Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 105: Painting, Patents and Pages: Brian Hester's Latest Endeavors

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S6, Ep 105: Painting, Patents and Pages: Brian Hester's Latest Endeavors · The Articulate Fly

0:03
Intro: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly.
0:07
Intro: On this episode, artist, inventor, and now author Brian Hester returns to the podcast.
0:13
Intro: Brian updates us on his work at the easel, his collaborations with Jam Up and
0:17
Intro: Mothbear, and his latest project, She Talks to Fish.
0:21
Intro: I think you're really going to enjoy this one, but before we get to the interview,
0:25
Intro: just a couple of housekeeping items. If you like the podcast,
0:28
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0:32
Intro: the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out.
0:36
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1:42
Intro: Now, on to our interview.
1:44
Marvin: Well, Brian, welcome back to the Articulate Fly.
1:47
Brian: Thank you, Marvin, for having me. I appreciate it.
1:50
Marvin: Yeah, man, I'm looking forward to the conversation. You know, it's kind of funny.
1:55
Marvin: I looked at the archives, and I was surprised to see that you were on season
2:00
Marvin: one, episode 19, which has been about five and a half years ago.
2:05
Marvin: And, you know, not like we haven't seen each other a bunch kind of in that intervening time.
2:10
Marvin: But, you know, for our listeners, you know, you're in perpetual motion.
2:13
Marvin: I was kind of curious, you know, I think back then, you know,
2:16
Marvin: you were, you know, putting artwork in Boone and Banner Elk and places like that.
2:21
Marvin: But I was kind of curious, you know, you know, what's your artist journey been
2:24
Marvin: like, you know, over the last few years in terms of, you know,
2:27
Marvin: any new themes, materials, influences, any good stuff like that?
2:32
Brian: Well, it's really cool. I've still been behind the easel.
2:37
Brian: And that part of my background and that part of my charge is never going to leave me.
2:47
Brian: But I did actually set the paintbrushes down for a little bit while I was tinkering
2:56
Brian: with a few other really, really cool things.
3:00
Brian: And as you know, maybe some of the listeners know that I do have a visual arts background.
3:06
Brian: I am a painter. You know, the background actually started drawing,
3:09
Brian: illustrating, painting.
3:11
Brian: And I even dabbled a little bit in industrial design stuff coming out of college.
3:18
Brian: It's just been in the back of my mind. So some really, really cool things were materializing.
3:24
Brian: I was doing a lot of stuff with tactile stuff, building, doing stuff with magnets,
3:33
Brian: trying to help myself out.
3:35
Brian: All of this stuff has a common thread of fly fishing that I play with from the
3:42
Brian: stuff that I invent and my paintings,
3:46
Brian: which are still constant, and a book that I just wrote.
3:52
Brian: And also some apparel that I've just been able to put out. So it's been a lot of fun.
3:58
Marvin: Yeah, we're gonna get to all that. I know that one outgrowth of all that is
4:01
Marvin: you've got a partnership with JamUp Apparel.
4:04
Marvin: And I was kind of curious if you could tell us a little bit about those guys,
4:08
Marvin: kind of how you found each other, why you thought it was a good fit for what
4:12
Marvin: you're trying to create.
4:15
Brian: Because I'm behind the canvas so much, I'm always doing some really,
4:18
Brian: like what I think are really innovative kind of new looks to my passion, which is fly fishing.
4:26
Brian: I do a lot of stuff with inversion and substitution.
4:30
Brian: And it kind of materialized to the point where I was like, man,
4:37
Brian: this would be just really, really cool on some hoodies.
4:41
Brian: I thought it would be really, really cool on some shorts. I thought it'd be really, really cool.
4:45
Brian: I mean, on a golf bag, I thought it would be cool on a bunch of stuff.
4:49
Brian: And I was looking for a company that was out there that actually did stuff with fishing.
4:56
Brian: And I think it was September of last year, I stumbled across Jam Up Apparel.
5:02
Brian: And they're out of Spokane, Washington.
5:05
Brian: And they basically brought me in with open arms.
5:11
Brian: It was a lot of fun. I reached out with them. I did show them a bunch of my
5:15
Brian: designs and my thoughts about its application, what it could be used for.
5:21
Brian: And then all of a sudden started tinkering a little bit more with some of the
5:24
Brian: fish skin designs that I was doing.
5:26
Brian: And then bingo, bingo, we started some really, really cool looking hoodies.
5:32
Brian: I've got a couple of brown trout or a brown trout design.
5:37
Brian: I've got a brookie design. I've got a couple of rainbow designs on the website.
5:41
Brian: Site. So, and again, it's a jam up apparel.
5:45
Brian: So if people wanted to go take a look.
5:47
Marvin: Yeah, no, and I'll, I'll get all that stuff and drop that stuff in the show notes for you.
5:51
Marvin: But, you know, it's interesting because I've seen some of the hoodies and I
5:54
Marvin: guess a couple things that I was kind of struck by was one, you know,
5:59
Marvin: not only do you have the design, but you also have the texture that's in the fabric.
6:06
Brian: Yes. And their fabric is actually a patented fabric that they have.
6:12
Brian: SPF 50, these hoodies that they build are fantastic.
6:17
Brian: And with the designs of the, like, for example, the rainbow trout skin, it's not loud.
