WEBVTT - Ep. 436: Getting Revenge with Jack Carr 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:13.320 If this is the me Eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:15.720 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:22.840 Listeningst you can't predict anything presented by First Light creating 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:27.840 proven versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:35.640 For every hunt, First Light Go Farther, stay longer, Little 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.720 inside scoop here for listeners. Brody was just telling me 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.199 that Brody was just hunting with Hayden Sam. How many 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:44.919 times has he won trivia three? 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:46.919 No, he was on a hot streak and it's it's 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:47.840 been cold for a while. 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.680 Well, yeah, because he was the emerging threat and then 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.600 he became the receiving threat or what was waning champ, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.440 the waning championing champion. So Brody's telling me a story 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.520 in which in private between me and. 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:03.600 Brody, so we're gonna talk abouts. 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.560 Have been open. I don't know, yep, because Brody's telling 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.120 me about him overcalling Turkey Hunt. And I just stepped 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.360 outside and he's sitting out there and goes to hey, man, 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:17.200 talk to you know. I wasn't overcalling. He's gonna be 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.360 So it's like, uh were having a private conversation in there. 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.440 It sounded like I heard it where he was at. 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.680 He's eaves dropping. He's got like a recording device. It's 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.000 like the surveillance state. You know, whould appreciate that, Jack 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:36.039 car great transition, that. 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:37.800 Is, I've never had a transition. 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:39.800 Yeah, what are your opinions on eves dropping? 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:42.720 You don't like it? Be careful. Yeah, I'm not a 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:44.440 big fan, but this is probably the most heavily bugged 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:45.560 room in Bozeman. 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.000 Yeah, that's that's Steve's paranoia as well. 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.640 Uh huh, I get it, I get it. Be careful, 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:52.760 that's what I say. 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:54.520 No, what we're gonna I'm gonna ask you a little 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.120 bit about that. Uh, Jack Cars here, New York Times 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.320 best selling author, like multiple times. 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.240 Yeah, all of them now, all of them, all of them. Crazy, 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:05.560 damn it, man, crazy. 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.760 No, I don't want to have mine. That's a good 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.799 track record, New York Times best selling author. Every time 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.079 a new book out releases on you can order you 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:20.000 can pre order it now, but releases on May sixteenth only. 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:29.120 The Dead five other previous titles Terminal list. If you 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.160 guys sit around watching Amazon Prime and you happen to 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.960 see Chris Pratt and a thing called Terminal list that 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.959 is and has been for a long time. That's Jack 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.000 Carr's book that's based off your book now that Jack 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.040 card I was surprised when we had dinner last night. 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.400 Not surprised, but pleased to hear when we had dinner 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.840 last night that you get to be involved in all that. Yeah, 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.160 Like from a writing from a writing standpoint, yeah, becau. 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:55.960 Usually they get rid of the author right away. They 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.080 don't want the author to be there and on sat 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.640 and see what's going on and start and you ruined 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.000 my vision. And so I like to kind of move 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.000 the author to the side right away and then bring 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.440 the writing team in and get going. But I went 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.519 into it kind of being a kid of the eighties. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:11.880 I grew up reading all these thrillers growing up, and 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.120 then watching the movies that were adapted from those books 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:16.600 and noting the differences and what worked and what didn't, 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.240 but more so realizing that there was gonna be changes 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:21.760 because you are telling a story now through a different medium. 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.080 You are telling that story visually, so it's going to change. 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:26.320 And you have a writer's. 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.800 Room and your people are gonna it's gonna be two 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:29.799 hours long, and. 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:31.880 It's gonna be this one is six, so sorry eight. 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.280 So every episode is about an hour, so those eight episodes. 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.880 But yeah, you can't tell everything. You have to kind 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.480 of morph things a little bit. You have to add 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.080 to things that weren't in the book. So it's just 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:44.600 how it goes. But I always thought back when I 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.040 my first conversation with the show runner, who's like in 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.360 series television. He's like the director of a feature film, 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.920 so he's managing multiple directors and he's like the single 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.440 point of contact for all these different things that go 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.200 into making a TV show. We had our first conversation 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.880 in December of twenty nineteen. His name is David Digilio, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.480 amazing guy, and I think I put him at ease 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:04.840 by talking about First Blood and how First Blood and 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.000 that came out in nineteen seventy two, it's never been 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.920 out of print since, written by David Morrell, and the 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.840 movie with Syvester Stallone in the early eighties. Those are 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.320 two very different animals, but they're both awesome, but very different. 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.600 So I knew that there was going to be changes, 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.000 and more so it was important to Chris and to 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:24.560 Antwine and to me was keeping the theme of the book, 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.280 keep in that spirit alive, even if there were going 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.280 to be changes. So that's what we did. 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.719 As as someone who traffics an intrigue and espionage and whatnot. 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.160 You're familiar with John is does he lock Lacar Leacre? 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.840 How does he lare? So it is Lacar Yeah, I 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:42.480 think so. That's how I've always said it in the 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:43.760 last almost fifty years. 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.279 He's got a great quote where he said, watching your 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.080 book get made into a movie, this isn't your experience, 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:52.200 but he said, watching your book get made into a 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.440 movie is like watching an ox turned into a bowllyon cube. 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.040 Interesting, I've not heard him say that one. I've heard 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.320 similar ones, but not in say that those exact words. 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.600 But yeah, he and his have been since the seventies. 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.279 They've been making those into the films and TV shows. 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.480 And but I mean, what an amazing track record that 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:12.320 guy had. He had a good run, you have a 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.640 solid run, and they'll continue to make his books into 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.000 films and TV shows going forward. I'm sure what E 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:18.320 was I. 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:22.600 Going to tell you about? Something about that another film quote. Oh, 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.920 there's a there's a comedy. You're you're with the comedy 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.039 the producers I haven't seen Broadway. 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:30.520 I know what it is, but I haven't seen it. 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.280 Yeah, there's a line in there where the producers are 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.680 producing and they get so sick of the writer. As 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:38.520 they're making this play, they get so sick of the writer. 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.960 One of them says, next time, no writers. 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.080 No writers, have to watch it now because now I 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:45.240 can see how that can happen. But now, I was 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:47.800 very fortunate the team we put together, starting with Antoine 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.560 Fuqua and Chris Pratt and that show runner David Gillio. 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.400 We put such a solid team together, and now we're 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.680 continuing that into this next spin off, So working on 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:57.799 those right now, and I'm writing one of those episodes, 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:00.479 and then we'll go right from that into True Believer, 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.680 which is the second book in the series. So we'll 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.320 just keep keep going. That's great, Fingers crossed. You never know. 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:08.159 So it's actually on the screen, though, So you can't 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:10.520 really get too excited till you actually see it on 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:12.479 the screen because there's so many things that can derail 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.080 throughout the whole process. Sure, So it's uh yeah, And 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:17.599 so I never really talked even talked about it too 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.760 much until it actually came out, or until until they 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.159 started putting commercials on TV and they put a commercial 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.320 in front of Top Gun Maverick in the theaters for it, 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.480 and uh so when they started doing that, I'm like, Okay, 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:28.919 I'm pretty certain this is going to come out on 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.680 July first now, But even so, I still, you know, 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.039 still a little nervous until it actually hits screens. 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.480 You got to have a lot of mega fans who 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:40.440 who are just pissed. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.120 When you compare Yeah, yeah, that happens. 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.520 That's not what happened, because you. 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.359 Know, I tried to prep as much as I possibly 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.800 could through my podcast and social posts and stuff and 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:52.719 just kind of prep people, kind of slowly getting them 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:54.480 used to the idea of it being a little different. 