Latest / Black Ibis Social Club / S2E15: Josh Tatter

Transcript

S2E15: Josh Tatter · Black Ibis Social Club

0:11
SPEAKER_01: Hey, welcome back to the Black Eye of the Social Club.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Another beautiful day, spring day in South Carolina over here.
0:20
And I'm guessing it's about the same down in Floridian Swamps
0:24
where Mr.
0:25
Fisto is.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: What's up, Fisto?
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Hey, man.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Hey.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Good evening.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Good evening, and then today, Mr. Josh Tatter from Substack wandered in.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: He decided to come join us and talk to us.
0:38
I've been meaning to invite him for like a year now,
0:42
and he finally got around to coming down.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: So here you are, man.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Josh.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, thanks for having me on.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: It's nice to finally talk to you guys.
0:53
I mean,
0:54
gosh,
0:54
you and me live like 45 minutes away from each other,
0:57
maybe half an hour.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: We never had a chance to get together.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: South Carolina Supremacy.
1:08
I say that as a transplant from the beautiful state of the
1:13
Soviet Republic of California.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so Josh over here, he's a regular writer on Substack.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: He's been kind of a buddy in our circle for a while now.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: Oh my God, we got static.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: It's fucking Twin Peaks over here.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Twin Peaks.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: Got a light.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Got a light.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: Josh over here, he's a sub-stacker.
1:38
He's a regular commenter on our stuff,
1:41
and he does a lot of fiction writer.
1:44
And what Josh is most known for is he's a fantasy writer,
1:47
fantasy and sci-fi.
1:48
He writes fantasy,
1:51
a lot of cowboy fiction that he likes to write,
1:53
that I read.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: He's an online buddy of our friend of the podcast, Alexander Helene.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: He's a fellow traveler in our fellow traveler circles, right?
2:06
um so welcome man i'm finally glad to hear i'm going to ask you
2:10
a bunch of
2:10
questions we're going to talk about you know the topic at hand
2:13
which is you know
2:14
fantasy fiction is really what we're going to talk about today
2:16
and the idea of
2:17
writing and writing but before before we begin a conversation
2:22
in earnest there's a
2:23
little bit of house house cleaning i gotta do first of all if
2:27
you guys are
2:28
SPEAKER_01: listening to this episode and you haven't listened to
2:31
SPEAKER_01: last week's episode with Constantine von Hofmeister.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Meister, you have to.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: Listen, that was probably one of our best episodes.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that one was really a trip.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: Very cool conversation with...
2:45
SPEAKER_02: an incredibly well-readed and intelligent gentleman.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: And important stuff about his book, Multipolarity.
2:51
And then,
2:52
uh,
2:52
Mr.
2:53
Fisto Sobani over here graced,
2:55
uh,
2:55
his podcast with his presence in it.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: That was a very great conversation.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: You guys talked about Twin Peaks and stuff, which was cool.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: What'd you, what'd you think of it?
3:05
SPEAKER_02: I've,
3:05
SPEAKER_02: I've,
3:05
SPEAKER_02: I've been looking forward to getting,
3:07
SPEAKER_02: uh,
3:08
SPEAKER_01: feedback about it because I haven't actually finished it all yet.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: I've been insanely busy and, uh,
3:15
SPEAKER_01: I either listen to podcasts when I'm driving to work,
3:19
SPEAKER_01: because I have a 45-minute drive to work,
3:22
SPEAKER_01: or I listen to podcasts at night.
3:26
for some freaking reason well okay i'll tell you why my
3:29
daughter's on spring break
3:31
right now right and on a regular school night she goes to bed
3:35
at seven but because
3:36
it's spring break yeah where she's just staying up until nine
3:39
nine thirty even ten
3:41
and kind of like doing her own thing and uh it's just like by
3:47
the time like she
3:48
SPEAKER_01: falls asleep and i put her to bed and everything
3:51
i want to go to bed myself so it's like i just haven't like
3:55
i've been falling
3:56
asleep like at 9 45 10 every night so i haven't really got a
4:00
chance to catch up on
4:01
my podcast that's on my to-do list no worries no rush no rush
4:05
no rush i'll have
4:06
SPEAKER_01: plenty of time um
4:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me see.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my wife just messaged me.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: My dog is still six.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: She's dehydrated.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to do that.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
4:17
SPEAKER_01: what I wanted to talk about,
4:18
SPEAKER_01: besides telling people to listen to that episode,
4:21
is that one of the things that's very critical to understand
4:27
about the Black Ibis
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Social Club,
4:29
SPEAKER_01: right,
4:29
SPEAKER_01: is that it ultimately is a social club,
4:32
SPEAKER_01: right?
4:33
SPEAKER_01: And while we discriminate,
4:34
we are a very discriminating group of individuals here at the
4:38
Social Club,
4:39
SPEAKER_01: right?
4:39
SPEAKER_01: We don't let any just rabble walk off the streets, right?
4:43
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
4:44
SPEAKER_01: just because you're invited to the social club doesn't mean we agree with
4:48
SPEAKER_01: everything you have to say,
4:50
SPEAKER_01: okay?
4:51
There's been plenty of guests that I listened to and we had
4:56
conversations with and
4:57
SPEAKER_01: I just didn't 100% agree with.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, I don't agree with half the stuff Fisto says, right?
5:03
SPEAKER_01: Like specifically his love of Panem instead of Judy and blah, blah, blah.
5:08
listen listen listen just because just because i was the one
5:11
guy you invited in off
5:13
the street and you nailed it in one and he never went away slam
5:17
the door shut for
5:18
SPEAKER_02: it yeah nope
5:20
i got one bum i got one swamp bum and i'm good that's what you
5:25
that's what you get
5:25
with flirtyants man they just show up and they never leave yeah
5:28
yeah listen it's
5:29
better to be it's better to be lucky than good you know that's
5:33
all i'm saying we
5:34
might have to just have like a south carolina supremacy podcast
5:38
with josh and uh
5:40
isaiah on here because we're all from the low country over here
5:43
you know no man
5:44
SPEAKER_02: You do that, I might actually come up there and do it in person.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: How fun would that be?
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we need to do a podcast over in Savannah.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: I think there's another one or two people from the general area.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: I think we had somebody there.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: I think a librarian lives in the south somewhere.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: He's not doxing himself, but I know he lives in the general south.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: You can tell from his voice.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: He's got that southern accent.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: He would be close.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: I remember him talking a while back about doing a meetup.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: And something like that in the southern reaches would work.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: I like the idea.
6:17
I like the idea of you in the South Carolina guys like Josh and
6:19
everybody else,
6:20
SPEAKER_02: you know,
6:20
SPEAKER_02: being in conversation.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: And then just halfway through,
6:23
I'll stumble in drunk on whiskey and or moonshine or whatever
6:27
and just start
6:27
SPEAKER_02: screaming about.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: Whatever it is I'm going to scream about.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know what's going to come out of my mouth.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: We're just going to hang out at Old Calhoun's Tavern.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe we can go do it around the secession tree.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: That's actually a great idea.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's there anymore.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: Josh, do you know if it's still there?
6:51
SPEAKER_01: The secession tree or whatever?
6:53
The secession house is still there where they started drafting
6:56
the articles of secession.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: So we could do it there.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: I think it's like a bed and breakfast or something now.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we could do that.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: We got to get a Jim Ross sounding board when Fisto walks in.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: My God, my God, it's Fisto.
7:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: And then we have the Secession House.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: And then we can hang out there.
7:19
And then we can draft the Articles of Empire,
7:23
the Articles of the Imperium.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: We can drive up to Charleston and go to, what is it, the Fort Sumter.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's great.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: Oh, this is such a good idea.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then we can shoot at ships.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just spit into the ocean.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: And just pop it off.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: I got a couple of handguns.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: They might not be a match for whatever the U.S.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Navy or Marines have.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: They have a submarine base up there.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: It's a submarine base.
7:57
It's actually a submarine school up in Charleston where they
8:00
teach submariners.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: No, man.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: All we got to do is get some Nerf guns and pop off at some shit libs,
8:09
SPEAKER_02: and then it'll just go from there.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: It'll be fine.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, the whole point of this tangent was what I was trying to say.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: What are we talking about?
8:17
SPEAKER_01: What I was trying to say before we got started is that,
8:21
SPEAKER_01: well,
8:22
SPEAKER_01: we welcome almost everybody on the podcast.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Look, I'm not going to invite like morons and retards.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: It is not a debate podcast, right?
8:30
SPEAKER_01: But everybody's invited.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: Debate me, bro.
8:33
right and it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that i agree with
8:36
everything everybody on
8:37
here says you know uh for the most part i do uh but you know we
8:43
withhold the right
8:44
to uh interview or have a conversation with anybody right this
8:49
is an open-ended
8:50
SPEAKER_01: kind of forum
8:51
SPEAKER_01: As long as you're not a straight-up retard,
8:53
I don't care and the reason I I don't say that I don't want
8:56
like for example We
8:57
SPEAKER_01: don't need shit libs on here.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: You know why we don't need shit lives because it's boring Okay,
9:01
SPEAKER_01: we've heard it all for like 20 years.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: It's the same old shit, you know
9:06
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing interesting.
9:07
If you are,
9:08
like,
9:08
a fucking badass interesting Marxist or something like that,
9:12
dude,
9:13
come on.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's interesting, right?
9:16
SPEAKER_01: But if it's the same old regurgitated,
9:18
SPEAKER_01: like,
9:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Apple store,
9:21
SPEAKER_01: like,
9:21
SPEAKER_01: liberalism,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't care,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: man.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: It's just dumb, you know?
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, nobody cares about that, right?
9:26
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't listen to it, so I'm not going to listen to it in real life.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: There's just no point I can hear that from somebody's,
9:31
SPEAKER_01: like,
9:32
SPEAKER_01: auntie at a golf game down the street,
9:34
SPEAKER_01: you know?
9:36
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
9:39
SPEAKER_01: if I disagree with you,
9:40
what I'm not gonna do is I'm not gonna go bitch about it to the
9:43
New York Times.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, I knew you were gonna bring that up.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: All right,
9:48
SPEAKER_01: like look,
9:49
SPEAKER_01: I might not have,
9:50
SPEAKER_01: we might not have the reach,
9:53
SPEAKER_01: the intellectual dark web like credentials that,
9:58
or we're not a chick with blonde hair because those seem to be
10:01
really popular.
10:03
in the rhido sphere mostly because the majority of rhido spirit
10:07
guys are like
10:08
pathetic simps right yeah you know you guys you guys you guys
10:12
are gonna be blown
10:13
away when it when i'm actually a blonde chick with great tits
10:16
yeah you guys are
10:16
just gonna be like whoa the greatest con of all time right yeah
10:21
the truth of it is
10:22
that like well we might disagree with things and i might
10:25
disagree with people on
10:27
SPEAKER_01: all
10:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:28
SPEAKER_01: within a greater sphere,
10:30
SPEAKER_01: within outside the sphere,
10:31
SPEAKER_01: God,
10:31
SPEAKER_01: I hope you disagree with me,
10:32
SPEAKER_01: man.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: I say some outlandish stuff, right?