6:24
Brian: Loud uh i don't want
6:28
Brian: to say loud um it's attention getting and
6:31
Brian: it sends a message to anybody you know looking that they're like what what is
6:37
Brian: that that oh and then then a conversation comes out of it oh i fly fish i love
6:43
Brian: you know fishing uh for rainbow trout brown trout brookies uh anything.
6:49
Brian: And I've got a bass design that's on there as well.
6:53
Brian: The sleeves are emulative of,
6:59
Brian: Those, those fish, it's fantastic. New, new, good looking stuff.
7:04
Marvin: Yeah. I think it's neat too that, um, you know, I like the fact that they're two ply, right?
7:10
Marvin: So, um, you know, that there's a little bit more substance to them than,
7:15
Marvin: you know, a lot of hoodies.
7:17
Marvin: I mean, sometimes maybe if it's really, really hot, that doesn't work,
7:19
Marvin: but you know, if we're just kind of kicking around, um, I thought that was really good.
7:23
Marvin: Cause you know, some of those hoodies kind of look like you were,
7:25
Marvin: they were kind of spray painted on you. You know what I mean?
7:28
Brian: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. They're sweat-wicking, breathable.
7:34
Brian: They're light enough that you don't feel like you're completely going to have
7:40
Brian: heat stroke. They are fantastic.
7:42
Brian: And I've fished at them already, you know, 10 times. Just, they're awesome. Love them.
7:50
Marvin: Yeah, and it's interesting too, right, because you touched on this kind of as
7:53
Marvin: we were getting started that, you know, you're also, you know,
7:56
Marvin: people know you as kind of, you know, Hester, the art teacher at Myers Park
8:00
Marvin: High School, but you're this kind of tinkering inventor, right?
8:02
Marvin: And you seem to kind of be in perpetual motion.
8:04
Marvin: And, you know, I was kind of curious, you know, have you always been like that,
8:09
Marvin: kind of trying to figure out better ways to do things, or is that something
8:12
Marvin: you kind of found kind of later on?
8:16
Brian: Well it's i my brain is
8:19
Brian: firing all the time my brain
8:22
Brian: is a thousand miles an hour and i'm always looking
8:25
Brian: for that next thing what what is it that's going to be uh special about you
8:32
Brian: know the industry uh the fly fishing industry and when i was tinkering this
8:40
Brian: this probably started back in And right around 2014,
8:45
Brian: 2015, when I was trying to figure out a magnetic system to carry my fly rods
8:53
Brian: on my truck and also any other SUV or any other regular car,
8:59
Brian: I kind of stumbled onto some really,
9:02
Brian: really cool ways to interchange and utilize the magnetic system so that you
9:09
Brian: could everything kind of fed on itself.
9:13
Brian: And then all of a sudden, that tinkering with the rod carrier kind of materialized
9:22
Brian: into new ways to carry my flies on my person.
9:27
Brian: I can carry it on my cap, I can carry it on my chest, I can carry it on my ship, I can carry it anywhere.
9:35
Brian: And that system also works with everything that you would end up doing with the truck too.
9:42
Brian: So, and I found...
9:46
Brian: It was about three years ago. I was looking for a company just to hear me out,
9:52
Brian: just to see what I've done.
9:55
Brian: If I had to sign NDAs, I would. And I really wanted them to see this design.
10:01
Brian: And I spoke to a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people.
10:06
Brian: And then all of a sudden, I found this company that was brand new.
10:10
Brian: And I found them in July. And then we started talking again,
10:14
Brian: oddly enough, about August, September timeframe.
10:16
Brian: The guy's name is Tyler Wotuski, and he owns Moth Bear.
10:22
Brian: And he wants to innovate in the industry.
10:26
Brian: He wants to actually be at the front, i.e. he wants to be chased instead of
10:31
Brian: trying to chase. He creates boat bags.
10:35
Brian: He created a fantastic chest pack system, all utilizing aspects of the magnetic stuff that I had done.
10:48
Brian: And then we started working together. He's got an engineering background,
10:53
Brian: which made things even more perfect based upon working together.
10:58
Brian: Other and that it was like a perfect storm it
11:01
Brian: was like it couldn't have been any better by means
11:04
Brian: of having my jacked up brain that's always conceptually
11:08
Brian: always way out there and he would always reel it back
11:11
Brian: in and talk about the engineering component and then i was really pretty good
11:15
Brian: about the industrial design aspect where i would end up trying to remove human
11:23
Brian: error so that when you bring a product to market or when you're putting a product out there,
11:29
Brian: that it's going to be flawless, that it's going to work fantastic.
11:34
Brian: And it was just, it's been awesome being able to work with them.
11:38
Brian: I've been blessed in terms of, or I've been lucky as well in terms of finding
11:43
Brian: really, really good people, honest people that want to do some moving and shaking
11:50
Brian: in the fly fishing industry.
11:52
Marvin: Got it. And, you know, kind of curious, I mean, there are plenty of,
11:56
Marvin: you know, pack and, you know, doodad manufacturers and fly fishing,
12:00
Marvin: you know, what is it that sets Mothbear apart?
12:03
Marvin: I mean, what's their different approach from like Omqua, Fishpond,
12:06
Marvin: Sims, you know, all those guys?
12:09
Brian: It's soup to nuts. We actually, we, we build out, we, we physically build the product.
12:14
Brian: Um, and, and then we, we, we analyze the product after we've done the design
12:21
Brian: work, uh, to make sure that things are appropriated.
