw one of our spokespeople came out and said something about don't worry.

2:06:19They're not nuclear. Oh what the fuck does that? All right exactly Warships. Yeah, yeah right there Russian or sending a message. Yeah, obviously. I mean especially with this new thing We're sending more money and Committing to it for 10 years like holy shit. Yeah, I mean what are we getting into the bad part of all this is that if you're the enemy You almost just want to let us like not do anything because we're doing such a good job at destroying ourselves. We are but they're helping us too Oh, they can help they can give a nudge here or there. They're helping us a lot on social media. Yeah, exactly They can just there's a lot of that on social media, you know One of the FBI analysts said that he thinks that former FBI analyst said that he thinks it's 80 % of Twitter's trolls really US submarine pulls into Guantanamo Bay a day after Russian warships arriving Cuba.

2:07:09Oh great Yes, I mean, oh wonderful. Uh -huh. Oh Jesus Christ. Look at that US Navy submarine is arrived in Guantanamo Bay Cuba in a show force as a fleet of Russian warships gather for planned military exercises in the Caribbean US Southern command said that USS Helena a A nuclear powered fast attack submarine pulled into the waters near the US base in Cuba on Thursday Just a day after a Russian forgate a nuclear powered submarine an oil tanker and a rescue tug crossed into Havana Bay after drills the Atlantic Ocean Yeah, Jesus Christ Yeah, is it not also or something? Russian submarine spotted near West Coast of Scotland.

2:07:52Oh great. Yeah. What are they doing? Well, you have I mean None of this is good guys and And this is to say nothing about what China is doing. Oh Spotted there before it arrived in Havana Yeah, all of it's terrifying and terrifying and We're you know in the middle of this we're also in a war with them to develop AI like who's gonna get to it fast enough Oh, yeah, yeah, and that's that's yeah, that's this this book right here was all about that But from the China US perspective those geopolitics who's doing what Taiwan to the Taiwan issue in there as well So it's you know, it's fascinating to to have done that research now and see where China is compared to where they were a few years ago And then think about where we're going in the future But it's it's tough to do all that research and remain hopeful so I try to say you know what I mean It's it's that it's what I love about you.

2:08:43You remain hopeful you talked to all these different people and you and It's interested in so many things but you yet you remain so hopeful in all these conversations that you have with people Yeah, I'm hopeful, but I'm not sure if I'm right You know I started getting nervous about China when they banned the Huawei devices. Yeah, when I was like wait What what's going on? Yeah, because as a phone nerd Huawei had some insane phones their phones were like more advanced than US phones, okay, and They banned their devices when one of their newer phones was coming out and apparently it's not just phones It was a bunch of different routers and different technologies that they had they believed China would be able to access information through oh, yeah It It's embedded in almost everything that we have that we rely upon not just on the civilian side But on the military side the intelligence side not they think long -term.

2:09:34I know I've told you Admiral Rachel Levine is on the case. Don't you worry? We have competent members of our military It's so bad and that that's I mean that's what we have these recruiting issues I mean if you're you're gonna encourage one of your kids to to join the military right now I mean, I don't I don't know how that that I don't know how you can but well That's why they bring your back to registration for the draft. That's all that yeah, which is nuts Like what are you saying and the age of AI you're gonna force people into going to war and what is going on? What are you doing? Yeah, why are you doing this?

2:10:05It's because a lack of recruitment You get a force them to go in now and then when you're there will you indoctrinated with all this bullshit? So instead of getting people that want to serve which is the people that you want the people that are dedicated to it that are Driven towards this life Instead of that you're forcing people to do it then once you get them in there you can kind of force your ideology on them With they'll be the type of people that sign up for the military the type of bill There will be way less likely to buy into that or should house passes defense bill services already mandatory for mail Aid is 18 to 24 yeah, and so it's already a thing Just it's automatic now you still have to do it.

2:10:41Ah, so you don't have to go down there and yeah into the post office and do it That's kind of a cool run of passage though. Do you remember doing that? They give me a free razor in the mail I think did they I said you still have it. I don't remember doing that you don't remember doing that three razor so you had to go down to it at 18 right yeah Yeah, what you're resisting how to do that? I did it when I was yeah, and the What you're is that 90 some like that? Yeah, you had to go down and do it. You do it. So stop it for something in the 85 I don't remember that at all. Yeah Yeah, it was something you had to do back then.

