Latest / My Favorite Things / My Favorite Things Episode 28: Podcaster and Writer Paddy O’Connell

Transcript

My Favorite Things Episode 28: Podcaster and Writer Paddy O’Connell · My Favorite Things

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Patty O'Connell, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: This is going to be great.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm very excited.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: Can you tell people a little bit about who you are and your current iteration?
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God. Can you?
0:14
SPEAKER_01: This is like
0:16
SPEAKER_00: what my wife does here.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: What do you do for work around here? Yeah.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: What do you do around here in general? Hello, everyone.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: My name is Patty O'Connell.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Most people call me Patty O. I am a professional word nerd and chit-chatter.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, which means that I'm a writer and, uh, uh, multimedia producer.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: I am currently the host and producer of the outside podcast for outside magazine.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: So you do this, but the other way around. I do.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: So you're saying, okay. I do.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Which is like, this is like, you know, I've been on some,
0:50
SPEAKER_00: I've been interviewed on podcasts before, but it's always like,
0:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm like sitting on my hands.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, I want to, I want to ask the questions.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So this is, you've got me in the hot seat.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: I understand you are married and have a child as well.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: Is that correct?
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah. Should I do some personal stuff as well? I don't know.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: Would you like to know a little bit about it?
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I am.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm a dad.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I am a husband.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Those are like my favorite things of the things that I am.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm a skier.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm a probably like very...
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Very, I will stay there forever, happily intermediate mountain biker.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm a begrudging runner.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I love most and all things outside.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, like you, I'm a Midwestern transplant who decided the only place
1:42
SPEAKER_00: where mountains actually exist is Colorado.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: So I showed up here after college and I've stayed here.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: They're fine, aren't they?
1:49
SPEAKER_01: They're great.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: These are nice mountains here, you know?
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So yeah, I'm an outdoor guy.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: That's like a very important, the outdoors and adventure outside is like a keystone,
2:01
SPEAKER_00: not just in my life, but my family's life as well.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: I think we will get into that looking at this list.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: As you know, this podcast is called My Favorite Thing,
2:11
SPEAKER_01: so you've sent me a list of five of your favorite things.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, six, seven, eight, but we're only doing five.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's some honorable mentions because I was like, I need these to live somewhere.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm also like, this is a really hard exercise, super fun exercise, and a super hard exercise.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Exercise.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And like most things in my life, I would say that I spent a ton of time overthinking this list.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: And I should note that it is like drastically, woefully incomplete.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: So please don't judge me on all these things.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: We don't have time for my 10 favorite things. I'm sorry.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: My 37 favorite things, but also that one other thing.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: This very unprofitable podcast can only take an hour.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: So number one on your list.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: I thought about asking you to kind of adjust this a little bit,
3:00
SPEAKER_01: but I think it is a creative work.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Number one is Blockbuster Video, which for people who don't know,
3:07
SPEAKER_01: this was a retail store a long time ago.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: When those things existed.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: Why is this number one and what years of your life are you thinking
3:18
SPEAKER_01: of when you say Blockbuster Video is one of your favorite things?
3:22
SPEAKER_00: So the list is done chronologically and the way that I tried to put boundaries
3:27
SPEAKER_00: and borders over just like the whole like kind of like.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's a gigantic blob of memory that was spreading across my brain
3:35
SPEAKER_00: when you asked me to make this list was like, okay,
3:38
SPEAKER_00: let's look at some stepping stones as to where and how I got to where I am
3:44
SPEAKER_00: in my life and career as a creative human in the outdoors.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: And most of all these things,
3:52
SPEAKER_00: actually all of these things that I've listed here are like stepping stones
3:56
SPEAKER_00: for And the thing that connected all of them or connects all
4:00
SPEAKER_00: of them is like they all involve other people because these things,
4:06
SPEAKER_00: it's not just about like how these things, how I felt when I was, you know,
4:11
SPEAKER_00: introduced to these things, but how I felt because of the people I was around.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And so Blockbuster Visitor, like my family loves Blockbuster Visitor.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: And my dad is a huge movie buff.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like Blockbuster introduced me to this, you know,
4:29
SPEAKER_00: the creative arc of story and also like these wonderful
4:32
SPEAKER_00: and completely ridiculous films.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: But It's a town that I grew up in just outside of Chicago. What town is this?
4:54
SPEAKER_00: So I grew up in River Forest on the edge of Oak Park on the edge of Chicago.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we would, we would like, it seemed to me,
5:05
SPEAKER_00: it's just probably not accurate,
5:06
SPEAKER_00: but it seemed to me that like every Friday we would go to Blockbuster Video
5:11
SPEAKER_00: and we would walk the stacks and my dad would like hold up a movie
5:14
SPEAKER_00: and he'd be like...
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Patty, let me tell you about the first time I saw The Sting.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: It was 1972.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: I was at Colorado State and we were at the Aggie.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like stuff like that.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: It was like the story of the story of seeing the film, you know.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: And it just filled me with this like awe and wonder and excitement
5:35
SPEAKER_00: because we would get a sack of movies to last the entire weekend, you know?
5:41
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that stood out
5:44
SPEAKER_00: in remembering Blockbuster Video was watching Sneakers on a Sunday night.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Such a good movie.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Dude, all-star cast, right?
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Robert Redford, River Phoenix, Stan Aykroyd, Sidney Poitier.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm forgetting.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: It's just like on and on and on, like so many, like stacked, loaded things.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: But we watched it on a Sunday night, a school night.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: And I remember my dad being like, I don't know, Molly, like it's a school night.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: My mom was like, don't, don't, you know, it's going to be fine.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: Don't be good.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: We got to watch it on a Sunday night and it was just like filled with so much.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Like excitement about being able to watch a movie on a Sunday night.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: And so Blockbuster the whole thing of going there, being around other people,
6:33
SPEAKER_00: you know, running to the new releases wall,
6:38
SPEAKER_00: you now it's like Fugitive was like S like the entire back wall is The Fugative
6:43
SPEAKER_00: or Jurassic Park 40 copies.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes exactly and they were all gone, you're know, and you're like,
6:48
SPEAKER_00: the entire town is watching this movie right now.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: And so this is like, you know, early, early 90s.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, famously, the Bulls are on a historic run.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: It's a great time to be in Chicago, you know, kid growing up.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's just like blockbuster video.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: So I think what it comes to represent, right,
7:08
SPEAKER_00: in my life is just this like love affair with story.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: How much do you miss that experience now
7:19
SPEAKER_01: when you're clicking through your TV?