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.240 But still regardless when it comes out, there are those 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:59.719 people who will take your book, watch the show. This 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.000 was different, that was different, that was different. I hate 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.360 it and that's just gonna gonna happen. Which is what's 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.880 great about the spin off is that there's no book 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.400 to compare it to Yeat, so so it's just creating. 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.320 There's characters that that I've created, but it's a backstory, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:15.200 so there's no book about the backstory. So there's nothing 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.000 for someone to sit there and just compare it to 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.000 just looking for something to nitpick or someone looking for 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:21.720 a reason to hate it, you know, And that's just 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.280 kind of the world we live in today. 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:31.160 People love backstory. See yes, your position perfectly, wait a 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:35.360 few years and then be like little little guy growing 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:36.160 up on the farm. 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:36.640 There it is. 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:41.360 Did you know that Michael Man did? Was it like 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:42.200 after you? 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:44.440 It's by my bedside? 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:45.000 It's awesome. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.760 Yeah, here's like this phenomenal. It's it's it's it's a 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.000 little bit more than a cult classic, but at this 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.160 point has a very like cultish. Yeah, like I make 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:57.960 a point to watch Heat every two three years. 0:07:58.200 --> 0:07:58.520 Me too. 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.400 But but he's a director, he's not a writer. So 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.720 the fact that he went and wrote this, but is 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:05.680 it after before? 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:07.200 It's like a prequel sequel. 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.600 I think, Yeah, it's a great book. Have you ever 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:13.520 read it yet? It is amazing. Meg Gardner wrote it 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.600 with Michael Mann, and she's an incredible author, and I 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.280 had her on my podcast we talked about it and 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.280 she's just amazing. But the book it exceeded expectations and 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:26.520 that's hard to do. Moe Heat two. Oh yeah, and 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:28.559 that the cover looks like the movie poster. 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.400 Essentially, Tarantino did something similar with Once Upon a Time 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.920 in Hollywood. He wrote, he wrote his own novelization of 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.440 this movie, but he added scenes and changed dialogue and 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.520 made it a little bit different, like it's kind of fun. 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:41.640 Yeah, novelizations used to be a big, big thing in 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.720 the eighties into the nineties. So you read a book 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.319 based on a screenplay, but it kind of fell out 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:47.400 out of favor here. 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.559 It seems aspect for sure. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.280 Man. Yeah, there's so. David Morrell wrote a novelization based 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.520 on the screenplay for Rambo First Blood Part two and 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.599 for Rambo three, and they're fantastic, They're really good. And 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.959 they at least Rambo First Blood Part two made the 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.640 New York Times list for quite a few weeks when 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.640 it came out in conjunction with the movie in eighteen 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.400 eighty five. And yeah, David Morrel is just something incredible talent, 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.360 amazing guy. I'm proud to call him a friend now, 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.400 just honor to know him. But yeah, so we did 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.280 those novelizations and I'm collecting them. Actually, that's why I'm 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.160 so up on the novelization. So I'm collecting the old 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.000 ones from the eighties that I've that I had back 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.040 then that I've kind of misplaced over the years. So 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.000 I'm collecting all those novelizations and some that I didn't 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:26.520 know existed. 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.480 That's cool. Yeah, So my buddies and I still on 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:34.280 occasion say I just wanted a cup of coffee from 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:34.960 Rambow first. 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.040 He was just looking for something, to just look for something. 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:38.520 That's what it is. 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.280 Yeah, I put I put a little nod to uh 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.840 will teasel in this upcoming novel and only the Dead. 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.680 So for for fans such as yourself, you'll be reading 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.000 through it and be like, so I try to throw 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.400 a few things in there. This one I through, Like 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.120 fans of Magnum will recognize in all my books, I 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.120 throw a little something in there. They're pretty subtle. So 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.160 I get those in there. This one, I have some 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.679 Magnum stuff in there. It's all very subtle. Bond stuff 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:05.120 in there, lethal weapon in there, and First Blood there. Yeah, 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:06.959 you have. You have to be on your toes though, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.520 you know, it's not just it's not it's not doesn't 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:11.400 say the thing and then say from the movie First 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:13.440 Blood or anything like that. It's just it's just woven 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.600 in and to the fabric for for people that pretty 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:18.720 much the Preey grew up in the eighties. Excellent, Yeah, 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:19.160 I love it. 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:20.880 We're gonna in a little bit, we're gonna talk about 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:22.840 how your mom was a library and which I love. 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:23.480 Yeah. 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.679 Yeah, it all starts with books. All started with books. 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.839 Uh, speaking of show business and books. God, man, it's 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.559 another great transition. Did you catch that I did? 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:33.160 That was smooth? 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.400 Speaking of show business? Or so here's here's a little show. 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:44.079 Here's a little show business lesson for you. When when 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.240 I sold my books a Random House, like, they buy 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:48.800 world rights to the book, and so they can then 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:54.280 sell they can then sell the audio rights to someone else. 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:58.040 And a long time ago, a decade ago, they weren't 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.960 doing a bunch of audio. Audio just wasn't what it 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.720 is now, so they I think. So when I sold 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.720 me Eater Ventures from the Life of an American Hunter 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:12.240 to Random House, they turned around and sold the audio 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:18.240 rights to Brilliance and had some I mean, man, you know, 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.640 I don't know, if he's listening, probably is a feller. 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.200 They get someone to read it and it's just not 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.440 how it's it just it's wrong, it's immoral. But they 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.360 got someone to read it, but they only had the 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.720 audio rights for ten years, so we just got back 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:36.720 the audio rights, so I was able to go. This 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.000 happened with my Buffalo book too. A decade went by 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.800 and I was able to get back my publisher got 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.559 back the audio rights, and then I a couple of 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:51.240 weeks ago, went back into the studio and read ten 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.920 years later, Wow, my own damn book. 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:55.520 Did you learn anything? 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.520 Oh, that's what I'm gonna get to, a lot of things, 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:01.360 like I had a lot of like not a lot, 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.960 like opinions I had that I don't really have anymore, 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.680 or opinions I had that were accentuated that that just 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.200 have gotten more complicated. And when I did my Buffalo book, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.240 there was there was stuff. There was like scientific understandings 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:20.439 about about from like genetics work, stuff about the first Americans, 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:27.400 stuff about when waves of animal migrations came and how 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.680 things died out and didn't just had just changed and 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:37.320 became like objectively different. And I fixed some of the 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.040 objectively different things. But yeah, and reading it, there's everything. 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:42.480 So I'm like, I don't know if I'd put it 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.760 that way now, but we're going to tack on to 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.080 the end of this episode, We're gonna tack on a 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:52.920 chapter of it's just gonna be like glued right on 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.000 to the end of the show. We're gonna tack on 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:58.640 a chapter of a book I wrote a long time 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.960 ago and just recorded the audio now. And if you 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:04.840 want to go find that audio book, I don't know, 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:06.640 can you put a link in there? Or yeah, if 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.520 you want to go find the whole audiobook and pick 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:10.320 it up, go find the whole audiobook and you listen 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.680 to the whole damn thing. If you don't like to read. Also, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.600 at the end of the show, just transitions, keep coming man. 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.400 Also at the end of the show, we put so 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.960 there's a song a lot of love and hate? Is 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.040 it mostly hatred? 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.199 There's some love, there's some not knowing what the hell 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.720 it is, There's some like this is awful. 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.920 Musicians. Is a musician, Christopher Denny. I understand he has 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:40.720 a he likes to pull a cork. 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.600 This is about our new outro song. 