2:11:12Yeah I might be breaking the law. You might be breaking my comment. There's a legal thing. It was one of those things you probably did I probably don't remember doing it But I remember when the Gulf when desert storm broke out I was living with a buddy of mine and we were watching on TV and I was like what? Right a war because I thought we were past this right I was alive during Vietnam in San Francisco. I live I was a kid and when Vietnam ended our member thinking as a kid I guess it was like ten or something. I'm everything and whoo Glad we got over that no more wars like where we figured that out.

2:11:45Yeah, but we haven't figured out shit Nope, and now it's even more complicated with all this artificial intelligence stuff and you know Mike Baker was in here and he was showing us these videos of these fighter jets that are using AI now that are winning dog fights 100 % 100 % of the time wow over Actually human pilots. Yeah, so human pilots can't beat the AI system. They just can't they lose a 100 % of the time That's nuts. So take that 10 years from now right then put a jet out there that can do maneuvers At insane g forces because it doesn't have any humans in it right so it doesn't have to think about that and so now you You add that mm -hmm.

2:12:25I know you got that China's doing the same. Yeah, and but they're also smart because they're buying up property next to military bases They tried to buy the hotel tell they hold to Del Coronado right by the seal base So that got blocked, but there's also these that's so crazy They're called the shores and they're these apartments that I think you're building like the 70s are so ugly But they are super high like sky rises and what they look down on they look down right on the seal training compound and warcom Which is our admiral and everybody else? China owns it and I would know they don't own that they tried to buy the hotel Dell next door But I would be shocked if they don't own a few floors of that building Looking right down they bought a dead just some research for this book on it Then a book called the dragons and the snakes by David Cullin and he talks about them buying up Hotels in in Scotland that watch submarines head out there a few other play wanted to Italy So they're buying up properties next to these bases where they can essentially observe and put listening devices out and do all those sorts of things That the need a base of operations and you don't even need a base operation for a lot of this stuff anymore because it's all virtual And where are all these things made?

2:13:29Well China and Taiwan it's just crazy that in Taiwan you can't buy anything Like Americans wanted to go over and buy land next to military bases. They really Fuck yourself But us being an open country it's almost to our You know, it's almost detrimental Us our openness our strength is almost a weakness and they can exploit it so they're very aware of that So you're looking at your enemy and you're looking at those things that you can do to exploit those weaknesses and That's what they're that's what they're doing. That's what we would do yeah Tim Dylan was explaining the real estate Uh hustle that so many foreign countries use our real estate as money laundering So like there's so many Different apartment buildings in New York City that are just empty empty.

2:14:10There's no one in them. Yeah, yeah But they're all bought out right because like Russia buys them yeah Russian oligarchs by them It's nice way to funnel funnel your money around yeah, you got real estate holdings here and there you own a billion here Yeah, all around the world. Yeah, they do that all around Yeah, all around the world they do that stuff. So I mean well then I was weird during the Ukraine Invasion where they started stealing their yacht And it's confiscated their yachts. I was like what happened that kind of went away too I don't know and also like one of those things you got to fucking maintain those things.

2:14:41Yeah, they just Like if you have like a Mark Zuckerberg type yacht like he just had some fucking $300 million dollar yacht built nice I think I said more than that. I think it's $500 million dollars for this fucking yacht. Yeah, and How much does that cost a year to maintain? Yeah, yeah I hear this um US government said it's spending more than seven million a year to maintain a super yacht It sees from a sanctioned Russian oligarch and urge a judge to let it auction the vessel before dispute over its ownership as resolved Authorities in Fiji sees the 348 foot 300 million dollar Amada in May of 2022 pursuant to US warrant alleging its own by Sula man Kermov a Multi -billionaire sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2014 in 2018 in response to Russia's activities in Syria and Ukraine Jesus Look at that Wow, man, wow, that's crazy.

2:15:38So that's just one One of that here are the super yachts seized from Russian oligarchs And we're paying to maintain those yeah, oh that's so brutal How many of them are there, but boy, there's a lot of fucking I click so you gotta go through these things. I am not yeah How many of them are there how many did they get so that's the one that we just talked about? This is the tango the lady M massive things and so these Russian oligarchs a lot of them they rush to get their yachts to Different countries that are more sympathetic. Yeah, that let them get away with it But I don't even know how that works like if they go out into the sea.