7:23
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even hold a candle.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't even hold a candle to it, like clicking through or going through.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: It's like what I do now is like I click through.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: I'll spend, like 40 minutes clicking
7:36
SPEAKER_00: through a streaming service and then I switch
7:42
SPEAKER_00: to another streaming service, You know,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: the like heartbreaking woes of losing the third place, you know,
7:50
SPEAKER_00: like throughout our lives.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Blockbuster was a third place, but also like the containment of the actual physical location.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: It was like, these are the movies you got to choose from.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Try the new releases.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: You'll filter from the middle is where the newest of new releases are.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: And then as you get out towards the wall, it's like maybe these are a couple months,
8:11
SPEAKER_00: been out for a couple months.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And then you've got all the stacks that are lined up that are like the classics
8:16
SPEAKER_00: and separated by genre.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, go find the thing.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: And you were just like digging for these treasures.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, also like my sister and I would...
8:26
SPEAKER_00: The amount of money that my parents spent renting Clue and Ski Patrol the movie,
8:31
SPEAKER_00: it's like, why not just buy the movie?
8:34
SPEAKER_00: It must have been cheaper to do that.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: But we must have rented those things a hundred times plus.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: That's what it felt like.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: But there's something about the containment of it and being around other people.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just miss that. I miss that terribly.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: I wish there was still something like that that existed.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: That's the most elder millennial thing I'll probably say on this podcast.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, there's a whole thing about straddling those two worlds
9:01
SPEAKER_01: where you grew up with, if we had told, you know, young Patty in the early 90s,
9:06
SPEAKER_01: like, one day you'll be able to watch any movie ever created on your computer,
9:12
SPEAKER_01: you'd have been like, what? That's crazy.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: I would have been like, what's a computer?
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: But you would have been so
9:19
SPEAKER_00: excited about it.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: Now that we have it, you're like, nah, the constraints were actually part of it.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: The constraints are great, but also it's like the air quotes around the freedom
9:29
SPEAKER_00: of it, of the streamer, right?
9:30
SPEAKER_00: It's like they have none of the titles that you really want to watch.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: You still somehow have to pay for the movies that you want to watch, and there's commercials.
9:37
SPEAKER_01: So they just
9:39
SPEAKER_00: reinvented cable and made it crappier.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, split it up.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: I think of the bizarre...
9:48
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in a town of 3,000 people,
9:52
SPEAKER_01: and they for some reason had this incredible martial arts movie selection.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, awesome. They had Black Belt Jones, which was like,
9:59
SPEAKER_01: why would this movie be in- Is that a black exploitation movie?
10:05
SPEAKER_01: I don't think you would say that, but it's Jim Kelly who was in Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: And he had this incredible Afro and just kicked people's asses and- It was amazing.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: And then also the video store that was here in Missoula when I was going
10:21
SPEAKER_01: to grad school, so like early 2000s,
10:24
SPEAKER_01: I would just go down there every weekend and grab a bunch of movies.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: And they had like every Blaxploitation movie ever created.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: I could not believe it.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: This is wild in the small Iowa town that you grew up in?
10:35
SPEAKER_01: No, and this is in Missoula, the second part.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: You're like, who's curating this?
10:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why...
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Why does this town have a video store that has the entire face of death collection?
10:48
SPEAKER_00: But that's terrifying.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: But the cool thing about that, right,
10:53
SPEAKER_00: is the manager
10:55
SPEAKER_00: and the other employees are stocking their tastes
11:02
SPEAKER_00: in the stack.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: So you're getting...
11:06
SPEAKER_00: You're getting these people who obviously like, you know,
11:08
SPEAKER_00: chose to work at the Blockbuster video or whatever, you know, family video,
11:11
SPEAKER_00: whatever it is, chose to work there because, you know, probably they,
11:15
SPEAKER_00: of course they needed a job, but probably because they like movies a lot.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: And so you're getting some of that like trickle down taste from them or exposed to them.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Like even before Blockbuster, we would go to this place called Circle Video,
11:26
SPEAKER_00: which like was the size of a closet.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And just the dude was just always in the, like behind the counter, like ripping cigarettes.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: And, And it was on Circle Avenue and like they had orange cassettes.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, I remember that.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: But like he would, my dad would go in there and be like, what do you got?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, and the guy would make recommendations, you know.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's probably how I wound up seeing Kate Boxer too early or something like
11:54
SPEAKER_00: that or Rambo or something like that.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: But also, it was awesome.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: That's on your dad.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's why he would just go like – my sister was the baby.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: She would be like put to bed and my dad would just go, boys, bad parts.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: And we were – that's where we had to go like this.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: We had to cover our eyes. Yep.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but there were no cracks in those eye covers with your hands.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: The first live boobs I saw were through these fingers when my dad said bad parts.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Dad.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Dad.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Did he really think they were bad parts?
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so this is a good segue into our next one,
12:41
SPEAKER_01: which is The Cripple of Inishman,
12:44
SPEAKER_01: a play by Martin McDonough.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: How do you, what year is this?
12:49
SPEAKER_00: This is my senior year of high school. Okay.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: So this is the, I graduated in the spring of 02, so this is the fall of 01. Okay.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: So we made a big time jump here.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't know, the Cripple of Inishmen takes place on the island
13:07
SPEAKER_00: of Inishmen off the western coast of Ireland during the 1930s.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: And the plot basically is like a film crew from Hollywood shows up
13:16
SPEAKER_00: to a neighboring island and is making a documentary about...
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And this young boy who lives on Enishman, and his name is Cripple Billy,
13:27
SPEAKER_00: wants to leave the poverty of Ireland and become the movie star in Hollywood,
13:32
SPEAKER_00: so he has to get to this other island to...
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Plead his case to the director, join this documentary, go to America,
13:40
SPEAKER_00: go to Hollywood, and make it big.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And all sorts, as is true with all Martin McDonough plays and films,
13:50
SPEAKER_00: all sorts of terrible and hilarious stuff happens from that premise.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: And I was exposed to it by my senior year English teacher, this guy named Mr.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Noble, who was a working stage actor also in Chicago.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And he directed all of the best plays at our high school.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm sitting in English class and I hadn't had any of Mr.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Noble's classes previously and I'm doing what I do in school,
14:21
SPEAKER_00: which is like being a class clown, I'm like cracking jokes and stuff.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: And he's like,
14:27
SPEAKER_00: You need to try out for this play.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be in this play.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Also, my name is Patty O'Connell, so maybe he was like,
14:34
SPEAKER_00: we need to get some Irish street cred here. I don't know.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: But I had quit football.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: So the fall of my senior year, I wasn't playing football and I had time.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Two, to potentially do this.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Though I was going on these official visits to colleges to see if I could go
14:54
SPEAKER_00: and join their lacrosse team and play. I was an athlete.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: I saw school as like a means to an end to reach my goal
15:01
SPEAKER_00: of playing Division One lacrosse,
15:03
SPEAKER_00: and so I tried out with another buddy of mine who is another lacrosste player,
15:10
SPEAKER_00: one of my best friends still to this day, my buddy Nate, And we got these parts.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And I played this dude named Babby Bobby, whose wife had died of tuberculosis.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: And he was a very angry Irishman and had some hilarious lines.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Like at one point, like...
