Speaker 1: Please welcome our friend, mister Brad Meltzer. Oh so happy
Speaker 1: to hear the song. Can I ask you this? Can
Speaker 1: I ask you this?
Speaker 2: This song makes an appearance in the book. The way
Speaker 2: that it makes the appearance in the book is hysterical.
Speaker 2: I love it is that real, like at some point
Speaker 2: where you and all your jackass friends trying to figure
Speaker 2: out what's the last song you listen to?
Speaker 1: Well, that's my life.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, but like no, I do think I
Speaker 3: actually do think that in the scene in the book,
Speaker 3: it doesn't ruin anything, but it's all about, like you know,
Speaker 3: it's a book about looking backwards or looking forward and
Speaker 3: realizing that if you look backwards you look at regret,
Speaker 3: and if you look forward, you look at anxiety.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And the only way to be really present is of course,
Speaker 3: to be in the present. But in my house there
Speaker 3: is a constant fight of music, right, And I firmly
Speaker 3: believe that if you just sit and listen to your
Speaker 3: old music from when you were like seventeen years old,
Speaker 3: it's like it's old music death.
Speaker 1: It's like definitely it's a miserable thing.
Speaker 3: And if you're not constantly like transforming and engaging with
Speaker 3: something new and growing.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I got it. I got it,
Speaker 1: and the only question.
Speaker 3: But what I love about it is that the last
Speaker 3: scene is is they play you know, he plays.
Speaker 1: Zig plays for Nola Betty Davis.
Speaker 3: She's like, let me see the last song that was
Speaker 3: on your thing and he plays it for it. And
Speaker 3: the thing that I do like, She's like, this sucks,
Speaker 3: but it's great like that, and I just love that
Speaker 3: she likes it and I can't. I didn't plan that.
Speaker 3: And I was just like, no, she's good. Because every
Speaker 3: by the way, when you started playing it, every head
Speaker 3: in this room here we were all of course, it's
Speaker 3: still got.
Speaker 1: That book is still a killer, by the way, And
Speaker 1: I did. I will confess.
Speaker 2: I sent bradda text when I was reading the book
Speaker 2: over the break and it had been four years, and
Speaker 2: I told you, I think the last time we talked,
Speaker 2: I was very nervous.
Speaker 1: You haven't written a novel in a loris the you
Speaker 1: You didn't miss a beat.
Speaker 2: The book is fantastic, fantastic.
Speaker 1: And the other the other.
Speaker 2: Thing that I was concerned about is it's the third
Speaker 2: in a series.
Speaker 1: It's a Zig and Nola novel. So how long ago
Speaker 1: was the first one? How long ago was the first one?
Speaker 1: I was like twenty eighteen, I mean a long time ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so then the last one was four years ago.
Speaker 2: So if everybody hasn't read both of them, my concern
Speaker 2: is you don't know who Zig and Nola are. Is
Speaker 2: that you would start and go like, I don't know
Speaker 2: who these people are and be lost.
Speaker 1: Does it help? Yes?
Speaker 2: Are there things that you can kind of flash back to?
Speaker 2: I don't remember everything from one four years ago.
Speaker 3: My wife was proofing the book and she's like, I
Speaker 3: don't remember what happened. She's married to me and had
Speaker 3: children with me, So of course I write every book
Speaker 3: is you do not need to read anything? Right Literally,
Speaker 3: the blurb they put on the cover of the book
Speaker 3: for the best some best selling author says the perfect
Speaker 3: place to meet Zig and Nola.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it's grace, It is great.
Speaker 2: What is the And I know because you've done this
Speaker 2: in the past, what is the best thumbnail for the book?
Speaker 2: Because there are here here is you've been on book
Speaker 2: tour this week, right here is here is what nobody
Speaker 2: has said to you at a book tour. And I
Speaker 2: know people will read the book and finish it quickly
Speaker 2: and then show up at the book at the book
Speaker 2: tours and meeting you and they'll talk to you about
Speaker 2: the whole book. Nobody has said this to you on
Speaker 2: the book tour, oh I saw that coming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thing, nobody will ever say that to you for
Speaker 3: this book. At the ending of this book has a
Speaker 3: twist that.
Speaker 1: By the way, forget the ending of a book. There
Speaker 1: is so much that happens.
Speaker 2: Like you get the main story, there is so much
Speaker 2: that goes on.
Speaker 1: Nobody nobody has said.
Speaker 2: To you oh yeah, oh yeah, I would have I
Speaker 2: would have done that I had.
Speaker 3: I have people who and you know, people my my reader,
Speaker 3: they're smart right like they are. They they do not
Speaker 3: want to get to the end and be like I guess,
Speaker 3: but they are coming and they're like dude, dude, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: And I love that. Like that to me when I
Speaker 3: write a book, I'm like, if you guess the ending,
Speaker 3: you win, but if you don't, I win. And I
Speaker 3: and and that's why I am. When I read a book,
Speaker 3: you beat everybody. In this book, you will beat everybody.
Speaker 1: Love the ending of this book. Can I ask you this?
Speaker 2: And from people that are reading it, has anybody has
Speaker 2: anybody confessed to tearing up during the Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Well because it's a really person.
Speaker 3: But it's a person, you know, and I do think
Speaker 3: and I'm just you know, it's super personal this one.
Speaker 3: And I mean that in the way it's a weird
Speaker 3: thing to say, but I'm going to say, supers, I'm
Speaker 3: going to tell you why.
Speaker 1: Here's why.
Speaker 3: So the book, you know, I never I never know
Speaker 3: the full quote unquote theme.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm not like the setup. Let's just do this up.
Speaker 3: So a man walks into a funeral home carrying his
Speaker 3: favorite blue suit.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: He has got a terminal disease, and this is the
Speaker 3: suit he wants to be buried him.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing.
Speaker 3: If you go into your local bank and you open
Speaker 3: up a safety deposit box, then the paperwork is filed,
Speaker 3: and that means the government could eventually find it.
Speaker 1: Same thing.
Speaker 3: You go to the ups store, you open up a
Speaker 3: po box, right, But if you secretly sew something into
Speaker 3: the lining of your suit and you hand that suit
Speaker 3: over to your local funeral director, you have the ultimate
Speaker 3: untraceable hiding spot. And so the man goes back to
Speaker 3: his hotel. There is a guy with a gun waiting
Speaker 3: and says, where is it? Man says, I don't know
Speaker 3: what you're talking about, shoots the man dead. That suit
Speaker 3: is still in the funeral home. You won't believe what's
Speaker 3: hidden inside it or who's about to find it. Right,
Speaker 3: that's chapter one.