10:35
Like if you agree with half the stuff I say,
10:38
I don't agree with half the stuff I say,
10:40
right?
10:40
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, that's the whole point of this place, right?
10:43
SPEAKER_01: The whole point of the Black Eyed Society,
10:45
SPEAKER_01: sit around,
10:46
SPEAKER_01: sip some,
10:47
I'm actually drinking some Earl Grey tea right now because I'm
10:49
kind of tired of coffee.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like, just shut up, dude.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: Don't whine about it.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: You can attack me.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: You can call me a volcano demon worshiper.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: You can call me a Nazi or all the million other things we've been called.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: What I'm not going to do is go,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: oh,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: my God,
11:07
SPEAKER_01: they were mean to me,
11:09
SPEAKER_01: New York Times or whatever,
11:11
SPEAKER_01: because that's just...
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Are we going to reveal the subtext for the blessed souls that have not...
11:18
well what's been going on look it's just i i don't even i don't
11:22
want to get too
11:23
much into it josh knows exactly what we're talking about
11:25
anybody that follows us on
11:26
sub Substack oh all right i've seen it uh it really is and the
11:31
only reason i brought
11:32
even brought it up is because you know she is a fellow sub
11:36
stacker you know what i
11:37
SPEAKER_01: mean right and
11:39
i you know i was actually subscribed to her you know i did i
11:44
will be honest i
11:45
subscribed to her a long time ago and i listened to their
11:48
podcast a few times i
11:50
just never found her very interesting i think that one of the
11:54
episodes i did listen
11:56
to her on it right was that um the episode with uh with our
12:01
with our boy with our
12:02
SPEAKER_01: friend uh what's his name man
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God, I'm on my blanket right now.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: He was on a podcast.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Prestor John?
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Right?
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Prestor was on her podcast, right?
12:15
SPEAKER_01: And when she knocks blanket accusations that are –
12:22
The whole right is attacking me and they're degenerates and
12:25
stupid and they're
12:27
SPEAKER_01: going to cause war and all this stuff.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, by association, that's us, man.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: We, you know, she's talking about us, right?
12:33
SPEAKER_01: Now, we're nobodies in the scope of things.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm not Curtis Yarvin and blah, blah, blah.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: And we're just,
12:38
SPEAKER_01: we're just a humble podcast merchants here talking about cyberpunk and,
12:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:44
SPEAKER_01: 19th century Russian literature in this sphere,
12:48
SPEAKER_01: right?
12:48
SPEAKER_01: We're more of a cultural podcast, not really a politics podcast.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, man, like, you know,
12:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, she made her bank on our side, you know, in our sphere.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And we all liked and supported her.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: People that we know went on her podcast and stuff.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: And then she turns around and goes to the New York Times, right?
13:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, that right there is low.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying we should,
13:13
SPEAKER_01: like,
13:14
SPEAKER_01: ostracize or throw hate at this person or anything like that,
13:17
SPEAKER_01: right?
13:18
But we just need to be better at not engaging with people of
13:22
dubious nature.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Because remember, guys, I warned you.
13:26
like months ago right i don't know if you remember right i've
13:31
been saying snake
13:32
snake from the i'm like suspicious i've always said that about
13:36
that individual you
13:37
know yeah but um i really expected her to stop podcasting once
13:43
the usa the money
13:45
SPEAKER_01: stopped but anyways besides the point right um
13:53
SPEAKER_01: But what I was trying to, you know, saying is that, like...
13:56
SPEAKER_01: You know,
13:57
SPEAKER_01: those kind of people just don't need to be engaged with,
13:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:00
because they make their money off of parroting ideas that come
14:04
up in our sphere,
14:05
SPEAKER_01: in our conversations,
14:07
SPEAKER_01: and then the first chance they get,
14:08
SPEAKER_01: they jump ship and betray.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: It's really that, right?
14:12
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that we need to be ideological,
14:15
SPEAKER_01: like,
14:16
SPEAKER_01: commissars where we,
14:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:18
SPEAKER_01: make everybody have the same ideas and stuff.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between being that and...
14:24
SPEAKER_01: and running to the enemy newspaper of note.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
14:28
SPEAKER_01: Right?
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Like, am I being extreme here, you know?
14:35
SPEAKER_02: I think what's interesting about it is seeing how people will adjust,
14:43
SPEAKER_02: and I'm trying to be kind here,
14:45
SPEAKER_02: but adjust and move one way or the other.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: And then
14:52
kind of adopt adopt the tactics of the enemy um like the little
14:57
back and forth i
14:58
had it's funny to me because like one of the first things that
15:04
one guy did was lump
15:06
you in with lump you in with the attacks you know the the group
15:10
that you are a part
15:11
of right that's both of us whatever yeah i know those people
15:15
man i don't even know
15:15
SPEAKER_01: what the hell she's talking about yeah right right and and
15:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: I guess at the end of the day,
15:23
SPEAKER_02: in my mind,
15:24
SPEAKER_02: I got real nasty with the guy just immediately because it's like,
15:27
SPEAKER_02: look,
15:30
if you're going to call me all kinds of stuff and say all these
15:33
kinds of things
15:33
SPEAKER_02: about it,
15:35
SPEAKER_02: I can just make it goddamn true, all right?
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, Fisto's an asshole.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, thank you for noticing.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: Now, fuck off that you blocked.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to talk to you.
15:44
Yeah,
15:44
you know,
15:45
look,
15:46
I can be an asshole and a horrible person on my own merits,
15:50
all right?
15:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to be associated with Yarvin.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: Like, I've hardly even read any of that guy's stuff.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: You know,
15:56
SPEAKER_02: he's like,
15:57
SPEAKER_02: look,
15:57
SPEAKER_02: I don't...
15:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
15:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it is,
15:59
SPEAKER_02: but there's a lot out there to read,
16:00
SPEAKER_02: all right?
16:01
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't feel obligated to stay...
16:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:05
at the foot of this master or this master or whatever the
16:08
master du jour is of the moment.
16:10
Like,
16:10
I've got other things that I'm doing and other things that I'm reading.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, like, look...
16:17
SPEAKER_02: I'll be an asshole on my own merits.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
16:21
I don't need to write anybody else's coattails and that might
16:23
sound strange,
16:24
SPEAKER_02: but it is kind of a personal point of pride to me.
16:26
Like my bullshit is my own bullshit and I don't need to be
16:29
associated with anybody
16:30
SPEAKER_02: else's bullshit.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't, and I don't want to drag this out for too much longer.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Cause I know you got stuff that you specifically want to talk about,
16:38
SPEAKER_00: but going back,
16:40
SPEAKER_00: going back to Fisto's point,
16:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:43
SPEAKER_00: There are certainly odious, toxic people on our side for sure.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: But they act like this stuff happened in a vacuum.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: There's no precedent for it.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: It just started happening one day, and it was a great big mystery.
16:57
They refused to acknowledge that there was a pattern and there
17:02
were abuses leading
17:03
SPEAKER_00: up to this behavior.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
17:06
right right yeah it's like oh my gosh i don't know where you
17:10
listen there are
17:11
retarded people on our side okay well there is okay there is no
17:14
true our side
17:15
there's multiple sides to our side right we may actually be the
17:19
dumb retarded
17:20
people on our side you know yeah that might actually be i mean
17:24
i did literally
17:25
coming off the street one day and i started speaking into a
17:27
microphone and that's
17:28
SPEAKER_02: how i met alex
17:29
You don't even know how to turn the gain up on your microphone
17:31
for like – Yeah,
17:32
man.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: I found that out like what?
17:33
SPEAKER_02: Like 15 minutes ago or something?
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't even remember.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, literally like 100 episodes in.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: How to turn the gain on you?
17:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know what I'm doing half the time.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: But so ultimately,
17:43
SPEAKER_01: right,
17:44
SPEAKER_01: what we're not going to do,
17:46
SPEAKER_01: right,
17:47
SPEAKER_01: we're going to call people retarded.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: We're always going to do it.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: It's just how it is.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to disagree with people across the world.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: That's like saying hello.
17:53
right but we're gonna disagree with people in a in a you know
17:57
in an r side thing i
17:59
think that for example when i had a disagree well i disagreed
18:02
with dave green and i
18:04
wrote that essay where i disagreed with him okay but i still
18:07
respect dave green a
18:08
lot and while i might disagree on certain things that he says
18:11
right uh i did you
18:13
know i'm not gonna go to the new york times or you know take
18:16
any opportunity to go
18:18
SPEAKER_01: to somebody that is coded as my mortal enemy basically you know
18:22
And lumping everybody that's ever been a fan of Dave Green as a
18:26
dumbass and like a
18:27
SPEAKER_01: bigot and blah,
18:28
SPEAKER_01: blah,
18:28
SPEAKER_01: blah,
18:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:29
SPEAKER_01: because it's not fair,
18:31
SPEAKER_01: right?
18:31
And what I'm never going to do is I'm never going to tar and
18:34
feather the people
18:35
SPEAKER_01: that have come on this podcast,
18:37
SPEAKER_01: right?
18:37
SPEAKER_01: Even if I disagree with them.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: And some of them, I disagree with them, you know?
18:42
SPEAKER_01: There's been,
18:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:42
SPEAKER_01: there's been,
18:44
SPEAKER_01: we haven't had a hostile,
18:45
SPEAKER_01: like,
18:46
SPEAKER_01: back and forth,
18:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:47
SPEAKER_01: but there's been a few people where I,
18:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:49
SPEAKER_01: I disagree with them on the fundamental level of how we should approach,
18:52
SPEAKER_01: like raising children,
18:54
SPEAKER_01: how we should approach,
18:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm an optimist and I'm not a,
18:58
SPEAKER_01: what do you call,
18:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a doomer whatsoever,
19:01
SPEAKER_01: so I've disagreed on that topic numerous times,
19:03
SPEAKER_01: you know.
19:04
I'm a Christian,
19:05
but I'm not a fundamentalist in any way,
19:07
shape,
19:07
or form.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a conservative.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: I like drinking alcohol and erotic stuff and that type of stuff, right?
19:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm okay with homosexuality for the most part, right?
19:21
SPEAKER_01: uh, being a spiritual homosexual myself.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: And,
19:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
19:24
SPEAKER_01: and it's just like,
19:26
SPEAKER_01: I,
19:26
SPEAKER_01: I,
19:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm not in any way,
19:28
SPEAKER_01: shape or form going to tar and feather or downplay any guests I've had.
19:32
And really I'm not going to,
19:33
I'm not going to shit on any of the guests I have in my sphere.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Crap.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: I never even talk shit about what's his name.
19:39
Uh,
19:39
the guy that sells those ripoff,
19:41
like,
19:41
uh,
19:42
uh,
19:43
work two jobs at the same time online things.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Um,
19:48
SPEAKER_01: I forgot his name.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: See, that's exactly how I am.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, whatever, dude, he does his own thing.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: He blocked me.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Don't care.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: You know?
19:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that was Walt.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: Walt.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: You know,
19:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
19:58
SPEAKER_01: I do,
19:58
SPEAKER_01: I disagree with like almost any point,
20:02
SPEAKER_01: almost every point of his outlook on life.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, you know, I had a good conversation with him somewhat.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I, you know, he blocked me, whatever.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to talk shit, you know, let him do his own thing.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, that's kind of what the point was.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: I felt like the whole thing was in bad taste, you know?
20:21
And not only is it in bad taste,
20:23
it stinks of,
20:25
you know,
20:25
we're in Holy Week right now,
20:27
right?
20:28
SPEAKER_01: And it's just such a Judas moment that's just almost appropriate.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
20:37
SPEAKER_01: Couldn't have waited a couple days for Friday.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: No, just had to do it now.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Or whatever it was.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: You know...
20:45
I hate to say this,
20:47
right,
20:47
but I don't trust the political opinions of women.
20:52
You know,
20:53
time and time again,
20:54
guys on the right are burnt by women in politics.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: How many times have we done the same exact thing?
21:02
thing right there's that other blonde one lauren southern or
21:06
whatever and then
21:07
there's all the elon musk hoes and all this stuff right like we
21:11
make these women to
21:12
be out to be these like based right wingers or whatever and
21:16
they're spouting their
21:17
their intellectual dork web politics and stuff and then the
21:21
first chance they get
21:22
SPEAKER_01: they bounce you know and it's ultimately um
21:25
the i i've just become let's say skeptical of women in politics
21:31
well listen listen
21:32
listen let's let's let's let's up the game and and and i
21:36
actually want to get your
21:36
guys's opinion on this let's let's go ahead up the up the uh
21:41
wager here so forget
21:43
forget judy and pan am for a minute who did it better cleopatra
21:48
or theodora
21:50
SPEAKER_01: go theodora she was a christian she was she was constantine's dad end of
21:55
conversation i was gonna say the purplest is the noblest shroud
22:01
that whole speech
22:02
and that whole you know the nika riots and everything that's
22:05
that's really goddamn
22:06
hard to top i mean i mean cleopatra got with julius caesar so i
22:11
mean one is an
22:12
SPEAKER_01: inbred greek egyptian right the other one i
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Is a saint.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: Is a saint, right.
22:23
SPEAKER_02: From the most humble beginnings.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: From the most humble beginnings.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: Josh, what do you think?
22:27
SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I got to go with Theodora also.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, bro.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: All right.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, women in politics.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: All right.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: So we knocked out out of the way.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: It peaked.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: It peaked at Theodora.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: We had to do that.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: We had to talk about that for a minute, okay?
22:44
SPEAKER_01: So that's done and said.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: That's our topical political monologue, entry monologue.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about what Josh is here to talk about, which is writing.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: Because Josh is a writer, and he's specifically a writer of fantasy.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: So first of all, Josh, tell us about yourself for a minute.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: Introduce yourself to people that don't know you.
23:05
And maybe I didn't do the greatest job of introducing you if
23:09
people are not on Substack,
23:10
SPEAKER_01: that type of thing.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I think you did a pretty good job.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: obviously Josh Tatter here.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh, my Substack is Josh Tatter has thoughts.
23:22
Uh,
23:23
and I,
23:23
you know,
23:24
I started it really because I was playing God of war Ragnarok.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: I was like, God, this game sucks donkey ass.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: And I needed somewhere to write about it.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: So I started,
23:36
SPEAKER_00: I started,
23:36
I started a Substack specifically so I could write a whole essay
23:40
bitching about how
23:42
SPEAKER_00: awful that game was.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And, uh,
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Then I started seeing other people posting their fiction,
23:47
SPEAKER_00: and I was like,
23:48
SPEAKER_00: well,
23:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:49
SPEAKER_00: I've wanted to write fiction for as long as I can remember.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: I said, I got this short story.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: It's fantasy or elf shit, as Alexandria would say.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And I said, let me throw it up there and see what happens.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: You know,
24:04
SPEAKER_00: people started responding,
24:06
SPEAKER_00: and so I just snowballed,
24:08
SPEAKER_00: and I just kept writing and writing.
24:11
And I always imagined myself to be a fantasy writer,
24:14
not much of a sci-fi writer,
24:15
but
24:16
um i've written quite a few sci-fi short stories um my most
24:21
popular stuff is
24:22
probably my westerns that i write even my father-in-law he said
24:27
you should really
24:28
stick with writing westerns which i guess means he doesn't like
24:30
my other stuff uh
24:33
SPEAKER_00: so you know i'm actually not from south carolina i'm
24:37
SPEAKER_00: from Virginia.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: I lived there until 2021.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: We moved down here,
24:42
SPEAKER_00: uh,
24:44
SPEAKER_00: cause it was turning into too much of a shit lib,
24:48
SPEAKER_00: uh,
24:50
SPEAKER_00: third world country.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And we were like, we got to get out of here.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And we found Buford on a map.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Basically my wife found Buford on a map.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: We came down and visited it and we're like, yeah, this is the place.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: And, uh,
25:04
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that's me.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of my story.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: What else would you like to know?
25:08
SPEAKER_01: I had my microphone on for a second.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's it, man.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: You're a southerner that moved down further south, right?
25:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Virginia is the south, right?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Although don't tell don't tell them that.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, or they used to be the south.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you moved down to the low country.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: That's what we call where we live, by the way.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: It's called the low country, right?
25:34
SPEAKER_02: The low country.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I've heard of this.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: I've heard of this magical, mystical place.
25:38
We actually it's actually called the slow country because
25:40
everybody's slow as shit down here.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Great.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Like everything takes like way longer than it does.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, it's very, it's very mellow.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we are, uh, um,
25:53
SPEAKER_01: basically invaded by Ohioans, to be honest.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: There's Ohioans everywhere.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: My entire neighborhood is Ohio license plates.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: Whenever I drive by a car accident,
26:06
SPEAKER_01: which is on a daily basis,
26:08
SPEAKER_01: I look at the Ohio license plate,
26:11
SPEAKER_01: because I don't know,
26:12
SPEAKER_02: you guys don't learn how to drive out there.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: Listen,
26:18
SPEAKER_02: everybody's afraid of the Central American immigration issue,
26:21
SPEAKER_02: but none of you will expect
26:23
SPEAKER_02: the Ohio invasion, the Ohio supremacy.
26:27
Well,
26:29
I found the most out-of-staters I found are New Yorkers and Virginians.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know that I've met a lot of Ohioans, but my joke is that
26:43
Getting into car accidents is a national pastime of our area
26:46
because people try.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: They actively try to get into car accidents.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: It's the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: If I get that insurance money,
26:58
SPEAKER_01: if the people that like,
27:00
SPEAKER_01: uh,
27:01
SPEAKER_01: if you take the people from here,
27:03
SPEAKER_01: their driving skills and you put them in Los Angeles,
27:06
SPEAKER_01: they would be dead within like 10 minutes on the Los Angeles.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
27:10
Like they would either get flattened by like one of the billion
27:14
big rigs that drive
27:15
SPEAKER_01: through Los Angeles,
27:16
SPEAKER_01: or they would be shot by somebody because like,
27:20
there's this like habit in this part of the country where
27:23
you're driving down a
27:24
SPEAKER_01: two-lane highway and somebody's pulling out from
27:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the swamp.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where the hell you're just coming out of nowhere.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: And they pull out in front of you, the speed to pull out in front of you.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: They're like,
27:34
SPEAKER_01: they wait until the very minute you're,
27:36
SPEAKER_01: you're,
27:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:37
SPEAKER_01: approaching like at 70,
27:38
SPEAKER_01: 80 miles an hour towards them.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's when they pull in front of you, but you know what they do?
27:42
SPEAKER_01: They don't drive fast.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: They slow down for some reason, you know?
27:45
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like,
27:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
27:47
SPEAKER_01: my brakes on my car are constantly like ruined because everybody like,
27:52
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
27:52
SPEAKER_01: gets in front of me and drives like 40 on like a 60,
27:55
SPEAKER_01: 70 mile.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: It just,
27:57
SPEAKER_01: mind-boggling at the retardation that happens on the highways out here.
28:03
Not to mention that the highways in South Carolina were used as
28:09
a practice-like
28:11
SPEAKER_01: target for an A-10 warthog.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: There's fucking potholes everywhere.
28:15
Dude,
28:17
when I first moved down here,
28:19
all my coworkers,
28:21
they'd done some work in Virginia.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, man, up in Virginia, you guys have such nice roads.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: I've said...
28:27
SPEAKER_00: I guess if you say so,
28:28
SPEAKER_00: well,
28:29
SPEAKER_00: the longer I've been here and the more I've been back to Virginia,
28:31
SPEAKER_00: it's,
28:32
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
28:32
SPEAKER_00: it's like driving on clouds up there compared to down here.
28:36
I mean,
28:36
I don't know where all that tax money we pay is going,
28:40
but it's not going to the roads.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: It's the craziest thing.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: You're driving along.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: You're just like shaking your transmissions,
28:45
SPEAKER_01: falling out of your car,
28:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:48
SPEAKER_01: cross into North Carolina.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: You're like, what the hell just happened?
28:51
SPEAKER_01: Why is my car running so smooth?
28:52
SPEAKER_01: They're like the roads.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden you're like alignments fixed and everything.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: You're like, Oh,
28:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's the same going into Savannah.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Oil's changed.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: It's got a new air filter, and all you did was cross the state border.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: I was driving one time.
29:03
I went up to Charleston,
29:05
right,
29:05
which is about 40 minutes from here,
29:08
right?
29:09
And I parked,
29:11
and my fucking tire was flat,
29:13
and there was like a screwdriver sticking out of it.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, my God, dude.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: And in –
29:19
SPEAKER_01: One of the things you have when you get insurance in South Carolina,
29:23
SPEAKER_01: because they know their roads are so freaking shitty,
29:26
you actually are entitled to like two windshield changes per
29:29
year because they
29:30
SPEAKER_01: expect your windshield to be cracked by like,
29:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
29:33
just the asphalt coming off the ground and like eating your
29:37
fucking windshield.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: So that's actually included in your windshield.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, your insurance bylaw.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: I did not know that.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: I might start cracking my windshield on purpose.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: You do.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: It's built in.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: It's built in, right?
29:52
SPEAKER_01: It's the craziest thing, right?
29:54
SPEAKER_01: But back to fantasy, right?
29:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so here's – you write fantasy, and you're a Substack writer.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: and you post a lot of your writing on Substack.
30:09
Do you ever plan to compile it and publish it in a small press
30:14
or maybe on your own,
30:15
SPEAKER_01: or do you consider yourself strictly a Substack writer?
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to,
30:24
SPEAKER_00: at some point,
30:25
SPEAKER_00: take a bunch of my short stories and put them together as a collection.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Most of my fantasy stories are
30:34
SPEAKER_00: take place in a single world.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of an anthology.
30:39
And so I'd like to just get a bunch of them that are kind of
30:42
connected with one
30:43
SPEAKER_00: another and put them in an anthology or a short story collection,
30:49
SPEAKER_00: kind of like the guy who writes The Witcher.