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Cripple Billy insults my dead wife,
15:35
SPEAKER_00: and so Babby Bobby beats him with his own crutch.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: If that is not the most Martin McDonough thing of all time.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And so the fall of my senior year, which like, you know, my freshman year,
15:51
SPEAKER_00: like if someone had been like,
15:52
SPEAKER_00: you're going to quit football and you're going to be in a play, you know,
15:56
SPEAKER_00: during your senior year, like totally like, you know,
16:00
SPEAKER_00: like total left turn from what I would have thought I was doing.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: And it was just such a rewarding and amazing experience.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: And it really like introduced me to a lot of things like, you know,
16:13
SPEAKER_00: of course the like What I had probably already known
16:16
SPEAKER_00: because of my family is just like the Irish gift of gallows humor,
16:21
SPEAKER_00: making like terrible situations like very funny or breaking the tension
16:25
SPEAKER_00: because of that.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: But also like what it takes, the preparation it takes to have solid stage presence.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And what you need to do to captivate an audience with something
16:40
SPEAKER_00: that might be like difficult or hard, you know,
16:46
SPEAKER_00: and how humor can be a way into that.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Even if that humor makes you like uncomfortable and that awkwardness,
16:53
SPEAKER_00: like the laughter through that awkwardness, like is the thing that breaks it.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: So did you, was that your last theater experience or did you go on to college
17:06
SPEAKER_01: and be like, ah, maybe I'll try out for such and such parts?
17:11
SPEAKER_00: In college, after, actually after I had quit lacrosse in college,
17:19
SPEAKER_00: I did some student-directed plays and There is part of me that's always been like,
17:26
SPEAKER_00: oh, I wonder if I would have pursued that a little more.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Because I loved it.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I loved it a lot.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: The whole bit from rehearsal to trying to captivate an audience
17:38
SPEAKER_00: during the actual stage presentation.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: I loved so much of it. But I did.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: I did a couple things in college, and I had a really wonderful experience with that.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: But in college, that was the last time.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: Is that sad? You were out of sports to quit?
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had stopped.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: After my senior year, I had a knee injury that summer, but also, lacrosse was just,
18:04
SPEAKER_00: it was no longer fun.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I had a really hard time with my coach and just with my whole identity, really.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: I built this identity around athletics, and I was like, this is not fun,
18:19
SPEAKER_00: and I'm like, I almost left
18:25
SPEAKER_00: the Butler where I went,
18:30
SPEAKER_00: which is a small school in Indianapolis, the Harvard of Indianapolis.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: That's what they say. Yeah.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: And I almost left, you know, almost took a year off.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Like I, you know, and instead I stayed and, but I dove away.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Head first into my major.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's when I started to feel like a student for the first time,
18:55
SPEAKER_00: rather than thinking like, grades are just a means to an end,
18:58
SPEAKER_00: and that end is playing sports.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Does that make sense?
19:03
SPEAKER_01: It does make sense, yeah.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember any of the plays that you were in?
19:08
SPEAKER_01: Ah.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: I can't, no, I don't, which is odd, but I can't remember,
19:15
SPEAKER_00: and I can't remember if it was like,
19:17
SPEAKER_00: they were all student directed like for their like finals, you know,
19:22
SPEAKER_00: they would like make a presentation to the, you know, um, the, drama professors.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they would get graded on it, you know as directors themselves,
19:32
SPEAKER_00: which is like wild to think that they were like, I don't know,
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Patty likes talks a lot.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Like he could probably do this and my grade depends
19:40
SPEAKER_00: on whether or not he could do it.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Like thinking about it now, it's like dude kind of a leap.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, total.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: But I don't remember if they wrote these plays or if they took scenes from plays
19:53
SPEAKER_00: and here's a 25-minute version of this 90-minute play or something.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: And I can't remember what it is.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: I do remember having to do a stage kiss Um,
20:04
SPEAKER_00: which I was like super nervous about and uncomfortable for one of them,
20:09
SPEAKER_00: which is like, you know, you kind of like pretend like you smooch,
20:12
SPEAKER_00: you don't really smooch.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't know if this is going to be okay.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to punch people.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't, it was totally okay.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: But I did, it was like, I don't want to punch people like judging how I smooch.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought people would stand up and be like,
20:26
SPEAKER_00: little less tongue O'Connell or something. Yeah.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Getting pretty handsy.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, I didn't know if that was going to be a thing.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: Most of us, most people don't do it for an audience, maybe aside from a wedding thing.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: Totally. Exactly.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you made out with Hillary in front of a group of people?
20:46
SPEAKER_01: Ever? Yeah, probably never. Yeah, never.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: As far as I know.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: You didn't even kiss at your wedding.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: You guys just shook hands.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Not to kink shame anybody, but it's not what we do.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: No, we wouldn't smooch. I'd just store it.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I was just staring at her feet.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a favorite Martin McDonough film?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh. Um.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Like the latest one I see.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: Every time Martin McDonough comes out with a new film, I'm like, this is the best one.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: He's got a new one coming out, I think, this winter.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And John Malkovich is in it.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: He plays...
21:28
SPEAKER_00: My understanding is he plays
21:30
SPEAKER_00: an aging CIA agent who's drifting into dementia, I think, a little bit.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And he's telling everyone he's a secret agent. It's going to be great.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think the thing, every time I see Martin McDonough,
21:46
SPEAKER_00: part of me is kind of like that thing of...
21:50
SPEAKER_00: I knew about the Beatles before their first album.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: A little bit is like, I was introduced to Martin McDonough my senior year of high school.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: And it gives me this bit of pride. Even though I really didn't...
22:08
SPEAKER_00: It was like, Mr. Noble did it.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: I didn't do anything.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: But it was really... That was just such a fun, cool...
