WEBVTT - Ep. 45: Steven Rinella and Ryan Callaghan 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:07.240 Hey, everybuddy, welcome episode number forty five The Honey Collective. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:12.080 I'm better Brian, and today we are joined by two 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:16.439 of my favorites to meat Eater originals. I'm talking about 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.919 Steve and Ronella and Ryan Callahan and we're into Noora, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.920 Mexico for this podcast. We're hanging out after a good dinner, 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:27.880 a few drinks. Of course, Steve other drinks. He didn't 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.880 have any, but I had a few. Cal had a few. 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.159 He did a couple of push ups, cranked out a 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:38.360 pretty interesting podcast. Of course, like any late night podcast 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.879 might go, this one didn't really have script. We just 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:43.880 let it rip. Well. We had a lot to talk about, 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:49.320 first beers, first guns, first cars, and a bunch of 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:54.320 other stuff, our love of Jim Harrison and like I said, 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:58.120 other stuff which makes this one fun. We didn't take 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.279 her too seriously and I always enjoy talking to and 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:05.920 recording with Ryan Callahan and Stephen Roanella. For episode number 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:11.160 forty five, check it out, here comes Ryan Callahan. How 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.720 many push ups is that? Bud? Two hundred for the 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.440 day for the day, the two club, the two Hundo Club. 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:21.640 You feel like that's a bit excessive, are you excited 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:28.759 about that. No, because I U was like, I should 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.520 try to be healthy. Um, eating five to six pounds 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:37.679 of free holidays a day down here, and I kind 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:39.840 of wanted a second beer and I'm kind of regretting it. 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:41.480 So I was like, well, I'm gonna do two hundred 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.840 push ups today? How many push ups per backup? You're 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.960 trying to lose weight? No, just stay healthy. Oh what's 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.639 that to do with drinking beer? Oh? Just just extra 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.960 calories for nothing, for the lake and the taste of beer. 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:01.320 Huh yeah. I mean, I'm just trying to be somewhat healthy. 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.720 I feel like I'm living life on the road long 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:07.080 and listen, I'm all four doing pushups. Man, I just 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:11.160 didn't understand the beer part. Is there a push ups 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:13.480 per beer you feel like you have to do to offset? Well, 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.799 now I'm at a hundred push ups per beer today. 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.880 Now that that's a healthy man? Is like, if my 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:27.639 Boddy Ron you did that, you're like one thousand, one 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:33.799 hundred and I don't have heard any counting. That's ad number. 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.680 Miller Light would write him and say, whatever you're doing, 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.720 please stop. He would have giant arms. You know, I 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:45.200 used to have a girlfriend um bless her heart, and 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.080 her grandmother had drank the same kind of beer whole life. 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.840 I think she drank old Mud, Old Milwaukee. Yeah, it 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:55.679 might have been Old Milwaukee. It was one of the 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:57.840 swill beers, which I have a theory that they make 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.440 it all on the same plant. I just like it 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.240 all they make it and they switched the labels out 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.040 throughout the day. Do you have any anything to back 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.600 that up? Is that just just haven't drank at all? 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:11.560 Like when we're in high school, you know, you kept 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.560 like you know those bottles what you call those the 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:19.400 big glass bottles. Well, I was like thirty two ounces 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:23.280 and yeah, like you know you have like a black 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.960 label at Old Mill half drank under your truck seat, 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.800 drank drag it out now and then anyways, Uh, my 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.120 old girlfriend, her grandma drank the same beer whole life, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.160 and the and the family got together and wrote the 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:42.360 beer company um a letter about her, and they sent 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.840 her like a big care package with a custom sign 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.680 thanking her for her service. Yeah, and then they had 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.000 her birthday party and unveiled this all this and the 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:54.760 in there because she had been drinking that beer for 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.680 you know, seventy years the was they thanked her first 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.480 serve us service to the way back when when I 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:10.680 was bartender in Missoula, Montana, reds Bar, Um, my buddy, 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:15.040 Uh two shains, I worked with two shains there, um 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.560 and Uh. Unbeknownst to the owner of the establishment, we 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.920 decided that nobody was drinking Olympia. We had the same 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:27.000 twelve pack of Olympia in the fridge forever, and so 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:32.760 we started selling Olympias for um a buck of peace. 