30:53
Before he ever wrote any of those books,
30:55
he released a short story collection.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: So I'd kind of like to go down that road.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, to be perfectly honest, I don't know that I ever have it in me.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: to write a full-blown novel.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I have the attention span for it,
31:07
SPEAKER_00: but definitely a short story collection at some point for sure.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you're... There's a helicopter flying above.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: I apologize.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh-oh, uh-oh.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: Just kidding.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: It's a black one.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: That's what you get for shit talk in the New York Times, brother.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's an air station, okay, over there, right?
31:32
SPEAKER_01: That's about three miles from my house.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's an air station.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: So there's all kinds of stuff.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: And we have a Coast Guard helicopters, too.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: And there's an airport station.
31:44
like not too far away up on the island so there you know that's
31:50
that's the thing
31:50
right um you have a pretty like good little community on
31:54
Substack there's a lot of
31:55
writers that are sharing a lot of fiction right and
31:59
unfortunately I don't feel like
32:00
SPEAKER_01: Substack really does very good job of like I don't know
32:03
SPEAKER_01: caring about writing on Substack anymore.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: They're all about other stuff now.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: But,
32:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:10
you guys have built a really good community of different
32:12
writers and there's a lot
32:13
SPEAKER_01: of fiction on there,
32:15
SPEAKER_01: specifically in the fantasy and sci-fi thing.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: And then,
32:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:19
SPEAKER_01: your specific,
32:20
SPEAKER_01: like,
32:21
SPEAKER_01: Western,
32:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:21
SPEAKER_01: it's your,
32:23
SPEAKER_01: which is my favorite stuff,
32:24
SPEAKER_01: your Everett Brooks stuff,
32:26
SPEAKER_01: right?
32:27
SPEAKER_01: It's my favorite of your writing because I do like Westerns.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: And I think that the...
32:33
SPEAKER_01: I think that the idea of,
32:36
SPEAKER_01: I like the idea of putting fiction out,
32:41
SPEAKER_01: short fiction out on formats like Substack,
32:44
SPEAKER_01: and then collecting it and putting it out in better,
32:48
SPEAKER_01: bigger formats.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: I think that's an interesting model,
32:53
SPEAKER_01: and I think that's one that might have a future in a world of
32:57
SPEAKER_01: where short fiction is no longer relevant,
33:02
at least in the greater scene of the literary and the science
33:06
fiction world and stuff.
33:07
I don't know if,
33:08
I mean,
33:10
do people buy short story collections in the fantasy world anymore?
33:14
SPEAKER_01: There used to be tons of magazines, but they're all gone.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: So maybe,
33:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:19
SPEAKER_01: this can be resolved through mediums like Substack,
33:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:24
SPEAKER_01: and,
33:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:25
SPEAKER_01: communication between those two.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: And I like that.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: I like that idea.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: But what kind of fantasy fiction do you like?
33:34
SPEAKER_01: Are you more the American guy or the European guy?
33:38
SPEAKER_01: Where's your fantasy background come from?
33:42
So the first proper fantasy I guess I read was when I read The
33:49
Chronicles of Narnia.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: I was like eight years old.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: So that's C.S.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: That's British.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: My favorite fantasy author is
33:58
SPEAKER_00: David Gemmell.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: He's a British fantasy author, kind of in the mold of Robert E. Howard.
34:06
His stories are kind of in the,
34:07
like,
34:07
his most famous character,
34:09
Truss,
34:09
is
34:10
SPEAKER_00: definitely a stand-in for Conan.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, there are some American fantasy authors I like, uh, David Eddings.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Um,
34:20
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:20
SPEAKER_00: I know you're gonna,
34:23
SPEAKER_00: speaking of disagreeing earlier,
34:24
SPEAKER_00: I know you're gonna vehemently disagree with me on this.
34:27
Um,
34:28
when I first read The Name of the Wind,
34:30
I was like,
34:31
oh man,
34:31
this is pretty good.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh,
34:34
SPEAKER_00: The longer it went on,
34:35
SPEAKER_00: the longer I was like,
34:35
SPEAKER_00: okay,
34:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
34:36
SPEAKER_00: the guy is not as clever as he thinks he is.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, stuff's not really happening.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, by the end of the first book, some stuff happens.
34:47
It wasn't until I read the second book where I was like,
34:48
okay,
34:49
this story is crap.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally nothing happens.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: And the second book is like a thousand pages.
34:55
And he ends up in the exact same place at the end as he started
34:58
at the beginning,
34:59
SPEAKER_00: except he just had a lot of sex in between.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, with fairy dangers.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
35:05
so it's no wonder the guy hasn't finished the story because
35:09
he's got like 1,800
35:11
SPEAKER_00: pages of nothing happening,
35:12
SPEAKER_00: and he's promised all these epic adventures,
35:14
SPEAKER_00: and he's only got one book left to finish it.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: Patrick Rotfuss is his name.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: Patrick Rotfuss, the original literary or fantasy literature beard, bro.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: uh, you know, I gotta be honest.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: I, I liked, uh, the first three books of a song of ice and fire.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: The fourth book was an absolute slog.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: So I haven't read,
35:35
I haven't read the fifth book yet because the fourth book was
35:39
so boring and he's
35:40
SPEAKER_00: obviously not going to finish it.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm trying to think what other fancy authors do I like?
35:46
SPEAKER_00: I like the guy who writes the Witcher books, Andrei Sapkowski.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: He's Polish.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Um,
35:53
So I mean I guess – I have to say my tastes lean British since
35:58
we got C.S.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, Tolkien, David Gemmel.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: I know there's other people that I can't think of off the top of my head.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: I haven't read any Brandon Sanderson.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't really have the stomach for that from what I hear about him.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't – I tried reading The Wheel of Time.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't even make it halfway through the first book.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: It was such – so boring.
36:23
So yeah,
36:23
I'd have to say I probably identify more with the British
36:26
fantasy writers.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: So I read all the Game of Thrones novels, right?
36:34
SPEAKER_01: I read all five of them, right?
36:37
And it's really interesting because you say that you didn't
36:40
like four because four
36:42
SPEAKER_01: was the last one I liked,
36:43
SPEAKER_01: right?
36:44
SPEAKER_01: It's the fifth one I didn't like.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I liked four,
36:49
is because four kept to like the main mainland area like
36:56
westeros or whatever right
36:58
and five jumped across the ocean to the um you know mother of
37:04
dragons thing or
37:05
SPEAKER_01: whatever right and that whole thing um and i actually i uh i don't like
37:14
SPEAKER_01: The problem with those massive multiple character storylines with so many
37:19
characters and stuff is that there's some characters that just
37:23
don't have any
37:24
SPEAKER_01: interest in their storylines I don't really particularly care for.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: And in the case of Game of Thrones,
37:28
SPEAKER_01: I've never had any interest in anything that happened across the ocean.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't like...
37:33
I didn't care about Daenerys and I didn't care about Khal Drogo
37:36
and all that stuff
37:38
SPEAKER_01: just didn't really interest me.
37:39
And what I liked about 4 is that it was really the redemption
37:43
arc for my favorite
37:45
SPEAKER_01: character in the series,
37:47
SPEAKER_01: right?
37:48
SPEAKER_01: Which was, what's his name?
37:50
SPEAKER_01: Jamie Lannister, right?
37:52
and uh it's where he became an interesting character and it's
37:55
where he like starts
37:56
like doing cool stuff and it also had um a brienne of tarth
38:01
which i liked in that
38:02
you know in that like it was like hey the two of them doing
38:05
their thing and i liked
38:06
that um but ultimately like there's nothing there are you
38:12
familiar with game of
38:13
thrones fisto yeah yeah yeah i mean through the tv series and
38:17
through the uh
38:18
Through the culture,
38:21
the guys that wrote The Expanse used to work for George R.R.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: Martin.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: That's how they got started.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
38:27
So,
38:27
like,
38:28
I imagine that the way they did those books is pretty
38:31
indicative of how they were.
38:33
trained by that guy it is it is what's interesting who do you
38:37
think who you know i
38:38
know the show's over and they already revealed who like wins
38:42
the game of thrones at
38:44
the end but who do you think should have won or who do you
38:47
think should have ended
38:48
SPEAKER_01: up on the throne at the very end josh go first
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, obviously, I mean, it should have been Jon.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: That's what everything was building up to.
38:56
Um,
38:58
obviously,
38:59
I mean,
39:00
the whole thing with Daenerys suddenly going crazy.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
39:04
SPEAKER_00: that could have worked if it had been set up properly,
39:07
SPEAKER_00: but they just rushed through the ending and it just,
39:10
SPEAKER_00: it was a complete cop out.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: And, um,
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Going back to what you were saying about the fourth book,
39:17
SPEAKER_00: I can't necessarily disagree with what you were saying.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: I liked the same stuff that you liked.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: I liked Jaime's redemption arc.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: I liked the stuff focusing on Brienne.
39:28
I just vividly remember there's an entire chapter where Jaime's
39:32
investigating
39:33
SPEAKER_00: Tyrion's disappearance,
39:34
SPEAKER_00: and the whole chapter is him going over prison supplies,
39:37
SPEAKER_00: and I'm
39:38
SPEAKER_00: thinking, why am I reading this?
39:40
SPEAKER_00: But I agree, Daenerys is a terrible character.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: She's so boring.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And she's even worse in the TV show.
39:50
Bran,
39:51
there was one book,
39:52
was it the third book or maybe it was the fourth book?
39:55
SPEAKER_00: He's left out entirely.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: And that was a good thing because his storyline was such a drag.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: And the problem with Game of Thrones is
40:06
SPEAKER_00: He kills all these characters off for shock value,
40:08
SPEAKER_00: but he doesn't replace them with new and interesting characters.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
40:13
it's a gut punch to the audience to kill off Ned at the end of
40:16
the first book and
40:17
SPEAKER_00: to have the red wedding.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't replace these characters with newer,
40:23
SPEAKER_00: more interesting characters,
40:25
SPEAKER_00: your story just goes nowhere.
40:27
It grinds to a halt and it runs out of gas,
40:31
and that's the problem that I –
40:34
SPEAKER_00: ran into with the books as it was a problem with the show.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: But to go back to your original question,
40:38
SPEAKER_00: John,
40:39
SPEAKER_00: the natural,
40:40
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
40:41
SPEAKER_00: that would have been the natural conclusion to the story.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: What about you, Fisto?
40:45
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
40:47
SPEAKER_02: Pan Am Palmer, obviously.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: Pan Am Palmer.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: No, I actually didn't follow Game of Thrones all that much.
40:53
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't super interested in it.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I know enough.
40:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, put it like this.
41:01
I know enough about it that when you say,
41:03
when you say Johnny,
41:04
you mean John snow,
41:05
right?
41:06
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: Like that's just, that strikes me as obvious.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know why, but it strikes me as that's the obvious response.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to disagree with you guys.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, go on.
41:16
I have no,
41:18
like I said,
41:18
I have to disagree because it's my job to disagree.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: But I honestly dislike both.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: I dislike.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: I just like John.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't like John either.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: He's such a, uh, stick in, uh,
41:31
SPEAKER_00: such a sourpuss, he's so troll, he's such a stick in the mud.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: So who I think should have,
41:37
SPEAKER_01: he should have died,
41:38
SPEAKER_01: who I think should have sat on the Iron Throne at the end,
41:43
SPEAKER_01: right?