Speaker 1: Of the Viper. Yeah, no, that's how it starts. Chapter two.
Speaker 1: By the way, where did that idea? Where was that
Speaker 1: idea born in a funeral home?
Speaker 3: Because I'm frigging only I love funeral homes, So I
Speaker 3: go to this.
Speaker 1: This is great.
Speaker 3: I go to this funeral home with my buddy in
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania and usually go to the funeral home and you're like,
Speaker 3: for the wrong reason, you don't want to be there.
Speaker 1: This is light a day.
Speaker 3: And he's showing me, like, here where the urns are,
Speaker 3: and here's where all the scalpels are and the bone
Speaker 3: saws and these gruesome things.
Speaker 1: But then there's this one door.
Speaker 3: That has this giant padlock on it, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: what's that? And that's of course all I care about now,
Speaker 3: and he's like, oh, watch this, and he pulls out
Speaker 3: a key, undoes the padlock, opens it up. The door
Speaker 3: swings wide, and there's like all these clothes that look
Speaker 3: like your grandparents what they wore to your wedding, your
Speaker 3: bar mitzvah or whatever, like like the fancy affair. So
Speaker 3: it's like pinstry suits and like sequin gowns, and if
Speaker 3: you're old and you have no family, you pick out
Speaker 3: what you're gonna wear to your funeral.
Speaker 1: So that is true. That is true.
Speaker 3: And the craziest part is is there's like Jets jerseys
Speaker 3: in there. There's like a guy who's got a cowboy
Speaker 3: hat in there. Someone's like and he said, I'm like,
Speaker 3: what's the cowboy hat. He's like, yeah, this guy. I
Speaker 3: have a client, he said, my ex wife hates his
Speaker 3: cowboy hat. Make sure it's on my body, in my coffin.
Speaker 3: Like he's determined to the end to like put the
Speaker 3: knife in her.
Speaker 1: And people are crazy.
Speaker 3: But I looked at that and right there was like,
Speaker 3: this is the best hiding spot I've ever seen in
Speaker 3: my life.
Speaker 1: No, really, is it? Really? Till you die, no one
Speaker 1: will find what you put in there. Right by the way.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's true. I love that.
Speaker 3: But you know it's true, right like when you see
Speaker 3: it and I say, oh, there's clothes but you pick
Speaker 3: out to me, You're like, there's something that hits you
Speaker 3: in the chest that goes that seems real to me. Yes,
Speaker 3: and that's what I and that to me is always
Speaker 3: where we start off.
Speaker 1: So so go back to So why the the personal?
Speaker 1: Is it personal?
Speaker 2: Because you've already donated your clothes to the funeral hallway?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I got to pick out my Superman
Speaker 1: outfit too. Can I tell you?
Speaker 3: Though I've never told you about this, my father, May
Speaker 3: he rest in peace.
Speaker 1: And this is also where the idea comes from.
Speaker 3: My father is the only guy I think in the
Speaker 3: whole universe who convinced the Florida DMV when he went
Speaker 3: to get his driver's license, and you got to take
Speaker 3: that serious picture. It's a government picture to let him
Speaker 3: wear a baseball cap in it. Okay, shut up, I
Speaker 3: promise you it is true. I have the physical proof.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, Dad, how and he's like, ah, the
Speaker 3: woman liked me. I'm like, so my father when we
Speaker 3: buried him, is buried in a baseball cap that says
Speaker 3: best pop ever. And I was like, and the people
Speaker 3: are like, they gotta put a something like my my
Speaker 3: dad didn't want to wear a suit to it. There's
Speaker 3: no way I'm putting a Yankee old you know, Jane
Speaker 3: yild sit on my dad. I'm like, he's wearing a
Speaker 3: baseball cap in his grave. I'm like, that's awesome, which
Speaker 3: is all I'm so, you know, I'm picking it. So
Speaker 3: but this so, why is this personal? So the opening
Speaker 3: page of the book, the very first thing you read
Speaker 3: is this great military quote and it says, I don't
Speaker 3: believe in closure. I'm not sure we ever get over anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's before chapter one, you're right.
Speaker 2: But because the first line is these were the last
Speaker 2: sixteen minutes of his life.
Speaker 1: I love that opening line. Yeah, no, I do too.
Speaker 1: I did too.
Speaker 3: But I know what you're talking about right by that
Speaker 3: opening little quote that you see, and it's about closure
Speaker 3: and and it's the last thing I put in the book.
Speaker 3: When the book was done, I found that quote and
Speaker 3: I was like, why is this It hit me like
Speaker 3: a harpoon in the chest, and I'm like, why is
Speaker 3: this closure quote hitting me? And here's the thing is,
Speaker 3: you know, we know each other a long time, and
Speaker 3: you know I have a complicated relationship with my father.
Speaker 3: I buried my mom and my dad and I spent
Speaker 3: a lot of books trying to figure out, you know,
Speaker 3: how to get over my parents' deaths. And so my
Speaker 3: mom died. I wrote a book about a character who
Speaker 3: lost their mom. My dad died there about character lost
Speaker 3: their dad. I'm a very complex person, right, like you
Speaker 3: can never crack my code. But when I was working
Speaker 3: on this, I so I'll just tell you the story.
Speaker 3: When I was at Michigan, and I was in my
Speaker 3: senior year at Michigan, I go to a register for
Speaker 3: classes and they say to me, you're kicked out of school.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what are you talking about. They're like, your
Speaker 3: bills aren't paid. No one paid your bills. And my
Speaker 3: first thought is like dad, and I know it's my dad.
Speaker 3: My dad was you know, not educated, always bad with money,
Speaker 3: like just created a lot of chaos in our lives.
Speaker 3: But I go downstairs. They give me some loans at
Speaker 3: one percent. They're really nice to be like, let that
Speaker 3: we will graduate on time. Like thank you to these
Speaker 3: strange you know, the woman and the bursters in the
Speaker 3: registruge office. So now I graduate, I move and you
Speaker 3: get your you know whatever, you get your mail all
Speaker 3: sent you at your new address. So now my real
Speaker 3: mail from home is coming to this new address I have,
Speaker 3: and in the mail Eliott comes forty thousand dollars of
Speaker 3: credit card debt on credit cards that I did not open, right,
Speaker 3: And that's how my father was paying for my college.