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.679 All the other beers were two fifty or two twenty 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.880 five at that point. Um, all of a sudden, Olympia 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.120 started selling, like you want to believe. And then we 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.440 started throwing a lime wedge in there, calling him Montana 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:52.600 coronas um. And we just didn't think anything of it, right, 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:58.960 And in very short time we became the number one 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:05.600 seller of Olympia beer and all of western Montana, and 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:11.599 the Olympia Beer rep came in and gave us like 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:20.400 Olympia tackle boxes, Olympia sweatshirts, all sorts of beer swags. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.560 You were like an ambassador, like an athlete kind of yes, 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:28.320 yes we were. We were highly tuned to athletes. Um 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.640 and uh, what was well, it's funny is nobody really 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:37.800 cared about Olympia beer. But all that stuff was so unique, uh, 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.560 because nobody else had it right, um that it was 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:46.320 just pretty much immediately pilfred and stolen. So you're still 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.280 running Olympia tackle box. You're still running it. I would 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.000 I would love to have that Olympia tackle box. What's what, Steve, 0:05:55.080 --> 0:06:00.200 what's the first beer you ever remember drinking? Man? You know, 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.200 I don't even remember. I remember my brothers. They were 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:06.479 way ahead of the game on this. They were making beer, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.920 Man when you know, almost been in junior high, right, 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.280 and they were like they were near not nearly old 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:20.120 enough to Yeah, they made beer and they made this 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.440 crazy beer. So this would have been in ninth this 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.840 would have been in the late eighties, way ahead of 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.400 the game. Um, And they bottled it up and it 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:31.839 kind of like it kind of came about in this 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:33.560 way like mile man. You know, you know what the 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.960 white Elephant Sale is? Yes, So my old man he 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.559 helped volunteer at a white at a white elephant sale 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:46.120 for the wise like a like a uh fraternal organization 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:51.240 sort of thing that raise the money for the y 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.520 Okay y f C, A y m C a all 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.960 that and they throw this white elephant sale. So somehow 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:03.120 my old man comes into to a pop machine, and 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:07.000 the pop machine was we couldn't manipulate the price. It 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.400 was just sold pot for thirty five cents of bottle. 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.760 So he took us to a bottle plant where they 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.640 where they like bottle Solda pop. They had like grape, orange, 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.920 Roubier cola, all this stuff and reused bottles. So these 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.520 bottles were like all scratched up in gnarly. But we 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.720 could buy these things for for you had to bring 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.080 the bottles back so you could buy these bottles for 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.000 like I can't remember we pay. We were getting them 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:33.840 for ten cents a piece or something. Once you brought 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:35.920 the bottle back and we put them in our own 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:37.840 pop machine and plugged our pop machine. And we didn't 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.160 we didn't live in a town. We just lived on 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.160 a lake with like the neighborhood kids would come over 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.200 and buy our pop. So somehow another the bottles. And 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:50.040 then also my brothers were making beer, and and the 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.080 beer they would make would get like a quarter inch 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.720 of the yeast settled down the bottom, just a simple 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.640 fact of like opening the beer would if you it 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.840 would stirball that and it would come up, so you 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.760 have to like very gingerly get that lid off and 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:07.920 you could drink the beer. And like even though it 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.640 wasn't you know, we weren't you know, we weren't supposed 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:12.960 to be out drinking, but somehow because they made the beer. 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.320 My dad didn't he didn't really regard it as drinking 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:21.800 because it was all made. Everybody listening to this it 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.160 was a perfect argument. It was just like this totally separate. Yeah, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:26.800 it was weird. So they just had We just had 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:31.200 beer that they would make, you know, um yeah, and 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.840 we drank yeah old mill you know the thing in 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.920 Michigan people drank old mud and um that was you know, 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:43.240 everybody drank uh, mountain dew for pop. Do you say pop? 