41:44
SPEAKER_01: You guys ready for it?
41:46
SPEAKER_01: It's Sansa, that's who I thought should have.
41:50
SPEAKER_01: And I felt like he was actually building her up to in the books, right?
41:54
SPEAKER_01: Because Sansa is in a strange way the neutral party, right?
41:59
SPEAKER_01: And she is,
42:03
she technically has the most claim to both the Northlands and
42:08
the Southlands,
42:09
SPEAKER_01: right?
42:09
SPEAKER_01: So she is a, she's a Stark, right?
42:13
SPEAKER_01: So she's the heir to the North, right?
42:16
SPEAKER_01: She is the oldest legitimate heir to the North, right?
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
42:21
uh,
42:21
that's not like a cripple,
42:23
like magician,
42:23
like her younger brother,
42:25
right?
42:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, uh, what's his name?
42:26
SPEAKER_01: The, the cripple kid, right?
42:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: Bran.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: So she is the healthy non,
42:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:32
SPEAKER_01: non crippled,
42:33
SPEAKER_01: non becoming a tree or something like that,
42:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:37
SPEAKER_01: uh,
42:38
SPEAKER_01: air to the North.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: And she's also technically, uh,
42:42
SPEAKER_01: she, her marriage to, uh, uh, what's his name?
42:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, Ramsey, Ramsey, not Ramsey.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh, uh, well, she, Oh, um,
42:55
SPEAKER_01: What's his name?
42:56
SPEAKER_01: The little bastard that choked on his own shit, right?
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Joffrey, Joffrey, yeah.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Joffrey.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: That makes her a Lannister also, right?
43:05
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, she's an heir to the South, right?
43:08
SPEAKER_01: She's a direct – through marriage,
43:11
she's basically the daughter-in-law of the last rightful king
43:17
of the kingdom,
43:18
SPEAKER_01: right?
43:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: And there you go.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: Right.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: But she's also the way they're setting her up to be in the books,
43:24
SPEAKER_01: at least was she was hanging out with Littlefinger.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: And he was teaching her some creep powers,
43:31
SPEAKER_01: right,
43:31
SPEAKER_01: and how to be kind of a spider herself,
43:35
SPEAKER_01: right?
43:36
And she yeeted that little kid into the hole,
43:38
and she basically got Littlefinger's ass too.
43:41
And ultimately,
43:44
right,
43:44
it made sense for her to maneuver into that leadership role.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: And also, you know, it would have kept to that –
43:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
43:54
SPEAKER_01: the whole War of the Roses thing,
43:56
SPEAKER_01: because eventually England ends up under the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
44:01
SPEAKER_01: right?
44:02
And that's when it reaches,
44:03
like,
44:03
you know,
44:04
almost it's some of its peak in that era,
44:07
right?
44:08
SPEAKER_01: It's like it enters its golden age with Elizabeth,
44:11
and which really lasts until the Victorian era and the
44:14
post-Victorian era,
44:15
SPEAKER_01: right?
44:16
So I thought that Sansa could have become a Queen Elizabeth
44:20
type figure where she
44:22
SPEAKER_01: manipulates all sides,
44:24
SPEAKER_01: has claimed to all sides of the kingdom through her,
44:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:28
SPEAKER_01: short lived marriages and through her own,
44:30
SPEAKER_01: own blood.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: And that just made sense to me.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: I think I would have liked her as the winner.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: Plus I liked the actress.
44:36
I think the actress did a good job of being a bitch that
44:39
becomes kind of like good towards D&D.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, I can, I,
44:45
SPEAKER_00: I have to say you've persuaded me.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh,
44:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
44:48
SPEAKER_00: John would have been the natural conclusion,
44:50
SPEAKER_00: but,
44:51
SPEAKER_00: uh,
44:53
SPEAKER_00: if you want to do a twist,
44:54
SPEAKER_00: then Sansa would have been,
44:56
SPEAKER_00: cause you're right in the show.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I haven't read the fifth book.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if that,
45:03
SPEAKER_00: I think she features heavily in the fifth book,
45:05
SPEAKER_00: but if I remember correctly in the books though,
45:09
SPEAKER_00: she doesn't marry Ramsey Bolton.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: They,
45:11
they substitute some other girls saying that it's her or saying
45:14
that it's Aria.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that right?
45:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: They never actually really even interact at all in the books.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
45:21
SPEAKER_01: so like at least it never gets to that level that,
45:23
SPEAKER_01: that might've been a complete creation of the show itself,
45:26
SPEAKER_01: you know?
45:26
Um,
45:27
so I don't think,
45:29
I don't remember them even interacting in the book,
45:32
right?
45:32
I think the book ends with her being up in still being in,
45:36
uh,
45:37
the Eagle's nest,
45:38
you know?
45:38
SPEAKER_01: Um,
45:39
SPEAKER_01: All right, but that's enough Game of Thrones, guys, all right?
45:41
SPEAKER_01: I actually like a lot of – I'm rushing because Josh is on a time crunch,
45:48
SPEAKER_01: so make sure you let me know when you have to go,
45:50
SPEAKER_01: okay?
45:52
And I wanted to hit some important,
45:53
important conversation,
45:55
conversational topics.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: So you, I like, I like your choices.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't like, uh, Patrick Rothfuss at all.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: I didn't like that book at all.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: You know,
46:03
SPEAKER_01: uh,
46:04
SPEAKER_01: David Gemmell for you guys that are not familiar with David Gemmell,
46:07
you might be familiar with the movie that was based on David
46:09
Gemmell's work,
46:10
SPEAKER_01: which is legend,
46:11
SPEAKER_01: right.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Which was a Tom Cruise movie.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:16
SPEAKER_01: And, uh, it was, I believe one of Tom Cruise's first movies.
46:18
SPEAKER_01: And he is like, uh, uh, it's about like, uh,
46:21
SPEAKER_01: like a, like a unicorn.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: And it's got, uh, uh, it's, it's pretty cool.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: It's like a pretty keynote movie.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: It's got like some good, uh, good visuals in it.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if, have you guys seen legend?
46:32
SPEAKER_00: I have, but I don't think that was based on, uh, David Gemmel story.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: I, if it is, it's the first I've ever heard of it.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: Cause his first book was legend was called legend,
46:45
SPEAKER_00: but it's about something else entirely than what the movie's about.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm completely wrong.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: So I might be completely wrong, which is rare.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: I have seen Legend.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: It's been a while, but it's a great movie.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: No, I guess you're right.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: The movie is not based on the David Gamble movie, right?
47:05
SPEAKER_00: As far as I know,
47:06
SPEAKER_00: they've never adapted his work for TV or movies,
47:11
SPEAKER_00: which is a crime because he's like – I mean he's at least as good – well,
47:17
SPEAKER_00: I think he's better than Martin.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: Um,
47:20
SPEAKER_00: but,
47:22
SPEAKER_00: uh,
47:22
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
47:22
SPEAKER_00: they,
47:22
SPEAKER_00: as far as I know,
47:23
SPEAKER_00: they've never adapted any of his stuff for the screen.
47:27
You know what,
47:27
what fantasy writer I really like,
47:30
uh,
47:31
guy,
47:31
guy,
47:31
Gabriel K.
47:33
All right.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: And he's kind of a bit of a acquired taste,
47:36
SPEAKER_01: a little bit on the,
47:37
SPEAKER_01: on the periphery of mainstream kind of fantasy.
47:41
Um,
47:41
guy,
47:42
Gabriel K is originally best known for helping Tolkien's son,
47:47
um,
47:49
SPEAKER_01: What's his name?
47:50
SPEAKER_01: Christopher.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: Christopher Tolkien complete the Silmarillion, right?
47:57
SPEAKER_01: And he's a Canadian writer of fantasy.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: But he writes – he's still writing right now.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: There's a new book that came out like a year or two ago.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: He writes –
48:09
SPEAKER_01: he used to write more like second world,
48:12
SPEAKER_01: like a fantasy,
48:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:14
SPEAKER_01: your,
48:14
SPEAKER_01: your traditional fantasy.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: He has a, a really good novel called Tigana.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: Um,
48:20
he has a series of four novels that are very much like
48:23
Tolkien-esque portal fiction,
48:25
SPEAKER_01: uh,
48:25
SPEAKER_01: or not Tolkien-esque,
48:26
SPEAKER_01: but,
48:27
SPEAKER_01: um,
48:28
SPEAKER_01: very much,
48:29
SPEAKER_01: um,
48:30
narnia-esque portal fiction but you know of uh adults from or
48:35
teenagers from our
48:36
world ending up in like a fantasy world type of kind of
48:39
storyline um and then he
48:41
wrote a really good novel called tigana um which is about
48:46
really interesting kind
48:47
of concept it's about this country uh this nation in the middle
48:52
of this uh um
48:54
fantasy world uh that's being fought over well the whole world
48:58
is basically being
48:59
fought by two kind of super powered wizards and uh the the
49:04
people of this nation
49:05
kind of rebelled and one of the wizards like really fucking
49:08
hated them and he used
49:09
this magic to not only remove that nation from the map but he
49:13
made everybody forget
49:15
SPEAKER_01: about it
49:16
right and actually like embraced the entire like nation its
49:19
culture everything from
49:21
like the memory it was like a basically a spiritual magical
49:24
genocide on this nation
49:26
the people of that nation can still remember it and you know
49:29
they still like are
49:30
able to like talk about it but it's like in a very like
49:34
magically downpowered it's
49:36
a very interesting kind of concept and you know you have these
49:39
people kind of
49:39
SPEAKER_01: rebelling against these wizards you know um
49:43
And then he,
49:44
after that,
49:44
he pretty much writes very historically inspired fiction.
49:50
A very good novel is The Lions of Al-Rasan,
49:54
which is basically,
49:55
really it's about the...
49:58
Muslim Spain and the Reconquista,
50:01
and one of the characters is basically El Cid from history.
50:05
SPEAKER_01: It's very good,
50:07
SPEAKER_01: and you've got...
50:10
SPEAKER_01: He likes Byzantine history a lot,
50:12
so a lot of his fantasy world takes place in a Byzantine Empire
50:18
kind of analog,
50:19
SPEAKER_01: and also he likes Renaissance-era Venice and Italy,
50:23
SPEAKER_01: so there's a lot of...
50:25
kind of a back and forth between like the byzantine world and
50:29
the venetian uh
50:30
republic and but they're all like the fantasy version of those
50:34
those places and
50:35
it's very interesting um a lot of his novels take place in the
50:39
same world and
50:40
they're kind of like they're not connected directly by plot but
50:44
they're connected
50:45
by you'll have a character from one novel that shows up like
50:49
two novels later and
50:50
he's like an old man that's like oh i'm a traveler from syrensa
50:53
or whatever
50:54
And if you read the other book,
50:55
you recognize him or her and that kind of stuff.
51:00
So if you haven't read Guy Gavriel Kay,
51:03
I highly recommend you give it a read.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my birthday is coming up in a couple weeks.