Speaker 3: He was taking out illegal credit cards. You know those
Speaker 3: ads to every college kid says, sign up for a
Speaker 3: new credit card. My dad signed up for all of them,
Speaker 3: every single one. And they said to me, the only
Speaker 3: way you're getting out of forty thousand dollars there's a
Speaker 3: debt is you got to prosecute your father. You got
Speaker 3: to say, because it's fraud, you have to testify against him,
Speaker 3: or otherwise all its debts on you. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm not ratting out my own father, right, So of course,
Speaker 3: we make some peace with the companies.
Speaker 1: We give them money.
Speaker 3: And it's such a dumb plan too, because a credit
Speaker 3: card is a twenty two percent interest rate. My dad
Speaker 3: could have a one percent loan, So it's just so dumb.
Speaker 3: But again, we calm everything down and the ground gets
Speaker 3: normal again. But eventually, if you keep getting hit in
Speaker 3: the back of the head, you start looking over your
Speaker 3: own shoulder. Right, here's the part I missed about that story.
Speaker 3: And I told this part of my dad's funeral. When
Speaker 3: my dad was a kid, his father used to beat
Speaker 3: him up. He was a boxer in the military. He
Speaker 3: used to hit my dad. I know for sure my
Speaker 3: dad jumped in front of his younger brother to take
Speaker 3: the hits for him, for his younger brother so he
Speaker 3: won't get hit. I know my dad jumped in front
Speaker 3: of his own mother, my grandmother, so she wouldn't take
Speaker 3: the hit. And what I didn't realize is that that's
Speaker 3: what my dad was doing for me. He was trying
Speaker 3: to take the hit for me financially so that I
Speaker 3: could be the first of my immediate family to get
Speaker 3: out and go to a four year college. But I
Speaker 3: couldn't see that part of the story because I was
Speaker 3: so focused on my hurt and my pain and look
Speaker 3: what you did to me and me, me, me, me,
Speaker 3: And I couldn't see that he was trying that. And
Speaker 3: it goes to this one thing in the book, and
Speaker 3: I didn't until I got to the end. And again
Speaker 3: it won't warn anything, but there's this word at the
Speaker 3: end of the book in the viper called pentimento, and
Speaker 3: pentimento is a painting term.
Speaker 2: Can I can I tell you this just I couldn't
Speaker 2: pronounce the word it was.
Speaker 1: No, I knew, I knew what it wasn't but pimento.
Speaker 1: That's what I did. That's how I read it. You
Speaker 1: read it, of course like, all right, well, I guess
Speaker 1: arts used pimento.
Speaker 3: But I found this one. I didn't know what the
Speaker 3: word was. Pentimento. I never heard a word in my life.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a term in painting. When the paint
Speaker 3: gets so old and dry, it becomes transparent.
Speaker 1: You could see through it.
Speaker 3: And so what happens is is that you can actually
Speaker 3: see the artists, the original underneath the pencil lines that
Speaker 3: are on the canvas before it, before they paint it,
Speaker 3: so like you know, and that's what they do. They
Speaker 3: sketch it out, so a tree or a woman's dress.
Speaker 3: It's swaying one way. They change your mind, it sways
Speaker 3: the other way. So what you're seeing is the rough draft.
Speaker 3: You go to see a Davincian in a museum, you
Speaker 3: see there's like the kind of pencil lines in them,
Speaker 3: and those rough drafts, like all rough drafts, have regrets,
Speaker 3: they have mistakes, they have things you wish you could
Speaker 3: take back. And it dawned on me when I learned
Speaker 3: this word that we are all rough drafts. We all
Speaker 3: have past versions of ourselves that are filled with regrets
Speaker 3: and filled with flaws. And the thing is, though, you
Speaker 3: can't make a masterpiece without them, right. So to me,
Speaker 3: closures overrated. I think, what you have to do And
Speaker 3: this is what the whole book gave me is I
Speaker 3: finally realize you just have to love yourself for who
Speaker 3: you are, your good parts, your bad parts, your family parts,
Speaker 3: those things. And I finally this book for me, what
Speaker 3: the Viper did is it let me find some forgiveness
Speaker 3: for my dad and welcome to my free therapy.
Speaker 1: Really, that's what it was.
Speaker 3: And that and and so I realized as I was running,
Speaker 3: I'm like, those things that are affecting Zig and those
Speaker 3: things that are affecting Nola, it's nothing I made up.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh crap, that's what I've been dealing
Speaker 3: with for the past two years, trying to figure this out.
Speaker 3: And I was carrying that that that heartache and pagn
Speaker 3: that he caused me around and and I was when
Speaker 3: you let it go, man, it lightens you up.
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you, I when I when I read
Speaker 2: the book, I didn't get any of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you didn't get well, you have to come to
Speaker 1: therapy with me. It's way more fun. No, But like,
Speaker 1: do you feel better about I? Actually do? I mean that?
Speaker 1: You know I always say it because I'm being complete? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you can't know that.
Speaker 2: You would have no idea, Like I read the book
Speaker 2: and I wasn't like, wow, I feel really enlightened, right, right,
Speaker 2: But what you do feel really enjoyed the book.
Speaker 3: Of course, But but I hope what you feel when
Speaker 3: you do it is that book is about kind of
Speaker 3: trying to accept yourself. Right, Like Nola will never let
Speaker 3: Zig get closer, I never like do anything.
Speaker 1: That's and and again not running the end of the book.
Speaker 3: But the whole book is about dealing and making peace
Speaker 3: with your past.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: It's Nola's mother's dead. She's got to find out who
Speaker 3: killed her mother.
Speaker 1: Simple thing.
Speaker 3: And that is literally the code. And for me, that
Speaker 3: is like, my dad is dead. How do I make
Speaker 3: peace with that? Because it's not Nola says, I don't
Speaker 3: care who killed my mom.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I didn't like my mom. She but she has to
Speaker 3: make peace with it. And that's what she's doing.
Speaker 1: The whole book. The Hey, can I ask you this?
Speaker 1: So the funeral home thing is is real.
Speaker 2: You went to a funeral home and you saw the suits.