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.440 Oh yeah, what do you say pop? Soda? What do 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.600 you say cal? It was it was always pop pop yeah, uh, 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:57.800 you know the original mountain dew like slogan catchphrase it'll 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:03.080 tickle your innerdy you go, which I always quite enjoyed. 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.640 There wasn't a lot of drugs, Like, there wasn't a 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.720 lot of drug taken. Didn't do a lot. You didn't 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:10.480 do a lot of drugs. And we didn't do drug taken. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.319 I'm sure there was, because it turns out there was 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.000 plenty of drug taken around my neck of the woods, 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.679 but I was just totally oblivious to us. It was 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.240 like there was weed around, you know, but like the 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.840 like drugs there weren't. I don't think there was main 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.080 drug And this is in a micro area, and our 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:32.600 micro area, drug taking, like hard drugs weren't really prevlem. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.840 People drank alcohol. Now I got kids, like now, my 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:40.480 bodies that have kids that age, they talk about that 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.920 like weeds. The normal thing of course it is opioids though, man, 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.199 now it comes into pillaform dr PC. Also, like Montana 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.880 and Michigan are two very heavy drinking states. Like if 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:57.280 you look at the statistics nationwide, uh, Montana Michigan are 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.040 always very high on the scale of like perk capita 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:04.920 alcohol consumption, and so to kind of like write it off, 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:08.720 it's like, oh, folks were just drinking. Maybe, uh that 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:15.880 might be a little The consumption of drinking may shocked 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.560 a lot of folks in other areas. Yeah, my, my, 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.199 the people my dad hung out with and ice fished with, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.520 big drinkers. Remember guy coming over one time, and he 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:27.800 came over. He was all drunk. He took one of 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.400 our hamsters and put it inside his snowsuit and like 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:36.760 you got didn't have any clothes on. Understand the story. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:38.960 I did see a hamster in a snowsuit anywhere. Yeah, 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.640 just a lot, yeah, a lot of just so much. Yeah, 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:44.880 you're right, man, A lot of booze. Man, I don't 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:46.600 I don't know why I were even talk about the 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.200 tails doing hunter push ups for every Beery drinks. What 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.760 I like the subject? When I was growing up, I 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:55.680 was I was kind of one thing. Like I I was. 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:57.960 I endeavored to like I would try every drug, you know, 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:04.000 like just one time, just field questions from your children, Yeah, 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.960 what's it like? Well, let me tell a story. It 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.880 was a second. So I did did a lot of 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.000 none of the hard stuff, but all the stuff that 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.960 you know people do when you're a teenager and you're 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.400 looking to try stuff. Never got. I never never took, 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.840 never took too much. But I had a good time 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.320 doing it. I remember we got our hands. I remember 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.480 being in high school and getting some no doughs and 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.600 feel naughty. They feel like I need to tell my 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:33.360 kids in my school, My kids in my high school 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.160 used to drink robatus. They call it tussing. Would be 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:41.240 like you tussing bro drinking robutassing out of the bottle. Yeah, 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.560 because they go to wood shop. We go to wood 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.079 shop work on our stuff, and you had to go 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.520 to your next class. And people bring like a little 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:53.040 ball of wood putty. Her dudes well like just having 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.000 wood putty in their hand. They just be like couping. 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.280 And you know, you're sitting in like social studies or 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.760 something like that, because we're just rolling out of wood 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:05.240 shot making big wooden mallets or whatever I laid. You know. Yeah, 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.400 guys in my world, they would huff the duster you 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.640 can buy. It makes your voice really low. You suck 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:12.920 it in, makes you high really quick, and then your 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.800 voice gets really low and then you pass out. Yep, 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:24.000 a couple of real quick one. Jim Harrison chanchan yeah um, 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:30.440 and then later in life Livingston Montana dude. But Harrison 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.520 got out of life just in time. I think the 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:38.199 times would have caught up with them. Oh like the 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:43.839 women stuff, the women's stuff, and please elaborate on the 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:45.920 women stuff for those of the folks who aren't aware. 