12:25
Brian: Things are actually where they're supposed to be.
12:27
Brian: And so that they're easy access to, uh, anglers left-handed, right-handed.
12:33
Brian: Um, and one thing in particular, like I, that I was talking about with the,
12:39
Brian: uh, uh, we, we invented a magnetic fly box that, that, that will go on anything, anywhere.
12:45
Brian: It it's spectacular. And it's like a anytime box, you can load it and it's deep
12:51
Brian: enough to hold, you know, high hackle on, on dries and it's shallow enough to,
12:56
Brian: uh, to, to hold like a ton of nips.
12:59
Brian: So you can, you can be with one little fly box,
13:05
Brian: put that, or three or four of those little fly boxes, put them all over your
13:09
Brian: person without carrying a chest pack, carrying all sorts of other stuff around
13:15
Brian: where you can, you know, I do a lot of rock hopping when I'm on the river.
13:19
Brian: I do a lot of, you know, maneuvering up the river and, uh, I don't like stuff,
13:26
Brian: thinking stuff would fall off.
13:28
Brian: Moth uh this system is fantastic it works magnificent so i hope uh everybody
13:35
Brian: gets a chance to just go look at the magnetic fly box that moth bear has same.
13:38
Marvin: Yeah and so just to i would want to kind of back up
13:41
Marvin: a little bit though because i want to kind of you know understand like
13:44
Marvin: i know you're kind of like um you're like a
13:47
Marvin: creative tasmanian devil right yeah yeah
13:50
Marvin: brain's always working yeah i would maybe you
13:53
Marvin: know maybe a quaalude or two every now and again might not be a bad thing calm
13:57
Marvin: it down um but uh i was just kind of curious about like let's i want to kind
14:02
Marvin: of think about like the tinkering and the inventing kind of in in kind of the
14:07
Marvin: context of your broader kind of creativity right is it just another kind of
14:11
Marvin: spoke on the hester wheel
14:12
Marvin: or kind of how does it integrate with kind of how you think as a visual artist.
14:17
Brian: It is. It's all about, like, if I'm building a composition on campus,
14:23
Brian: that's my process within my design, my point of view.
14:28
Brian: And point of view has the physical and the metaphysical.
14:33
Brian: For example, I can physically see something in its depth of field or its point
14:39
Brian: of view, i.e., that I'm thinking about something a certain way,
14:42
Brian: its perspective. So, I'm always composing.
14:47
Brian: When you're composing, you're still designing.
14:49
Brian: The same thing with the tinkering. How does the design look?
14:55
Brian: Is the design, you know, is it sexy?
14:58
Brian: Does it look great for the consumer out on the shelf? You know,
15:06
Brian: how is it presented and how does it look in its final state?
15:11
Brian: So I'm always working in that, that, that, that phase, that realm inside that,
15:17
Brian: that, I guess that space, so to speak.
15:20
Brian: I want things to, to look good.
15:25
Brian: So that's what's up.
15:26
Marvin: There you go. Well, you know, and if it wasn't enough, you kind of touched on
15:30
Marvin: this, um, almost stole a little bit of my thunder. Or, you know,
15:33
Marvin: you are, I don't know, within, you know, what, a week, a week or two weeks of
15:38
Marvin: dropping your first novel, She Talks to Fish.
15:42
Marvin: And, you know, that's kind of pretty crazy from kind of, you know,
15:45
Marvin: you got a full-time gig, plus you got all this other stuff going on.
15:48
Marvin: But, you know, I was really kind of curious, you know, what's the,
15:51
Marvin: what was the genesis of the project?
15:54
Brian: That's a great question. The genesis of the project actually started 10 years
16:02
Brian: ago when I initiated and built a club at the high school where I teach, Myers Park High School.
16:11
Brian: And I wanted to introduce young people to fly fishing.
16:15
Brian: And I initially, when I started the program, there were a lot of young young people involved.
16:26
Brian: And I thought that this is great. This is just fantastic.
16:31
Brian: I'm going to be able to kind of, you know, pay this forward,
16:33
Brian: show all these young people,
16:35
Brian: this beautiful thing, fly fishing, and introduce this to them so that they can
16:41
Brian: enjoy, they can find maybe something in this that I found growing up,
16:47
Brian: which was just amazing for me.
16:51
Brian: Then the membership kept growing, and it was just young white kids.
17:01
Brian: And I was like, well, this fly fishing thing is for everyone.
17:04
Brian: It's literally for everyone.
17:06
Brian: And I look at fly fishing to be, for me personally, the world's greatest equalizer.
17:13
Brian: Because fly fishing doesn't care about anything.
17:17
Brian: Doesn't care about your political views, doesn't care about your culture,
17:21
Brian: doesn't care about how tall you are, how skinny, gender, gender associations, anything.
17:29
Brian: It doesn't care. But what it demands is your attitude and your effort if you
17:39
Brian: want to succeed at it, if you want to involve yourself with it.
17:43
Brian: And those lessons that I've learned from fly fishing, if I could actually give
17:49
Brian: that to the kids, that was the biggest plug.
17:53
Brian: Well, fast forward, I started to get a lot of young women involved with fly fishing.
17:59
Brian: And then my charge became to get more young women of color fly fishing.
18:08
Brian: And then all of a sudden, more young women started holding seats in the organization
18:16
Brian: that I had as far as president, vice president, secretary,
18:19
Brian: treasurer, and they became more involved.