Speaker 2: There's the thing and the prob Well, anyway, this whole
Speaker 2: group of kids, Nola's mom and her friends and all
Speaker 2: of that, what are they called the Breakfast Club?
Speaker 3: Yeah, breakfast breakfast club if you are like gen X
Speaker 3: or millennial, like they have been coming out and drove
Speaker 3: to the book signing and they're like, I am seen
Speaker 3: Like this is a book that opens with halland Oates,
Speaker 3: ends with Betty Davis eyes and the gang in the group.
Speaker 1: Is called the Breakfast Club. But is that based on?
Speaker 2: So the whole thing was when they were in school,
Speaker 2: they would go to like people's houses for parties and
Speaker 2: they would run it through the house and they would
Speaker 2: steal stuff from inside the house from their friends, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, I grew up with a bunch of
Speaker 2: hoodlum friends.
Speaker 1: We never did that. We never did that.
Speaker 2: We did take a door off a hand and put
Speaker 2: it through a glass table, but we never stole from
Speaker 2: the person's house. Did Brad Meltzer, as a child in
Speaker 2: high school steal from their friend's house.
Speaker 3: First of all, I was the poorest kid. I would
Speaker 3: never steal from their houses. I was always like, how
Speaker 3: do you have stealing from your house? And no one
Speaker 3: want to crap in my house? My my Kenwood stereo
Speaker 3: like that was like I got a deal for like
Speaker 3: one hundred bucks. I thought I was rich, and like,
Speaker 3: no one stole from me. I would never steal from anyone.
Speaker 3: But here's the part that's true is and I won't
Speaker 3: I'm trying to say it without running that part of
Speaker 3: the book. We did very much find something illegal in
Speaker 3: someone's house.
Speaker 1: Did you realize, yes.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess it's not what's aggressive.
Speaker 1: It was very aggressive.
Speaker 3: But you know, when you go to someone's house, you
Speaker 3: see stuff, right, you see how people live. I remember
Speaker 3: going to people's houses and again they had two cars
Speaker 3: at a real house. I was like, you have a
Speaker 3: house like and when you go in their bedrooms you'd
Speaker 3: see things right. But we walked in there was There's
Speaker 3: one scene that is one hundred percent true.
Speaker 1: There was one woman.
Speaker 3: Now woman, but was a girl back then who would
Speaker 3: go to her house and her hot mom always had
Speaker 3: bikini photos of herself on the refrigerator. And we would
Speaker 3: find every excuse to go get a drink from that
Speaker 3: refrigerator because we were like, oh, I'm so partsed right now.
Speaker 1: It just which is of course in the book.
Speaker 3: And then you're and then when you see that, you're
Speaker 3: seeing people's lives, and then you stumble upon you open
Speaker 3: a closet, you open a glove compartment, you open something,
Speaker 3: and there's something that you're like, oh crap, I didn't
Speaker 3: know they had this, and that part's real, right. And
Speaker 3: by the way, not only that, but the yellow corvette
Speaker 3: that they find it in. Yes, that's my wife's dad's
Speaker 3: car and his mid life crisis. Oh yeah, that's his
Speaker 3: midlife crisis car. I was like, Bobby, boy, that car
Speaker 3: is going to the book because I remember I was
Speaker 3: like fifteen years old, sixteen years old, and he bought
Speaker 3: a yellow vet, and I was like, even at sixteen,
Speaker 3: I was like, maybe tone it down a little bit,
Speaker 3: you know, but I was like, the yellow Vet's going
Speaker 3: in the book.
Speaker 2: So but then so so they find something illegal in
Speaker 2: the house and that that kind of sets up the
Speaker 2: breakfast club and everything that happens and unfolds. But then
Speaker 2: there's there's so many and this is what I mean,
Speaker 2: where nobody was like I saw that coming. There's so
Speaker 2: many twists and turns. There's so many things that go
Speaker 2: in a million different ways. The the Orange Company, the.
Speaker 1: Scene in the scene in the basement or whatever. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: that's amazing.
Speaker 3: That may be one of my favorite like action sequence
Speaker 3: scenes to like me and I again, I love making
Speaker 3: your term pages and that's fine, but I love everyone's
Speaker 3: reaction in that scene, right, everyone's true to for him there.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's great, it is, It is great.
Speaker 2: The can I ask you this like when you when
Speaker 2: you're writing, and so there's there's the Breakfast Club for
Speaker 2: lack of a better term, right, and there's five members
Speaker 2: in the in the Breakfast Club, and then there's there's Zig,
Speaker 2: There's there there's Nola, there's Roddy Who's who's Zig's brother? Like,
Speaker 2: and then and then you you learn other characters and
Speaker 2: like Jules and all these other people. Do you and
Speaker 2: this like just nerdy question do you have to like
Speaker 2: do you write down like, oh, this one's related to
Speaker 2: this one and this one was related to this one,
Speaker 2: and here's the arc to get there.
Speaker 3: And I know that I'll I know that I can
Speaker 3: keep that in mind, a lot of people, a lot
Speaker 3: of people.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: The thing the key is is what what I do
Speaker 3: have to write down and figure out is as I got.
Speaker 3: I used to give the whole plot in my head
Speaker 3: every book. I just had the plot in my head.
Speaker 1: I do the thing.
Speaker 3: Middle Age has taken that gift from me. And so
Speaker 3: at one point in the book, I remember Cory and
Speaker 3: I were talking. I wrote the plot. I'm like, right, right, right,
Speaker 3: this is what's gonna happen in this scene. And I
Speaker 3: got it in my head. And then two weeks later
Speaker 3: I was like, what's happening in this scene? And she's like,
Speaker 3: didn't you write it down? I'm like, I didn't write
Speaker 3: it down?
Speaker 1: Crap?
Speaker 3: And then I and I thought I wrote it down.
Speaker 3: I was like, I know I wrote it down, but
Speaker 3: I couldn't find it right. So I plotted again, and
Speaker 3: I tell the plot again, and then like two weeks
Speaker 3: after I write it, I find where I wrote it down.
Speaker 1: The only good news was it was the exact same thing.
Speaker 3: So I was totally consistent, Like whatever crap I make up, like,
Speaker 3: I'm consistently making it up. So that's the only thing
Speaker 3: I have to do is I do have to write
Speaker 3: down the bigger picture.