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Experience. Something that my buddy Nate and I, we still talk about. Yeah.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Like we had a dialect coach.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: We got to say the F word on stage.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Even the shirts that we made for the, the, the play, you know,
22:31
SPEAKER_00: it had like a logo that Nate drew and on the back it said, Aaron go bra ya feck,
22:37
SPEAKER_00: which loosely translates to Ireland forever you fucker. Yeah.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Which is like, we wore this to school.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's just like, this is amazing.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: That's great. Yeah.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: Are you in touch with Mr. Noble still?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: Actually, like, for this, I was like, what is Mr. Noble doing? He's retired.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: I think he's still acting in Chicago.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: I should reach out to him.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Thank you. That'd be fun.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Mr. Noble.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it'd be cool. Yeah.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: Super cool. All right.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Number three, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which, as I understand it,
23:11
SPEAKER_01: is a book by Mark Twain.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Marcus, I believe, actually is.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Samuel Clemens, isn't his real name? Yes. Yes.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: So this one, this is another, this is a time jump.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: This is now my senior year of college.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: So like during my, during my sophomore year when I was like really struggling,
23:32
SPEAKER_00: because I'm like, I'm a lacrosse player.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: This is not just like who I am at this school.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: This is like who I am in my family. Like I'm an athlete.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm a division one athlete.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Like my siblings are geniuses.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm like the funny guy who can be An athlete.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Who can throw a ball with a stick and net.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Who can shoot fast and has a big body.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: It's so talented.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: That's just like who I put my, that's like the boundaries I put myself into, right?
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And my sophomore year of college, Dr.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Aji in world poetry put a paper down on my desk and said,
24:10
SPEAKER_00: you wrote the best paper in class.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, who are you?
24:15
SPEAKER_00: What are you talking to? Not me.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: That's not, that's not like I bullshitted this fan.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Like I, you know, and so in,
24:23
SPEAKER_00: when I became an English lit major was because it was like, oh,
24:26
SPEAKER_00: I can use this like thing that I like to do, which is like entertain people,
24:31
SPEAKER_00: be like the funny guy, gift of gab.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: I can use that, you know, like the point of that, right.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Is to like make a point.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: And to, like, entertain or, you know, make people think about something or really get a laugh.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I can do that in papers.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: I just have to back it up with the text that I'm reading.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And so I would do that.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And it all, like, worked up to my senior thesis,
24:55
SPEAKER_00: which was an entire semester on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with one
25:01
SPEAKER_00: of my favorite professors at school, Dr. Andrew Levy.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: He's like...
25:06
SPEAKER_00: An incredible writer, an incredible teacher.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And he just like, he made me feel smart.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And, um, so the entire semester is like,
25:16
SPEAKER_00: we're going like one week on a chapter and it's the annotated text.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: It's like sitting right behind me still, you know,
25:22
SPEAKER_00: it's got all of these letters from Twain to like illustrators and publishers
25:27
SPEAKER_00: and to all these people, like, you know, early drafts, um,
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Early examples of the illustrations that each chapter heading had.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget this.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: The first day of class, Dr. Levy has us all come in.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: And he shows us Elvis and the Beatles,
25:52
SPEAKER_00: first time on American television on the Ed Sullivan Show.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: He then shows us the music video for Hey Ya by OutKast.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: And what he was talking about, he was like, this is what Huckleberry Finn was.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: It was this incredible moment of pop culture.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: So he showed us that art...
26:16
SPEAKER_00: can be like an integral part to pop culture.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: And he also used some other,
26:21
SPEAKER_00: like popular at the time examples to show that art can also Be Popular
26:27
SPEAKER_00: and Forgettable.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and he was like, That is not what Huckleberry...
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Like obviously we're still reading this.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Like that is not What Has Happened with Hucklebury Finn.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And so he showed the difference between like something like Huck Finn
26:40
SPEAKER_00: and something that's like popular and not good Is
26:42
SPEAKER_00: that like popular doesn't always mean good. And it doesn't mean that it'll last.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And so he,
26:51
SPEAKER_00: like when we were thinking about what you have for your senior thesis.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Like you have all these meetings with your professor.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to write about?
26:59
SPEAKER_00: And he gave me the idea to Explore, again, back to Irishness,
27:04
SPEAKER_00: like explore the class struggle between Irish Americans and freed slaves
27:10
SPEAKER_00: who went north and how that's exemplified, how Twain does that,
27:15
SPEAKER_00: shows that in the book, right?
27:16
SPEAKER_00: Like Finn is the only...
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Like ethnic name in the book.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Everything else is like white Anglo, Saxon, Protestant names.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Pat Finn, Huck's dad is like the stereotypical drunk
27:30
SPEAKER_00: in early letters to the illustration.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: About Huck Twain is like, no he needs to look more Irish -y.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Like high set cheekbones, pinched nose.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: He needs to have wild unkempt hair, red faced.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: You know it's really like he was drawing this up to show the class struggle
27:51
SPEAKER_00: and it was just like It introduced me to so many things that I try to do
27:59
SPEAKER_00: in my job today.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Humor is not just a fun thing to do at a barbecue, but it's a very worthy storytelling tool.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: And a worthy art form.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: And what Twain does beautifully in that book is he arrives at poignancy through humor.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a reason why with the most revered,
28:24
SPEAKER_00: biggest comedy award in our land is named after Mark Twain.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: So it was just this.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: It was this incredible experience,
28:33
SPEAKER_00: a full semester of like diving into a text and then writing about it.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: And then he and the other English professors like chose me to,
28:44
SPEAKER_00: I was one of like three or four seniors to present their I was not
28:49
SPEAKER_00: the their thesis smart.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: And moments like Dr.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Ajit Singh, he wrote
29:11
SPEAKER_00: The best paper, Dr.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Levy looking at me and saying, here is this idea and like, go get it,
29:17
SPEAKER_00: go get after it, right?
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Like made me feel like a smart person.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for the first time in my life.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: And probably for the first time in my life.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Definitely for the first time in my life.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: And every time I see the cover of the book or the spine of the book that's right
29:35
SPEAKER_00: behind me, I'm still filled with that feeling.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Huck Finn is always going to represent so many things to me.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, you're smart.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: And also this is what humor can do for story.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: And And like, hey man, you actually love research, you know?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, and so it just was this, I don't know.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like even remembering this like time,
30:02
SPEAKER_00: like my chest like bumps up, you know?
30:05
SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's like warm peach cobbler right here in my chest
30:09
SPEAKER_00: because it's just like, it makes me feel good, you know?
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Dr. Levy.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm like, this should be a podcast about teachers.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: Maybe where somebody calls their old teacher and we just have a chat.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Just a thank you.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: That would be a blast.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Every couple years I'll email Dr.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Levy something and he responds
30:32
SPEAKER_00: with the best thing ever and I want to print it out and frame it.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: He's just like, the dude is just a good dude.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Just like, still is a teacher.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Still is teaching me, you know?
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Or being like, Patty, attaboy.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, man. Nice.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Did you read James by Percival Everett?