2:16:16Can they get hijacked international waters? Yeah, how does that work? I don't know. I just was concentrating on the seven million bucks a year to to maintain yeah our money Yeah, our tax policy our tax dollars Well, it's been well spent with it, but I don't understand like what is so are they saying that these Russian oligarchs Were a part of the invasion of Ukraine so there are a lot of stealer yachts I think they're talking about they're Saying it's Putin's I guess inner circle something like that. Yeah, so they're connected to Putin so they're gonna snatch their yachts Yeah, whoever I mean we all know that he's one of the richest guys in the world He might be the richest guy they say yeah, he might be worth like Some insane amount.

2:16:53Isn't that wild going from the kitchen? You don't really know the richest guy in the world. Well, have you seen that house that they're allegedly building for him? Is it the one on the uh He's on the coast. Yeah, I put it in the last book. I think if it's the same one I think so under ground bunkers. Yeah, I don't know if it's a stuff. They haven't even proven that it's his and he's like that's not my house Right. Yeah, yeah, no, I put it in the last book. Yeah, it's it's wild. You can zoom in on it You can zoom in on it and check it out and see it's a multi -billion dollar house Isn't that crazy?

2:17:20Yeah, gosh, whatever this thing is whether it's his or not Yeah, but the $500 million yacht from Zuckerberg. He's not missing that though. Isn't that crazy? That's not you don't even miss it 500 million Yeah, that's when you should get a yacht Yeah, that kind of you got so much money that you don't even notice if you're missing 500 million. No, there's levels Yeah, this is levels this world It's all book billionaires are effective takes out is 300 million dollar super yacht and 30 million dollar support boat Complete with helipad yeah, and meyorkas he celebrates father's day with his what his dad ed I think he's calling like shadow yachts or something like that and they'd carry all the toys Look at you have the main yacht and then you have the shadow yacht that has all the toys on it.

2:18:00Look at that thing imagine your kid Buies one of those like man, I'm just a fucking killer look at that. Yeah, that is ridiculous. You got the sport. Yeah, what's that? That's like a helipad That's a different one right man That's a support boat that's a support boat that fucking thing I'm sorry about helicopter that's insane that support boat is fucking you It probably has underneath it probably has a submarine some of these things have two submarines I was on one that had two submarines once one that goes straight down And the one that goes in the water and then you can move around and it and you like explore reefs and stuff like so two submarines Uh a plane that comes out and the wings fold down.

2:18:36I've seen that I've seen that with helicopter. Yeah, your helicopters at land Wings fold. Yeah, you drop it down. Uh -huh. What the fuck yeah, that's pretty sick. So there's levels. Yeah, it's all relative You know, it is all relative I guess. It's just like at a certain point in time like You Like if you're a Russian oligarch and you have a 300 Million dollar yacht and someone steals it. Mm -hmm. Can you even get another one? Are you allowed to get a new one? Probably Like get another one if you have all that money right If you get the one where the fuck are you getting all that money like what are you doing?

2:19:14Yeah? Oh, yeah I mean, so it's an interesting time end of the Cold War that whole period then 90s for those guys Really those criminal enterprises really become like government? Yeah, and Not to say it's that much different here. We have our own oligarchy here Yeah, there's a thing too is like how are they governing like what what's the experience for the people? They're governing and that's the thing that Tucker said when he went over to Moscow It's like it's beautiful. It's like real clean safe. Yeah, which is weird. Yeah, I want to go and do some research Everyone's again. I'm probably not but I will lucky enough to have gone there Uh, I would advise you I know but luckily I was there so I was in Moscow in before I joined the military just traveling So I was there so I can write about I remember the architecture.

2:19:54I remember the feeling there So it was early 90s and then I also went to Odessa Ukraine back then So I went into the catacombs under the city Which allowed me to then put it in the second book troublemaker So I think back to some of those places that I've been and get to weave those in and places that I probably shouldn't go anymore Yeah, you're too on the nose with a lot of your work and it's now it's influential You know and it's just you should do the same thing that you're thinking about doing with your cell phone just Farmed that out. Yeah, I have somebody go that you really trust right tell them exactly what you saw and tell me tell me what it was like Yeah, I have them film things have them explain it Just tell them like I want you to get like an hour of footage every day of just you just filming things So I can absorb it.