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.560 Just like the you can know go ahead, kil I 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.640 will later, but please do I mean, I will circle 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.559 back to it. I got Buddy Mine gave me this 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.400 is exactly to your point. And Buddy Mine gave me 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:04.079 UM the book a really big lunch, like his collected 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.959 short stories and UM and some of his unpublished stuff too. 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.880 I believe UM came out after he after he passed away. 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.000 But and he wrote in the book he's you know, 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:21.199 he said, uh, hey, here's here's a guy who lives 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:26.160 by lived by his few rules that you do like, 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.280 doesn't doesn't follow the mainstream, plays by his own rules, 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:31.800 plays by his own rules, and did always say about 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:37.400 my brother and his wife. He yeah, uh yeah. I 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.440 I do think like if he was just kind of 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:44.440 coming into his own let's say he's like forty right now, um, 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.240 he probably wouldn't when hit it. He'd probably be hushed 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.160 right out of the the spotlight, you know, because all 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.160 of his stories are about drinking too much and um, 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.120 well it's like old, it's like you know, it's it's 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.280 male fantasy stuff. And this listen, man, I say this 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.920 with great reverence. Right, Jim Harrison changed my life, Like 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.000 Jim Harrison helped me become a writer, but I'm from 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.960 reading his stuff and then you know he would a 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.640 little Michigan connection all blurred my work and like you like, 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:20.800 very influential, Okay, but a lot of the stuff that 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.960 you think is cool when you're younger, you get older 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.160 and you look at it and it just it stops 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.040 being cool. It gets sadder by the year. Yeah, and 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.440 so this male fantasy stuff and it really like permeates 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:37.160 his work. Um, and I get it. But you know 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.520 it's like this older guy, you know, he's divorced or whatever, 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:42.720 but you know he never ceases to be getting lucky 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:47.640 with the with the young ladies. Right. It's just it's 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.640 just like one of those things where the the like 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:53.720 the national conversation is such that when you read it now, 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:56.760 things that used to like you read it now and 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.240 you kind of like, you can't sometimes you can't help 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.160 a cringe a little, but you have, you know, reading 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.160 it when you're coming up, you didn't have a daughter, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.280 but you didn't have kids, you didn't have somebody to 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.160 project that onto. Yeah, you're like, oh fuck, having a 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:14.400 daughter changing stuff. Man, that Harrison had gout rhet real bad. 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.680 And this is a repeating story in this really big lunch. 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.760 Uh and and this book had me like laughing out 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.480 loud and very envious of certain things and and just 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:29.360 some of the experiences that this guy had. And uh 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.760 and I kind of like his consistency of like he 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.600 he portrays himself in a way that says he's always 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.800 been the same, and he's been richer than rich and 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.640 poorer than poor, but he's just he's never never changed 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:47.120 his his tune on his own drum um. But the 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:51.160 doctors like, you gotta quit drinking, like terrible gout, can't 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.600 even move. He said, well, doc, what do I gotta 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.320 do to balance this out? Because I'm not going to 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:01.560 quit drinking. And the doctor said, you gotta get exercise. 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:03.920 And he said, well, how much exercise per bottle of wine? 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.760 He's like, we gotta walk for two hours and so 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:14.000 he'd walk six hours a day. And so to your point, 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.520 the man is influential because I was like, well, I'm 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.840 gonna have a do a hundred push ups per beer. 