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:46.160 I understand likes the pull of cork, and I understand 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.120 he's got it. He's had a lot of uh. He 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.080 likes to party. 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.600 Steve, I've noticed a lot of your favorite musicians have 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:54.840 like crippling drug or alcohol addiction. 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.439 That's very true. Yeah, I don't know why as someone 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:04.200 who doesn't, I don't know why. Uh yeah, likes the party. 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.760 That's a euphemism for like to you know, like to 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.360 party as a Houston vism for likes to do. Yeah, 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:12.800 I don't know where he's at on it right now. 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:17.200 Christopher Danny. One day we had a podcast episode where 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.840 we like argued about a thing way too. 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.680 Long that's probably not the the only and it was. 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.240 Like someone there was a comment like, you'd like beat 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.440 the horse to death. There's a Christopher Danny song where 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.440 in the end of the song he says, we've done 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:37.600 beat this horse to death. It's time to ride on. 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:41.600 And I wanted to glue it onto the end of 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:43.920 that episode but never got around to it. It's not 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.560 it's glued onto the end of every episode. 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:48.520 Somehow seems appropriate. 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:54.800 Yet we still beat dead horses into the underworld. 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:56.760 So if you're listening at the end of the show 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.320 and you're annoyed by Chris Danny, who my kids feel 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.120 is a woman, but it's not. 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:05.840 Is it just a clip or the whole song? 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.240 Oh, it's a clips. The end of his song ride 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.520 on it's about having beat a horse to death. 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:12.280 I wonder if that song is going to get a 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:13.320 bump on Spotify. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.800 Uh, I would suggest people go listen to the whole album. 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:27.920 If the Roses don't kill us. 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.760 Mhm, local how do you? 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:26.840 How do you? Guys? I don't know about them. I 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:28.960 just found out about them, probably on Spotify. I don't 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.200 know how I found out about Christopher Danny. You ever 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:32.160 a hundred alligators? 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:32.800 I have? 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:34.080 Oh? I have? 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:36.680 Yeah? Where'd you hunt hey in Texas? 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:37.120 Okay? 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.640 Yeah, yeah, it was a little a little while ago, 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:41.960 but uh yeah, about ten years ago now, I guess. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.840 But yeah, it was an interesting experience. It was quite 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:45.840 an interesting experience. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.240 I appreciate this. A few episodes ago, on an episode 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:54.840 titled Wrestling Gators, we had a crocodilian biologist on a 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.760 lot of folks rode in and I said, the bio. 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.200 You know, biologists always like very measured. They don't want 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:04.040 to say stuff that isn't for positive And I said, man, 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:06.880 our listeners are gonna have a lot of comments that 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:12.200 would begin with shit, right like shit. He doesn't know 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:13.800 what he's talking about. So I said, if you got 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.120 any if you have a lot of comments that begin 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.880 with shit send them to us, a number of them. 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.240 I'm a bit disappointed at a crock biologist didn't have 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:27.760 a good answer for how to easily tell the difference 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.640 between the crock and an alligator. It's really quite easy. 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.320 One will see you later, the other after a while. 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:46.360 But embarrassed really. 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:46.600 Even included many. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.520 The alligator experience though for me, wasn't more. It was 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:56.240 less hunting and more fishing and execution. That hook, yeah, 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.880 that was the one on jugs with the chicking, this 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:01.880 sitting out in the sun for a while, you know 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.119 that sort of a So I was just kind of 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.360 just observing. I hadn't done that that before, so it's interesting. 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.360 I know a few folks on the Floorida side that 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:15.760 have an area where where alligators like the sun, and 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.439 they'll slip up on them with and half of them 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.560 hunt with recurves and and stick them on the beach. 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:25.880 No kidding, Yeah, I think I gotta be a little 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:26.600 more sporting. 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.159 Perhaps it feels a little more like the hunting than 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:30.760 the fish house. 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.359 So you know, how are they killing him fast enough 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:35.560 with a boat to like get the. 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.120 Probably hit him with a bang stick once they get 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:40.600 him in. It's like bowtfish and rig. 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.879 I know it's not a boat fishing, but they're just 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.240 whacking them in the back of the head from what 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:50.240 I understand. No, sounds like a mediater episode. Bro go 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:50.800 check it out. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:54.399 Sounds like I was going to write in an email 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:56.920 exactly exactly. 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:58.280 I'd like to know more details. 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.520 Well, I really not not putting a rope onto him. 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:04.879 No, but I mean, you know they also they do 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:10.480 like the spin of death and stuff like that. I imagine. Yeah, 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:12.960 there's there's technique behind all of it. The people who 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:13.840 do it, well. 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:15.320 A couple of people just got munched in the last week. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.320 Then yes they did that well guy and the guy And. 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:24.400 The only thing that makes golf courses intriguing to me exactly. 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.960 The senior citizen goud is. Last week a senior citizen 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.159 got his leg tore off when they showed up. The 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:31.720 alligator sought his foot in his mouth. 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:32.480 Golf course. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:34.920 There's another thing that I don't want to talk about 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:36.800 because it involves kids and that kind of stuff I 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:41.199 don't like to talk about. Uh. On that episode, we 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:46.560 were talking about indigenous uses for alligators, and the listener 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.080 wrote in that when he was at Texas Tech University. 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.280 He worked on a project about the karen Kawa Indians 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:58.440 from East Texas and West Louisiana. They used gator fat 0:18:58.440 --> 0:18:59.960 as a repellent, mosquito repellent. 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:01.200 Interesting. 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.560 They'd render it down and spread it over their bodies 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:09.080 and European explorers would comment that you could smell them 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:14.480 quite a ways off because of that gator fat. Here's 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:23.440 a crazy one they had. So for whatever reason, the 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:33.520 they have these gator These crocodile mummies from Egypt, okay, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:37.879 which I had no idea. So you have thousands of 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.719 year old crocodile mummies and they were doing them with 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.080 CT scans in twenty ten. And here they're looking at 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.720 a thousands of year old crocodile mummy with a CT 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.800 scan and he's got a fishing hook in his gut. 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.840 Oh that's amazing. Yeah, I love that. 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.560 And there's pictures of crocodile mummies. They're crazy looking beautiful. 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.119 They didn't say what the hook was made out of. 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.800 You know, that's where the email just if that person's listening, 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:09.040 that's where the email really fell short. 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.639 Because it's like it makes it sound like it's like 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.360 a modern looking metal fish hook. Kind of an old 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:19.119 ass hook, I know, but like it says, we notice 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.119 a perfect fish hook, but I like, I don't know 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:21.960 what that means. 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.840 Like like he felt, I don't want to criticize him, 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:29.840 but since you brought it up, yeah, listener, pull it together. 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.280 He he it's a deep barbed circle hook. 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.200 He acknowledges that he didn't include he includes a picture 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.280 of their crocodile mummy. But does he acknowledges not including 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:40.080 a picture of the hook. 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.040 Yes, yeah, you'd think it'd be bone, yeah, something, depending 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.320 on how old it is. But I said, iron edge. 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.479 I said this to Crind the other day. Just this 0:20:51.560 --> 0:21:02.919 defies understanding a Texas dairy farm. Yeah, okay, it defies understanding. 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:09.640 Eighteen thousand dairy cows. 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:11.160 I'll repeat that. 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:17.240 Eighteen thousand dairy cows killed in an explosion at a 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:18.160 Texas dairy farm. 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.399 And that's about twenty percent of cattle slaughtered in this 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.080 country on any given day. 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:29.359 Yeah, it's the largest like loss of cattle life since 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.359 like the Galveston hurricane or something like that. Or no, 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:32.879 I think it is. 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:33.600 Even more than that. 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:41.960 Eighteen thousand stinky, I don't even know what to say, 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:43.400 I'm not gonna say anything. 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:45.359 During a hard time. 