18:23
Brian: And when you start talking about beautiful stuff like this, when young people
18:28
Brian: are involved and other young people are like, what are you doing?
18:33
Brian: Well, I'm in a fly fishing club. you ought to come try
18:36
Brian: it and then they let their guard down a
18:39
Brian: little bit and then they come out and try it and then all of a sudden it just
18:41
Brian: starts to there's a swelling so to speak um and beautiful things happen from
18:48
Brian: that and that's that's the inspiration for you know my my journey in in getting
18:57
Brian: getting things started with this uh with the novel yeah.
19:01
Marvin: I mean so when did you have the kind of the light bulb moment,
19:04
Marvin: hey, I wanna write a novel about this?
19:07
Brian: It started as a story. And in my brain, I'm thinking,
19:12
Brian: this is a cool story. And because, again, I'm always creating,
19:17
Brian: I was like, this is a really, really awesome story.
19:20
Brian: I even ran it by my wife, and she's like, this is really an incredibly cool
19:25
Brian: story. So I thought, I don't know.
19:30
Brian: I just took a shot in the dark. I called my cousin, and she's a screenwriter,
19:36
Brian: and she's a three-time author, and she's an English teacher.
19:43
Brian: And she took the story and helped me put it in a script form.
19:48
Brian: And then I started sending out, sending to different production companies and
19:54
Brian: then also some studios to see if I could get some bites on unsolicited scripts.
20:02
Brian: And didn't get anything.
20:06
Brian: Nothing happened. Nothing happened. And so I just kind of tabled everything
20:10
Brian: for, you know, two and a half years, almost three years.
20:14
Brian: And then I had this epiphany. I was like, well, this story is so good.
20:22
Brian: It's a really solid story. It's like a tree.
20:25
Brian: I'm going to go ahead and put the leaves on the tree and then put the ornaments on the tree.
20:29
Brian: Um so i just started writing
20:32
Brian: so i called my cousin again she said
20:35
Brian: absolutely not i'm not doing it
20:38
Brian: and then reluctantly i wore down enough
20:41
Brian: and then she finally bought in and um and here we are legitimately i think it's
20:47
Brian: like four years later it was all the way through covid or at least in the initial
20:52
Brian: phases of covid all the way to right now in terms of finishing this beautiful story Yeah.
20:59
Marvin: That's pretty neat. And so give us a brief overview of the novel.
21:03
Brian: It's about my main character. Her name is Maya Jones.
21:11
Brian: She's a young African-American female that grows up in Boone,
21:18
Brian: set in the mid to late 80s.
21:20
Brian: So if you were a woman fly fishing in the 80s, you were, I mean,
21:26
Brian: that was a bit of a rarity. But if you were black and fly fishing in the 80s,
21:32
Brian: you're kind of like a unicorn almost.
21:36
Brian: So I wanted to authenticate it that way where I was able to be at the front.
21:45
Brian: I wanted this to be something that was new and innovative and incredibly creative
21:51
Brian: where people could actually go, wow, this is absolutely brand new.
21:57
Brian: I've never heard of anything like this. This story is fantastic.
22:00
Brian: And Maya Jones actually encounters and defies everything from stereotypes,
22:08
Brian: bigotry, defies nature and weather, defies death with immeasurable perseverance.
22:16
Brian: Perseverance and um i just felt as though that the story with with all the young
22:22
Brian: women that i had in my club um it it was it was it was time to actually say
22:30
Brian: okay um you know you know melanin shouldn't be.
22:38
Brian: Something to inhibit an opportunity.
22:44
Brian: And I want the world to be able to see the beauty of what this young woman,
22:50
Brian: my main character, Maya Jones, encounters,
22:54
Brian: perseveres through, and then ultimately how they end the book,
23:00
Brian: kind of how things culminate. It's just spectacular.
23:04
Brian: I don't want to give any more away. I just want people to put their hands on
23:08
Brian: the book and give it a read. And it's a true book, Marvin.
23:12
Brian: It's a true book about fly fishing.
23:15
Brian: Yes, it's a fiction novel, but it's a true book about fly fishing.
23:19
Brian: And if you're an angler and you read it, it'll resonate with you.
23:23
Brian: And even if you're not an angler, you don't care anything about fly fishing. It'll resonate.
23:30
Brian: It's inspiring, empowering, powering and you'll leave knowing and feeling like
23:35
Brian: you belong in any scenario. It's fantastic.
23:39
Marvin: Yeah. And it's interesting. I mean, you know, so, you know, you are not female and African American.
23:45
Marvin: So I'm kind of curious, you know, how did you feel comfortable that you could
23:49
Marvin: tell Maya's story authentically and respectfully?
23:53
Brian: I knew being a white author with a young black narrative that grows up,
24:06
Brian: I knew that that probably would end up being a bit of a hurdle. But.
24:14
Brian: I also felt as though that the story has never been told.
24:20
Brian: It's never been... Let me go back.
24:23
Brian: I knew, again, like I said, that I was going to end up running into some obstacles
24:28
Brian: as far as that aspect might be concerned.
24:31
Brian: And I wanted to remove that because the amount of research that I did for this book, i.e.
24:36
Brian: The eight years spent making everything perfect, making everything right,
24:41
Brian: making all the puzzle pieces fit, it. I had 16 women as beta readers.
24:50
Brian: My research was just immeasurable.