30:55
SPEAKER_00: No.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is on our book club list.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I haven't read it yet.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: But it's the story of Huck Finn as told from Jim's point of view.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be amazing.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: This is on my book club list, yes.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Even just that, like, I was just like, this is going to be great.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: What a great idea.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: What a great idea.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: For sure. For sure.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Also, like, can we just talk about really quick, like, that writers just, like,
31:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to show this same story,
31:34
SPEAKER_00: this beloved, celebrated story,
31:37
SPEAKER_00: this thing that is as intertwined into American culture and American identity
31:44
SPEAKER_00: as football, apple pie, baseball, smoking cigarettes.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to try my hand at writing from it.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like, dude, that is some courage.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: Not his first book.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: No, but also like- Not his first successful book either, so yeah.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: No, no, but like,
32:09
SPEAKER_00: yeah, it's pretty rad. Yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want to read it.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. No, I do too.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay. Number four.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: A poem by Ezra Pound called Days Are Not Full Enough. Okay. Yeah.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us what this poem is?
32:25
SPEAKER_01: Because I do not have, I have no familiarity with it.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: It is the perfect poem. Oh, okay. It is.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: So another thing that I tried to do in college is I really wanted
32:38
SPEAKER_00: to be America's next great Free verse poet. Hmm.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: That did not happen.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: But what did they say?
32:47
SPEAKER_00: They say like bad poets turned into like good prose writers.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's... Who got that job?
32:52
SPEAKER_00: Who did get that job?
32:53
SPEAKER_01: America's... I don't know.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Mary Oliver.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: I think she was a little ahead of you on that maybe. I don't know.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I'm a feverish notes writer, notes taker,
33:08
SPEAKER_00: and I write this poem into every notebook I get.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's four lines,
33:17
SPEAKER_00: and it's the perfect example of great poetry, and I think,
33:21
SPEAKER_00: like, maybe perfect writing.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: So you've memorized, then?
33:26
SPEAKER_00: I do.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: Would you like me to recite it? Fire away.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: And the days are not full enough, and the nights are not full enough,
33:34
SPEAKER_00: and life slips by like a field mouse, not shaking the grass.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Yep.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: That's good. Dude.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Dude. There's so many things.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: Can I get English lit major nerdy on this? Okay. Okay.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it doesn't have a title. Okay.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: So they just take the first line, which is, and the days are not full enough.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: So starting with and, right, is you show up to the poem.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: The poem is already moving along.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: You show up late, right?
34:06
SPEAKER_00: So everything predecessor to that is already going along.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: So you bring all of your bits and pieces and hopes and dreams to it because of the word and.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: And instead of saying something like, and the days are not, Long enough.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: And the nights are not long enough.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: He uses full. It's not linear.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: It expands in all directions all at the same time. So it's like space.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: It's ever expanding.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: So it's never full enough.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: There can never be enough space for a full day, for a full night.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And then He says, and life slips by like a field mouse.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: So all of a sudden, you're in this huge, this state of huge expansion,
34:47
SPEAKER_00: and then you're zapped down to this little itty-bitty tiny thing, tiny creature,
34:53
SPEAKER_00: and you're picturing a giant, at least I am, right?
34:55
SPEAKER_00: A giant, you know, grassy field all of a sudden.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: And then life slips by. Indent.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: So then there's finally space.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: The last line is indented.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: So there's finally space for you to take a breath after you're running and running
35:09
SPEAKER_00: and running in these first three lines.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: And the final line has an indent.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: So you...
35:17
SPEAKER_00: Not shaking the grass.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: And just like that, it's smoke.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: It evaporates. Just like that.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: And some people talk about the inevitability of death here
35:28
SPEAKER_00: or that life is
35:32
SPEAKER_00: so fleeting that it's meaningless.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, no, not at all.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: Pound is rushing you through this to get to the last line.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Say, look, look.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: It's just smoke.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, take the time to slow down and savor.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Because it's never going to be full enough. None of it.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: It's just going to slip away.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: So stop.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Stop and take the time.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: It's a beacon is what it is. And I love it.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: And there's no spoiled words.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: There's no wasted strokes here.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: It will be the thing I am chasing to write for the rest of my life.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: But the way that I was introduced to it, I think, is also really meaningful.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: I was either writing in college or just out of college.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: And my uncle, off the cuff, recited this poem.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: At his surprise birthday party.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: He comes in, he gets a big surprise and everybody's yelling speech, speech, speech,
36:33
SPEAKER_00: and he just recites this.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: And then he pauses as if to go on, right?
36:39
SPEAKER_00: To say something else. And he just goes... And he goes, that's it.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Pound said enough.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: It's perfect, right?
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Because the writing is that.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: That moment stuck with me.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: The words stuck with me.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like, have you ever seen Rumble in the Jungle?
36:58
SPEAKER_00: About the Ali Foreman fight?
37:01
SPEAKER_01: When we were kings?
37:03
SPEAKER_01: The documentary?
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Right. Right.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: So it's the, yeah, it's the, okay.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: So, so when, when Ali, right, when he like, you know,
37:12
SPEAKER_00: it's like round eight or nine or something and Ali is doing the rope-a-dope,
37:16
SPEAKER_00: he's hiring Foreman out, right?
37:18
SPEAKER_00: And then he comes at him with this barrage.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Out of the corner, into the middle of the ring.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: And he lands the knockdown punch.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: And then he cocks back his right arm to punch again.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: And Foreman is stumbling and stumbling.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: And Ali doesn't throw the punch.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't want to spoil the barrage that got to the tumble.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: The beautiful balletic tumble of Foreman falling to the mat.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to spoil it.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Because that's enough.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: That's what Pound does.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't, there's no wasted strokes.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing added.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing, you know, like when they say like, oh,
37:56
SPEAKER_00: like the painter did too many strokes, you know,
37:58
SPEAKER_00: cause you're just like this act of painting is so nice. So great. Right.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, there's, there's no like ego in it. He just lets it go.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: It's like, it did it. It's enough.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: And then he hits you with not shaking the grass.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I just got so fired up on poetry, dude. Thank you.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm such a nerd.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: Is that like 30 words total, that poem?
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it's like, it's insane. It's four lines.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: It's insane. It's so good. It's so good.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: I will want to write something that good for the rest of my life, and I'll never come close.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, not with that attitude, you won't. Well, thank you. Yeah. Come on.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: Jeez.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know if I'm ever going to write free verse poetry ever again.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: I did in college, and I hope I never find that stuff.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: That would be interesting to go back and read that.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you just do it?
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Just write bad poetry, man.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Something that would be good.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. That's right.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: That's like, you know, what a good...
39:00
SPEAKER_00: There you are, see? You're just like all the teachers.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Just a good little attaboy for a little...
39:05
SPEAKER_01: Little scared Patty. Thanks.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Brendan.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: So you've had that poem stuck in your head for how many years now?