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:50.840 I told that Doug Darren carcases. I told the Doug, 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.840 to which Doug said, well, why would you have eighteen 0:21:55.880 --> 0:22:04.160 thousand cows together? Anyways, Wolverine sighting four times outside of Portland, 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:06.080 Oregon for the first time in three decades. I have 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:08.199 a feeling they're seeing the same wolverine. 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:11.640 They think so, but then for the fourth time, they're 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:13.679 not sure. I think that it is. 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:18.240 Thirty years goes by, no wolverine, and then all of 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:20.600 a sudden there's four outside of Portland. 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:21.520 No. 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.520 They I mean they think it's probably the same, the 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:25.639 same one going around. 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.800 Nike and Puma to stop using kangaroo leather or if 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:31.600 that company. Remember when I was a little kid, they 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:33.320 had a shoe company called Ruse. 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:33.800 Yeah. 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:35.440 Man, they had the little pocket hocket. 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:37.520 Are they fixing the stop? I don't even Maybe they 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:38.600 never did use kangaro I. 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:42.200 Think they're called Ruse because of the pocket, not because 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:42.680 of leather. 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:44.960 Oh, they're phasing it out by the end of twenty 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:47.439 twenty three. I don't know. You know, I take anything 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:49.840 like this like I take anything. I don't like anything 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:50.080 like this. 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:55.800 Well, there's a massive population issue with with kangaroos, like 0:22:55.880 --> 0:23:00.840 they breed like crazy, and that these are like free 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.359 range animals, not farmed animals that they're rounding up. So 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.560 it's like whoa who's going to pay for taking care 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:09.040 of the over a London. 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:11.199 So I shouldn't conclude that, And we've talked about that 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:13.879 in the past, as they kill absurd numbers of kangaroos 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:15.439 every year as agricultural control. 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:18.639 Yeahs control is and somebody else is paying to have 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:19.280 it done. 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:23.720 So Oregon, Oregon. This comes after the introduction of a 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:26.560 bill in mid January and Oregon, where Nike is headquartered, 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:28.359 that would ban the sale of any part of a 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:30.960 dead kangaroo or any product containing a part of a 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:35.080 dead kangaroo. The punishment would include up to a year 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:40.000 in prison, a six and fifty dollars fine, or both. 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:48.320 There's also a bipartisan bill that was introduced in the 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:52.280 House of Representatives, the Kangaroo Protection Act. 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:54.680 My god, Yeah, it seems like. 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:58.440 They got other things they could be focusing on here. 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:02.120 No, they have everything else apped up. Everything else is perfect, 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:05.159 so now they get to focus on the nitpicky stuff. 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:09.840 Yes, the global commercial kangaroo product industry was worth roughly 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:13.159 two hundred million dollars annually to Australia. The US was 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:15.520 its second largest global market at eighty. 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:18.879 Million twenty twenty one figures more or less. But was 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:23.760 kind of staggering is that the government estimated the Australian 0:24:23.800 --> 0:24:29.280 government estimated that there were forty two point seven million 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:33.600 kangaroos for twenty six million Australians. 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:39.520 And you get a kangaroo, and you get a kangaroo. Yeah, 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:40.600 here's learning so much. 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:42.080 This is great. I'm learning so much. 0:24:42.320 --> 0:24:47.879 Here's who all has ditched k leather Versace's how you 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:53.040 pronounce that? For sach, Diane von Furstenberg not sound like 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:57.320 a thing that I would buy a Diane von Furstenburg. 0:24:58.000 --> 0:24:58.840 That sounds like a person. 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:00.359 Sounds like a Nazi Allien. 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:03.080 It sounds like someone who It sounds like someone who 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:04.639 inherited a lot of money. 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:06.520 If your name. 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:09.240 Is von Furstenberg, you probably just get money. 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:10.280 I thought it was. 0:25:10.240 --> 0:25:13.200 Like like no, no, no, no, no, hold hear me out. 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:15.520 My last name is von Furstenberg. 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:19.520 You know the maybe cord manufacturer. 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:27.560 Uh, Victoria Beckham, Salvator Farragamo and Paul Smith that just 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:31.639 seems like your you're h vat guy Paul Smith, all 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:36.959 have gone unlike Salvator Farra Gamo and Diane von Fursusberg. 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:44.000 Even Paul Smith has gone k free, k leather free. 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:47.760 I wonder if how many of those people are associated 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:48.640 with Pete as well. 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:50.639 I'm a sleep better tonight knowing all. 0:25:50.480 --> 0:25:53.600 This, this is the last thing. This is the last 0:25:53.600 --> 0:25:54.520 thing Jack, I know. 0:25:55.040 --> 0:25:55.679 Takeing notes. 0:25:57.880 --> 0:25:59.680 This is hot off, this is hot off the press 0:25:59.680 --> 0:26:02.080 because I just okay, So I was just in Wisconsin. 0:26:02.800 --> 0:26:06.200 I think from my fourth annual spring for my fourth 0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:10.840 annual the fourth annual time I've taken my kids two 0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:14.439 Wisconsin hunt turkeys, but the third annual youth turkey season, 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:22.960 in which my older boy, who already thinks he's invincible, 0:26:24.440 --> 0:26:26.719 I catch like a turk. I see a strutter coming 0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:29.240 and it's like he's not gonna get closer. And I 0:26:29.240 --> 0:26:33.240 see a strutter coming, and I just compute my head 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:35.119 that it's pretty far away. But we have like a 0:26:35.960 --> 0:26:38.720 you know, we got a good turkey choke iron sights 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:44.399 spend a lot of time patterning the gun. Uh, and 0:26:44.440 --> 0:26:46.200 I already know it's like a stretch. 0:26:45.920 --> 0:26:47.400 And I'm like shot him, shoot, shoot him. 0:26:47.840 --> 0:26:50.399 So by the time he gets around to getting everything 0:26:50.440 --> 0:26:52.640 lined up and shoots and the turkey just goes down. 0:26:52.680 --> 0:26:55.240 But I stand up and that turkey is way out there. 0:26:57.160 --> 0:27:01.000 I pasted off. That turkey was seventy yards way what 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:03.840 oh wow. So I would have never if I'd known that. 0:27:04.400 --> 0:27:06.359 I stood up and this turkey is like a spec 0:27:09.359 --> 0:27:12.040 He got lucky. So now he's like, I'm gonna start 0:27:12.080 --> 0:27:14.720 taking all the He's got the shell and he wants 0:27:14.760 --> 0:27:16.639 to put the beard in the shell. He's like, I'm 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:18.280 going to write the distance on the shell. 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:18.640 And I'm. 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:25.560 Nice. Anyhow, spring Turkey Wisconsin two days long, and you 0:27:25.600 --> 0:27:27.520 can get boned by the weather, like two days. You 0:27:27.520 --> 0:27:30.120 can have two days of bad weather. So as I'm there, 0:27:30.200 --> 0:27:32.879 I realized that there's this thing. I asked Dirk, and 0:27:32.920 --> 0:27:36.360 do it. Pat Dirkin to explain this a little bit. Okay, 0:27:36.480 --> 0:27:46.680 ready for this, I am ready. Wisconsin had Okay, Wisconsin 0:27:46.720 --> 0:27:49.199 has a peculiar way. Okay, here here's how to get 0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:51.400 into this. If you listen, you remember we were talking 0:27:51.400 --> 0:27:53.480 about how how it was put to sort of like 0:27:53.560 --> 0:27:57.119 a public vote of sorts to determine whether you'd be 0:27:57.160 --> 0:28:01.240 able to start spearing nor the in Wisconsin. I was 0:28:01.280 --> 0:28:03.560 surprised that you can't spare northerns in Wisconsin, but you 0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:07.680 cannot spear northerns in Wisconsin, the thinking being I guess 0:28:08.200 --> 0:28:13.640 that people will accidentally spear muskies. Pat Diurkin points out, 0:28:13.720 --> 0:28:16.360 how can you be trusted to hit ducks flying through 0:28:16.400 --> 0:28:21.600 the air and know what they are in the rain 0:28:21.680 --> 0:28:27.159 and sleep. You're trusted to identify flying ducks, but you 0:28:27.200 --> 0:28:29.119 can't be trusted to look down a hole in the 0:28:29.119 --> 0:28:34.760 ice and identify a Northern and a muskie, which is 0:28:34.800 --> 0:28:37.240 a great point. I think that you could trust people 0:28:37.320 --> 0:28:40.800 to do this, and I was surprised by how Wisconsin 0:28:41.000 --> 0:28:44.560 sets these things. And there's a thing called I don't 0:28:44.560 --> 0:28:46.520 want to criticize it before I even explain it, but 0:28:46.560 --> 0:28:51.880 there's a thing called Aldo Leopold's Worst Idea. Some people 0:28:51.960 --> 0:28:53.960 know it as but there's a thing called the Wisconsin 0:28:54.040 --> 0:29:00.520 Conservation Congress. It consists of five elected men members from 0:29:00.520 --> 0:29:03.240 each county, so there are seventy two members in all 0:29:03.400 --> 0:29:06.880 of Doug duran is one of these from Richland County. 0:29:06.960 --> 0:29:09.160 He is one of Richland Counties, our very own Doug 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:14.920 Durren is one of Richland County's citizen representatives. Everyone listening 0:29:14.960 --> 0:29:17.600 could learn a lesson from Doug. Many lessons from Doug Durren. 0:29:19.960 --> 0:29:22.240 What you shouldn't pick up from Doug is the idea 0:29:22.280 --> 0:29:25.040 that it makes sense to drive around listening to Grateful 0:29:25.080 --> 0:29:31.360 Dead concerts on satellite radio. That is a bad idea 0:29:31.440 --> 0:29:36.680 of Dougs. Most everything else that Doug says is good. Doug, 0:29:36.880 --> 0:29:41.320 instead of sitting around bitching and moaning about the fishing 0:29:41.480 --> 0:29:45.680 game laws in the DNR, Doug gets in there and 0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:50.560 gets in there always. If there's like a public comment period, 0:29:50.600 --> 0:29:54.240 he makes a public comment. He's on a citizens advisory panel. 0:29:54.480 --> 0:29:59.000 He's on the deer Citizens Advisory Panel. If he's mad, 0:29:59.760 --> 0:30:01.920 he be mad. He's got a right to be mad 0:30:02.240 --> 0:30:05.400 because he got in there and got involved. 0:30:05.240 --> 0:30:08.440 And he's constantly harassed by people who do nothing but 0:30:08.640 --> 0:30:10.560 bitch and don't do any of these things. 0:30:10.760 --> 0:30:11.040 Yep. 0:30:11.680 --> 0:30:17.320 But the idea behind this board is they're tackling issues 0:30:17.360 --> 0:30:19.840 and then they take what they think to the Game Commission, 0:30:19.880 --> 0:30:23.240 who should then implement these suggestions. 0:30:23.720 --> 0:30:24.000 Yep. 0:30:24.200 --> 0:30:26.680 So which they may or may not do. 0:30:26.880 --> 0:30:30.120 Yeah, it's such a peculiar way to handle things. I'm 0:30:30.120 --> 0:30:31.800 gonna I'm gonna dig in a little bit. Dirk can 0:30:31.920 --> 0:30:34.840 kind of explain it. The Wisconsin already said that. So 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:39.560 it's got five elected members from each county, So seventy 0:30:39.560 --> 0:30:43.040 two and all is that possible? Could something times five 0:30:43.200 --> 0:30:52.040 be seventy two? Someone's lying or someone died. The WCC 0:30:52.120 --> 0:30:55.200 holds a joint hearing each April with the Department of 0:30:55.280 --> 0:31:01.400 Natural Resources to propose changes improvements to hunting, fishing, and 0:31:01.440 --> 0:31:05.440 trapping rules, and other conservation matters, air, water and other 0:31:05.520 --> 0:31:13.920 environmental issues. This year's ballot, so the Congress puts together questions. 