24:55
Brian: Again, I constantly was referring to friends and also people that had nothing
25:03
Brian: to do with fly fishing or understanding anything about fly fishing, uh,
25:07
Brian: to, to, to help make sure that the voice and the Southern voice was right.
25:13
Brian: And I feel good about it. I feel positive about it.
25:17
Brian: And, um, I got a little bit of pushback. I reached out to, uh,
25:21
Brian: some, some individuals that, uh, that, that said, there's no way that I could
25:27
Brian: do that. And, uh, you know, I'm not a quitter.
25:29
Brian: So, um, I think that don't judge a book by its cover. That's gonna be my mantra.
25:38
Marvin: Well, there you go. And you know, it's kind of interesting, right?
25:40
Marvin: So your day gig is you're a visual arts teacher at Myers Park High School.
25:45
Marvin: And that is, my mom's a retired public school teacher.
25:49
Marvin: And so I know kind of what a grind that can be, right? Cause like,
25:52
Marvin: the day doesn't end at two or three o'clock, you're grading papers and doing stuff.
25:56
Marvin: And so, I was kind of curious, how did you find the time to craft your first draft?
26:03
Brian: I, my, my block of time, um, was specific and my block of time,
26:11
Brian: basically my, my day would start at four 50 in the morning.
26:15
Brian: I would get up, get my coffee, get in the car, get to school.
26:18
Brian: And then I would, I would start hammering through some writing because it was quiet.
26:24
Brian: I didn't have anybody bothering me. So technically for about almost,
26:28
Brian: almost three hours I could write.
26:31
Brian: And And then as the evening kind of wound down after the 7.30 time frame,
26:37
Brian: 8 o'clock time frame, I would actually move back in to get behind the computer
26:42
Brian: again and start grinding.
26:44
Brian: And that pause in the middle of the day where I actually changed modes was enough
26:50
Brian: for me to actually kind of work through some stuff in my head.
26:54
Brian: Because like I said before, my brain is so jacked up, it's firing all the time.
26:58
Brian: And I was thinking, how am I going to fix this thing?
27:00
Brian: How am I going to make this work? How am I going to get this puzzle piece to
27:03
Brian: fit in here this way so that I can make this happen?
27:06
Brian: And that was that space and time in the day, even amidst of preaching the gospel of the visual arts.
27:17
Brian: So basically, to answer your question, the long version, early,
27:21
Brian: early mornings and then late evenings. It was a grind.
27:27
Brian: And the last four years have been even tougher. So being an author is no joke, man, no joke.
27:34
Marvin: So were you doing that, Brian, pretty much every day, or were you kind of doing that in spurts?
27:42
Brian: That was, without question, an everyday thing.
27:47
Brian: It was weekends. It was, yeah, there wasn't a break in time.
27:53
Brian: Every day, I was doing some form of writing to further myself.
28:00
Brian: And there was a lot of back and forth with my co-author, my cousin. So it was a grind.
28:07
Marvin: Yeah, and you mentioned her. I mean, so, you know, people may not have known
28:10
Marvin: she, you know, your cousin was your co-author.
28:12
Marvin: And I'm kind of curious, you know, how that worked to kind of go from the first
28:17
Marvin: draft to the finished manuscript.
28:18
Marvin: I mean, did you kind of bang out the first draft yourself and then you guys
28:22
Marvin: kind of iterated it, you know, between the two of you? Or how did that process work?
28:28
Brian: From the movie script, there was a foundation. And once we had that foundation,
28:39
Brian: and Barb said, yes, I will do this with you. I'm going to go down this rabbit hole with you.
28:46
Brian: She basically started to take the movie script in terms of its foundation.
28:54
Brian: And she started putting the Tetris together. She started putting the puzzle pieces together.
29:00
Brian: And basically, she planted the seed, the tree grew up, and then there were some branches.
29:09
Brian: I came in with, like I said before, the leaves and the ornaments and actually
29:14
Brian: talked a lot about the areas that had to do with the fly fishing.
29:21
Brian: And then it evolved to even more. It evolved to certain scenes where I would
29:27
Brian: go do research and then I would start writing.
29:30
Brian: So over that span of like basically the last five years, I have kind of been
29:37
Brian: self-taught in terms of the English language.
29:40
Brian: And the English language is a bitch, man.
29:46
Brian: It's hard. It's tough. It's tough to be a writer.
29:50
Brian: And I learned. It was kind of like on-the-job training. I would send stuff to
29:54
Brian: her, she would actually butcher it, and then she would send it back to me with
29:59
Brian: her version. I would send it back to her.
30:01
Brian: So, I mean, it was like a tennis mat constantly, but I got better and better and better and better.
30:08
Brian: And then it finally got to a point where she was not having to edit hardly anything
30:12
Brian: that I was doing because I was just so passionate about pushing through and
30:17
Brian: finding the voice and finding that muse and then going with it.
30:24
Marvin: Got it so it really sounds like she took the script and kind of built the chassis
30:28
Marvin: and then you just kind of ate the elephant one bite at a time right you.
30:32
Brian: Are correct absolutely that is a beautiful analogy.
30:35
Marvin: Interesting and so it's always funny like when i talk to to authors you know
30:40
Marvin: i want to you know i'm always kind of curious because you get guys that are
30:42
Marvin: like i'll never do that ever again and then there are other people that are
30:45
Marvin: eager for it um but you know there's always um and this is probably true kind
30:49
Marvin: of in painting and designing you know uh fly fishing fishing accessories,
30:53
Marvin: you know, what were, you know, the biggest challenges or surprises you encountered
30:59
Marvin: while you were working on the book?