Speaker 2: Okay, So if the if the corvette is real, if
Speaker 2: the if the suits at a funeral home are real,
Speaker 2: is Malcolm Latrine reel who was always picked last?
Speaker 3: So Malcolm, I know, Malcolm Latrine is so every every
Speaker 3: every childhood story, I will say, nearly every childhood story
Speaker 3: in there is based on somebody.
Speaker 1: Is it really? Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: So in fact, Melissa Cutman really a spoiled little turn bag.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something.
Speaker 3: Don't go looking for initials in my books, like my
Speaker 3: high school, juniorhigh school, elementar school. In fact, the story
Speaker 3: that's real, the most real story that happened to me
Speaker 3: is there's a scene with a school yard fight, right,
Speaker 3: and I twisted the end of it. But when I
Speaker 3: first moved to Florida, I had come from New York,
Speaker 3: and I whatever. I grew up in Brooklyn and we
Speaker 3: used to get in the fights because people gotten fights
Speaker 3: in the school yard. So I but now I moved
Speaker 3: to Florida and I don't know anybody. And I go
Speaker 3: to Florida and all of a sudden, the first day,
Speaker 3: this kid will not be named comes in like throws
Speaker 3: his shoulder into my chest and knocks me back, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, and the thing is when you were the
Speaker 3: first day of school in a new school. The one
Speaker 3: rule I brought from Brooklyn is because I'm like, I'll
Speaker 3: fight this guy. But I'm like, you don't get in
Speaker 3: a fight unless you think you can win. You don't
Speaker 3: have to know you want to win. But at least
Speaker 3: it's close. This kid was a head taller than me,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I don't know if this guy's the
Speaker 3: toughest guy in the school or not.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, do I pick a fight with this guy?
Speaker 3: Second day I go in, he does it again, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's my second day of school. It's like
Speaker 3: karate kid time. Right, It's like and finally, the shortest
Speaker 3: kid in the class who I kept the name on him,
Speaker 3: Scott Kohler, right sees what's happening to me and says, dude,
Speaker 3: can I just tell you some I'm like yeah, and
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm gonna make his name out. He says
Speaker 3: Elliott's a wuss and I'm like, thank you for that
Speaker 3: piece of information. And so of course the next day
Speaker 3: when he does it to me, I just crack him
Speaker 3: and throw him over the chairs and we're done. But
Speaker 3: that scene in the book, right, I won't warn the
Speaker 3: ending of what happens, right, I twist the ending of it,
Speaker 3: of course, But the setup is me me, it is
Speaker 3: one hundred percent the Obviously, what happens in the book
Speaker 3: to me is fifty times.
Speaker 1: Better of how it plays out.
Speaker 3: But make no mistake, my childhood is on display in
Speaker 3: this book, in the viper.
Speaker 2: And then I'll tell you the other the other thing
Speaker 2: that I love him. We've talked about this, I think
Speaker 2: I think we talked about it. It was either the
Speaker 2: first of the Zigandola books or the second one.
Speaker 1: But but Zig is here.
Speaker 2: He's a mortician, mortician at Dover, and you do such
Speaker 2: a beautiful job of paying tribute to the morticians, and
Speaker 2: like in I even read the acknowledgments in the book,
Speaker 2: but you do talk about how the morticians at Dover
Speaker 2: really are unbelievable people, not just because they're morticians and
Speaker 2: they're doing it, but like, these are people who lost
Speaker 2: their lives. I mean.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing is for those who don't know Dover,
Speaker 3: those you know, you've seen it, those when a soldier
Speaker 3: dies in the military, that flag covered coffin comes off
Speaker 3: that plane and everyone salutes.
Speaker 1: But it's not just the soldiers. It's like the nine
Speaker 1: to eleven.
Speaker 3: All the Pentagon victims went to Dover, right, the space
Speaker 3: Shuttle went down, the astronaut's bodies went to Dover. In fact,
Speaker 3: right now in Venezuela, all the CIA people something goes
Speaker 3: south and sideways, their bodies are coming to Dover too.
Speaker 3: So Dover's filled with secrets, and I of course love secrets.
Speaker 3: But what I love more is that the morticians there
Speaker 3: will spend twelve hours rewiring someone's jaw, smoothing it over
Speaker 3: with clay because a family wants to see their son
Speaker 3: one last time in their coffin, rebuilding someone's hand because
Speaker 3: a mother says, I want to hold my child's hand
Speaker 3: one last time, right, And they will not take overtime,
Speaker 3: some of the ones I met, even though the government
Speaker 3: employees and twelve hours extra to make that done, and
Speaker 3: they're like, I want to show this fallen soldier the
Speaker 3: dignity and respect they deserve. And I love the fact
Speaker 3: that you get you know, in Dover, Delaware, of all places,
Speaker 3: is America's most secret funeral home, right, And that to
Speaker 3: me was just the coolest thing and I kept being
Speaker 3: attracted to writing about it, which when I look as
Speaker 3: I say it to you, I'm like, that's the most
Speaker 3: unhealthy thing. That all I want to do is spend
Speaker 3: my time in like you know, the secret funeral home.
Speaker 3: But I just appreciate the dignity and respect they bring
Speaker 3: to those people who have given and made the ultimate sacrifice.
Speaker 1: Oh it's great, and you do you do that.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, you also talk about if
Speaker 2: I may read, zig sat there a moment.
Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with Dover. By the way,
Speaker 1: zig sat there a moment. I'm the woman and.
Speaker 2: Her bulldog crossed the street, lowering its butt. The bulldog
Speaker 2: took a thick dump in the middle of the sidewalk.
Speaker 3: I promise you this is true. Is My wife tried
Speaker 3: to take out the word thick, and I know she's
Speaker 3: listening right now and laughing and nodding, and I was like, no, no,
Speaker 3: because I've evoked something and I just love that. Three
Speaker 3: years later in my life that that's what you read
Speaker 3: on the radio. I spent my whole trying to move
Speaker 3: my father's death and you read that one that she
Speaker 3: was like, don't put that in there.
Speaker 2: And then advice number three that Zig got when he
Speaker 2: turned forty nine. He got three pieces.
Speaker 3: Way let me can I tell you. I'll you have
Speaker 3: to read them, but I'll tell you where they come from.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Zig the character when he turned forty nine,
Speaker 2: he got three pieces of advice. Number one, never pass
Speaker 2: up a bathroom. Number two, don't trust a.