0:31:15.160 --> 0:31:17.800 The questions then go to a public vote so they 0:31:17.800 --> 0:31:21.120 can sort of ascertain how the public feels about certain 0:31:21.160 --> 0:31:25.840 fishing game issues. This year's ballot had seventy six questions, 0:31:27.200 --> 0:31:31.360 thirty eight fish and wildlife rule changes, and thirty eight 0:31:31.520 --> 0:31:36.280 WCC advisory questions. To become a state rule, a citizen's 0:31:36.360 --> 0:31:39.840 proposal must go through a five step process, so on, 0:31:39.760 --> 0:31:41.840 on and on. I'm going to get to the main 0:31:41.920 --> 0:31:45.640 part of this. So it's interesting because you can take 0:31:45.680 --> 0:31:49.920 these little you can take these ideas and put them 0:31:50.080 --> 0:31:55.120 like very nuanced fishing game ideas and put them to 0:31:55.200 --> 0:31:57.360 a public opinion and It's interesting because you can start 0:31:57.400 --> 0:32:00.320 getting idea of what the public thinks about stuff. Since 0:32:00.360 --> 0:32:07.520 we talked about we talked about the spearfishing thing in Wisconsin. 0:32:07.520 --> 0:32:10.400 Should you be able to spear northern through the ice? 0:32:14.520 --> 0:32:20.880 Here's the here's the results. Yes. Three and forty three 0:32:20.880 --> 0:32:28.440 wisconsinights said you should. No. Three thousand, three hundred and 0:32:28.480 --> 0:32:32.400 fifty five said no, So it got beat by a 0:32:32.520 --> 0:32:36.520 narrow margin and no opinion. Three thousand, five hundred and 0:32:36.520 --> 0:32:41.320 two had no opinion. So they had ten thousand wisconsinights 0:32:41.480 --> 0:32:46.000 weighed in on their opinion about this, and so I 0:32:46.320 --> 0:32:49.960 think this has a low likelihood of advancing. Now here's 0:32:49.960 --> 0:32:53.720 an interesting way to measure public sentiment. There's a two 0:32:53.800 --> 0:32:58.200 day youth dear season. They put that to a vote. 0:32:58.240 --> 0:32:59.920 Should we expand it to four days? 0:33:01.560 --> 0:33:02.320 Youth deer? 0:33:02.640 --> 0:33:05.640 Should we expand youth e to four Doug was Doug 0:33:05.800 --> 0:33:09.560 was imagining the people down there who are opposed. If 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:13.760 the kids are gonna hunt, I'm gonna hunt, And that 0:33:14.080 --> 0:33:19.840 is true. Should youth deer season be four days instead 0:33:19.880 --> 0:33:23.960 of two Yes, three thousand, four hundred and ninety two 0:33:24.880 --> 0:33:29.560 forty four percent No, three thousand, six hundred and forty 0:33:29.640 --> 0:33:34.880 nine or forty six percent no opinion, eight hundred and 0:33:34.880 --> 0:33:40.320 twenty five. A lot more people had an opinion, but 0:33:40.440 --> 0:33:43.040 it got shot down. Now this is the last one 0:33:43.040 --> 0:33:45.800 we're gonna touch on, because here's how nuanced it is. 0:33:46.800 --> 0:33:51.280 How about youth turkey season? Should we move that from 0:33:51.280 --> 0:33:57.880 two days to four? Yes? Four? Eight hundred and seventy two, 0:33:58.200 --> 0:34:03.760 now eight hundred and fifty five. So there's some bit 0:34:03.800 --> 0:34:09.120 where you're like, ah, turkeys, sure, dear, uh. 0:34:09.120 --> 0:34:13.600 Huh, these kids are gonna get them all. 0:34:13.920 --> 0:34:15.840 This is this so just a little glimpse into the 0:34:15.840 --> 0:34:21.759 psychology of of and and and you'll like, here's the thing. 0:34:21.920 --> 0:34:24.400 When it comes to wildlife management, people are always in 0:34:24.560 --> 0:34:30.640 myself included Rise ridiculing ballot box biology, right like, leave 0:34:30.680 --> 0:34:34.560 it to the professionals. Leave it to the professionals. And 0:34:34.600 --> 0:34:38.080 it shouldn't go to votes, right like reintroducing wolves in Colorado. 0:34:38.160 --> 0:34:39.920 You shouldn't put that to a vote. Leave it to 0:34:39.960 --> 0:34:44.920 the professionals. But here, I don't know, there's like an 0:34:44.960 --> 0:34:47.200 elegance to it. But I but I think it should 0:34:47.200 --> 0:34:51.279 be taken as a It's part of a process, it's 0:34:51.320 --> 0:34:53.640 part of a step. It's not the end all be 0:34:53.760 --> 0:34:56.360 all It's not like they just vote in everything. But 0:34:56.400 --> 0:34:59.719 when you go to set the law, uh, it gives 0:34:59.760 --> 0:35:03.359 you who as a law makes through the process, it's 0:35:03.400 --> 0:35:05.600 like an interesting to get a sense of public opinion. 0:35:06.560 --> 0:35:10.080 Absolutely, And like when we talk about making scientific management, 0:35:10.719 --> 0:35:13.520 the assumption is is like, well, that scientific management is 0:35:13.600 --> 0:35:17.640 going to be on behalf of the hunting community, right, 0:35:17.760 --> 0:35:22.279 But often that scientific management takes into account the hunting perspective, 0:35:22.640 --> 0:35:26.759 but also like the rangeland ecology perspective of all these 0:35:26.840 --> 0:35:33.400 ranchers out there with animals on state ground and on 0:35:33.560 --> 0:35:38.680 public ground that borders state, WMAs, et cetera, and how 0:35:38.760 --> 0:35:42.320 they are going to be affected by those deer elk 0:35:43.040 --> 0:35:47.000 populations as well. So, and everybody's a voter. 0:35:47.440 --> 0:35:50.320 Well, part of making the rules is keeping you know, 0:35:50.520 --> 0:35:54.160 people happy and interested and out in the field. 0:35:54.000 --> 0:35:59.279 Too, providing opportunity. What is opportunity? Quality? Opportunity is a huge, 0:35:59.680 --> 0:36:00.440 huge phrase. 0:36:01.320 --> 0:36:04.080 My view on that youth Turkey deal, which I'm following 0:36:04.160 --> 0:36:07.000 closely and I have really leaned on Doug to push 0:36:07.080 --> 0:36:10.839 on that hard, is that I think it comes down 0:36:10.880 --> 0:36:13.879 to who's got kids. I was just kidding, I got kids. 0:36:13.920 --> 0:36:15.879 So I'm a super big supporter if I didn't have kids, 0:36:15.880 --> 0:36:20.080 I'd be like, screw those kids. And then but as 0:36:20.120 --> 0:36:22.719 soon as it'll get enacted as twenty twenty five, so 0:36:23.040 --> 0:36:25.239 we're still gonna be well, we're still gonna be weather 0:36:25.360 --> 0:36:40.000 vulnerable next year. So your mom was a librarian, yeahs 0:36:42.160 --> 0:36:44.840 transitions speak is a library. 0:36:45.120 --> 0:36:47.040 Yeah. Before we get to that, though, did you see 0:36:47.160 --> 0:36:49.839 that the wolves in northern California? Have you seen that yet? 0:36:50.239 --> 0:36:52.759 I know about them, Yeah, just migrating through Do they 0:36:52.800 --> 0:36:58.560 have an established breeding I don't know, shafts. 0:36:58.320 --> 0:37:01.120 Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, trail cams catching them. 0:37:01.800 --> 0:37:08.480 There's plenty of good interesting I interviewed a very very 0:37:08.600 --> 0:37:14.560 nice lady who runs of a big operation. I apologize 0:37:14.560 --> 0:37:16.520 if you're listening. I can't remember your name, but they 0:37:16.600 --> 0:37:19.600 do a lot of like the noxious weed mitigation with 0:37:20.160 --> 0:37:24.040 sheep and goats, and they had one of the wolves 0:37:24.080 --> 0:37:26.480 that came through a few years ago knocked out some 0:37:26.640 --> 0:37:30.200 of their some of theirstation crew a few years. 0:37:30.000 --> 0:37:31.319 Ago in California. Yeah, oh wow. 0:37:31.640 --> 0:37:35.640 Yeah, they've been like for a while. Yeah, probably, I 0:37:35.640 --> 0:37:38.960 don't know, probably originating from that Frank church group. 0:37:39.800 --> 0:37:43.480 Yeah, it got into Oregon, California. Yeah, probably. 0:37:43.600 --> 0:37:47.600 Yeah, it's hard to I don't picture California firing up 0:37:47.600 --> 0:37:53.160 a wolf season anytime soon. Maybe people surprise you that, 0:37:54.400 --> 0:37:56.920 oh man, this is gone too far. 0:37:57.000 --> 0:37:58.719 And in your book if you can your book though, 0:37:58.760 --> 0:38:00.719 by the way, when you read it, have you read 0:38:00.719 --> 0:38:02.040 the other ones? Or was this the first time you've 0:38:02.080 --> 0:38:05.160 read the full I've read three, you've read three, but one. 0:38:05.280 --> 0:38:05.800 You're good at it. 0:38:05.840 --> 0:38:07.440 You seem like you'd be good at it, just from 0:38:07.640 --> 0:38:10.960 reading right here, because I only read the new forward 0:38:11.160 --> 0:38:13.440 to a new edition of the Terminal List. So I 0:38:13.560 --> 0:38:16.520 wrote about So it's a new one about how the 0:38:16.880 --> 0:38:19.359 show came to be and how I got to dance one. 0:38:19.480 --> 0:38:21.080 So it's the one with Chris Pratt on the cover, 0:38:21.120 --> 0:38:22.680 and we put in some pictures from the from the 0:38:22.760 --> 0:38:24.120 show in there and stuff like that to make a 0:38:24.160 --> 0:38:27.120 special limited edition thing. And instead of Ray Porter, who's 0:38:27.160 --> 0:38:29.560 my narrator, reading that, we decided I do it. So 0:38:29.960 --> 0:38:32.520 I ran the cord into the closet and the house 0:38:32.560 --> 0:38:34.440 and I put a bunch of clothes on hangers everywhere 0:38:34.520 --> 0:38:38.080 until it sounded okay. So had the direction you know 0:38:38.120 --> 0:38:40.480 what I'm talking about? Yeah, it looked very similar to this. 0:38:41.280 --> 0:38:41.800 That's the direction. 0:38:44.760 --> 0:38:46.760 Exactly what it was Jack's close. 0:38:46.920 --> 0:38:51.440 Yeah exactly, you use like a trained voice actor for yours. 0:38:51.680 --> 0:38:54.560 Yeah, yeah, so Ray Porter, he's a he's an amazing guy, 0:38:54.640 --> 0:38:57.960 Shakespeare trained actor who does it because you're because it's 0:38:58.040 --> 0:38:59.480 like it's like accidents. 0:38:59.680 --> 0:39:02.279 Really, it's like a thriller too though, so it's got 0:39:02.360 --> 0:39:04.720 to have like it's got to be a delivery exactly. 0:39:05.920 --> 0:39:09.600 He had felt that a like a flunky soap opera actor. 0:39:09.440 --> 0:39:12.200 Had read one of his books, not that I felt 0:39:12.280 --> 0:39:16.480 I know, that's fantastic, but it was hard. I mean, 0:39:16.520 --> 0:39:19.160 it was only like five pages, maybe six, and I 0:39:19.239 --> 0:39:22.200 hadn't written it years ago. I had written it days ago, 0:39:22.600 --> 0:39:25.360 and I'm reading it and it was difficult. So I 0:39:25.560 --> 0:39:27.600 now I have. I had an appreciation for Ray and 0:39:27.600 --> 0:39:30.239 all those guys who do this narration, but now I 0:39:30.400 --> 0:39:32.719 even appreciate it even more. And they have to do 0:39:32.760 --> 0:39:34.600 those accents too. I'm just reading my own voice, my 0:39:34.680 --> 0:39:37.160 own words, just setting up what's coming and how the 0:39:37.320 --> 0:39:40.040 show came to be and everything. And that was difficult 0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:43.000 enough for whatever reason. But now now so now when 0:39:43.000 --> 0:39:45.080 I'm writing, I think about, oh, I should probably put 0:39:45.120 --> 0:39:47.920 the accent, the Russian accent up front instead of mentioning 0:39:47.960 --> 0:39:50.320 it like halfway down the page. So he has to 0:39:50.400 --> 0:39:52.640 now go back and like part Russian accent in with 0:39:53.040 --> 0:39:56.719 a hint of this or that, so you know, it's uh, yeah, 0:39:57.120 --> 0:39:59.640 the German from with the Berlin accent or whatever that 0:39:59.719 --> 0:40:01.239 sort of thing. So he has to go figure with 0:40:01.400 --> 0:40:04.240 what that is. Better to let him know upfront, But anyway, 0:40:04.239 --> 0:40:06.239 it was difficult. So anyway, I was just curious if 0:40:06.239 --> 0:40:09.160 you had written read all your books out loud like that. 0:40:09.400 --> 0:40:11.400 Yeah, and I used to. Yeah, I used to not 0:40:11.520 --> 0:40:15.440 be allowed to, but now you know, now I'm allowed to. Hey, 0:40:15.719 --> 0:40:17.759 I like, I don't like doing it, but love, I mean, 0:40:17.760 --> 0:40:19.000 I don't you get a sore of throat? 0:40:19.520 --> 0:40:21.800 Yeah, that's long, he said about he said it was 0:40:21.840 --> 0:40:24.800 about double. So if it's a fourteen hour read fourteen 0:40:24.840 --> 0:40:27.239 hour book, it's about double that what it took him 0:40:27.640 --> 0:40:30.399 to actually read it and actually do it, so about 0:40:30.440 --> 0:40:30.879 thirty hour. 0:40:30.960 --> 0:40:31.160 Deal. 0:40:31.520 --> 0:40:33.840 Does he read it at the pace that we hear it? 0:40:33.960 --> 0:40:38.440 Because I heard the prologue of your new book, But 0:40:38.760 --> 0:40:42.360 does he read at the pace that we hear it? 0:40:42.600 --> 0:40:46.120 Or is there any kind of good messing with you know, 0:40:46.480 --> 0:40:47.400 just just think. 0:40:47.280 --> 0:40:49.279 It's the cadence that he in some people's speed books 0:40:49.360 --> 0:40:51.920 up just to get through them faster, which is kind 0:40:51.960 --> 0:40:53.800 of don't know, kind of strange if you're listening to 0:40:53.840 --> 0:40:56.000 accents and all that sort of thing, and the dramatic 0:40:56.080 --> 0:40:58.400 pauses and all that. But I think he read he 0:40:58.560 --> 0:41:00.440 likes to read it. He just goes, he said, he 0:41:00.560 --> 0:41:02.040 just like skims it a tiny bit, just kind of 0:41:02.080 --> 0:41:03.960 get the feel, and then he reads it for the 0:41:04.000 --> 0:41:07.359 first time recording, so that you're hearing it the way 0:41:07.400 --> 0:41:10.719 you would read it for the first time. So yeah, 0:41:10.800 --> 0:41:13.000 it's not practiced yet. I think other different narrators do 0:41:13.080 --> 0:41:15.239 different things, but that's the way. The way he does 0:41:15.280 --> 0:41:17.319 it probably saves a little bit of time as well, 0:41:17.480 --> 0:41:19.160 rather than reading a whole thing and then going back. 0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:21.799 But but yeah, I try to give him the acronyms, 0:41:21.920 --> 0:41:25.279 you know, so it's not you see n O d's capitalized, 0:41:27.000 --> 0:41:29.040 you say n O ds, but it's really nods, you know, 0:41:29.120 --> 0:41:31.200 things like that instead a J S O C would 0:41:31.200 --> 0:41:33.120 be jaysack like that. That's sort of a sort of 0:41:33.160 --> 0:41:35.960 a thing. So yeah, there's always those those types of 0:41:36.000 --> 0:41:38.400 things come up as well. But it's tough. I mean, 0:41:38.440 --> 0:41:41.280 that's that's serious business. Being a narrator reading all these books. 0:41:41.280 --> 0:41:43.520 That's a lot of hours in a room by yourself 0:41:43.719 --> 0:41:47.080 just for reading. I don't know. But more, I mean, 0:41:47.239 --> 0:41:49.160 he does a great job, so it's good, more than 0:41:49.160 --> 0:41:51.600 happy that to have him doing it rather than me. 0:41:51.920 --> 0:41:54.480 I like, how you don't disparage You don't like to 0:41:54.560 --> 0:41:56.000 disparage the people you work with. 0:41:57.360 --> 0:42:01.560 I haven't had the cause. Really, Yeah, I pick up 0:42:01.600 --> 0:42:03.399 on that man in a different round. 0:42:05.880 --> 0:42:08.799 I'll be like, man, Phil just does a phenomenal job. 0:42:10.440 --> 0:42:14.840 Hayden calls just the right amount, the perfect amount. 