31:02
Brian: Oh, thinking that I'd done something monumental. Some of the writing that I had done.
31:09
Brian: There was the amount of stuff that she cut, I thought was just superb.
31:17
Brian: It was fantastic.
31:19
Brian: But that's selfish of me to say that because she would read it and go, it's not fantastic.
31:25
Brian: So there was a lot of push and pull. A lot of push and pull.
31:29
Brian: And it was a lot of me getting...
31:32
Brian: Getting my feelings hurt, uh, and, and feeling like I'd been punched in the teeth.
31:39
Brian: And I was like, well, what's wrong with it? Tell me what's wrong with she,
31:41
Brian: you know, and she would actually go through this, this whole diagnostic of what, what was wrong with it.
31:47
Brian: And I, I had to actually learn.
31:50
Brian: I learned a lot about myself in terms of shutting the hell up and stepping back
31:55
Brian: and letting things then materialize and letting them evolve.
32:00
Brian: And then the system that we had created started to evolve as well.
32:09
Brian: As I got better, things would flow. I knew what she would want,
32:13
Brian: and I would work through those things.
32:16
Brian: And then it got to a point and a place where it became so interchangeable. changeable.
32:23
Brian: I couldn't see what she had done versus what I had done.
32:27
Brian: And if you talk to her right now, she'd say the exact same thing because she
32:31
Brian: told me about two years into the, I guess the 15th draft of the book,
32:38
Brian: she was like, I can't tell what's yours and mine anymore.
32:41
Brian: And I was like, now I've got, I've harnessed this.
32:45
Brian: I have found a voice and I'm getting better at it. I'm even getting better.
32:50
Brian: I'm reading The Longest Silence right now by Thomas McGain, and some of the
32:59
Brian: words that he uses, I have to go get a dictionary.
33:04
Brian: So I figured out something. I was like, if I can just figure out vocabulary.
33:09
Brian: I can start manipulating sentences within the English language to speak within my voice.
33:16
Brian: And that was a big jumping off point for me right there, too.
33:23
Marvin: It's interesting. You know, it makes me think when you're talking about that,
33:25
Marvin: it's kind of like, you know, people that go fish with a guide but want to tell
33:29
Marvin: the guide how they should fish. Right?
33:31
Brian: Exactly.
33:32
Marvin: And you got to figure out that, like, you know, what's the point of,
33:35
Marvin: you know, you know, associating yourself with people that are better at certain
33:39
Marvin: things than you are if you won't listen to them.
33:42
Brian: Oh, again, incredibly well said that that's, that's it.
33:46
Brian: Oh yeah. I remember being in, you know, I like to joke around and I,
33:52
Brian: I would joke around with one of my guide buddies.
33:56
Brian: And I remember saying something to him about one of the, like a cast he made
34:01
Brian: and he looked at me and he was like, I will push you out of this boat right now.
34:07
Brian: So yeah, I get it.
34:10
Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting too. I would also say the power of, you know,
34:14
Marvin: reading a lot and writing a lot.
34:15
Marvin: And, you know, for whatever reason, you know, you and I both are Gen Xers,
34:20
Marvin: you know, kids don't grow up doing that, right?
34:24
Marvin: And so, you know, it's kind of one of those things, like, if you don't do it
34:27
Marvin: a lot, you're not going to get better at it.
34:29
Marvin: And, you know, in terms of the reading thing, I think it's super powerful,
34:33
Marvin: right, to see how other people put language together.
34:37
Marvin: I remember working with my oldest son during COVID on all of his college essays.
34:41
Marvin: And, you know, so that was a really fun father-son experience.
34:47
Marvin: But what I would say out of that is, you know, we worked a lot on writing, right?
34:52
Marvin: And, you know, for Christmas that following year, I gave him a copy of Strunk
34:56
Marvin: and White's An Old Man in the Sea, right?
34:59
Brian: Oh, yeah. Right on.
35:01
Marvin: And, you know, because there's just so much more to – it's just different.
35:04
Marvin: You know, like when I was in high school, we were turning in papers every single week.
35:08
Marvin: Absolutely. And, you know, and now it's like, you know, holy cow,
35:12
Marvin: they wrote one paper in like four years and people are like super excited.
35:16
Marvin: So, but yeah, it's an interesting thing.
35:20
Marvin: And so, you know, it's kind of funny because I had forgotten that the book started
35:26
Marvin: as a script before it was a book, but it's actually potentially moving back to becoming a script.
35:31
Marvin: And I know you've been, you know, working on pre-production work with Angie Harmon.
35:37
Marvin: And I was really kind of curious, you know, how did you meet Angie?
35:40
Marvin: And, you know, what about the story attracted her and said, you know,
35:44
Marvin: I want to make a movie out of this?
35:47
Brian: I was, this was last year, about the same time I reached out to Jam Up Apparel,
35:56
Brian: where I was bouncing around,
35:59
Brian: but I had what I thought was an incredibly solid form of the script.
36:06
Brian: And I had Angie Harmon's daughter in my class.
36:15
Brian: And I just on a whim, it was a really bold move.
36:21
Brian: I said, would you please take this to your mother and have her give it a read?