2:20:36Yeah, that's a good idea, but it's still different. You don't get the smell It is different, but it'll keep you alive. Yeah, you know, keep you long So my publicist might like it, you know, and he could publicity anybody publicity's good publicity type thing But they get you out. Yeah, it's a good thing is if they leave you in there. They're messing out a lot of loot. Yeah, well I can't really write good books Putin's palace pole dancing room. Hey, that's it. I don't want to do a church. Yeah It said once they published the photos of the inside. I said at the bottom here They got to change it because they don't want people know what it looks like.

2:21:04Yeah, put that in the blast But they have to redo it again. They think yeah, put in the pole dance in the pole dance and things right here What in a while Putin does not use other people's dishes doesn't go without any army without an army of guards rather does not go to the toilet in public places She said on Monday by publishing footage from inside his palace and floor plans who make it impossible to use the palace Wow, perhaps he will say demolish everything again and the palace will rebuild for the third time But this iteration is definitely over there was a palace. There is no palace We have once again shown not only that he is a luxury obsessed psychopath Their words, but also his security system is complete crap.

2:21:46Oh wow Pevichick how do you say that guy's name? Pevichick the names are tough added now. Yeah Wow, so now he's got a demolish it and start from scratch because people saw the inside of it That's why why certainly didn't that's what allowed me to describe it for that last book Yeah, how did anybody fucking take pictures of that how did that security breach get through seriously? Yeah, oh photo was published That's a vexie Alexi Navali the late yeah, the late anti corruption foundation That was the guy that died in jail, right and that's the That's the good reason why I shouldn't go to Moscow. Yeah, yeah, someone actually warned me not to go to China They don't warn me they just said hey, they stole one of our basketball players seriously Not even a male and actually someone had a bit about that last night They did a bit on that last night and talked about how from the Russian perspective Us trading what will we trade it for her what the arms dealer or terrorists or whoever we whoever we exchange this for And he did a bit about them being like wait what they're actually gonna go for this call him What did they call they had some crazy name for the guy that traded right?

2:22:48The National Arms dealer was responsible for thousands of deaths Forget what his name is yeah, we traded people we traded Taliban and traded But I know you guys in nickname. Yeah, like merchant of depth of death boy. It's pretty solid. That's a solid nickname Yeah, that seems like a be in your book. Yeah, no, no seriously There is right even looks like it. I mean, that's how the central casting right there And so we let that guy go think you were a brightling. Oh sketchy people were brightlings really. Yeah, brightlings are sketchy. Yeah, it's a thing Really interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah, no, I know.

2:23:20Yeah Watches of espionage has a little thing that sharp mustache inside the joint respect Yeah, so they traded him and there's also US citizens including there's a marine It's over there that was accused of espionage They offered the chance to trade him and they went with Britney Griner instead Yeah, we could take one one for one. Yeah, I don't watch basketball, but I heard that league needs a lot. I'll help it get I don't know if that's the help that it needs. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's just Basketball and not the best basketball the best basketball is the NBA, you know There's a place. Ah, look at that watching the best being eyes right there.

2:23:57Yeah, sketchy people were brightlings Why is that about? It's a I like brightlings. Yeah, I put one of me sketchy. I put one of the sketchy person in this Damn, they make a nice watch. Uh -huh. They make some cool watches. Yeah, now also now be thinking about them like fuck Yeah, I think in that in the blood diamond I think you know the caprio wears one is his character sketchy Emersonary sketchy. No, why brightling? I don't know I read that it Were that originated? I think you just started as a thing and then it became what it is and it's just kind of a Do you think sketchy people know and they're doing it on purpose?

2:24:32I think they do real kind of a thing Type to then it's a quote that pops up sketchy dudes wear it is right there Look at that. Oh, and look on the side there. That's a winkler blade. No kidding. There it is There are a lot of misconceptions about this saying phrase is not a dig on brightling at all I'm a big fan of the brand own a few of them and where regularly sketchy is not necessarily a bad thing Oh, that's my world, bro. There it is Really in the 90s and 2000s brightling was worn by a lot of gray area operators both good and bad subjective terms The strong roots in aviation brightling is a signal of the wear is adventurous But also appreciates fine craftsmanship and utilitarian tools Blackwater brightling emergency former Soviet arms dealer there is Victor Bouts brightling B1 British SAS officer turn mercenary Simon Man's brightling emergency and director CIA George tenets brightling aerospace.