0:42:14.880 --> 0:42:16.600 Hey, I want to go back farther than I do. 0:42:16.680 --> 0:42:18.080 Want to get to your mom being a library, but 0:42:18.120 --> 0:42:22.440 I want to go back farther than that. Uh. We 0:42:22.520 --> 0:42:24.960 took a little walk last night, we did. You're uh 0:42:26.200 --> 0:42:28.960 your grandfather was killed off Okinawan World War two. 0:42:29.239 --> 0:42:32.080 Yeah, yeah, nineteen forty five. Never met his kid, never 0:42:32.200 --> 0:42:34.799 met I never met my dad. So we grew up. 0:42:35.080 --> 0:42:36.680 He grew up with the same things that I grew 0:42:36.760 --> 0:42:38.400 up with from my grandfather, which were those photos of 0:42:38.480 --> 0:42:40.000 him with his plane. He threw the course air which 0:42:40.040 --> 0:42:41.839 is a cooling that had the gold wings that you'd 0:42:41.880 --> 0:42:44.520 fold up like that put on aircraft carriers, and there 0:42:44.600 --> 0:42:46.200 was a show in the late seventies and I caught 0:42:46.239 --> 0:42:47.920 it in syndication with my dad in the early eighties 0:42:47.920 --> 0:42:50.719 called Black Sheep Squadron based off Happy Point and had 0:42:50.960 --> 0:42:52.759 Robert Conrad playing Pappy Point. And I think I had 0:42:52.800 --> 0:42:54.840 a lot of my leadership traits from that show. He 0:42:55.000 --> 0:42:58.360 was just a drinker and a fighter and it was awesome. 0:42:58.480 --> 0:43:00.920 I loved it. I thought, that's you. But yeah, it 0:43:00.960 --> 0:43:04.160 was perfect. Yeah, exactly. That's how you settle things. You 0:43:04.560 --> 0:43:06.319 settle it with your fists outside and you go out 0:43:06.360 --> 0:43:08.400 and then shoot down a bunch of Japanese zeros and 0:43:08.640 --> 0:43:11.080 have a few beers. And I was like, that's awesome, 0:43:11.160 --> 0:43:13.680 That's what I'm gonna do. But I knew it was 0:43:13.719 --> 0:43:16.680 just kind of in my blood to join the military, 0:43:16.880 --> 0:43:19.760 follow his footsteps into the military. I had those those photos. 0:43:19.800 --> 0:43:23.080 I had his his marine aviator wings. I had the 0:43:23.320 --> 0:43:25.399 silk maps they used to give aviators back then, because 0:43:25.400 --> 0:43:27.160 if you hit the water with a paper map, it 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:30.520 would disintegrate in the water. But milk maps, Yeah, it's beautiful. 0:43:30.520 --> 0:43:32.960 I mean they're beautiful maps. Have them a frame now. 0:43:33.320 --> 0:43:35.680 But so I had all those those things, his medals, 0:43:36.040 --> 0:43:38.680 and that's the only touch point that and this show 0:43:38.719 --> 0:43:41.360 Black Sheep Squadron with only touch points because you couldn't 0:43:41.560 --> 0:43:43.879 get online back then, and go to the Facebook group 0:43:43.960 --> 0:43:45.759 from that squadron and try to meet your dad all 0:43:45.800 --> 0:43:48.400 these years later, like he had no touch points with 0:43:48.440 --> 0:43:51.040 anybody from his dad's squadron, nothing like that. 0:43:51.320 --> 0:43:53.360 So what was it that you took What was it 0:43:53.440 --> 0:43:56.680 that you took your family to to show them your 0:43:56.719 --> 0:43:57.680 grandfather's name. 0:43:57.880 --> 0:43:59.759 Yeah, so it's the the Mia wall because they never 0:43:59.760 --> 0:44:00.839 found found his body. 0:44:02.360 --> 0:44:04.560 But that's what you mentioned. I didn't know that makes sense. 0:44:04.640 --> 0:44:07.320 So there's a punch Bowl National Cemetery of the Pacific 0:44:07.480 --> 0:44:10.440 is overlooks punch Bowl Crater overlooks Honolulu. 0:44:10.880 --> 0:44:11.040 Dad. 0:44:12.200 --> 0:44:15.759 It's so powerful, so powerful. Going to national cemeteries, no 0:44:15.880 --> 0:44:19.080 matter which one, is very important for for kids especially 0:44:19.080 --> 0:44:21.279 and this was middle school, high school years, just to 0:44:21.840 --> 0:44:25.440 appreciate and kind of see have a kind of a 0:44:25.840 --> 0:44:28.879 have a viscial real reaction to seeing those headstones, seeing 0:44:28.960 --> 0:44:31.320 those those stones in the ground, seeing those names on 0:44:31.360 --> 0:44:33.960 the wall. So you realize what was sacrificed so that 0:44:34.040 --> 0:44:36.000 we could have these freedoms and options and opportunities that 0:44:36.040 --> 0:44:38.600 we have. So maybe before we make a snap judgment 0:44:38.680 --> 0:44:41.600 on something based off somebody's tweet, Maybe take a breath, 0:44:42.080 --> 0:44:45.080 research it a little more and then make that decision. 0:44:45.200 --> 0:44:47.920 So it's I think it's important to take take kids there. 0:44:48.000 --> 0:44:49.840 So that's what we did with our youngest who's twelve, 0:44:50.080 --> 0:44:52.200 brought him up there this past week and showed him 0:44:52.239 --> 0:44:55.279 his grandfather's name up there on that is that wall. 0:44:56.320 --> 0:44:59.439 It's it's massive numbers. 0:44:59.280 --> 0:45:03.440 Massive number and it's all they works their way up 0:45:03.520 --> 0:45:06.399 this slope of the crater and it's just wall after 0:45:06.480 --> 0:45:08.440 wall after wall after wall that leads to the top, 0:45:08.480 --> 0:45:11.400 and at the top there's a statue and a chapel, 0:45:11.800 --> 0:45:13.400 and then there's the history of World War two on 0:45:13.440 --> 0:45:15.680 these beautiful murals that spell it all out, all the 0:45:15.719 --> 0:45:17.680 battles in order up there, so you can walk through 0:45:17.680 --> 0:45:19.440 the history of World War two in the Pacific. And 0:45:19.480 --> 0:45:21.360 then you can turn around and look out and just 0:45:21.480 --> 0:45:23.680 see all those walls with all those names of the 0:45:23.760 --> 0:45:25.960 bodies that were never recovered, and then you see all 0:45:26.000 --> 0:45:27.799 the grass where they have all the people that were 0:45:27.840 --> 0:45:30.080 buried for the bodies that were recovered. So it's pretty 0:45:30.200 --> 0:45:30.799 powerful place. 0:45:31.120 --> 0:45:34.839 So if you're like with your grandfather, they don't then 0:45:35.320 --> 0:45:37.880 he's on the m I A. But there's no tombston't 0:45:37.960 --> 0:45:39.520 there's no tombstone marker. 0:45:39.360 --> 0:45:42.160 Right right when they do recover the bodies, because we're 0:45:42.239 --> 0:45:45.920 actively still out there looking for bodies from multiple past conflicts. 0:45:46.480 --> 0:45:48.279 So when they do find the remains, then they make 0:45:48.360 --> 0:45:50.680 up put a mark and they have this star that 0:45:50.760 --> 0:45:53.239 goes next to the name that lets you know that, hey, 0:45:53.239 --> 0:45:55.279 this body has now been recovered. And there's a lot 0:45:55.320 --> 0:45:56.680 more now than there were when I was a kid 0:45:56.800 --> 0:46:00.399 up there, you can definitely tell. But yeah, something that's 0:46:00.400 --> 0:46:01.600 something I alway wanted to do in the military that 0:46:01.640 --> 0:46:03.439 I ever got to do because we got so busy 0:46:03.520 --> 0:46:05.600 after after nine to eleven was be part of that 0:46:06.840 --> 0:46:10.240 m recovery group that would go out you got to Vietnam. 0:46:10.360 --> 0:46:12.040 You'd really go out to a bunch of different places 0:46:12.239 --> 0:46:14.480 and look for the remains of these in Vietnam, a 0:46:14.520 --> 0:46:17.360 lot of pilots but people that were not recovered. So 0:46:17.760 --> 0:46:19.720 it's a it's a large operation. You should be headquartered 0:46:19.719 --> 0:46:21.279 in Hawaii. I'm not sure where it's headquartered now. 0:46:22.239 --> 0:46:23.279 So now we'll get to your mom. 0:46:23.640 --> 0:46:28.120 Yes, librarians did where was she a library? So multiple 0:46:28.160 --> 0:46:32.279 different different libraries growing up. But so when I wanted 0:46:32.280 --> 0:46:33.560 to let her know, I wanted to be a seal. 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:35.160 So I found out what seals were from my dad 0:46:35.200 --> 0:46:37.759 watching these war movies. So he called them frogmen, so 0:46:37.920 --> 0:46:40.560 he did because that was because it was the name 0:46:40.600 --> 0:46:43.920 of the movie. So we'd be watching football, So football 0:46:44.000 --> 0:46:46.520 was big on Sundays in our household. But I was 0:46:46.640 --> 0:46:48.960 really interested in football because even back then, at age five, 0:46:49.080 --> 0:46:51.800 six seven, I wanted anyone I want to join the military. 0:46:51.880 --> 0:46:56.000 So there was those few channels back then there's CBS, NBC, ABC, 0:46:56.120 --> 0:46:59.080 and then there's the outlier, and that outlier channel always 0:46:59.120 --> 0:47:01.799 had a war movie on on Sundays. So we'd been 0:47:01.800 --> 0:47:04.120 watching football, and when the commercial came on, my dad 0:47:04.239 --> 0:47:05.800 look at his watch and say go And I was 0:47:05.840 --> 0:47:07.520 the remote control back in those days, so I'd run 0:47:07.600 --> 0:47:09.640 up and I'd switch it to that outlier channel, that 0:47:09.840 --> 0:47:12.440 fourth channel, and there was always a war movie on, 0:47:12.480 --> 0:47:14.080 so I'd watched that. He'd be looking at his watch 0:47:14.120 --> 0:47:15.480 for your two or two and a half minutes and 0:47:15.520 --> 0:47:19.760 then say turn it back and turn Then we continue 0:47:19.760 --> 0:47:21.320 watching football and I just kind of wait till the 0:47:21.360 --> 0:47:25.680 next commercial, wonder what's happened in exactly, So I had 0:47:25.680 --> 0:47:28.759 a lot of one of the guys, isn't there just 0:47:28.840 --> 0:47:29.640 gone gone? 0:47:29.840 --> 0:47:32.839 Yep? And uh connect, Yeah. 0:47:32.880 --> 0:47:34.719 One of those was the Frogmen, and there was show 0:47:34.760 --> 0:47:37.040 these guys climbing up over the beach and putting explosives 0:47:37.239 --> 0:47:39.880 on obstacles and blowing them up. And I asked my dad, Hey, 0:47:39.880 --> 0:47:42.120 who are these guys? And he said those were Frogmen 0:47:42.480 --> 0:47:45.000 the name of the movie. And I sort of pestering 0:47:45.080 --> 0:47:47.120 him all about what frog who frogmen were and then 0:47:47.160 --> 0:47:49.560 he's like, change it back, change it back. So back 0:47:49.560 --> 0:47:52.960 to football. And someone asked my mom, uh, and she said, well, 0:47:53.040 --> 0:47:55.080 let's go for a trip, so down to the library. 0:47:55.360 --> 0:47:57.640 And she took every opportunity to we had when we 0:47:57.680 --> 0:47:59.440 had questions, to take us down to that library and 0:47:59.719 --> 0:48:01.680 show out of research and all that sort of things. 0:48:01.719 --> 0:48:03.920 So this is early eighties, and you could essentially get 0:48:03.960 --> 0:48:06.640 through everything written about seals in about an hour, maybe 0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:08.799 hour and a half if you're a slow reader. There 0:48:08.840 --> 0:48:11.439 just wasn't that much. And then there's more written about 0:48:11.520 --> 0:48:14.439 army special forces back then, typically about Vietnam, but you'd 0:48:14.440 --> 0:48:16.399 still you can get through that in a couple hours too, 0:48:16.840 --> 0:48:19.320 So you could potentially find the end of the Internet 0:48:19.520 --> 0:48:22.560 in the library back then as a kid. But then 0:48:22.920 --> 0:48:25.239 I started reading those same types of books that my 0:48:25.320 --> 0:48:28.040 parents were reading. So it's let's say fifth grade's one 0:48:28.120 --> 0:48:30.919 Hunt for a October comes out, and by sixth grade, 0:48:31.000 --> 0:48:32.840 for sure, when I'm eleven, that's when I start for 0:48:33.000 --> 0:48:35.840 sure reading all the same kind of thrillers that I 0:48:35.920 --> 0:48:38.400 still read today. So I'm reading books by David Morrell, 0:48:38.520 --> 0:48:40.880 Nelson to mill A, J. Quinnell, J. C. Pollock, Markold 0:48:40.920 --> 0:48:43.960 and Louis Lamore, Stephen Hunter and back then, all these 0:48:44.000 --> 0:48:45.880 guys and if you remember movies and television in the 0:48:45.880 --> 0:48:49.480 eighties that protagonists usually had a background in Vietnam, and 0:48:49.600 --> 0:48:51.800 it was either a Navy seal or Army Special Forces 0:48:51.880 --> 0:48:55.160 or Marine sniper or CIA PEL paramilitary. And now he's 0:48:55.160 --> 0:48:57.080 in the eighties and he's like a private investigator or 0:48:57.120 --> 0:48:57.400 he's a. 0:48:57.400 --> 0:49:02.000 Cop or whatever follows at those No Country for Old Men, 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:04.960 they what is the guy? All those guys so in 0:49:05.040 --> 0:49:11.200 No Count for Old Men. Josh Brolin's character lou Ellen, 0:49:11.600 --> 0:49:14.839 lou Ellen, he did you know, you don't know, you're 0:49:14.840 --> 0:49:17.560 not quite sure what, but did something heavy duty in Vietnam. 0:49:18.520 --> 0:49:23.560 The assassin did something you gather really heavy in Vietnam 0:49:24.160 --> 0:49:27.279 and was you know, like a you gather some kind 0:49:27.320 --> 0:49:31.960 of ultimate badass from Vietnam. And because it was its 0:49:31.960 --> 0:49:34.320 about eight the eighties, and so it is these guys. 0:49:34.120 --> 0:49:37.120 That were the timeline worked kind of a skill set 0:49:37.160 --> 0:49:38.920 that made sense, kind of like. 0:49:39.000 --> 0:49:44.400 Crazy warriors that were wandering the drug lands of the 0:49:44.800 --> 0:49:46.000 Texas Mexico boarder. 0:49:46.120 --> 0:49:47.959 Yeah, I mean it makes sense, it makes sense. 0:49:48.680 --> 0:49:50.560 And I never really thought about that formula. 0:49:50.640 --> 0:49:52.600 But when you mentioned that, oh, yeah, they were all 0:49:52.880 --> 0:49:54.640 they all had backgrounds like that, and so that's the 0:49:54.640 --> 0:49:57.239 background I went in real life. One day, so I figure, hey, 0:49:57.239 --> 0:50:00.719 if I'm reading about this uh seal in a book 0:50:00.800 --> 0:50:04.279 by David Morrell, I'm reading about this Air Force pair 0:50:04.320 --> 0:50:06.399 of rescue guy in the book by so and so, well, 0:50:06.560 --> 0:50:08.480 they must have done their research somehow, they must have 0:50:08.560 --> 0:50:12.880 connections in there somehow. So as a kid to age ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, 0:50:13.000 --> 0:50:15.160 I'm just having such a good time in the pages 0:50:15.200 --> 0:50:17.279 of these novels. I know that after my time in 0:50:17.320 --> 0:50:19.359 the military, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna write these. 0:50:19.320 --> 0:50:22.040 Get to books. Okay, let's say, here's here's what I 0:50:22.080 --> 0:50:26.239 don't get it though. If someone had said you will 0:50:26.480 --> 0:50:32.759 not like like God says, you cannot be a writer ever, 0:50:33.880 --> 0:50:35.480 would you have been not going in the military. 0:50:35.560 --> 0:50:36.840 I would have probably said why. 0:50:38.520 --> 0:50:41.080 He said somebody did it? He said because somebody? 0:50:41.080 --> 0:50:44.200 Because because I said so, yeah. 0:50:44.280 --> 0:50:50.400 So whatever, Like, would you have not done it? Research stint? 0:50:50.719 --> 0:50:52.800 And that's a high risk research stint. 0:50:52.920 --> 0:50:54.360 I didn't realize how high risk it. 0:50:54.480 --> 0:50:57.680 A lot of writers like I spent six months walking, 0:50:58.800 --> 0:51:02.479 you know, you're like, I spent ten years in urban combat. Yeah, 0:51:02.520 --> 0:51:04.439 so it could be a writer. Yeah, so it would 0:51:04.480 --> 0:51:08.160 be like that doesn't sound that sounded very practical. 