51:09
I might have to tell my wife,
51:11
hey,
51:11
I want some of these books for my birthday.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
51:13
SPEAKER_01: no,
51:14
SPEAKER_01: I,
51:14
SPEAKER_01: like,
51:15
SPEAKER_01: they're just very,
51:16
SPEAKER_01: they're,
51:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
51:18
there's one criticism of them from people that tend to read a
51:21
lot of fantasy is
51:22
SPEAKER_01: that they're a little bit higher level,
51:26
SPEAKER_01: if that makes sense.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: They're a little bit more literary written, you know.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: Have you read, have you read any, what's his name, the Pringles guy?
51:37
SPEAKER_01: The Book of the New Sun.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, no, I have not.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: That's another one you need to add to your list.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: You too, Fisto.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: Book of the New Sun.
51:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
51:48
SPEAKER_01: All right.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: Book of the New Sun.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: It's a, it's a dying, dying earth kind of genre.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's basically, uh, Oh, I've heard of this.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:57
SPEAKER_00: Who's the Pringles guy?
51:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm going to grab my notebook.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: Hang on.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: Let me see.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: So the author invented Pringles.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at his picture, uh,
52:11
uh his his name is uh uh gene wolf gene wolf oh i see okay if
52:17
you look at if you
52:18
look at the picture of gene wolf he he's basically the the
52:21
pringles guy on the yeah
52:23
he looks just like it supposedly he invented pringles because
52:27
he worked at that
52:27
what's the title again real quick book of the new sun it's
52:30
actually four books but
52:32
SPEAKER_01: they're like all combined um
52:35
SPEAKER_01: It's basically about a torturer that – he's basically Jesus Christ.
52:40
But it's like Earth,
52:42
but it's like Earth in the like million years in the future.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's like reverted back to kind of a medieval kind of world.
52:49
But there's like – there's robots and shit and like there's
52:53
rockets and all kinds
52:54
SPEAKER_01: of crazy mutants and aliens and stuff.
52:56
SPEAKER_01: But like nobody knows that they are that.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: So like –
52:59
SPEAKER_01: You have to read the book and decode what the hell's going on sometimes.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: They'll be like,
53:03
SPEAKER_01: so I was standing in the city,
53:05
SPEAKER_01: and all of a sudden,
53:06
SPEAKER_01: one of the really tall,
53:07
SPEAKER_01: pointy spires of the castle decided,
53:11
SPEAKER_01: in a blaze of fire,
53:12
SPEAKER_01: to take off into the sky.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: And he's describing a rocket launch, but it's obviously...
53:20
SPEAKER_01: you know he's using like medieval era like medieval level tech you know
53:25
technological speak to describe like high-tech stuff you know
53:29
yeah it's really wild
53:31
man there's mutants and stuff there's like just it's like the
53:34
craziest books ever
53:35
there's robots and like robot mutants and like beast people and
53:40
i see here the
53:42
SPEAKER_02: south america plays a serious role yeah yeah it's like commonwealth
53:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's all kind of crazy stuff, right?
53:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all right.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
53:51
It's a tough book because you have to,
53:52
like,
53:52
you're like,
53:52
what are they talking about here?
53:54
SPEAKER_01: And then you're like,
53:55
SPEAKER_01: oh,
53:55
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
53:55
SPEAKER_01: they're talking about,
53:56
SPEAKER_01: like,
53:56
SPEAKER_01: rocket ships or,
53:57
SPEAKER_01: like,
53:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:58
SPEAKER_01: genetic stuff.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: But they make it seem like magic, you know?
54:01
SPEAKER_01: Really arcane.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: And the dude's literally like a professional torturer,
54:06
but he like leaves the guild because he refuses to torture this
54:09
one chick.
54:10
SPEAKER_01: It's like really crazy, like very gothic.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: Gothic, outstanding.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
54:17
SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
54:18
SPEAKER_01: So that's some of my fantasy stuff.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: And of course, I love Lord of the Rings, right?
54:21
SPEAKER_01: Who doesn't like Lord of the Rings?
54:23
SPEAKER_01: It brings...
54:25
me to the the point that i wanted to have and i wanted to even
54:28
write an essay about
54:30
this right but i wanted you know i wanted to talk to somebody
54:32
uh that writes
54:34
fantasy right and it was either you josh or lisa and you know
54:37
lisa's probably tired
54:38
of talking to us man she's she's out chasing skunks right now
54:42
or something so i
54:45
think i think she might be launching a jihad jihads on the
54:48
skunk yeah i feel like i
54:49
SPEAKER_02: feel like this is gonna get very serious for her
54:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's some insight politics right there.
54:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't worry about it, guys.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about it.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: Lisa, I'm sorry about your skunk problem.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: The Great Skunk War has begun.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: The Great Skunk War of Canada, right?
55:04
SPEAKER_01: But the reason I actually want to talk to you,
55:06
SPEAKER_01: Josh,
55:07
SPEAKER_01: the American fantasy writers,
55:08
SPEAKER_01: because my point is going to be a very American point,
55:11
SPEAKER_01: right?
55:12
SPEAKER_01: When Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings,
55:15
SPEAKER_01: right,
55:16
SPEAKER_01: one of his intentions,
55:17
SPEAKER_01: and correct me if I'm wrong,
55:18
SPEAKER_01: was that he wanted to...
55:20
SPEAKER_01: bring a level of, to re-mythologize the English, the British, right?
55:26
SPEAKER_01: He felt that unlike the,
55:29
SPEAKER_01: there was a lack of connection between the British and their Anglo-Saxon,
55:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
55:35
SPEAKER_01: Germanic,
55:36
SPEAKER_01: like,
55:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
55:37
SPEAKER_01: connection,
55:38
SPEAKER_01: right?
55:39
SPEAKER_01: Specifically, you know, he was a big fan of, you know, of old English,
55:45
you know medieval and older than medieval literature stuff like
55:48
beowulf and that
55:50
sort of thing and he wanted to write a mythology for england
55:55
right and his you know
55:58
you know and that's what he did right with lord of the rings
56:01
right he brought in
56:02
SPEAKER_01: his christianity he brought in a very
56:05
SPEAKER_01: English, very British sensibility to Lord of the Rings.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: And most of all,
56:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:10
SPEAKER_01: the people that he made the heroes of Lord of the Rings are the Hobbits,
56:14
SPEAKER_01: right?
56:14
SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing more English than the Hobbits, okay?
56:17
SPEAKER_01: When you think of England, you think of, you know, Hobbits.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what I do, right?
56:21
SPEAKER_01: I think of the Shire, right?
56:22
SPEAKER_01: That's like,
56:23
SPEAKER_01: that's our English pastoral small town,
56:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:26
SPEAKER_01: small Hamlet village or whatever the hell the British call it,
56:29
SPEAKER_01: fantasy,
56:30
SPEAKER_01: right?
56:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, would you guys agree with that?
56:31
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: Yep, 100%.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: So that's what he did.
56:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: And of course there was other English fantasy stuff, right?
56:41
Uh,
56:41
you can't,
56:42
uh,
56:42
you know,
56:42
you can't ignore the Arthurian myths and that type of stuff.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: Right.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh, a lot of them, um,
56:50
SPEAKER_01: really came out of the French, to be honest.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: They went to France and came back to England and stuff.
56:55
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, that's what Tolkien wanted to do, right?
56:57
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to remystify and bring some,
57:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
57:01
SPEAKER_01: traditional Christian ideas,
57:02
SPEAKER_01: traditional,
57:03
what he felt were these Anglo-Saxon ideas and bring them for a
57:08
20th century English population,
57:11
SPEAKER_01: right?
57:12
SPEAKER_01: That's what he was trying to do.
57:14
SPEAKER_01: Now, when we write fantasy, though, right,
57:17
For some reason,
57:18
fantasy tends to default to a medieval level thing,
57:23
right?
57:24
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
57:25
Why is the default for fantasy knights and dragons and shit and
57:31
that very pre-industrial era?
57:34
SPEAKER_01: What in the definition of fantasy...
57:38
SPEAKER_01: you know, forces us to have a pre-industrial era European mindset.
57:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
57:44
SPEAKER_01: yes,
57:44
I know there's like Chinese fantasy and African themed fantasy
57:47
and all that shit,
57:47
SPEAKER_01: right?
57:48
But for the most part,
57:50
there's a default to pre-industrial Europe for fantasy,
57:54
right?
57:55
SPEAKER_01: Why?
57:56
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
57:58
I don't know that I'm qualified to answer,
58:01
but I don't know if that's just what we think that,
58:06
people expect or that's what we identify with fantasy uh i mean
58:12
you know a lot of
58:13
people and i know you're not a fan but a lot of people say star
58:17
wars is sci-fi but
58:18
star wars is actually space fantasy it's fantasy in space
58:21
there's sword fights and
58:23
magic and all that kind of stuff you know the force is magic
58:26
the jedi are they call
58:28
them jedi knights and so people kind of accept that okay star
58:32
wars is kind of
58:33
SPEAKER_00: fantasy and
58:35
SPEAKER_00: but I agree with that.
58:37
I,
58:38
I just think that's people,
58:40
I guess we think that's,
58:41
those are the rules of the genre.
58:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
58:45
SPEAKER_00: as for me,
58:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm just,
58:47
I'm fascinated with that stuff with nights and medieval
58:50
societies and ancient history.
58:53
SPEAKER_00: And I guess for me,
58:55
it's a kind of part of way of kind of a way to try and relive
59:00
or not relive,
59:01
SPEAKER_00: but maybe,
59:02
live vicariously through some of that stuff because I mean I'm
59:05
personally obsessed
59:06
with like ancient Greece not as obsessed with ancient Rome but
59:10
I still have an
59:11
affinity for it and you know maybe that's if we were to
59:17
extrapolate that maybe
59:18
that's just what us fantasy authors are trying to do is we like
59:22
this stuff and so
59:23
maybe this is how we can live vicariously through those worlds
59:27
I mean it has
59:28
SPEAKER_00: crossed my mind to try to write
59:32
SPEAKER_00: like a fantasy Western.
59:34
I'm not quite sure how to go about that,
59:36
but it has crossed my mind to kind of tackle that.
59:39
SPEAKER_00: Right.
59:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
59:41
SPEAKER_00: but,
59:42
SPEAKER_00: but,
59:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
59:43
SPEAKER_00: Warhammer of,
59:44
SPEAKER_00: sorry,
59:44
SPEAKER_00: man,
59:45
SPEAKER_00: Warhammer,
59:46
SPEAKER_00: Warhammer 40K that there's a lot of fantasy elements in that too.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: So,
59:50
SPEAKER_00: so,
59:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
59:51
I think there have been attempts to try to break out of that
59:54
and those attempts
59:55
SPEAKER_00: actually are very popular.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know why more people,
59:59
SPEAKER_00: don't try,
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: I guess maybe we were thinking too small,
1:00:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:00:02
SPEAKER_00: we're stuck in this traditional mindset.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: Um,
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: but like I said,
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: for me,
1:00:08
it's just a way to try to live vicariously through these
1:00:12
cultures and characters that,
1:00:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:00:14
I've been obsessed with ancient Greece since I watched the 300
1:00:17
Spartans at like
1:00:18
SPEAKER_00: eight or nine years old.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, man, like I said, I don't know that I'm
1:00:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm the guy to answer that question.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your answer.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a good answer.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_02: It's very good.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: I'd like to add a couple thoughts.