2:25:23Oh George and it wearing one too, which ones the aerospace they got that dope one that's part digital All right there. So that's the that's the blackwater symbol See that blackwater symbol on the side right there. Yeah, so I put this exact watch in the book and I put the bad guys Company symbol on the watch just like that one so that's a compass watch Which I've never been able to figure out I watched a video on one of them because I think I have a saco that's a compass watch And I was like what does that mean? How does it work as a compass? You have to align the the fucking hour hand with the sun or some shit like that Like oh no, I don't know but that one has the emergency beacon on it Oh Yeah, you pull that sucker out right you have to sign something that says like right says something you like pay for the rescue if you Yeah, and then they find you yeah, if you're in the Alps.

2:26:11Yeah, I think an antenna comes out of it Yeah, the bottom thing the bottom thing of lower right hand coins. Yeah, that's a serious fucking watch Yeah, that's pretty serious. So those are all sketchy people Interesting. Yeah, how the fuck does the compass thing work? I don't know I don't know some of them have GPS the three that's not what you're talking about no no, I mean my My watch is a Garmin and it has a compass feature But that's like it's digital electronics that thing is a mechanical compass feature Okay, somehow I know they like when the sun rises, you know, the sun rides you point it up You point the thing at the sun Yeah I had a little little compass on mine.

2:26:50Yeah, over in Iraq and it's not real compass. Yeah Yeah, on the band right there was like a backup to the backup So right at the GPS on my rifle stock right here So I could check my point man just to make so I didn't have to ask and I always knew where we were So I had that there and then I had another one on my belts and then another one right here And then I won't hear for for a call on air so I could look right here and talk to aircraft and call air off that one So I had a few backups But nowadays I got my got one of the first ones we got them issued in the seal teams I was the Garmin or the Sinto whatever it was But the early ones they just ran out of batteries so fast.

2:27:21Oh, yeah And it was one other thing that I had to plug in fact then so this one's incredible This one is at 74 % and I think I charged it three weeks ago really yeah It's not I can't do it though one more thing to plug in like we talked about it's all these things like a month and a half And this is solar this is the Phoenix 7 Sapphire solar so this thing stays charged in the Sun really yeah, so if you're wearing it outdoors Like keeps a certain percentage of its charge just by solar power. Oh, man I well I was locked up for the last four months writing so that was that wasn't gonna help me too much.

2:27:54Yeah, I was gonna need to plug it in This one wasn't really yeah, gonna help even if you don't plug I mean even if you don't plug it in if it's fully charged It'll last at least a month. Do you like the Apple watches and stuff? I haven't fuck with those because I don't want email I don't have this set up text map. You could do it I could get text messages on this what I like for this is like I like the timer I like the heartbeat monitor which doesn't work that good because I have tattoos Oh really yeah, doesn't work that good. Huh. Yeah, the only thing that really works the things that work the most accurate are chest traps Those are the most accurate, you know, so I have one of those more fierce chest traps I like a lot.

2:28:30I have a garment on their way too. Those are great They give you an accurate reading of what is actually going on your sleep. Do you do the sleep stuff? Nah, I know how I feel you know, I used to do that I think a whoop is very it's a very good tool It's a very good tool to assess your recovery and I might go back to wearing one of those But like the aura rings all that jazz like leave me alone Those are the ones people wear that look like a band and have like a rectangular the aura on them That's the whoop. Yeah, the whoop is like there's a bunch different colors, but I have a black one So just like a wristband.

2:29:01I can't do it. I already know I need more sleep. I already know I need to eat better I already know I need to do a little more exercise When you look at your recovery it says 60 % is depressing like Yeah, I don't need another thing telling me that I need more sleep But you definitely notice the difference between drinking and not drinking So if I even a couple of drinks like if I go out to dinner with some friends and I have a couple glasses of wine I would notice my recovery score with suck in the morning from just like two glasses of wine really think where you're not even drunk Yeah, you know you in the next day you feel fine.