0:51:08.480 --> 0:51:10.960 I thought of them. I thought of the seal side, 0:51:11.120 --> 0:51:14.680 and the writing side is totally distinctly different. I didn't 0:51:14.680 --> 0:51:16.960 think of one leading to the other. I just knew that, Hey, 0:51:17.000 --> 0:51:18.320 if I want to do these two things with my 0:51:18.400 --> 0:51:22.440 life because of time and aging, you have to do 0:51:22.560 --> 0:51:25.960 the military side first. So yeah, there's no really like, 0:51:26.000 --> 0:51:27.360 what am I going to do first? It's like, no, 0:51:27.440 --> 0:51:29.400 you're gonna you have to do this first. But I 0:51:29.480 --> 0:51:31.680 was reading all those guys and then I found Joseph 0:51:31.719 --> 0:51:33.919 Campbell through here with a thousand faces and a series 0:51:33.960 --> 0:51:36.000 of interviews he did with Bill Moyer's on PBS in 0:51:36.040 --> 0:51:38.160 nineteen eighty eight called The Power of Myth, and then 0:51:38.160 --> 0:51:39.759 they had some books that came out based on that 0:51:39.920 --> 0:51:42.040 called the Power of Myth as well, and I saw 0:51:42.120 --> 0:51:44.080 that with my mom. She introduced me to that and 0:51:44.880 --> 0:51:48.480 he talked about how his hero's journey was in inspiration 0:51:48.560 --> 0:51:50.239 for George Lucas and Star Wars, and of course, as 0:51:50.239 --> 0:51:52.040 a kid of the eighties, you know, that really stood 0:51:52.040 --> 0:51:54.920 out to me. So I started applying that hero's journey 0:51:54.960 --> 0:51:58.560 in Joseph Campbell's Thoughts and Vision and Philosophy to books 0:51:58.560 --> 0:52:01.319 I would read, to movies i'd the TV shows i'd see, 0:52:01.719 --> 0:52:04.520 and even though I didn't think of it specifically in 0:52:04.560 --> 0:52:07.080 these terms, I just thought, oh, that movie didn't work 0:52:07.160 --> 0:52:09.640 because of that, that that hero missed a part of 0:52:09.680 --> 0:52:12.640 that journey. It didn't really take you what is going 0:52:12.719 --> 0:52:16.839 in for for James Reese, what is going into the cave? 0:52:17.520 --> 0:52:20.879 So there's distinct language that I'll use in the book, 0:52:21.520 --> 0:52:24.759 even if it's just a cabin or it's something and 0:52:24.800 --> 0:52:28.239 I'll put cavern like something, so I'll describe something. I'll 0:52:28.280 --> 0:52:30.520 throw that in there, cave of like cavern like something 0:52:30.600 --> 0:52:33.360 like that dark. So I'll describe a cave even I 0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:37.120 don't use those words because I'm thinking about that journey 0:52:37.160 --> 0:52:39.080 and he's getting some sort of information in there. 0:52:40.040 --> 0:52:43.480 Also, you go into a cave repeatedly, and there's there'll 0:52:43.480 --> 0:52:44.360 be one. I probably do. 0:52:44.480 --> 0:52:47.320 But there's one distinct part of each book that I 0:52:47.480 --> 0:52:50.480 think of as I'm writing. That is his time to 0:52:50.680 --> 0:52:52.640 change a little bit or learn something a little bit, 0:52:52.680 --> 0:52:55.080 emerge a little different so that he can solve this problem, 0:52:55.200 --> 0:52:58.160 usually very aggressively and violently in my novels. 0:52:58.360 --> 0:53:01.200 But well, yeah, with like so you think a bunch 0:53:01.280 --> 0:53:04.200 of where Luke Skywalker when he has to go to 0:53:04.280 --> 0:53:07.600 that little Yeah, he goes that whole swampy island and 0:53:07.640 --> 0:53:08.920 hangs out with Yoda. 0:53:09.120 --> 0:53:09.680 Yeah, that's it. 0:53:09.920 --> 0:53:13.239 It comes back, leaves early, but comes out ready to 0:53:13.760 --> 0:53:15.120 That's right exactly, that's right. 0:53:15.200 --> 0:53:17.759 First it goes into the cave. There's rats all over them. 0:53:17.760 --> 0:53:20.160 You know, he's throwing those things off there the cave there. 0:53:20.560 --> 0:53:23.080 So so you'll notice it if you if you read 0:53:23.320 --> 0:53:26.360 here with a thousand faces and then start watching films 0:53:26.560 --> 0:53:29.520 that take you on a journey through a protagonist's size, 0:53:29.760 --> 0:53:32.280 then then you start noticing that some of these elements 0:53:32.400 --> 0:53:34.920 are are in some of probably your favorite films. It 0:53:35.000 --> 0:53:37.680 resonates for a reason, like there's a mentor along the way. 0:53:37.800 --> 0:53:40.000 We have Obi wan Kenobe, we have we have Yoda. 0:53:40.120 --> 0:53:42.720 We have someone that helps train, that's older and wiser, 0:53:42.800 --> 0:53:45.120 that passes along some training or some information along the 0:53:45.160 --> 0:53:47.920 way as well. So there's that there's that person in 0:53:48.239 --> 0:53:50.799 in books and movies and television, and it's just it's 0:53:50.800 --> 0:53:53.799 a very natural way to tell a story because our 0:53:53.840 --> 0:53:56.040 first stories around the campfire, and they're about the hunt, 0:53:56.280 --> 0:53:58.920 and they're about warfare, because you're passing down lessons from 0:53:58.960 --> 0:54:01.719 both the hunt and combat to that next generation through 0:54:01.760 --> 0:54:02.800 a story that you can remember. 0:54:03.200 --> 0:54:06.959 And why doesn't that get boring? It is used over 0:54:07.320 --> 0:54:09.600 and over and over again, like. 0:54:10.520 --> 0:54:13.200 That's in your they would say. It's it's like already, 0:54:13.880 --> 0:54:15.319 it's already wired into your brain. 0:54:15.880 --> 0:54:18.839 I love it every day. Every single boxing movie, every 0:54:18.880 --> 0:54:21.960 single one. It's like, I'm not going to train that kid. 0:54:24.080 --> 0:54:24.520 Exactly. 0:54:25.560 --> 0:54:26.279 It takes. 0:54:28.280 --> 0:54:31.520 I do, yeah, for sure. Then you get the montage 0:54:31.600 --> 0:54:34.360 and you come out stronger and wiser and get that 0:54:34.480 --> 0:54:35.279 ring and get it done. 0:54:35.600 --> 0:54:36.960 Not only am I going to prove it to you, 0:54:37.080 --> 0:54:38.239 I'm going to prove it to all of them. 0:54:38.480 --> 0:54:40.520 That's right, But you know there's but there's other things 0:54:40.520 --> 0:54:43.120 that are wired into the India the human head. Like 0:54:43.160 --> 0:54:46.080 if you look globally, if you look at world religion, 0:54:46.680 --> 0:54:54.680 the idea that a bad flood came and wiped out 0:54:54.719 --> 0:54:57.960 most everything is a recurring I mean, it's it's in 0:54:58.080 --> 0:55:02.560 like Native American mythologies from the primary like monotheistic religions. 0:55:02.760 --> 0:55:06.200 It's just like this idea that probably because you're I 0:55:06.239 --> 0:55:08.560 don't know, you're looking at stuff doesn't make that doesn't 0:55:08.560 --> 0:55:11.160 make sense to you anymore. You find like dinosaur bones whatever, 0:55:11.280 --> 0:55:14.799 and you're like, I don't know, must have been right. 0:55:15.200 --> 0:55:17.359 Well, all those different different cultures that had never had 0:55:17.360 --> 0:55:22.360 any interaction with one another, China, Native American philosophies, Christianity, 0:55:22.400 --> 0:55:25.640 all these different religions and different cultures really is better 0:55:25.680 --> 0:55:29.000 way to put it, had very similar stories, very similar mythologies, 0:55:29.120 --> 0:55:31.080 very similar heroes, journeys that they would pass on to 0:55:31.160 --> 0:55:34.760 that next generation. So across cultures that never had any interaction, 0:55:35.120 --> 0:55:38.080 they had these very similar stories because they're passing on 0:55:38.160 --> 0:55:39.960 some of those same things. It was about survival, and 0:55:40.040 --> 0:55:41.880 not only was it about survival, it was about prevailing 0:55:41.920 --> 0:55:44.000 because we're just gonna survive. That's a that's a rough 0:55:44.040 --> 0:55:47.120 way to go, but you need to prevail. That's the goal. 0:55:47.800 --> 0:55:51.560 You you like to put elements of hunting in I 0:55:51.680 --> 0:55:54.920 do is that now? Is that is that psychology too? 0:55:55.040 --> 0:55:56.120 Or is that just because you like hunting? 0:55:56.239 --> 0:55:59.240 That's because I like hunting, and it's because other people 0:55:59.520 --> 0:56:03.080 either don't or can't do that, and so it's different. 0:56:03.440 --> 0:56:05.040 And it's also a way for me to kind of 0:56:05.080 --> 0:56:08.919 give back to this community, the hunting community, really, because 0:56:08.960 --> 0:56:11.279 someone's going through the airport and they see this thing 0:56:11.320 --> 0:56:13.200 they think as a spy sponage thriller on the shelf, 0:56:13.239 --> 0:56:15.320 and they grab it. But what they're really getting is 0:56:15.320 --> 0:56:18.479 an education in hunting a conservation along the way, because 0:56:18.480 --> 0:56:20.160 it's woven in. There's hunting in all the stories, but 0:56:20.520 --> 0:56:22.880 in particular the second one true Believer, So it'll be 0:56:22.920 --> 0:56:26.279 interesting to see how we deal with that in the 0:56:26.360 --> 0:56:29.520 visual adaptation of it. And then the third one really 0:56:29.600 --> 0:56:33.640 has his savage Sun and that's really about the dark 0:56:33.680 --> 0:56:35.960 side of man through the dynamic of hunter and hunted. 0:56:36.080 --> 0:56:38.160 So the inspiration for that was back in sixth grade 0:56:38.200 --> 0:56:40.440 when I read The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, 0:56:40.640 --> 0:56:42.239 and even back in sixth grade, I said, one day, 0:56:42.239 --> 0:56:44.960 I'll write the novel that pays tribute to the short story, 0:56:45.239 --> 0:56:46.640 and it was the one that I wanted to start with. 0:56:46.760 --> 0:56:49.200 When I started writing, I wrote now, six, seven, eight, 0:56:49.320 --> 0:56:51.799 nine different ideas, different one page executive summaris, and laid 0:56:51.800 --> 0:56:53.680 them all out on the table, and Savage Son was 0:56:53.719 --> 0:56:55.120 the one I wanted to start with because that's the 0:56:55.200 --> 0:56:57.080 theme that I wanted to explore, and that's the one 0:56:57.120 --> 0:56:59.360 I've been thinking about writing since the sixth grade. But 0:56:59.440 --> 0:57:01.440 I knew that the characters weren't developed enough to tell 0:57:01.480 --> 0:57:04.640 that story yet. So I had to introduce everyone to 0:57:04.760 --> 0:57:07.879 these characters in the first book, in the Terminal List, 0:57:08.080 --> 0:57:09.320 and then even at the end of that one, I 0:57:09.400 --> 0:57:11.480 was like, no, not quite ready yet. I still need 0:57:11.560 --> 0:57:14.719 to take him now on this journey of redemption, because 0:57:14.719 --> 0:57:17.320 it would be disingenuous to the reader or to the 0:57:17.400 --> 0:57:20.240 listener to take him after these traumatic events in the 0:57:20.280 --> 0:57:22.760 first novel and then just drop him into this second 0:57:22.880 --> 0:57:25.640 in this second one as Savage Son. He couldn't do it, 0:57:25.880 --> 0:57:28.040 and I'm surprised that Simon and Schuster actionly, my editor 0:57:28.120 --> 0:57:30.440 there didn't ask me to change anything about that second one, 0:57:30.480 --> 0:57:32.960 because it I take him on a pretty long journey 0:57:33.800 --> 0:57:35.640 where he learns to live agangs. He thinks he's dying, 0:57:35.920 --> 0:57:38.280 and he finds this next mission, this purpose in Africa, 0:57:38.360 --> 0:57:41.040 in Mozambique, taking his skills from the battlefield and turning 0:57:41.080 --> 0:57:44.880 those into something positive against the poachers out in Africa. 0:57:44.960 --> 0:57:46.560 So he finds this new mission, and of course that's 0:57:46.560 --> 0:57:48.920 when the CIA finds him and plucks him back out 0:57:48.960 --> 0:57:51.480 for a new mission. But that's a long part of 0:57:51.560 --> 0:57:54.640 the story, and that's probably people that really of my novels, 0:57:54.720 --> 0:57:57.760 Savage Son is probably people's favorite, and In the Blood, 0:57:57.800 --> 0:57:59.480 which was the last one. Those are the two favorites. 0:57:59.680 --> 0:58:03.200 But people that like True Believer love True Believer love 0:58:03.280 --> 0:58:05.640 that second one because of the hunting and because it's 0:58:05.680 --> 0:58:08.760 a slower story, a slower build up, because this guy's 0:58:08.800 --> 0:58:11.200 damaged and he needs to find that a reason to 0:58:11.240 --> 0:58:14.480 live again, and he finds that in Africa and Mozambique. 0:58:14.520 --> 0:58:16.800 And most people don't explore Mozambique and and hunting in 0:58:16.920 --> 0:58:20.000 modern thrillers as well. Most people don't put boots on 0:58:20.040 --> 0:58:22.160 the ground over there doing their research, which I did, 0:58:22.400 --> 0:58:23.840 and I didn't even have my deal yet. So I 0:58:23.880 --> 0:58:27.080 finished my first novel, hadn't sent it Simon and Schuster yet, 0:58:27.200 --> 0:58:29.000 got out of the military, and knew that I was 0:58:29.040 --> 0:58:31.160 always going to write too, because of the John Grisham story. 0:58:31.160 --> 0:58:33.200 He wrote A Time to Kill first, and he couldn't 0:58:33.240 --> 0:58:35.520 give that book away, and then he writes The Firm 0:58:35.760 --> 0:58:38.560 and that thing takes off, and John Grisham novel every 0:58:38.600 --> 0:58:42.080 year since. But if he thought this one didn't really work, 0:58:42.280 --> 0:58:43.680 I'm just going to go back to practice of law, 0:58:44.000 --> 0:58:45.959 like he'd probably just be retiring now for would probably 0:58:45.960 --> 0:58:48.040 be a partner to law firm and just be just 0:58:48.120 --> 0:58:50.240 be getting out still be thinking about that book that 0:58:50.320 --> 0:58:52.000 didn't work, called The Time to Kill, which I think 0:58:52.120 --> 0:58:54.240 is his best work actually, because they republished it after 0:58:54.880 --> 0:58:56.400 The Firm came out and hit it so big they 0:58:56.480 --> 0:58:58.760 went back and republished it, and then Matthew McConaughey started 0:58:58.760 --> 0:59:01.080 in that movie. But it's fantastic if you haven't read 0:59:01.120 --> 0:59:03.400 A Time to Kill for those listening and watching, it's amazing, 0:59:03.480 --> 0:59:05.520 amazing book. But so I was always gonna write too, 0:59:05.600 --> 0:59:07.680 So before i'd even sent it to to Simon and Schuster, 0:59:07.720 --> 0:59:09.360 before I had an agent or anything, I was on 0:59:09.440 --> 0:59:11.800 a plane in Africa to Mo'sambique, but boots on the 0:59:11.800 --> 0:59:13.960 ground over there had lists of questions to ask the 0:59:14.000 --> 0:59:16.840 professional hunters and the trackers and skinners and everybody else, 0:59:17.840 --> 0:59:19.760 how do you say things? And the different languages over there? 0:59:19.800 --> 0:59:21.800 What are the different languages that they're speaking over there? 0:59:22.440 --> 0:59:24.720 Of course looking at the rocks and the dirt, how 0:59:24.760 --> 0:59:26.960 am I going to describe that? And what's the situation 0:59:27.160 --> 0:59:29.120 like over there with hunting and poaching in China and 0:59:29.240 --> 0:59:32.840 minerals and exploitation and all the rest of it. So yeah, 0:59:32.840 --> 0:59:34.480 I was doing that research while I was over there, 0:59:34.480 --> 0:59:35.720 before I had any sort of a deal. 0:59:36.600 --> 0:59:38.760 But so you just you're just spending money out of pocket. 0:59:38.880 --> 0:59:42.280 Yeah oh yeah, And as I going in, you have 0:59:42.360 --> 0:59:45.040 to write your occupation in those those forms and so 0:59:45.280 --> 0:59:47.280 it sells you know, your name and all that stuff 0:59:47.400 --> 0:59:50.160 and has occupation. And I wrote author even though I 0:59:50.240 --> 0:59:52.320 didn't have any probably deal. 0:59:52.400 --> 0:59:55.880 Well the other option would have been probably not that helpful. 