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:20.560 I want to walk it back a little bit, man, 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.760 because I don't want to one. I don't want to 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:24.440 speak ill of the dead too. I don't want to 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.400 to to to say something bad about the master. But 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:29.960 it is just a thing that I noticed now and 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.240 I'm sensitive to it for various reasons. I think one 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:39.520 of them having having a daughter maybe that. But um 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.640 as a writer, like like if you just isolate sentences, 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:48.760 if you isolate Harrison sentences there, you can pull him out, 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.920 and he's written thousands of them, of the ones that 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:58.000 you're looking like, no other man on earth would be 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.120 able to make that sentence. It's like a it's diagnostic. 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.119 It's like you could you could pull it out and 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.159 and put it somewhere out of its context, and you 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.879 look at me like I could tell you with certainty 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.480 who wrote that sentence. And there's not many writers that 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:21.560 are like that diagnostic quality, like just he's like amazing. 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:24.680 Then you hear the guy talk. He doesn't like quite 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.320 talk like how he writes. But he just had a 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:28.960 way to do it, and he did it a lot. 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.480 It was good at it and made people where I 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.640 was from, speaking of being from Michigan. Man, it made 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.440 like there was a time we were kind of coming 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:42.960 of age when uh, he made us real proud to 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.000 be from, proud of where we were from, you know, 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.480 real proud of where we were from. What kind of 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:50.880 you know, as a writer, what did you take from him? 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.600 One of the things I picked up from Harrison how 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:02.880 unapologetic he was about, uh kind of like his love 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:08.119 for the natural world. You know, in his his he 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:13.920 was disgusted by waste and destruction of nature. You know, 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.680 Uh that you could that you could feel that way. 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:18.840 And you know because a lot of people are like 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:20.080 will feel that way, but they don't want to be 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.680 called a tree hugger or whatever. But you could feel 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.440 that way and just and make it like angry, you know, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.680 because the recurring thing was his character, especially his early 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:31.840 stuff like Brown Dog and all like some of those 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.879 early characters. And then and then my favorite is that 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:41.600 his book Wolf like a false memoir. You know, um yeah, 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:47.080 how pistols Like his characters are like drunks and anti heroes, 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:52.200 but they're just outraged by the trashing of the landscape. 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:58.760 You know. And remember that, uh, those years of realizing 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:03.359 that that was uh an okay way to feel you know. 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.440 In other parts bottom to just that he talks. So 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.240 he spoke so lovingly in Michigan, and there wasn't like 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:13.040 people you know, I mean, Montana is how many you 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.399 go like Wyoming or Montagna, Like how many people have 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.840 been writing and singing the praises of those states for forever? 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:24.359 Colorado had John Denver. You know, it's like it's easy 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:29.119 to shoulders, easy to get poetic. There's a lot of 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:33.119 states it's easy to get poetic about. But you didn't 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.840 in Michigan. You didn't. Um, you know, there wasn't the 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.520 you didn't have like the the ballads about it. I 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:54.639 felt his Michigan ratting specifically, Like what resonated with me is, uh, 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.760 he held food. He always held food in very high regard. 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:04.879 But the Michigan stuff was like, yeah, wife, kids, like 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:09.400 in this shack that was gonna tumble down shack um, 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:16.639 and they were like destitute basically. But He's like, but 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:21.240 we had wild duck on the you know, France, super 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:23.879 hot on the stove, and I'd finish it in the 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.960 oven and I'd have uh, like currants off the tree 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:32.960 and make a sauce and um, you know, cooking fish 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.000 and stuff. And it was like all this other stuff 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.080 doesn't matter as long as you focus on the things 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.280 that do type of thing and that really hit home 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:48.000 with me, like you can as long as you just 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:52.200 gotta have some points of reverence. I think is kind 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.840 of what he was able to romanticize things that weren't 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.440 always romantic. Like you said, it's easy to to look 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:07.200 at the rocky mountains and sing, But rocky Mountain in 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.840 Montana poaches they pay that guy to do that stuff. 