2:29:31I don't feel hungover did that make you stop doing that at dinners or no Yeah, I want to live But it made me aware of it and I'm certainly good at not doing it all the time. Yeah, unlike some of my friends Yeah, I don't know what these things to keep controlling they already manipulated enough you have to be aware that these things are manipulating you Yeah, so I'm aware of that But I don't want another thing that I am hooked up to that's that's dictating how I live my life There's also like an addictive factor too There's like you start getting addicted checking it and you start getting addicted to Which I think would be a probably a good thing to be addicted to a self -improvement aspect of it like trying to achieve a good score Right, I feel like everyone on this side good school on this side.

2:30:12Yeah, and your score is yeah probably better It's a better addiction. Yeah, but yeah, trying to get that elusive, you know, 97 % recovery rate when you go to sleep Yeah, I know I'm not going to do more of it and all that with all these projects Especially if you're working 10 a .m. to 2 a .m. It's not good. Yeah, that is that's crazy. I need to change that up I thought this this last winter that I would be able to Take my wife to dinners do a little traveling because our little guy went over to overseas He actually went to Switzerland to do like a ski program over there So he's gone for three months at no phones no iPads no computers Total old school milking cows doing shores Total old school.

2:30:47That's a great experience Amazing for sure amazing for him, but during that time I thought we would go out to dinners and travel into all the stuff And instead I was just locked down writing. Yeah, so I need to make up for that that next year They got to live too, right? I mean, but the thing is you got to make hey why the sun shines and you know I remember you when you just released your book And you know, we really didn't know how good it was gonna do. That's when I met you Yeah, it was like it was all just happening people introduced me to you. I was like oh, that's cool I hadn't read it and met anybody ready yet Yeah, and then over the years it just got this snowball effect Yeah, you know, and now it's insane.

2:31:22I get so many people tell me all the time that they love your books Oh, man appreciate that. It's like you're a guy that gets brought up a lot You know, especially amongst military guys and amongst law enforcement guys. They love your books Well, I certainly appreciate that and that's why I put so much so much into them But I love it. That's like you I love doing what I'm doing so you feel like work. I love writing I love this chapter in life I love creating things love love not working for anyone Oh, I love all that because the military you feel like you know, you're people above me in the chain of command You're like oh this guy You know You like express that very well in the book.

2:31:55Thank you. Yeah, thank you. What interesting though For the nonfiction the nonfiction coming out. So very different Communities as far as the fiction side of the house like I asked for my first book no one knew me Uh, and you have to account you have to ask people for blurbs and it's tough Because you know you're gonna get people in some people are gonna say no you put yourself out there to ask right And almost everyone said yes that even though I was totally like lead child all these people I look up to they were all about it And uh, it's great. So if so and and so I always do it so I always because it's a subjective art form So I I try to give as many blurbs as I can for people help as many people as as I can So interesting in the nonfiction space my first time I go back now because I haven't done asked for blurbs in a long time You don't do it after a while you just take some things from reviews and stuff like that.

2:32:38So you don't do it after a while But I had to do it for this nonfiction and interested that nonfiction space Very reluctant to give any blurbs interesting. Yeah, even people that write about military history And and they they are Not about it. What do you think that is? I think they feel a little bit elitist Up there interesting like you being a fiction author that's now venturing into nonfiction. They want to be a staykeeper I don't know because I'm busy too, but I make time for it for sure Maybe they don't want you delving into their world. I don't know and some of these guys made a lot of money writing about military stuff Which is interesting.

2:33:16So I know noted um Noted yeah, it might work its way into some fiction at some point. Yeah And even some military some senior level military officers, which is very interesting as well All said No to the blurbs for the nonfiction as well, but that kind of feeds into my Well, maybe they heard listen to me on the podcast here I talked about their crypt micr to hear me critique their handling of our withdrawal from Afghanistan So that's possible as well But also interesting with the show the military didn't help out with the show Which is all great because sometimes they put Constraints on what you can do or say if they help out with like a ship or a plane or a face or something like that So they did not help out with the first show.

2:33:52I think they didn't want to be a part of it Yeah, which I like because now there's no constraints. So that is good typical. I'm glad Especially since you know what you're talking about. It's not like someone has to guess on their own without any military help Yeah, but I find that all very interesting. So I'm you know, it's all it's all noted. Yeah, duly noted exactly So the was there a negative response by the historians or was it just no response? Man, just busy and something that got back and said no, it was very nice them to get back and at least say no But it also be that they just don't want to put themselves out there that they don't want to be a personality They just want to be the person relaying the information possible Yeah, that if you because if you do like sign off on someone's nonfiction also writes fiction You are in somehow or another connecting yourself to them.