1:00:36
Are we essentially asking why there hasn't been an American
1:00:38
Lord of the Rings yet?
1:00:41
SPEAKER_00: His name is George R.R.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_00: Martin.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well... I don't disagree with that, by the way.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_02: I disagree with that.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_02: When people call...
1:00:53
SPEAKER_02: Well,
1:00:53
I want to push back a little against that only because I
1:00:56
suspect that if there is
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: going to be that,
1:00:59
it's going to have to be perhaps in the quintessential American
1:01:03
art form of film.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_02: It's not going to be something that's going to be expressed in books.
1:01:08
Which leads me to my other point is that probably the reason
1:01:12
that the default
1:01:13
SPEAKER_02: always seems to be the template that...
1:01:16
tolkien laid down is just because of the influence of england
1:01:21
and europe on the
1:01:23
anglo-american side of the united states in my mind i suspect
1:01:32
one of the first
1:01:32
attempts was certainly star wars i agree i agree but i also
1:01:36
think interesting we
1:01:37
have i also keep thinking of preacher the comic because comics
1:01:42
are kind of an
1:01:42
SPEAKER_02: american thing aren't they
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the French have a really good graphic novel tradition.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: But for those unfamiliar with Preacher,
1:01:53
it stars a Texas preacher who hunts down God with an Irish
1:02:02
vampire from Louisiana
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: and West Texas assassin girlfriend.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: It's absolutely ridiculous.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: But it strikes me that it does kind of tie in the
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: myriad threads that currently exist in the United States into,
1:02:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:02:23
SPEAKER_02: a real American mythic hero in Jesse Custer.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, God, the guy's even got the last name.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:02:29
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: What do you guys think?
1:02:31
I think,
1:02:33
I think,
1:02:33
you know,
1:02:35
I'm certainly not the first person to say this.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: I think the American version of fantasy is the Western.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, our knights are the cowboys.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_02: Our knights are cowboys.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_02: The samurai too.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's true.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
1:02:50
So,
1:02:51
I mean,
1:02:51
I just think that that's the closest that maybe we think we can get.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I've seen – and, Alexandra, I've seen you.
1:03:00
challenge people to just go nuts when writing fantasy don't let
1:03:04
anything hold them
1:03:04
back and uh you know one of these days i'd like to live up to
1:03:09
that challenge i
1:03:10
don't know that i'm quite equipped to do that yet but i mean i
1:03:14
like i said i've
1:03:16
i've been brainstorming i've been thinking how could i write a
1:03:21
western that's a
1:03:21
fantasy with cowboys and all this kind of stuff i mean you know
1:03:26
stephen king's
1:03:28
says his dark tower series is fantasy i don't really see it
1:03:31
that way i think it's
1:03:31
more like alternate universe or science fiction right um but
1:03:36
he's tried to at least
1:03:37
tackle it somewhat it is very nihilistic on top of that you
1:03:40
know and in a way you
1:03:42
know i will i'll note while i agree with you preacher by the
1:03:46
way is very american
1:03:47
the author is irish right right which is partially why i
1:03:52
brought it up it's
1:03:55
SPEAKER_02: A lot of this is going to come out of the Anglo side of things.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_02: Right, the Anglosphere, yeah.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_02: But I also appreciate how Preacher ties in.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:04:02
SPEAKER_02: the guy clearly did his homework,
1:04:03
SPEAKER_02: and being Irish,
1:04:04
SPEAKER_02: I think,
1:04:05
SPEAKER_02: gives him a unique perspective on us.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_02: That's why Cassidy is such a great character, because he's the Irish guy.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_02: What's the most Irish thing in the world?
1:04:12
SPEAKER_02: Leave on a boat.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_02: and come to New York City and then wander the continent.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_02: But he ties in the Latin side.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_02: He ties in the Native American side.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_02: And by golly, does he tie in the
1:04:28
SPEAKER_02: the liberal democratic degeneracy.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_01: He does a good job of that.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_02: Both coasts of all coasts, really.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:04:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:04:36
another interesting American like themed fantasy written by
1:04:42
non-American is
1:04:43
SPEAKER_01: actually American gods by Neil Gaiman.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_02: Ah, yeah.
1:04:47
Which I mean,
1:04:49
whether you like Neil Gaiman or not,
1:04:51
you know,
1:04:51
whatever,
1:04:52
whatever.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_02: Going to get canceled.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_02: You brought up Neil Gaiman and the New York Times.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_01: Sandman is still the best comic graphic novel of all time.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, guys.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_01: Whether you like him or not, he wrote American Gods.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_01: And that is actually a very good novel.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_01: It's not a great novel.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_01: It's a very good novel.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_01: And it does attempt a...
1:05:13
look at america through you know through an interesting kind of
1:05:16
perspective but it
1:05:17
ultimately is very british in its perspective right it's very
1:05:21
it's very uh european
1:05:23
um and he you know he tried to make it american but it he kind
1:05:28
of failed in that
1:05:29
but it's still very it's a very interesting topic of the gods
1:05:32
in america and that
1:05:33
SPEAKER_01: type of thing um
1:05:36
SPEAKER_01: Now, I agree.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_01: First of all,
1:05:38
SPEAKER_01: I think that Star Wars is the nearest,
1:05:41
SPEAKER_01: closest thing we have to an American Lord of the Rings.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: Why doesn't it work?
1:05:48
Why doesn't it fill the – I have a thought on that,
1:05:52
but why doesn't it fill the role?
1:05:53
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have the depth of Lord of the Rings, I think.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_01: It's ultimately –
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: There's something – You know, it's World War II.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_02: World War II is fake and gay.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_02: That's really what it is.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: And Star Wars is the liberal democratic –
1:06:11
fantasy right propaganda propaganda perfection i'm not even
1:06:15
saying that as like a
1:06:16
bad thing it's just that's what it comes out of it is it is it
1:06:19
fully you know it
1:06:20
fully does that right yeah dune dune might be the nearest thing
1:06:26
to lord of the
1:06:27
SPEAKER_01: rings in uh in written form if you want to
1:06:31
SPEAKER_01: Go there.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_01: Dune is a very fundamentally American, a bit of fiction, right?
1:06:37
It has an idea of basically,
1:06:41
I mean,
1:06:41
the Artreides,
1:06:42
right,
1:06:43
are European,
1:06:43
right?
1:06:44
SPEAKER_01: They're European, you know, their planet is basically, you know, Europe.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_01: And they moved to like,
1:06:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:06:53
SPEAKER_01: a colonial holding often,
1:06:55
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:06:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:06:55
SPEAKER_01: filled with crazy natives and,
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:06:59
SPEAKER_01: the,
1:06:59
SPEAKER_01: the land itself is hostile,
1:07:01
SPEAKER_01: which is very much America.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_01: And, uh,
1:07:05
SPEAKER_01: It's written by an American in California when he wrote it.
1:07:09
So it is very much a – it deals with a lot of issues around the
1:07:14
time that the Arab
1:07:17
crisis and the oil crisis is going on in the 70s when it was
1:07:21
written late 60s,
1:07:21
SPEAKER_01: 70s.
1:07:23
um deals with like a lot of psychedelic type of stuff right now
1:07:28
the the question is
1:07:29
and this is where a lot of writers are gonna disagree with me
1:07:32
and i this is i
1:07:34
always get pushed back for this right but this is just my
1:07:36
personal opinion i
1:07:38
ultimately think that a work of art a work of fiction movies
1:07:43
anything has to say
1:07:44
SPEAKER_01: something right
1:07:45
SPEAKER_01: It has to have a meaning, right?
1:07:48
SPEAKER_01: It can't just mean,
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: there's fiction that is just fun,
1:07:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:07:52
SPEAKER_01: just for fun,
1:07:53
SPEAKER_01: for,
1:07:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:07:53
SPEAKER_01: for no purpose or whatever,
1:07:55
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:07:56
SPEAKER_01: But the best fiction, the best work of art says something, right?
1:08:01
lord of the rings has a lot to say on its surface it is a
1:08:05
fantastic adventure story
1:08:07
about a hobbit and a ring and elves and shit and magic and you
1:08:11
know battles and
1:08:12
demons and all sorts of stuff right but it's last the time and
1:08:16
it's going to last
1:08:17
for another many hundred years hopefully because it says
1:08:21
something deep about
1:08:23
humanity about spirituality about honor about you know courage
1:08:27
of a small person
1:08:29
SPEAKER_01: over the you know uh
1:08:31
insurmountable evil uh there's a there's tons of stuff about
1:08:35
redemption i mean the
1:08:36
key element of the story is i mean god like the most important
1:08:41
thing in lord of the
1:08:41
rings happens in the hobbit when uh bilbo baggins basically
1:08:47
shows mercy towards
1:08:48
SPEAKER_01: gollum
1:08:49
you know as the that's the key moment in the entire you know
1:08:53
for you know trilogy
1:08:54
plus one right and it all ties in right with no with no golem
1:08:59
with golem being
1:09:00
killed you know nothing would have happened right uh the whole
1:09:03
thing would have
1:09:04
SPEAKER_01: gone to shit right and uh
1:09:06
act of mercy was so key right so lord of the rings tokens has
1:09:10
something to say uh
1:09:12
you know dune has a lot to say right it kind of gets lost in
1:09:16
like psychedelic
1:09:17
insanity in the later books but at least in the first few books
1:09:20
there's a lot of
1:09:21
you know there's a lot of stuff discussed right the question is
1:09:25
and the reason i
1:09:25
tend to criticize uh the medieval type fantasy ad nauseum right
1:09:31
is that a lot of
1:09:32
SPEAKER_01: times it doesn't say anything
1:09:34
right there there is it doesn't speak about the people right
1:09:38
the british the
1:09:39
hobbits in lord of the rings were a commentary on the ideal
1:09:45
british right the ideal
1:09:46
englishmen you know um if we just write about knights and
1:09:53
european dudes doing
1:09:55
european dude stuff we're just aping a different continent
1:09:59
that's not ours in a way
1:10:01
SPEAKER_00: yeah right yeah yep i i mean uh
1:10:04
SPEAKER_00: That's why I think Game of Thrones ultimately fails.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say anything.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_00: The whole point is that life is shit,
1:10:12
SPEAKER_00: and if you're a good person,
1:10:13
SPEAKER_00: you're a retard,
1:10:15
SPEAKER_00: and you're going to get beheaded.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_00: It's the same with Rothfuss and Name of the Wind.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say anything.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_00: Now that I'm thinking about it, it doesn't say anything.
1:10:24
SPEAKER_00: The guy is just like, I'm so awesome.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_00: Here's my story about how awesome I am.