36:28
Brian: Fast forward, probably about two and a half months later,
36:35
Brian: this young lady walks up to me with her phone and shows me a text and it says
36:42
Brian: please tell your teacher I'm going to make this movie.
36:47
Brian: And that was gratifying it was
36:50
Brian: exciting at that moment I was like wow
36:53
Brian: I have someone's attention and
36:57
Brian: I mean if you know any of uh uh
37:01
Brian: angie harman's work she's fantastic she's just
37:04
Brian: a brilliant actress and um i was like what what's next so uh we kind of got
37:18
Brian: on board with with angie and uh through her we were able to
37:24
Brian: get the script shot through her agents.
37:32
Brian: And I don't know in terms of whether or not we got a lot of nibbles or we got
37:40
Brian: anything, but we signed a six-month agreement.
37:44
Brian: And then when the six months ran out, we took the script back.
37:49
Brian: Now the script is back in our possession now. Now, but Angie feels so strong right now about this.
37:58
Brian: She is endorsing the book so that we can move this thing forward and get the movie made.
38:05
Brian: And we've got some coals in the fire.
38:08
Brian: We really have. We have plan B, plan C, plan D.
38:11
Brian: And I believe in my heart that this movie needs to be made. And I want it made.
38:17
Brian: I want to be a part of the process. I want to be a part of,
38:22
Brian: you know, the industry in fly fishing industry alone right now is doing great
38:28
Brian: things in terms of leveling out the playing field and by means of getting everybody involved.
38:34
Brian: He, she, they. Getting everybody involved with fly fishing. Yeah.
38:40
Brian: Um, that's the way that it should be. And I want to be, uh, a part of that, uh, reform.
38:49
Brian: So I'm pushing to get this message out to a really large audience. Yeah.
38:55
Marvin: And it's interesting too, right? I mean, you know, in terms of,
38:57
Marvin: you know, taking the shot and, you know, reaching out through your student,
39:01
Marvin: but I mean, I think that's a, you know, from a life journey perspective,
39:04
Marvin: you know, particularly if you're like us and you have a few more miles on your
39:08
Marvin: tires than the average bear,
39:09
Marvin: you know, to coach younger people or really anybody at any stage of life to
39:16
Marvin: be more willing to put themselves out there because it's so incredibly rare
39:21
Marvin: for anything good to happen if you play it safe.
39:25
Brian: Right. Absolutely. Completely agree with that. 100%.
39:28
Marvin: Yeah. And I imagine that blows into your art as well.
39:33
Brian: Huge risk taker. I didn't want to hold back.
39:36
Brian: And I've been able to finally get myself to a point, given the fact that I'm
39:40
Brian: 55 now, that first of all, if I don't know the answer to something,
39:45
Brian: I'm going to ask a question.
39:46
Brian: Number two, I want to finish what I start, and I'm going to look for every single
39:54
Brian: avenue to try to be successful.
39:57
Brian: It's ingrained in teachers. I am an educator.
40:00
Brian: I'm going to look for every means possible to reach my kids, and I don't quit.
40:08
Brian: I'm seeing this through, and I really, really, really hope that people get a
40:13
Brian: hold of this book. they put a comment in Amazon.
40:18
Brian: They leave a video that says, let's get this movie made because it is a game
40:22
Brian: changer. And I feel it. I know it.
40:25
Marvin: Yeah, and so, you know, to put a little meat on the bone there,
40:28
Marvin: you know, when will readers be able to get their hands on a copy and where can they get one?
40:34
Brian: We self-published through Amazon and it will be ready for consumption on September the 22nd.
40:40
Brian: So very, very soon. It's coming.
40:43
Brian: The e-book will be available in about 10 days.
40:47
Brian: I don't even know what that would be then, by at least, what,
40:51
Brian: the 7th or 8th of September?
40:52
Marvin: Yeah. And so can people pre-order or do they need to remember those dates and then go to Amazon?
40:59
Brian: They can pre-order, but we really, really, really want everybody to, they can pre-order.
41:06
Brian: We want everybody to be able to hit the ground running, though,
41:10
Brian: on September the 22nd by grabbing a book.
41:14
Brian: And a beautiful thing has happened with this.
41:17
Brian: Angie, because she is endorsing the book, is actually going to be at our book
41:21
Brian: signing on October the 5th at Legion Brewery, South Park location,
41:26
Brian: from 9 a.m. until 12 noon.
41:29
Brian: So Angie will be with us signing books. And again, I'm hopeful that it's unfortunate.
41:39
Brian: I'm in a very, very fortunate situation that someone who is in the industry, the movie industry,
41:48
Brian: who is an actress, cares enough about this project, feels enough about this
41:55
Brian: project, and understands the magnitude behind it.
41:58
Brian: That they're willing to actually do this with me and my cousin.
42:04
Brian: So I'm grateful. I'm humbled.
42:07
Brian: So it's awesome.
42:09
Marvin: And are there any other promotional events on the calendar other than the event at Legion?
42:14
Brian: Yes, the day before, Friday, October 4th, I'm at Appalachian Mountain Brewery
42:19
Brian: in Boone from 4 until 6 p.m.
42:25
Brian: The front part of the book originates in Boone, my hometown.
42:30
Brian: I was so excited about painting such an amazing picture of Boone,
42:36
Brian: the mountains, the community of Boone.
42:40
Brian: It was a perfect fit for me to be able to do that.
42:45
Brian: Um, and I'm grateful that I get a chance to go up there and do a book signing.