Speaker 1: Fart, great advice. Number three, never waste an erection.
Speaker 3: Fantastic advice. Let me tell you where this comes from.
Speaker 3: I am hiking in the mountains of Switzerland. Okay, this
Speaker 3: is you can't make this up. My buddy, who made
Speaker 3: a lot of money, says he lost his fiftieth birthday
Speaker 3: in Covid and he said, I'm going to take all
Speaker 3: my friends and you get yourself to Switzerland. I'm paying
Speaker 3: for the rest. So we all are like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: We're going to Switzerland and on the mountain on our
Speaker 3: like most tired day because basically for us, I'm a
Speaker 3: jew hiking right like it's fetching over the Alps, like
Speaker 3: that's it. And my buddy leans over to me and says,
Speaker 3: I am you know, I'm turning fifty and I just
Speaker 3: got the best advice. And he told me those lines
Speaker 3: and on the mountain, I opened up my notes app
Speaker 3: and was like this, I promise you will be in
Speaker 3: the next book.
Speaker 1: I promise you.
Speaker 3: And I just sent last week the screenshot of those
Speaker 3: of the advice to everyone that was hiking that day,
Speaker 3: and I said, and his name is Bubbles. I said,
Speaker 3: Bubble's advice is finally seeing the light of day. And
Speaker 3: again I could I could win like the Nobel Prize,
Speaker 3: I could win whatever. But this group of guys, my friends,
Speaker 3: are just so happy that don't waste an erection is
Speaker 3: a piece of a device in one of my books.
Speaker 2: You know what, it makes me happy. I pulled those
Speaker 2: two things out. We never spoke about that, never spoke.
Speaker 1: I got think dump and.
Speaker 2: The thing.
Speaker 3: But that's why we're friends, right, because it's like when
Speaker 3: these books are all just me being unfiltered and there,
Speaker 3: and you're pulling out all the parts that are me,
Speaker 3: so of course you're gonna find that.
Speaker 1: All right, here's what I want to do.
Speaker 2: I want to take a quick break, but when we
Speaker 2: come back, I have to address the witness Protection program,
Speaker 2: must okay, So give me a quick break, we'll come back.
Speaker 2: Brad Meltzer's brand new novel it's called the Viper.
Speaker 1: Its freaking awesome. It just came out.
Speaker 2: Brad will be at Barnes and Noble tonight at Tyson's
Speaker 2: Corner Center six o'clock tonight.
Speaker 1: You can see Brad there quick break at Ellie in
Speaker 1: the morning. Elliott.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I love, and you've always
Speaker 2: been like this, You've always been like this, is you
Speaker 2: learn real things in the book, even though it's fiction.
Speaker 1: It's just all made up. I love this. I know
Speaker 1: where you're going.
Speaker 2: The Marshals and the Witness Protection Program is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous, I mean it really is. And listen, I've been
Speaker 3: We've talked over the years. I've done the secret tunnels
Speaker 3: below the White House, I've done the Labyrinth below the Capitol,
Speaker 3: I've done the tunnels below Disney World. Nothing has been
Speaker 3: harder than getting into the Witness Protection program, right, because
Speaker 3: it's the Witness Protection program, right. And and when we
Speaker 3: think of witness protection, you think of like Tony Soprano
Speaker 3: or Henry Hill at the end the Goodfellas, Like you
Speaker 3: get a nose job.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you go live in Colorado somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, you get an ID or a new like
Speaker 2: that your folder and you just move somewhere.
Speaker 3: And what I love is and that's why Witness Protection,
Speaker 3: just to be clear, was designed for take down the
Speaker 3: mob and it worked.
Speaker 1: It actually worked, so the mob became less impactful in
Speaker 1: the universe.
Speaker 3: But it's not like crime stopped, right, So what I
Speaker 3: love in the book that you see is that new
Speaker 3: criminals took their place. So, yes, mobsters were the biggest
Speaker 3: group that we're in Witness Protection, but then eventually gang
Speaker 3: members were the biggest group in Witness Protection because they
Speaker 3: took over after the mob and then nine to eleven happened.
Speaker 3: We started chasing terrorists, So terrorists with the biggest group.
Speaker 3: You want to know who the biggest group One of
Speaker 3: the biggest groups right now and Witness Protection is accountants.
Speaker 1: Because shut up, are you serious? Because we move in.
Speaker 3: A world of data right And I just love that
Speaker 3: we've made like the full swing from like the mobster
Speaker 3: to accountant the bullet like Morty something who has bar
Speaker 3: Mitzvah had lias for everybody like so, And I love
Speaker 3: the fact that when you read this book, you will
Speaker 3: never look at Witness Protection the same way again.
Speaker 1: Can I ask this?
Speaker 2: And I and I don't want it to give anything away.
Speaker 1: Is you're right?
Speaker 2: You think that there's some you know, go back to
Speaker 2: the go back to to Mobland. There's you know, some
Speaker 2: old Italian who picks up and moves to Colorado and
Speaker 2: he blends into a neighborhood and nobody.
Speaker 1: Knows who it is.
Speaker 2: And you go through this thing in the book where
Speaker 2: you explain, well, now somebody new moves into a neighborhood.
Speaker 2: I could go on Zillo and nobody paid for his house.
Speaker 2: I can google him and learn everything about him. So
Speaker 2: you can't just drop one person into a neighborhood. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if I could say what what?
Speaker 1: Well, no, I won't say what it is.
Speaker 3: But you're right, like it used to be, you drop
Speaker 3: a person neighborhood, you look at your neighbor and you're like,
Speaker 3: I want to talk to that person or I don't
Speaker 3: all meet him, right, won't? And now if you saw
Speaker 3: a new neighbor that came to your neighborhood, and again,
Speaker 3: if they had anything shifty about them, or even if
Speaker 3: they didn't, you do look at Zillo, you see what
Speaker 3: they pay for their house, because we're all nosy, but
Speaker 3: maybe you look at their Facebook page. But if they
Speaker 3: don't have a Facebook page, oh my gosh, that's even
Speaker 3: more crazy now.
Speaker 1: Now it's even more suspicious.
Speaker 3: And so what the Witness Protection had to figure out
Speaker 3: how to do is how to build new people. And
Speaker 3: by the way, you can now look and see if
Speaker 3: they have a criminal record. You can see if they're
Speaker 3: a pedophile. You can see where they went to school.