1:10:29
right name of the wind is basically rodfuss's like 8 000 page
1:10:33
you know dungeons and
1:10:35
dragons character like backstory of for his bard and he's the
1:10:39
guy that like brings
1:10:40
that to the gaming table and you're like bro i ain't gonna read
1:10:43
that okay rolling
1:10:45
SPEAKER_01: 20 and if you get a one you die you know what i mean because i said
1:10:50
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, finish.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'll let you finish.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_01: But that's exactly what that is.
1:10:54
SPEAKER_01: He wrote a giant Mary Sue,
1:10:56
SPEAKER_01: which I hate that term,
1:10:57
SPEAKER_01: but that's exactly what his little bard guy is.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that's really it.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_00: The second book is literally a thousand pages of nothing happening.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_00: He starts the book still in the university.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_00: He ends the book still in the university.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_00: In between, he goes off on pointless side quests.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_00: and he has a bunch of sex in between.
1:11:20
SPEAKER_00: He's no closer to figuring out who killed his family.
1:11:22
He's no closer to fulfilling any of those epic adventures that
1:11:26
he promises at the
1:11:27
SPEAKER_00: beginning of the previous book,
1:11:29
SPEAKER_00: 1,600 pages earlier.
1:11:32
SPEAKER_00: Literally nothing happens,
1:11:33
SPEAKER_00: but because the prose is kind of – the prose is purple,
1:11:37
and I don't have anything against purple prose as long as
1:11:39
there's a point to it.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_00: It's not
1:11:41
SPEAKER_00: Just for masturbatory purposes, which it is for Rothfuss.
1:11:45
I mean his characters say nothing,
1:11:49
but they say nothing in a way that seems clever and wise.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_00: So people are like, oh, his dialogue, it's so awesome.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_00: He's saying so many deep things.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying anything.
1:11:59
He's just talking in circles,
1:12:01
but he's using big words,
1:12:02
and it sounds good.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:12:04
Well,
1:12:04
and that's why there will never be a third book because he has
1:12:08
nothing to say,
1:12:09
right?
1:12:10
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's the point of it all, you know?
1:12:13
SPEAKER_01: Nihilism for nihilism's sake,
1:12:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:12:16
SPEAKER_01: or just cool stuff for cool stuff's sake gets boring after a while,
1:12:21
SPEAKER_01: you know?
1:12:22
SPEAKER_01: And there's nowhere to go.
1:12:23
He wrote himself into a corner in the first book and there's
1:12:26
just nothing there.
1:12:28
SPEAKER_01: And you're absolutely right, you know?
1:12:30
SPEAKER_01: He says nothing, you know?
1:12:31
SPEAKER_01: Fisto, you were going to say something?
1:12:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it just...
1:12:35
It's funny that you guys that were having this conversation
1:12:38
with Josh after our
1:12:41
SPEAKER_02: conversations with Von Hoffmeister.
1:12:44
SPEAKER_02: And I want to bring in something that he wrote earlier this week.
1:12:49
SPEAKER_02: The title of the article,
1:12:50
SPEAKER_02: it's on his Euro-Siberia,
1:12:51
SPEAKER_02: his Euro-Siberia substack,
1:12:55
SPEAKER_02: but it says white identity in America.
1:12:58
And these couple last paragraphs,
1:13:00
I want to read these real fast if I can.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_02: Identity here acts as a – Sorry, man.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_00: I got about five minutes before I go to chat.
1:13:07
SPEAKER_02: All right.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_02: I will shorten my point.
1:13:10
SPEAKER_02: Identity here acts as a compass, never a cage.
1:13:12
SPEAKER_02: It points to something essential, never reductive.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_02: Within its frame, new expressions rise.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_02: Art, ritual, story, space.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_02: At the very end, he says –
1:13:24
SPEAKER_02: Identity is grounded in respect,
1:13:25
SPEAKER_02: carried with humility,
1:13:26
SPEAKER_02: lit by ancestral fire,
1:13:28
SPEAKER_02: serves not as a threat,
1:13:29
SPEAKER_02: but as a promise,
1:13:31
SPEAKER_02: a promise to remain,
1:13:31
SPEAKER_02: to remember,
1:13:32
SPEAKER_02: and reimagine.
1:13:33
And he makes a very key split between supremacy,
1:13:38
which is trash,
1:13:40
and harmony.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_02: And I think maybe what you're trying to do here,
1:13:44
SPEAKER_02: what you might be looking to do here,
1:13:45
SPEAKER_02: Josh,
1:13:46
SPEAKER_02: is explore...
1:13:48
SPEAKER_02: all those things and see what that is.
1:13:50
And we're going to have to reimagine what an American Tolkien
1:13:53
or what an American
1:13:54
SPEAKER_02: story might look like.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_02: And if I may be so bold,
1:13:57
SPEAKER_02: when I was getting ready for this podcast,
1:13:59
SPEAKER_02: I was looking through your Substack a bit.
1:14:01
SPEAKER_02: A drift might be your seed crystal.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_02: That image you painted, man.
1:14:08
A man and a woman on the prairie who don't know how badly
1:14:11
they're going to need each other.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that a lot too.
1:14:16
Hey,
1:14:17
paint that out 3,000 years and tell me what America looks like
1:14:20
at that point.
1:14:21
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it, man.
1:14:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's cool, man.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_02: But these are the kinds of things I think we need to think.
1:14:27
SPEAKER_02: So I know we're short on time, so I'll simply leave it at that.
1:14:30
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'll end it.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_01: I'll end it with a challenge, right?
1:14:34
SPEAKER_01: And this is a conversation we're going to keep on having on and on.
1:14:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:14:38
For writers,
1:14:38
whether you're writing fantasy,
1:14:40
science fiction,
1:14:41
literary stuff,
1:14:42
right?
1:14:43
SPEAKER_01: We need to identify who we are as a people now.
1:14:47
right yes we need to i did and i'm talking about i'm talking to
1:14:50
americans right
1:14:50
this is this is two americans not two europeans right you're
1:14:53
living on north
1:14:54
america europeans know who they are okay europeans know who
1:14:56
they are us we have a
1:14:58
problem we have a problem that's what's going on right now we
1:15:01
don't know who we are
1:15:03
okay and as a as a writer when you're putting you need to say
1:15:08
something about us
1:15:10
SPEAKER_01: right about americans right
1:15:12
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be cowboys or bankers in New York or whatever, right?
1:15:18
But you have to channel the truth of the land that you write it
1:15:23
in the same way
1:15:24
SPEAKER_01: Tolkien did,
1:15:24
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:15:25
Tolkien could have not written Lord of the Rings set in the
1:15:28
Wild West,
1:15:29
right?
1:15:30
SPEAKER_01: Because no matter what he would have written about,
1:15:32
it would have still been about England because he was English
1:15:35
and he channeled the
1:15:35
SPEAKER_01: English spirit into his work,
1:15:37
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:15:38
hobbits do not live in the united states okay they never have
1:15:41
and they never will
1:15:42
all right they belong to the british land to the english soil
1:15:45
right um we need to
1:15:47
identify our hobbits okay we need to identify what makes us us
1:15:51
right and you can
1:15:52
throw in all the fantastic elements you know dragons and
1:15:55
wendigos or all kinds of
1:15:56
cool you know whatever right but there's a story there in
1:16:00
fantasy that belongs to
1:16:01
SPEAKER_01: america
1:16:02
SPEAKER_01: And we need to write it okay.
1:16:04
We cannot look back across the ocean all the time and take
1:16:07
their motifs right
1:16:09
SPEAKER_01: because their motifs are not our motifs right.
1:16:11
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:16:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:16:12
in science fiction they're a lot better because you know you
1:16:14
got cyberpunk and
1:16:15
SPEAKER_01: stuff and cyberpunk is very American in a way,
1:16:18
SPEAKER_01: but.
1:16:19
For fantasy,
1:16:20
if fantasy is going to have – if it's going to have merit,
1:16:23
right?
1:16:23
SPEAKER_01: If it's not going to be forever Patrick Rothfuss nonsense, right?
1:16:27
SPEAKER_01: We need to find the American fantasy, right?
1:16:31
We need to find what the spiritual,
1:16:34
you know,
1:16:35
Tolkien-esque ethos of,
1:16:38
you know –
1:16:39
the frontier or the south or even new england and that kind of
1:16:43
stuff you know and
1:16:44
we need to identify and we need to write about that i mean yes
1:16:47
lovecraft did a good
1:16:48
job of it you know in this crazy like nihilistic way and uh
1:16:52
robert howard also did
1:16:53
very well with conan right but even he both of them took a lot
1:16:58
of elements from
1:16:59
SPEAKER_01: europe right we need to
1:17:01
dig in the soil of,
1:17:02
of America and,
1:17:04
and write the fantasy for America for the 21st century.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_01: That's my challenge to everybody.
1:17:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:17:09
SPEAKER_01: Let's get that shit done.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:17:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, all right, Josh, thank you very much, man.
1:17:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:17:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, let you go.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_01: You can log off.
1:17:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
1:17:18
SPEAKER_01: and me and fist are going to log off too,
1:17:19
SPEAKER_01: because it's,
1:17:20
SPEAKER_01: we're going to do a quick episode today.
1:17:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:17:21
SPEAKER_01: Cause I got a lot of stuff to do.
1:17:23
I got my dog at the vet again,
1:17:25
and she's got a hookworm,
1:17:26
supposedly,
1:17:27
and she got herself an IV.
1:17:29
SPEAKER_01: All right, man.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_01: Good night, Josh.
1:17:31
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for coming on.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_01: And everybody, go ahead and subscribe to Josh's Substack.
1:17:35
And for all you listeners,
1:17:36
please like,
1:17:37
share,
1:17:37
and send us some money,
1:17:40
man.
1:17:40
SPEAKER_01: We got to meet up in Charleston and have a live meeting eventually.
1:17:45
SPEAKER_01: So we need that bank.
1:17:47
SPEAKER_01: We need that bag, okay?
1:17:50
SPEAKER_01: Should I do a GoFundMe for you, Fisto?
1:17:53
SPEAKER_01: Why for me?
1:17:54
SPEAKER_02: Because of the eventual legal fees?
1:17:56
SPEAKER_01: Probably, right?
1:17:58
SPEAKER_01: Bring it on.
1:17:59
SPEAKER_01: I need $400,000 too, man.
1:18:01
SPEAKER_01: There's one way to get that, but I don't think you're going to like it.
1:18:07
SPEAKER_00: Got to pay off that house somehow.
1:18:10
SPEAKER_01: I got to pay off the house, right?
1:18:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay, man.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_01: Good night, guys, and good night, fans.
1:18:14
SPEAKER_01: I will see you next week.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_01: Next week, we have another author coming on.
1:18:16
SPEAKER_01: We have...
1:18:18
Autumn Christian,
1:18:19
she's actually a fantastic science fiction and literary writer.
1:18:22
She writes on Substack under Teach Robots to Love,
1:18:26
but she's more of a Twitter ex-person.
1:18:28
SPEAKER_01: She's amazing.
1:18:30
SPEAKER_01: Her book Girl Like Bomb is really great.
1:18:32
SPEAKER_01: Very spicy, right?
1:18:34
SPEAKER_01: Very exciting stuff.
1:18:36
SPEAKER_01: And all right, guys, I love you all, and good night.