42:49
Brian: I hope there, you know, a thousand people up there ready to, to pick up the book.
42:54
Brian: Um, then again, like I said, the very next day we'll be back home at,
42:58
Brian: uh, at Legion brewery in Charlotte and Saturday, October the 5th.
43:04
Brian: Uh, did I say South part location before I might have anyway, uh, 9am to 12 noon.
43:10
Brian: And then later that afternoon, we will be at Angry Ale's selling the book for
43:17
Brian: the Appalachian State versus Marshall viewing party.
43:23
Marvin: Got it. And is there a website or social media feeds for the book?
43:28
Brian: Yes, it's www.shetalkstofish, all one word, shetalkstofish.com.
43:37
Brian: And you can subscribe to get updates. You can also see the events calendar of
43:42
Brian: all the signings that we have coming up.
43:45
Brian: And then you can get updates on how we proceed in terms of trying to get people's
43:50
Brian: attention to hopefully make this movie.
43:53
Marvin: Yeah, and I will drop a link to that in the show notes. And before I let you
43:56
Marvin: hop, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?
44:02
Brian: Well, first of all, I want to thank you for giving me the time of day.
44:08
Brian: I'm grateful. And to all the listeners out there, give it a chance,
44:15
Brian: give it a read, and then share the book.
44:19
Brian: Tell somebody that they need to go grab it from Amazon.
44:23
Brian: I'm hopeful that this will resonate with you.
44:28
Brian: And I'm hopeful that this platform actually,
44:35
Brian: kind of, in a way, changes the landscape. So I appreciate it, Morgan.
44:40
Marvin: Oh, you bet. Anytime. My pleasure. And, you know, just kind of curious,
44:44
Marvin: as busy as you've been, kind of burning the creative candle at both ends,
44:48
Marvin: have you been able to get out and whack a few fish?
44:51
Brian: I have. I had to have some boots on the ground for the back half of the book
44:57
Brian: deals with Montana State University as well as Bozeman.
45:01
Brian: And my wife and I, for her 50th birthday, got to go to Bozeman for 10 days.
45:07
Brian: And we went out there and we caught fish.
45:10
Brian: And like I said, with having boots on the ground, taking in some of the beauty
45:16
Brian: around Bozeman and just Montana in general.
45:20
Brian: General and it was it was spectacular but yes and i'm constantly you know if
45:26
Brian: i can find a farm pond i keep my my fly fishing stuff in the in the truck at
45:30
Brian: all times so if i have an hour i'll go to a buddy's place and go catch bass yeah.
45:36
Marvin: And you uh you got to hang out with uh with our good friend ad maddox as well.
45:39
Brian: Oh yes when i was that's awesome that's right when i was in montana i got to
45:44
Brian: go uh I got to go see AD, finally meet her face to face. It was fantastic.
45:49
Brian: I picked up a few of her prints, my wife and I did.
45:53
Brian: And it was really, really cool to be able to see her and her space and her environment.
45:58
Brian: She's so kind and so gracious with her time.
46:03
Brian: It was right before her show at the very, very end of June.
46:08
Brian: I think it was like June 28th or something like that. Not she,
46:11
Brian: she had a, she had a show and I got to see everything firsthand.
46:16
Brian: And it was, it was spectacular, the work that she does.
46:19
Brian: And she's another great friend who has kind of played mentor to me on,
46:24
Brian: especially being behind the canvas.
46:26
Brian: So it was a lot of fun.
46:28
Marvin: If you find yourself in Livingston, you should definitely stop by her gallery.
46:32
Marvin: There's some just beautiful artwork in there and she's fun to hang out with.
46:36
Marvin: And, you know, Hester, before I let you go, you know, what's the best way for
46:39
Marvin: folks to kind of follow your, ventures at the easel, you know,
46:43
Marvin: at the word processor slash typewriter or on the water.
46:47
Brian: Uh, let's see, you can go to www.hookedflyco.com.
46:55
Brian: That's H-O-O-K-E-D-F-L-Y-C-O.com.
46:59
Brian: You can also catch, like I said, uh, what's up with the happenings as far as
47:04
Brian: the book is ketalkstofish.com.
47:07
Brian: And then after that,
47:11
Brian: you know, I will continue to keep posting and if you're looking to see what's
47:17
Brian: happening, Angie Harmon's going to be dropping a post here very, very soon.
47:22
Brian: A little plug for the book and if you want to follow her TikTok or her Instagram,
47:32
Brian: maybe catch up with what she's doing too.
47:35
Marvin: Yeah, and I'll drop all that stuff in the show notes and I'll also drop links
47:38
Marvin: to Jam Up and Mothbear for folks.
47:40
Marvin: And, you know, hopefully I'll be able to let you buy me a couple beers at Legion
47:45
Marvin: here in about, I don't know, six weeks or so.
47:48
Marvin: And Brian, I appreciate you carving a little bit of time out to chat with me.
47:52
Brian: Thank you so much, Marvin. This was fantastic. Love talking shop,
47:57
Brian: man. It's awesome. Thank you.
47:59
Marvin: Yeah, you bet. My pleasure. We should do it more often than once every five and a half years.
48:05
Brian: Yeah no make the time to call it now i'll talk to you anytime man it's awesome there.
48:11
Marvin: You go take care i.
48:14
Brian: Appreciate you thank you.
48:15
Intro: Well folks we hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed bringing
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