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, God.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: Over 20. Probably scratching at 25.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe now scratching at 30.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God. And you probably wrote it in a notebook, what, a few months ago maybe then?
39:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. I mean, it's like... It's like, yeah. See? It's always right. Yeah.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: Always right here.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: How has the meaning changed in 20 years?
39:42
SPEAKER_01: Specifically, I'm thinking of becoming a parent,
39:46
SPEAKER_01: but how has it changed for you in 20 plus, maybe 30 years?
39:52
SPEAKER_00: God, that is a great question.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it has.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the constant lesson is slow.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: Slow yourself.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm so quick to want to get to like either the completion of the thing
40:13
SPEAKER_00: or specifically like if, you know, if my version of safety is being threatened,
40:19
SPEAKER_00: you know, I'm like, I need to get safe.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: I need to get safe as quickly as possible.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'll bulldoze like through listening and through like actually being
40:26
SPEAKER_00: in the moment to get to like Ah, everything's nice and calm, right?
40:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's like a few years back,
40:31
SPEAKER_00: it was introduced to the idea that either everything is sacred or nothing is sacred.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: There aren't any interstitial moments in life.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Stop rushing to get to the thing because the thing is happening right now.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: Even if the thing is uncomfortable or hard.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Or hurtful, like be in it.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to run from it, you know?
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Because if you can do that with the hard stuff,
40:56
SPEAKER_00: then you can definitely do it with the joyous moments.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: So I think that continues to be the lesson.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: And probably why I continue to write it in every notebook I have.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah, it's also just muscle memory at this point, right?
41:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
41:11
SPEAKER_01: It's also why I put my name and phone number and email in there as well.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: How has your phone number changed in 25 years?
41:22
SPEAKER_01: It hasn't from my first cell phone.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: There's no point anymore. Why change it?
41:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay. Well, here we are at number five.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: This is a podcast you and I are very familiar with called The Dirtbag Diaries.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes. What's the story with you and The Dirtbag Diaries?
41:43
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason I included this is so that I could embarrass the hell out of you.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: Because I know that you don't do well with compliments.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to use this.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: Let's move on. We're done.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: We're done here.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: We're done here. Yeah. Okay.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: So this is like 2017 now.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: So we've gone from college to 2017.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: A lot has happened, right?
42:15
SPEAKER_00: I graduated college in 06.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: And we're now like 2017-ish, right?
42:20
SPEAKER_00: So I have already moved to Telluride and done the ski bum thing.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: I moved to the Midwest to get sober, save my life.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm into recovery at this point.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm like four-ish years into recovery and also four-ish years into So trying to make
42:39
SPEAKER_00: a living as a freelance writer in the outdoor space.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: You and I had met maybe a year or two prior
42:48
SPEAKER_00: to this moment at Five Point Film Fest.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: And you had just come out with 60 meters to anywhere.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: And we met at your, you were doing like a book reading at the Crystal Theater here
43:06
SPEAKER_00: in Carbondale on Main Street.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: And, uh, um, I sat there and listened to it.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: I think actually that was a live taping of the diaries, maybe, potentially.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: And you signed the copy of the book that I bought.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think you said like, yeah, three years sober, like, fuck yeah, keep going.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, don't die. Something, classic Brendan Leonard.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: Probably that's something that I remember this exact moment.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: So you're telling this story, not to me. You're telling it to other people.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: So I remember. I remember this whole time.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember? Do you really? Seriously? Yeah.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: I remember talking to you.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're making my heart feel so great.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Because later on, this really stands out, later on in that festival,
43:47
SPEAKER_00: you're talking with Stacey Bear, who he and I, you know, later became friends.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: And he said, hey, Patty, come over here, me, Stacey. And you remembered my name.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: I remember that. I was like, oh, this guy's a solid dude.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: So then I had forced us to become friends.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Somehow I got like your phone number and your email or whatever and forced us to become friends.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: So 2017-ish, I'm I'm in the freelance writing game, you know, four-ish, three-ish,
44:12
SPEAKER_00: four-ish years, and I'm driving all over the place,
44:14
SPEAKER_00: tracking down stories all over the West, and I'm just absolutely crushing,
44:18
SPEAKER_00: annihilating the diaries while I'm driving on all of these, like, very...
44:23
SPEAKER_00: Long, beautiful mountain drives. What are you going to do?
44:25
SPEAKER_00: You're going to listen to the best stories, you know, in the outdoors.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: And so then I was listening to like a handful of shorts while I was driving
44:34
SPEAKER_00: the Million Dollar Highway on my way to Telluride.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: And I thought like, ooh, these are really good.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: I really like listening to these.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: Man, I'd love to make one of these.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if I could.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: And I look up the Diaries website.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, you were a contributing editor.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: And so I texted you and I was like, do you think, you think I could do this maybe?
45:00
SPEAKER_00: And you were like, yeah, dude, absolutely. What are your ideas?
45:04
SPEAKER_00: And I sent you a couple ideas and you were like, oh, go with this one.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: And it was a story about like the reverse hero's journey kind of story
45:13
SPEAKER_00: of like me going out to the mountains of Telluride
45:15
SPEAKER_00: and getting absolutely like annihilated by, um, Depression, suicidal ideation,
45:22
SPEAKER_00: alcoholism, and addiction.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: And then going to this 30-day inpatient rehab facility
45:31
SPEAKER_00: in the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: And my folks showing up for parents' weekend and having like a five-minute catch with my dad.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Like tossing a football around in the lawn of this rehab facility
45:45
SPEAKER_00: while my mom washed sipping tea.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: And you were like, go with that one. That's a good story.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: You should do that.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: And that was the first podcast that I ever did.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: And like this December...
46:01
SPEAKER_00: I am going to hit like 200 episodes produced for all sorts of different outlets.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: And so the diaries, they inspired not just the joy and wonder and the art
46:15
SPEAKER_00: of actually telling a story with your mouth, what we do on the back bumper of...
46:22
SPEAKER_00: Of our cars at the trailhead, what we do around a campfire,
46:24
SPEAKER_00: what we do at Opry over nachos and,
46:28
SPEAKER_00: you know, coffee and french fries, you know,
46:33
SPEAKER_00: like the diaries represent
46:39
SPEAKER_00: What we have done since, you know, we were drawing on cave walls to me, you know,
46:44
SPEAKER_00: which is the art of actually telling a story.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: And then in this moment, like you gave me the nudge to be like, yeah, man,
46:51
SPEAKER_00: like you can do this and this is a good story and you should do it.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: And it absolutely changed the course of my career.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: It led to so many like wonderful collaborations with Fitz and Becca.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: It led to so much like, it led to, you know, like, You know,
47:07
SPEAKER_00: film and commercial work and voiceover and script writing.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: And it was just, it all started from a text that was like, yeah, man,
47:14
SPEAKER_00: like definitely you can and should do this.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what the diaries represents.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dude. But I mean, of course, of course you can.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't be the one to tell you you're wrong anyway.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, they'd be like, yeah,
47:30
SPEAKER_00: this isn't any good He doesn't know what he's talking about. This is pretty crabby.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: No, but all of these moments in this list are nudges forward.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: Are the external validation, maybe we're hoping we know these things.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: But it's the external validation of like you got this and I got your back
47:50
SPEAKER_00: to help you through it.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: Like that's the thing about all of these favorite things of mine, right?
47:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm never alone.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm never consuming these things in a vacuum.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm never trying to create things.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, like art, the best art is not done like, you know, in a dark closet by yourself.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: It's done like at the buffet, you know,
48:11
SPEAKER_00: with a bunch of people and a bunch of different ideas, you know,
48:14
SPEAKER_00: that's in terms of the creation of it and the consumption of it.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, like life is a team sport.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: Everything's always better in communion, you know, in community.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: And so all of these things are like nudges forward.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: And you gave me this great nudge.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, I landed into the warm bosom of Fitz.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: And like so many things started from that.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like sometimes you don't need an induction, you just need a doula, you know, right?
48:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, I feel like that's all.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: I would say like, oh yeah, coaching, but you're just a doula.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: You're like, well, I'll be there.
48:58
SPEAKER_01: I'll like bring some, you know,
49:00
SPEAKER_01: candles and music or whatever and I'll tell you everything I know and blah, blah,
49:04
SPEAKER_01: blah. But you got to push this baby out, you know?
49:07
SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's your, or, you know, or whatever happens, I'll be there to help.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: But like, it's not really...
49:13
SPEAKER_01: It's not really me doing it.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: You got to do it.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: That is so good.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to just – and anyone ever asks me who Brendan Leonard is, I'll be like,
49:23
SPEAKER_00: oh, he's my doula.
49:25
SPEAKER_01: He's a creative doula.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: No, and I really feel like you shouldn't even use that terminology because it's kind
49:30
SPEAKER_01: of ridiculous and offensive to doulas because our doula was fantastic. Same.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: I literally told her, you should charge more for this for me.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: See, there's another good nudge
49:45
SPEAKER_00: in someone's professional development.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: Here's a question for you at the end of that.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: Have you done that for other people in that creative space or in another space?
50:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: And I say this to them.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: In any kind of email or phone call that we have, any exchange that we have.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: It's like so many people in my career gave me a hand up
50:15
SPEAKER_00: that it would be absolutely irresponsible for me not to continue that tradition.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: And I asked them to do it.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, you, Fitz, Becca, there's like so many people, you know, Mike Roberts,
50:28
SPEAKER_00: Mike Abrams, like so many, so many people, you know, who have...
50:35
SPEAKER_00: Offered a handout and said like, hey, I think you got some talent.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: I think we can like turn the volume up on it.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: And then we can build this stuff that maybe that you don't have.
50:43
SPEAKER_00: That it's happened for every stage of my career.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: Again, life is a team sport.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: Creativity is a team sport.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: And so many folks have done that.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: So I really try to do that.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Anytime someone reaches out to me and is like, hey, I've got an idea for the thing.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yep, I'm going to make time for this.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: You have to, otherwise you're just an asshole.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: I really don't want to become an asshole.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: Have you experienced some joy in people succeeding and you remember,
51:13
SPEAKER_00: oh yeah, I told them they could do that.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: Because I vaguely remember texting you about the Dirtbag Diaries thing.
51:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, okay.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: Have you been filled with joy
51:26
SPEAKER_01: in watching my career develop, Brendan?
51:29
SPEAKER_01: Well, now that I think back, that's great.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: Good job, 2017 me.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't feel like I don't go,
51:43
SPEAKER_01: oh, yeah, Patty should thank me.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sitting there remembering that. I'm just like, no.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: I think I probably just gave him a little tiny nudge and was like, yeah, send it.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: See what they say.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was huge.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: It's led to so much. So really, yeah.
51:59
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, man.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I've had the same experience.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: I've had a lot of folks reach out and ask questions.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: I think more of what makes me feel really good
52:14
SPEAKER_00: in terms of creative work is
52:16
SPEAKER_00: when someone DMs or emails me and is like, hey,
52:19
SPEAKER_00: this changed the way I thought about that.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: Or this experience really spoke to me.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: This thing that I went through and I'm going to do this, you know, now.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, that type of stuff is really great.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: But I think that maybe this is on me.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I've like been as good as like keeping up conversation
52:41
SPEAKER_00: with the folks who have reached out to me.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: But also like in terms of like how that relates to you and I,
52:48
SPEAKER_00: like I kind of like Made sure that you had no choice but to become a friend.
52:53
SPEAKER_00: I just showed up at your house.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: Can I sleep on the couch?
52:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm selling supplements.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: I need to sell you some supplements.
53:02
SPEAKER_00: I have these really sharp knives that I want to talk to you about.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: Man, that's wonderful. You know what?
53:11
SPEAKER_01: I feel like we need to talk about the 1988 Dodge Caravan.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: The special mention? Yeah. Dude. Dude.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay. This almost became my number one over Blockbuster video, to be honest,
53:22
SPEAKER_00: because in our texting back and forth about this,
53:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how we ended up texting about this car, but it's like, it is,
53:32
SPEAKER_00: this is the car from my childhood.
53:35
SPEAKER_01: And it was like, you know, light blue.
53:37
SPEAKER_00: What's that? Can I interrupt real quick? Oh, absolutely. It's your show, man.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: I think it said something like our minivan.
53:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: And then you sent me a photo.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: And I said, like, I literally Googled 1988 Dodge Caravan because that was
53:51
SPEAKER_01: the exact year. Okay, so that said,
53:56
SPEAKER_00: please describe the vehicle.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: We had the light blue version with the fake faux, woody paneling on the side.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: I can hear the sound of the sliding door on the side of it.
54:10
SPEAKER_00: It had the big bench in the back and the small bench in the middle.
54:15
SPEAKER_00: Driver's Side, Shotgun.
54:17
SPEAKER_00: And it was like, it was all the things, you know, like it was where, you know,
54:23
SPEAKER_00: like my dad would play all of, you know, his favorite tunes.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, we'd listen to Breakfast with the Beatles with Kitty Loewy on Oldies 104.3.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: You know,
54:37
SPEAKER_00: I can see and hear my parents like singing harmony to Obla De La Da, you know.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: Or having a conversation about, oh God, what beautiful song is that?
54:51
SPEAKER_00: And in the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take.