2:34:35Yeah, that's very possible very possible I would imagine right but it's still noted Yeah But uh yeah, no self. Let's say, you know, but a ton of people what was what made me very I mean super excited about this book is the nonfiction is that the people who are there the people are digging their Dead friends out of the rubble That's who I really wanted to honor by writing this nonfiction To keep those lessons learned and also tell their story Because it really hasn't been told yet and yet people that are still alive people who are alive who lost sons in that attack So you wanted you write by them and have I think every single person who has read it who is there Has said thank you for writing thank you for telling the story What's also great that it's coming from you because your fiction books are so popular There's probably going to be a lot of people that read that they wouldn't ordinarily read a book on real history Yeah, the sheevil today some people I've mentioned it to and they say what was that I kind of remember that but yes I barely remembered it.

2:35:30Yeah, barely remembered it you started talking about I was like oh, yeah That's right. I remember I mean I was in high school at the time Yeah, so 83 and we had the embassy bombing in April of 83 and then you move into the spring further into the spring all through the summer The attack happens in October But all through that time frame these guys are in combat and the administration is saying peacekeeper over and over again Calling them peacekeepers peacekeepers, but you talk to these guys who were there who were on patrol they were in combat and So I got to capture that and really put and put that into the book because that part of the story People don't really understand how many guys had died between the embassy bombing and the marine barracks bombing How many people were wounded during that time frame?

2:36:10How many people were just in engaged in combat during that time period? So it's because there wasn't social media back then and you're just relying on an administration and then they're talking points That story never really got told so it's it's gonna get told now That's one of the things that does keep me hopeful that there is so much information available today whenever anything happens You don't have to just rely on mainstream media's depictions of things that's everything that's been sanctioned down through the government Whatever narrative they're trying to push Now you get just so many independent reporters and so many real journalists that are giving you the actual details of it In a very disturbing way and you get angry and you go why am I not hearing about this in the news like why why is this perspective not being shared Everywhere yeah, you know unfortunately for the mainstream media Just makes people distrust them more and more.

2:36:58Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, they're trust with mainstream media and with our senior level elected officials I don't know if it's an all -time low, but it feels like it is. It's about as low as I've ever experienced it Obviously, I'm not I wasn't around during the you know, I wasn't aware at least during the Vietnam War But I would imagine back then especially after like Kent State It was probably a lot like that back then too. Yeah a lot of distrust Yeah, but I think even more so now, but there's also now there's the influence of foreign governments where they create bullshit stories Yeah, they create bullshit rabbit holes for people to go down and they suck people into these things and then reinforce it online with troll farms And you just like there's so much nonsense.

2:37:39It's so hard to know what's real and what's not real Yeah, that's something the value of you doing this. That's why I appreciate what you do here with this podcast because It's one of the few places people can go and get these honest conversations They're long they're not a 30 -second sound by a two -minute sound by it would even if you have someone that knows what they're talking about On mainstream media, but you only get two and a half minutes two minutes a minute half of that is the host talking or asking the question You don't really get a deep understanding of what's going on you don't really get to conceptualize what's what's really happening and make it a part of you So you can make informed decisions whether it's in the voting when you go to vote Or it's in a conversation with friends or your family So but you get to do that here Not only that they usually have someone arguing at all They don't like it if less there's a Like sort of an argument that get people captivated so you got someone on the left yelling at someone on the right They're talking over each other and you're like good Lord.

2:38:29This is crazy. I know it was yelling and arguing all the time So it's it's tough. I mean, I think I thought the kids growing up now That's whatever I think of because we have kids and our kids are pretty much the same ages and It's when I think about them and what they're stepping into and I you remain hopeful on it But man, I worry about it I think every generation feels that way. Yeah, um, I mean I certainly remember when I was a kid in high school We were terrified of being in a nuclear war with Russia. There was hovering over our heads. Yeah When the fall of the Soviet Union happened I remember this huge feeling of relief that swept through the entire country Yeah Because when we were kids we really thought that we were going to go to war with Russia And there was going to be a nuclear war and everyone was going to die And that was something that like hung in the air Yeah, all throughout the 1980s.