Speaker 3: You can see where their mutual friends are. If they
Speaker 3: went to that high school. I know that high school.
Speaker 3: Everyone now knows someone at some high school. I have
Speaker 3: a connection with that. And so if you have no
Speaker 3: connection with anything where they went to a school, you do,
Speaker 3: and there's no connection, it's so much harder to make
Speaker 3: fake backgrounds for people. And I won't ruin the ending
Speaker 3: of it, but when you read the viper again, Witness
Speaker 3: Protection is going to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. But is that? But it is accurate? Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: In fact, the thing that was really fun for me
Speaker 3: is the people who helped me with the Witness Protection side.
Speaker 3: We knew I knew, they knew my books and now
Speaker 3: was really helpful. And you know, obviously there were things
Speaker 3: they said to me. They said, I'm going to tell
Speaker 3: you this. You can't print this right, don't put this
Speaker 3: in the viper, but you need to understand this so
Speaker 3: you can have this part and that will make more sense.
Speaker 3: And and and the big thing that I know you're
Speaker 3: thinking right now, that's in the book, the big boom.
Speaker 3: They helped me with that and was like, let's just
Speaker 3: say this is very close to something that I will
Speaker 3: not say to you. And I was like, tell me now,
Speaker 3: But I love when that when I mean now that
Speaker 3: it's the best part of the viper to me, it's
Speaker 3: the best, Like that's the thing that everyone said to me, like,
Speaker 3: oh that's a good bit.
Speaker 1: That's a fun bit. Are there?
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to remember, yeah, no, this is in
Speaker 2: the book.
Speaker 1: How many WHITSEC offices are there? I actually you know
Speaker 1: the number? Is it there?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: There's a lot. No, there's a lot. And because you
Speaker 3: know what they do, you got to check in that.
Speaker 3: The thing is will you explained the witse Oh yeah?
Speaker 3: So when this protection is what's so great about it
Speaker 3: is it offers you this ability to escape your life
Speaker 3: and start over, right, which is so tan and right
Speaker 3: You're gonna leave it all behind, and we all want
Speaker 3: to do it, by the way, I would do it tomorrow, right,
Speaker 3: And that's why all of us right now you're like, wait,
Speaker 3: start my life over.
Speaker 1: I get rid of everything good and the bad. Right,
Speaker 1: I do it. I start over tomorrow. And that's the thing.
Speaker 3: And but here's the problem is that the Witness Protection
Speaker 3: program has told this is their stat and I love
Speaker 3: this stat. They said they have never ever lost anyone
Speaker 3: in Witness Protection, not once, as long as they followed
Speaker 3: our rules, right, which is the huge asterisk. Right. Well,
Speaker 3: you say in the book, the worst thing that happens
Speaker 3: is they get bored. That's the thing is people get bored.
Speaker 3: And what they do is is, you know, you leave
Speaker 3: behind Okay, you don't like your mother in law, you
Speaker 3: leave behind you Like, that's a good one. I'll tell
Speaker 3: you that's fine. But people got to leave behind their sisters.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they won't need to take your dog. And that
Speaker 3: one undoes a lot of people, right, it really does,
Speaker 3: because people are like, I'll be fine without my dog,
Speaker 3: and then six months go by and you're like, let
Speaker 3: me just call and get a picture. And when you call,
Speaker 3: guess what, You're not listening to the rules, and you're
Speaker 3: now the walking dead.
Speaker 1: You're in trouble.
Speaker 3: And the problem is and does explained to me, is
Speaker 3: there is a call in all of our chests. It's
Speaker 3: the call from home. And when you escape it and
Speaker 3: you and you say goodbye, six months later people get
Speaker 3: lonely and they get sad and they can't follow it.
Speaker 3: And I love that. There's something so human about that,
Speaker 3: and of course plays a huge part in the.
Speaker 1: Viper is there so?
Speaker 2: But there are definitely WITSEC offices around DC.
Speaker 3: Oh I know, oh yes, oh yes, because don't well
Speaker 3: and think of it this way, just logically, right, think
Speaker 3: of what you have to do in WITSEC because you're
Speaker 3: bringing someone who's going to testify secretly to testify, right,
Speaker 3: which means you need to be near courthouses, so you
Speaker 3: can't just be in the middle of nowhere. So think
Speaker 3: about it, right, And I love and the funny party.
Speaker 3: This is last night. I'm at my event in Baltimore
Speaker 3: and this woman comes up and she's like, I work
Speaker 3: for the Marshals.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know this book was about witness protection.
Speaker 3: And she says, and she blurts out where one of
Speaker 3: the She's like, there was a building it was.
Speaker 1: I'm just so and so and we used to it.
Speaker 3: And she blurts out at my book signing where the
Speaker 3: secret location is. I'm like, this is fantastic, and she said,
Speaker 3: we used to use this building we have bought for
Speaker 3: the government. The government, you know, needed it for other
Speaker 3: things and we took it for a safe house. And
Speaker 3: I was like, that's why'd you tell me now that
Speaker 3: you should have told me that two years ago.
Speaker 1: I would have put in the book.
Speaker 2: Do you know how many did the marshals tell you
Speaker 2: how many people are in witness Protection? Every time there's
Speaker 2: a story and we do it all the time, every
Speaker 2: time there's a story like in the news and we
Speaker 2: start talking to.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, they can't figure this out. They can't figure
Speaker 1: this out. Everybody, us listeners, everybody's like witness protection. Obviously
Speaker 1: of course do we know it's very well? They don't
Speaker 1: tell you number. I don't know if they've released it.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3: But but the thing, the heart, the thing that I
Speaker 3: really want to know is how many people did it fail?
Speaker 2: For?
Speaker 1: How many?
Speaker 3: And not because the marshals have incredible respectful Sure, they
Speaker 3: are incredible, and that's why I love working with them.
Speaker 3: What I want to know is how many people screwed
Speaker 3: themselves by Lee, because they'll tell you, you know, over time,
Speaker 3: how many ex people they've saved.
Speaker 1: There's some sure number on their website. Right.
Speaker 3: I want to know how many people could stand leaving
Speaker 3: their dog, how many people couldn't stand leaving their sister
Speaker 3: or their brother.
Speaker 1: That's the fascinating thing to me. Is there another Zig
Speaker 1: and Nola?