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:16.040 What about West Virginia. Who's saying West Virginia mountain Mama John? 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.040 Is that John Diver two? Like damn? He was Like 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:29.399 Montana coach Steinbacker travels with Charlie Um. Steinbecker sings the 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:34.199 praises of Montana. But you know, he's not a Montana guy. 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:38.240 He's a California guy. And he wrote very beautifully about California. 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:42.359 But when he came through Montana and it's a hunting 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:48.280 specific quote in Montana just like stole it like Steinbeck's ours, right, 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:56.160 because he travels through Montana um and uh. He happens 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.879 to be going the length of Montana, which is a 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:05.520 long long distance um during hunting season, and he, for 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:08.520 whatever reason, he comes to the conclusion that he's like, yeah, boy, 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:12.520 like folks in Montana they're they're doing what they're doing 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:17.200 for like a pure reason basically, like how they're going 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:22.639 about it. Just seemed to resonate with him. Um And 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:24.920 when I first read that, and I was like, yeah, 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:32.720 Montana said the best. I'm from Montana, right, John steinbe 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:37.800 So have you read Canary Row? No? No, is that 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:43.600 is that? That's about the wharf down there misfits and 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:46.880 you know, during during the depression, like just misfits living 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:51.320 in Monterey Bay. Yeah, yeah, No, I haven't read it. 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:53.480 What's funny about it is even then, so he's writing 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:58.680 about the twenties, he's writing about people poaching abalone. You 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:01.919 know at that point in time. That's a goodass book. Man. 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:04.160 They wanted me to go out and catch a bunch 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:07.920 of bullfrogs. That's a great book. Canary Row. Can you 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:09.760 That book kind of changed my life a little bit. 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:17.640 Imagine the poaching in the depression era, Like, I can't 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.040 say I blame them. No gloves are off, man. Anybody 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:22.879 would do it. Anybody would do the same thing. If 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.159 you're hung if you're hungry, is it poaching if you're hungry? 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.960 I don't think so, because I guess it depends why 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:34.920 you're hungry. If you're hungry, because just because you're general derelict, 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:38.000 then maybe not. But if you've exhausted all If you've 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:42.360 exhausted all possibilities, Um, you can't go kicking your way 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.280 through the beer cans in your yard. Yeah, I feel 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:49.480 like I do feel like there's a point at which, um, 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:52.600 I feel like there's a point at which you could 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:56.520 achieve a level of um, you know, a level of 0:23:56.640 --> 0:24:01.359 freedom to to feed one's family without needing to be 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.320 cracked down on too hard by the law. That all 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:06.000 kinds of things I want to talk about in this podcast. 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:08.720 But I like where we're going. Oh no, go ahead, man, No, no, no, no. 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:11.000 I like the first beer? What was your friend? We 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:16.640 didn't get it? The cow? What's your first beer? Man? Um? 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:22.399 My dad wasn't a drinker growing up, uh, and he 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:26.560 he was very very clear as to what would happen 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:29.840 if I were to be caught drinking. But occasionally, like 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:32.160 the only thing in the refrigerator would be a non 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:37.639 alcoholic beer, and I'd come back from uh tramping around. 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:42.560 We lived right off of Rattlesnake Creek, UH in the 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:47.879 upper Rattlesnake, which is UM quite a bit different uh 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:52.440 than when I quite a bit different now than and 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:54.560 then it was when I was growing up because there 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:57.640 just wasn't the amount of development. You know, the trees 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:01.680 I've trimmed up that creek. Oh I bet about bunch Yeah? 0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:07.000 Um uh so I'd snagg a non alcoholic beer every 0:25:07.040 --> 0:25:12.320 once in a while. Uh well, remember duels, duels, that's 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:18.960 like and there was caliber with a k um but yeah, 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:23.160 I guarantee you it was. It was Budweiser. Bud Light. 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:28.440 Montana is always big, big bud light state. I remember 0:25:29.680 --> 0:25:34.000 Keystone ice remember that coming in. Remember then, I remember 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:37.960 everybody getting all excited about ice house because percentage of beer. Yeah. 0:25:38.760 --> 0:25:44.359