2:39:14Yeah, we thought that the day after remember that show. Oh, yeah That was big day after was big then you all said Wolverines, you know I was kind of like inspirational you knew your enemy, you know Exactly red dawn out there. So you had that stuff too. I know we we talked about this before and I thought about it throughout the last year But I haven't changed my position on it about going back in time And I fact I doubled down on it when I think about it about go 1979 to 1991 Yeah, I think that's what I would do if I could go back in that time machine Yeah, it's just so much fun. Would you live then yeah, I just keep doing it over and over again It's 79 .917 really yeah, or maybe 80 80 90 Fuck that I'd live right now.

2:39:50I know you love it. That's why I love that love getting that perspective I love that about you Because it's time man. It's a wild time of unprecedented change And we're on the precipice of far more unprecedented change and you like that. It's interesting Yeah, it's exciting, you know I would like it I think if it wasn't attached to all these things that I have to plug in and they're trying to manipulate me I know I keep going back to that but it makes me a little bit crazy It's also it's a thing it gives you this ability to recognize bullshit because it's coming out you from all these different angles And I think people are a little bit more reluctant to buy into official stories now than they ever have been before Especially after the whole covid fiasco happened I think people are a lot more Interested in what the fuck is actually going on than ever before because it actually can affect their life You know, I mean, it's it's actually something that's consequential.

2:40:40Oh, yeah And we all had touchpoints with it and now but that that just like Afghanistan That's not gonna really talk about that stuff anymore. We don't really talk about all these businesses that got shuttered Which is why I try to support independent bookstores as much as I possibly can do things that are only for independent bookstores To send people there started that during covid actually send started signing book plates You could only get through independent bookstores because it's harder to do that than just hit the easy button All right Right, so I started doing that continue to do that today with shot through pages So I try to do that to help them out because I remember for to see you in LA And I packed up and I drove out there and there was no one on the road And then I got to LA on the 405 freeway driving up to where I was staying and it was a ghost town Wow, it was crazy.

2:41:20That was it. What may or whatever April may of 2020 and I can might see it It's horrible, but I'm glad we got to experience it because it's gonna be something that we always remember I think people are gonna be probably I mean if human survive we're gonna be talking about these days And especially the days of covid. It's gonna be a bizarre Footnote in American history so bizarre and but I don't know people have short memories and they get distracted by this squirrel Or by the manipulation on the social channels or whatever else a lot of people do But I think the overall perception if you looked at it has shifted in a way that people are a little bit more aware of horseshit now than ever before I think yeah, generally I remember I want you to physical for the first time in a long time because I hadn't done it for like six years I was in military and so I was like I should probably go down and do something and it was ended up being just kind of old school Hate your knee with the thing Uh -huh.

2:42:12I thought it was gonna be like an executive physical and they were gonna do blood and do what it was And it was just like watch the finger and hit the thing. You're gonna go get out of here Yeah, but then he asked me if I wanted to get my flu shot And I was just like I just I couldn't help myself. I just was like I laughed out loud like that which I don't usually do usually I keep things inside and just kind of make you know my little notes But I couldn't help but like come on how they react he understood he was like I I don't think I'm the first one doesn't fucking work. Yeah, I know I'm not the first one Yeah, people tell you you get you should get your flu shot every year You won't get the flu Yeah, also you don't get the flu if you're fucking healthy or if you are you go you get over quick or if you get the flu Take ivy vitamins.

2:42:52Yeah, you know take tamma flu That's you times I got my flu shot in the past like 20 years I got the flu those years. That's the only time I've gotten the flu is one that two years and I'm like done Never doing it because the military they make you that stuff So I just had them annotate that it was done is called the What they called gun -decking I think so they just say that you did it but you didn't really do it. Oh, that's nice Yeah, very nice my corpsman to do that. Let's hope that I can arrest him now. I think he's out now for anybody listening I hope he is I hope he is. Well, hey brother.

2:43:19Thank you very much. Thank you. Doing everything you do Your books are fucking awesome red sky morning the latest um And uh you have seven of these now and the the nonfiction comes out when September September I'll be on that one too. Thank you sir. I appreciate you very much man. Thank you for being here I tell everybody website anything social media official jack car calm confined there But usually you know type it in the search bar. It'll pop right up hopefully jack are you pressed exactly at jack R USA on the socials and man, thank you so much for my pleasure brother. Oh, you're gonna see you.

2:43:52Bye everybody