Speaker 3: Or we don't Oh yeah, no, no, no, I'm still going.
Speaker 3: We're still going, still going, Yeah, we're still going. The
Speaker 3: reason I so here's what I figured out. So Zig
Speaker 3: is this character who believes if you're a kind person
Speaker 3: and you know you're good to people, you make the
Speaker 3: world a better place. It's a beautiful idea, completely naive idea,
Speaker 3: but that's an idea worth fighting for, right, Nola, she's
Speaker 3: like my girl with the dragon tattoo, right like and
Speaker 3: and if you like those books, you'll like the Viper.
Speaker 3: But she believes the exactly opposite. She's like, that's crap.
Speaker 3: Like if you want the world to make sense, you
Speaker 3: grab it by the throat and you force it to
Speaker 3: make sense. And especially when you see injustice, you gotta fight.
Speaker 3: And I used to think Elia for the first two books.
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I'm I'm zig because I do
Speaker 3: believe if you're kind, you make the world a better place.
Speaker 3: But I'm also Nola, and I feel like, if you
Speaker 3: see someone being picked on and use your voice and fight,
Speaker 3: harden you ever fought before?
Speaker 1: Man, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: And I used to just think that these books were
Speaker 3: my way of figuring out which side of me is right?
Speaker 1: Am I zig? Am I No?
Speaker 3: And again when I wrote The Viper, it dawned on me.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't have to pick. You don't have
Speaker 3: to pick. All of us are zigging. No, all of
Speaker 3: us are really kind on some days and on other days, Man,
Speaker 3: we've got some fight with us, especially.
Speaker 1: When you see someone being picked on.
Speaker 3: And I love the fact that it lets me explore
Speaker 3: this kind of you know this again, it's the thing
Speaker 3: that keeps coming back to.
Speaker 1: But I really believe if you.
Speaker 3: Love yourself for who you are, that's your ultimate superpower
Speaker 3: you unlock. That's the thing, is just accepting yourself. And
Speaker 3: I think we spend so much time beating ourselves up.
Speaker 3: And I know we were talking and joking before about
Speaker 3: the theme of the book, but that's the theme of
Speaker 3: the Breakfast Club too.
Speaker 1: It's all over the book, right.
Speaker 3: The whole thing of the Breakfast Club is I remember
Speaker 3: seeing that movie for the first time and being like,
Speaker 3: I guess, you know, I'm certainly part of the nerd guy,
Speaker 3: and I'm you know, I probably got some of the
Speaker 3: tough guy into too, because I'm just angry at some
Speaker 3: crap my dad. And then by the end to the movie,
Speaker 3: You're like, you know what, Yeah, I'm a little bit
Speaker 3: of the athlete and night. Yeah, I love Molly Ringwam
Speaker 3: and I'm a freaking like we're everybody. Yeah, right, And
Speaker 3: that's that's why I picked the Breakfast Club in the book, right,
Speaker 3: is like it's just that idea of like trying to
Speaker 3: get to a point in middle aged somewhere now of
Speaker 3: just just accept yourself, man, all your flaws, love your
Speaker 3: bad parts as much as you love your good parts.
Speaker 1: And then the last thing, because I know, I know
Speaker 1: you got to jump.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if this has ever come up
Speaker 2: between the two of us, but I mentioned I read.
Speaker 1: I read everything. I read the acknowledgments.
Speaker 2: I love that Michale Jola gets mentioned in the acknowledgments
Speaker 2: from the Airborne Toxic Event I love him.
Speaker 1: He's a good friend. But is he really did we
Speaker 1: know that? I don't think. I don't think we knew
Speaker 1: that he's a good guy. He is. His book was great,
Speaker 1: Hollywood Park, What do your thing? Helped them? When he
Speaker 1: was writing in the beginning, He's like, I wrote a novel.
Speaker 1: Can we talk?
Speaker 3: I'm like, of course, brother, So that's yeah, of course,
Speaker 3: Hollywood Park, I have That's why their original event's copy.
Speaker 1: Of Oh it's so good. I love friend. But he
Speaker 1: so his.
Speaker 3: Line in there, he has a line in there that
Speaker 3: because I blurbd that you can see my name is
Speaker 3: on the book, like I've blurbd that book. And there's
Speaker 3: a line in there that says, I'm gonna mess it
Speaker 3: up because it's been like five years since it's been out.
Speaker 1: Never wasting erection.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: What I love though, is that I know that you've
Speaker 3: said that out loud. There are so many people right
Speaker 3: now that are like, Honey, Ellied and Brown.
Speaker 1: Don't waste a baby, don't waste.
Speaker 3: But he has the thing that says, like, there's no
Speaker 3: such thing as a good fight, like when you get
Speaker 3: into it, or a fair fight, when you get into it,
Speaker 3: just fight and and I that was my way to
Speaker 3: tip the hat to him, and and some of the
Speaker 3: stuff that's revealed there you see is of course a
Speaker 3: tip of that hat.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's awesome. Are people bringing yellow Starburst to.
Speaker 3: No one's brought yellow star Wars, but they are bringing
Speaker 3: the tattoos, are saying the tattoo that. So we gave
Speaker 3: these Viper tattoos out for anyone who joined our mailing
Speaker 3: list on our website, and I will say tonight, anyone
Speaker 3: who comes to Tyson's Corner like where we were a
Speaker 3: couple of little kids that people tatted up their little kids.
Speaker 3: So I'm still waiting for someone to do a tram stamp.
Speaker 3: I'm like, someone whoever does the tram stamp at Tyson's Corner,
Speaker 3: you are first in line. You are first in line,
Speaker 3: because that's the only picture I one because I thought
Speaker 3: I thought, I was like, I want someone to bring
Speaker 3: a kid, and on the second event, someone's like, here's
Speaker 3: my kid. I tatted them up for you, and I
Speaker 3: was like, holy cow. So I think the only thing
Speaker 3: on the checklist at this point is tramstamp, and then
Speaker 3: the Viper Tour will truly be complete.
Speaker 2: The Viper a Zig and Nola novel is out and
Speaker 2: available now.
Speaker 1: Brad will be at Tyson's Corner Center.
Speaker 2: The Barnes and Noble at Tyson's Corner Center starting at
Speaker 2: six o'clock tonight.
Speaker 1: Dude, congratulations that book is freaking awesome.