54:54
SPEAKER_00: And my parents getting into a discussion on whether or not that was true.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: It was our machine, our first road trip machine.
55:05
SPEAKER_00: It introduced me to the art of the road trip.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, we had to go to big Tommy Dwyer's house to go get the snail for on top.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: And then after the trip, Patty had to scrub all the bugs off of it.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: It teaches me hard work and what you do when you're borrowing gear.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: My dad would lay out an atlas,
55:22
SPEAKER_00: and he would talk about the route that we would take
55:25
SPEAKER_00: to do our first big Western road trip.
55:28
SPEAKER_00: He would sit with a yellow legal pad and take down gas
55:32
SPEAKER_00: and miles and do the math on it.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: So it's like preparation, hard work.
55:38
SPEAKER_00: It introduced me to the art of, like, packing the night before.
55:43
SPEAKER_00: My dad would pack the entire thing the night before, you know,
55:46
SPEAKER_00: including the red Coleman cooler, which would sit at the slide, perfectly sit, like,
55:52
SPEAKER_00: fit at the sliding door between the benches, you know, and we'd have, like,
55:57
SPEAKER_00: all the sandwiches made put back into the sleeve of bread,
56:00
SPEAKER_00: you know, and, uh, Yeah,
56:04
SPEAKER_00: so we'd pack the night before.
56:05
SPEAKER_00: We'd carry us sleeping into the car,
56:07
SPEAKER_00: and then we'd drive to Wisconsin or to Michigan, where the capital O,
56:12
SPEAKER_00: the big outdoors were.
56:14
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: You play outside, but then you go to Wisconsin and Michigan for the outdoors.
56:22
SPEAKER_00: And then we went to our big Western road trip.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: The thing blew up trying to climb the Wasatch.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember if it was...
56:31
SPEAKER_00: Little Cottonwood Canyon or Big Cottonwood Canyon,
56:34
SPEAKER_00: but we were on the side of the road with steam coming out of the thing,
56:37
SPEAKER_00: had to get repairs done.
56:40
SPEAKER_00: It's the best.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: It means so much.
56:43
SPEAKER_00: I can hear Bruce Hornsby in the range the way it is coming out of this thing.
56:48
SPEAKER_00: Or Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time, that entire album that won 37 Grammys.
56:55
SPEAKER_00: When I hear these albums, I'm like...
56:58
SPEAKER_00: 1988 Dodge Caravan.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the thing is, and look, for all of those listening or watching this,
57:05
SPEAKER_00: Google an image of it.
57:07
SPEAKER_00: As a child, I didn't, you know, it was just a car.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, it is a piece of art, man.
57:12
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful.
57:13
SPEAKER_00: It's so beautiful.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: I wish it was...
57:16
SPEAKER_00: In my driveway right now with four-wheel drive and maybe a lift kit on it.
57:21
SPEAKER_00: But I wish it was there.
57:24
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful looking.
57:26
SPEAKER_01: I saw one in Missoula maybe four or five weeks ago.
57:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm just out running and riding a bike.
57:32
SPEAKER_01: It's like seeing a ghost, man.
57:35
SPEAKER_01: Wow. I can't believe that thing's still running.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: It's good on you.
57:41
SPEAKER_00: Whoever that is, good on you.
57:43
SPEAKER_00: Also, let's talk.
57:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you could get one.
57:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm sure you could get one.
57:47
SPEAKER_01: I bet there's one on eBay Motors or something. Here's the thing.
57:50
SPEAKER_00: If I ever get a minivan, if my family makes that choice, if we go the minivan route,
57:57
SPEAKER_00: it's got to be that, right?
57:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm not getting like a new.
58:00
SPEAKER_00: Like Honda or something like that.
58:04
SPEAKER_01: I kind of can't believe your whole family fit in there
58:06
SPEAKER_01: and can't believe your dad fit in the driver's seat. Dude.
58:09
SPEAKER_01: I can't envision you fitting in the driver's seat of that thing, but sure.
58:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it worked for my pop somehow.
58:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think as a tall human, you're used to cramming your shit into tiny spaces.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: One, for that Western road trip, somehow we packed everything up above the car in the snail.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: And then my mom got a piece of foam for the back trunk and a little hand fan.
58:35
SPEAKER_00: And I was there in the back, lying down on this thing for a while until I was like,
58:40
SPEAKER_00: oh, I'm going to barf.
58:41
SPEAKER_00: And so then I got upgraded to...
58:44
SPEAKER_00: Lying on the floor between the two benches.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: So it was my sister was on the floor.
58:49
SPEAKER_00: I was on the floor.
58:51
SPEAKER_00: Brendan had the small bench and Sean had the big bench because of birth order, seniority.
58:57
SPEAKER_00: But I also remember waking up with Sean's foot in my face plenty of times and like,
59:04
SPEAKER_00: Sean, I love you if you're listening to this.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: Gnarliest hooves on a human you ever see in your life.
59:10
SPEAKER_00: It's really scary stuff when it's like on your schnoz as an eight-year-old.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, terrifying stuff.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: Nightmare fuel stuff.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: But the road trip was dope.
59:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I rode out from southwest Iowa to Steamboat, partly in one of those.
59:31
SPEAKER_01: We'd have a group of, like, four families drive out, and we did not have a Dodge Caravan.
59:36
SPEAKER_01: That was flashy.
59:38
SPEAKER_01: I think we had a...
59:39
SPEAKER_01: Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
59:41
SPEAKER_01: It's just not an adventure vehicle either.
59:45
SPEAKER_01: Still a piece of art, though. But I remember those.
59:47
SPEAKER_01: I think the caravans came in white and blue, if I remember right.
59:51
SPEAKER_01: I could be wrong.
59:53
SPEAKER_01: I only remember seeing them as blue.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: For me, they will always be that kind of light blue,
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: and then the yellow trim and the faux woody panel.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: God, it's so beautiful.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go buy one and surprise my wife.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to try to find a photo of one of these on the internet to put
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: in the show notes here.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, they're gorgeous.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I'm so glad that we got to six and we got to talk about this.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_01: Breaking the rules of this podcast is the best. All right, man.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, I am going to go through your list really quickly here to review.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_01: Number one, Blockbuster Video.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_01: Number two, The Cripple of Inishman by Martin McDonough.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: Number three, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_01: Number four, And the Days Are Not Full Enough, poem by Ezra Pound.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_01: Number five, The Dirtbag Diaries.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_01: And honorable mention, 1988 Dodge Caravan. Man, thank you so much.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: This was so fun.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this was the blast. You know what?
1:00:53
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, kudos to you for wrangling this mouth for an hour.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe you did it.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: What an incredible host you are.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: Just another service we offer.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, dude.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_00: Thank you. This was awesome.