0:59:56.080 --> 0:59:58.640 So so yeah, so I wrote that. But I got 0:59:58.680 --> 1:00:01.760 that from Stephen Pressfield for his books on creativity that 1:00:01.840 --> 1:00:04.040 he writes the world of art turning pro authentic swing 1:00:05.000 --> 1:00:08.240 and he said, you know, you're a professional. Flip that switch, 1:00:08.600 --> 1:00:12.040 turn pro and write, And so I wrote author before 1:00:12.040 --> 1:00:14.760 I didn't met anyone from Simon and Schuster or had 1:00:14.760 --> 1:00:16.760 any cause I was gonna write too, and if both 1:00:16.800 --> 1:00:18.600 of them didn't work, then I was like, well, think 1:00:18.600 --> 1:00:20.720 about some fallbacks, but I didn't really want to. 1:00:20.960 --> 1:00:22.600 I never get to the point where I felt like 1:00:22.680 --> 1:00:25.560 I could legitimately, for occupation put down right. And I 1:00:25.640 --> 1:00:27.280 loved it. Man nice because for a lot of time 1:00:27.280 --> 1:00:29.280 I was like, I wrote, probably shouldn't put that down. 1:00:29.760 --> 1:00:33.480 I did it well before, like a tree surgeon. Yeah, 1:00:33.480 --> 1:00:34.880 I did it well well before. 1:00:35.760 --> 1:00:39.600 Yeah I was if you're looking at things professionally as like, oh, 1:00:39.680 --> 1:00:42.240 professionally you make money at it. Well, yeah, I jumped 1:00:42.240 --> 1:00:44.240 the gun. But I still thought of myself at first 1:00:44.280 --> 1:00:47.760 it was a professional soldier, a special operator, and now 1:00:48.200 --> 1:00:50.200 not that anymore. Now I'm an author. So I just 1:00:50.200 --> 1:00:53.200 flipped that switch and came up became a professional author. 1:00:53.680 --> 1:00:57.280 So before you, before you became an author, was there 1:00:57.440 --> 1:01:00.320 like external pressure in the military for you to be 1:01:00.520 --> 1:01:02.440 like a lifer, stay in and. 1:01:02.840 --> 1:01:07.919 Train people or yeah, so there is that, but once 1:01:08.000 --> 1:01:11.280 you less so at twenty years, as you're creeping up 1:01:11.400 --> 1:01:13.600 on twenty. That's kind of like because if you stay in, 1:01:13.680 --> 1:01:16.600 a lot of people say you're working for half pay essentially, 1:01:16.720 --> 1:01:19.080 type of a panel if that's was really true, because 1:01:19.120 --> 1:01:20.920 you could get out and get your retirement, which is 1:01:21.280 --> 1:01:23.400 it's not really half. It's way less than half because 1:01:23.400 --> 1:01:25.800 they don't include your special pays like your demo pay 1:01:25.840 --> 1:01:27.760 and your jump pay and your combat pay and all 1:01:27.800 --> 1:01:31.120 that sort of thing. So it's yeah, it's not It 1:01:31.400 --> 1:01:33.160 doesn't really work out that way. But I understand what 1:01:33.240 --> 1:01:35.640 people mean when they say it. But no, I was 1:01:35.720 --> 1:01:37.440 twenty was good, it was a good run. If I 1:01:37.480 --> 1:01:39.640 stayed in, it was I'd done everything that I wanted 1:01:39.680 --> 1:01:41.840 to do at that point, and if I stayed in, 1:01:41.960 --> 1:01:44.800 it would be staff job and then come back as 1:01:44.840 --> 1:01:48.480 a commanding officer at some point, which sounds really impressive 1:01:48.520 --> 1:01:50.560 if you say your commanding officer or something, But in 1:01:50.640 --> 1:01:52.560 today's day and age, as a commanding officer, you're really 1:01:52.600 --> 1:01:54.800 back in attach cole operation center when the guys are 1:01:54.800 --> 1:01:56.440 out there kicking in the doors doing the job that 1:01:56.480 --> 1:01:58.040 you really came in to do. And it's good you 1:01:58.120 --> 1:01:59.920 need good people to do that. But that just wasn't 1:02:00.720 --> 1:02:03.040 my thing. I was there for to be a tactical 1:02:03.320 --> 1:02:06.160 level leader on the battlefield, and that time was essentially done. 1:02:06.200 --> 1:02:08.200 So it was time to flip that switch and take 1:02:08.200 --> 1:02:11.000 care of my family. And we have three kids and 1:02:11.040 --> 1:02:12.920 one of them had some severe special needs, so that 1:02:13.120 --> 1:02:15.800 was like they needed me, So it was time to 1:02:15.840 --> 1:02:17.160 move on. It was very clear to me that it 1:02:17.200 --> 1:02:18.680 was time to get out, and it was also very 1:02:18.720 --> 1:02:20.280 clear to me what I needed to do now. 1:02:20.360 --> 1:02:24.919 And you never had, and like then or now, any 1:02:25.040 --> 1:02:26.800 interest in nonfiction. 1:02:27.040 --> 1:02:30.480 It was always funny you should ask, but not in 1:02:30.520 --> 1:02:33.040 the same way that most people think of nonfiction from 1:02:33.120 --> 1:02:34.840 someone coming out of the military. So I have a 1:02:35.040 --> 1:02:36.960 not from My first non fiction book comes out in 1:02:37.520 --> 1:02:39.240 fall of twenty twenty four, so about a year and 1:02:39.280 --> 1:02:42.080 a half and writing with a historian James Scott. He's 1:02:42.080 --> 1:02:43.960 written five books, most of them on World War Two. 1:02:44.120 --> 1:02:47.560 Amazing guy, And for my plan was always to write 1:02:47.880 --> 1:02:51.400 nonfiction on terrorist events. So this first one is about 1:02:51.400 --> 1:02:53.680 the nineteen eighty three Bay Rout Barracks bombing, and so 1:02:53.800 --> 1:02:57.120 it just hasn't really been the seminal work on that 1:02:57.280 --> 1:02:58.400 get and there's been something what. 1:02:58.480 --> 1:03:00.240 He said to me last that I was like kind 1:03:00.240 --> 1:03:02.680 of genius man, because there's like nothing about there's a 1:03:02.680 --> 1:03:07.040 few days revisited as commonly as other right seminal moment 1:03:07.080 --> 1:03:08.640 exactly in military. 1:03:08.400 --> 1:03:10.440 History exactly, And I have those. I mean, I remember 1:03:10.560 --> 1:03:13.280 distinctly some of my first memories of the nineteen seventy 1:03:13.360 --> 1:03:15.960 nine hostage crisis, and I remember going to church and 1:03:16.840 --> 1:03:18.880 praying for those people over there. I remember Walter Cronkite 1:03:18.920 --> 1:03:21.520 counting down the days that they'd been held hostage over there. 1:03:21.520 --> 1:03:23.960 I remember wondering why we hadn't gone to rescue them yet, 1:03:24.760 --> 1:03:27.320 So that some of my earliest memories are those black 1:03:27.360 --> 1:03:29.760 and white photos of the people from the embassy with 1:03:31.280 --> 1:03:34.640 their their eyes, you know, taped, tapped over and blindfolded 1:03:34.680 --> 1:03:37.240 and all that. But yeah, it made sense when I'm 1:03:37.240 --> 1:03:39.920 looking at all those events that were so impactful during 1:03:39.960 --> 1:03:42.800 the eighties. In eighteen eighty three Bairit Barricks bombing, and 1:03:42.840 --> 1:03:45.320 today actually is the anniversary of the embassy bombing in 1:03:45.440 --> 1:03:48.919 April of eighty three, and that's how we're looking into 1:03:48.960 --> 1:03:51.280 that first, and then everything that leads up to the 1:03:51.320 --> 1:03:55.560 October bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut. But I'm 1:03:55.600 --> 1:03:57.640 thinking about t w A eight four seven, I think 1:03:57.640 --> 1:03:59.680 you have, Achille Laurel. I'm thinking of panem one O three, 1:04:00.320 --> 1:04:03.000 thinking of all these different attacks in Europe at whether 1:04:03.040 --> 1:04:05.720 it's a cafe or a nightclub or whatever it might be. 1:04:05.760 --> 1:04:09.640 In airports, multiple airports, which one to start with. And 1:04:09.920 --> 1:04:13.320 the nineteen eighty three Barys bombing was so significant because 1:04:13.680 --> 1:04:17.960 it showed Hesbela in particular, that terrorism worked, and everyone 1:04:18.040 --> 1:04:20.840 else that was watching that isn't Hesbla that a terrorism worked. 1:04:20.840 --> 1:04:22.680 What did they want? They wanted us to leave Beirut? 1:04:22.760 --> 1:04:23.160 What do we do? 1:04:23.600 --> 1:04:25.560 We talked tough for a couple months afterward, and then 1:04:25.600 --> 1:04:29.919 we left more quietly in early eighty four. So there's 1:04:30.120 --> 1:04:32.800 the geopolitical aspect of it that continues to shadow our 1:04:32.840 --> 1:04:35.680 foreign policy today. So there's a lot to explore there. 1:04:35.720 --> 1:04:38.760 And then there's recently declassified documents about what was going 1:04:38.800 --> 1:04:42.720 on in the White House. Who was advocating for Marines 1:04:42.760 --> 1:04:45.320 to go ashore, who's advocating that they should stay on 1:04:45.520 --> 1:04:49.919 an AMPTHIB ship offshore, and how that decision got made, 1:04:50.000 --> 1:04:52.560 And so we get to explore all that in detail. 1:04:52.720 --> 1:04:56.120 Interview survivors, interview people that came to identify the bodies, 1:04:56.280 --> 1:04:58.360 which is the same group that identified the bodies at 1:04:58.400 --> 1:05:02.080 Jonestown and so it's a there's lots of lots of 1:05:02.200 --> 1:05:04.440 unpack there, so that'll be the that'll be the first one. 1:05:04.600 --> 1:05:06.560 So that was a very long way to answer that 1:05:06.640 --> 1:05:10.080 nonfiction question. So, yeah, nonfiction's coming and uh in fall 1:05:10.120 --> 1:05:11.080 of twenty twenty. 1:05:10.840 --> 1:05:14.480 Four, how do you how do you reconcile. 1:05:15.440 --> 1:05:15.760 That you. 1:05:17.680 --> 1:05:26.080 Spent so many years uh as a federal employee in 1:05:26.200 --> 1:05:30.200 a chain of command that flowed down from from the 1:05:30.640 --> 1:05:34.680 commander in chief, so like a democratically elected individual, and 1:05:34.760 --> 1:05:36.800 that flows down through all this stuff to the point 1:05:36.800 --> 1:05:41.240 where you and your guys are have enough faith in 1:05:41.320 --> 1:05:45.400 that system where you're not only putting your lives at risk, 1:05:45.640 --> 1:05:48.160 but your colleagues and frienziers are dying. 1:05:48.360 --> 1:05:51.800 Okay, so you have this, you've you've. 1:05:52.320 --> 1:05:57.600 Completely bought into or are supportive of this, and then 1:05:57.680 --> 1:06:05.000 your work has like a conspiratorial tone. You know that 1:06:05.200 --> 1:06:09.040 that not everything from up above is to be trusted. 1:06:09.480 --> 1:06:09.640 Yeah? 1:06:10.960 --> 1:06:13.920 Is that? Did you did you feel that way? 1:06:15.120 --> 1:06:15.600 Or is that? Like? 1:06:15.760 --> 1:06:16.400 Is that the writer? 1:06:17.240 --> 1:06:20.280 Well, I certainly feel that way. Now, the government has 1:06:20.320 --> 1:06:22.440 not done a very good job of showing us as 1:06:22.480 --> 1:06:25.640 citizens that they can be trusted over time. And I'm 1:06:25.680 --> 1:06:28.120 not just talking about recent history, it's throughout throughout our 1:06:28.200 --> 1:06:31.800 history and throughout history in general. So I thought about it, 1:06:31.880 --> 1:06:34.040 but not so much that would overshadow what my job was, 1:06:34.160 --> 1:06:37.439 which is to accomplish this mission and bring my guys home. 1:06:38.240 --> 1:06:39.920 But you certainly think about it when you're over there. 1:06:40.080 --> 1:06:42.600 Let's say Iraq, and you're there in two thousand and four, 1:06:43.120 --> 1:06:45.160 and then you come back in two thousand and five, 1:06:45.520 --> 1:06:48.040 a year later, and you're like, Wow, things have gotten 1:06:48.200 --> 1:06:51.400 a lot worse here. Yeah, nothing is better than when 1:06:51.400 --> 1:06:53.080 I left. Then you come back and they're still there 1:06:53.080 --> 1:06:55.720 in two thousand and six and looking around like miscontinues 1:06:55.800 --> 1:06:58.560 to get worse. We continue to do the same things. 1:06:58.800 --> 1:07:00.280 And if you're a student of history and you're student 1:07:00.320 --> 1:07:03.400 of Vietnam and you're wondering what lessons we took from 1:07:03.400 --> 1:07:06.400 that that we're applying to this, or if you're in Afghanistan, 1:07:06.640 --> 1:07:08.400 like in the early days, which I thought were the 1:07:08.480 --> 1:07:10.040 late days in two thousand and three, I thought, oh, 1:07:10.080 --> 1:07:12.920 I'm going to miss this thing, and that didn't end 1:07:13.000 --> 1:07:15.480 up being the case. But what lessons do we take 1:07:15.600 --> 1:07:17.360 from the Soviets? Did we take the right ones we 1:07:17.440 --> 1:07:19.960 have nineteen seventy nine to eighty nine, and we can 1:07:20.040 --> 1:07:22.360 look at all these everything that happened there, and we 1:07:22.400 --> 1:07:25.600 can draw lessons and we can apply them, hopefully as wisdom. 1:07:25.680 --> 1:07:27.280 And we neglected to do that, or we took the 1:07:27.320 --> 1:07:29.800 wrong lessons. I think we took the wrong lessons. We 1:07:29.840 --> 1:07:31.880 didn't even have to go back to the three British incursions. 1:07:31.880 --> 1:07:34.840 We now have to go back to Alexander the Great 1:07:34.880 --> 1:07:36.840 or Genghis Khan, like there was more recent history. 1:07:36.920 --> 1:07:39.920 Is it like Kipling? Everybody's always talking about everything you 1:07:40.040 --> 1:07:41.280 know about Afghanistans? 1:07:41.720 --> 1:07:44.960 Yeah, there's Yeah, it's great, great poem. It was on 1:07:45.040 --> 1:07:47.200 the wall of one of our CIA houses over there, 1:07:48.200 --> 1:07:49.760 and I have a picture of it that I posted 1:07:49.800 --> 1:07:52.360 on on social and I don't call out the quote people, 1:07:52.520 --> 1:07:54.480 some people will. I have always curious who's going to 1:07:54.520 --> 1:07:56.160 notice the quote in the background written on the on 1:07:56.240 --> 1:07:59.800 the wall. But yeah, we had these lessons, We had 1:08:00.280 --> 1:08:02.720 history we could have looked at, and we neglected to 1:08:02.840 --> 1:08:05.200 do that and ended up being there for for twenty 1:08:05.320 --> 1:08:07.080 years and then leaving in the way that we did, 1:08:08.120 --> 1:08:10.240 and then we have just was it just last week 1:08:10.520 --> 1:08:14.480 we have officials appointed officials talking about it was a 1:08:14.880 --> 1:08:17.400 huge success the way we left Afghanistan. And then you 1:08:17.439 --> 1:08:19.720 can chextapose that with the photos of people hanging off 1:08:19.880 --> 1:08:22.280 jets and babies getting thrown over the walls and secured 1:08:22.360 --> 1:08:25.760 and barbed wire and okay, that's your death. That doesn't 1:08:25.840 --> 1:08:27.880 quite look like So you have twenty years to prepare 1:08:27.920 --> 1:08:31.280 for this, guys, twenty years and this is your only job, 1:08:31.760 --> 1:08:33.360 and this is what you get. This is the best 1:08:33.400 --> 1:08:35.200 you can do. But there's no I told them accountable 1:08:35.200 --> 1:08:38.439 in the pages of my novels, because don't differ accountable really. 1:08:39.400 --> 1:08:44.240 Like inept Oh there's anod there's but there's a neptitude. 1:08:44.880 --> 1:08:47.320 But then there's mail in tent. 1:08:47.880 --> 1:08:50.320 Yeah, I think a lot of ineptitude is the way 1:08:51.160 --> 1:08:54.400 is if you have to blame something, because there hasn't 1:08:54.400 --> 1:08:59.479 been accountability really since Vietnam, since well before Vietnam. World 1:08:59.520 --> 1:09:01.800 War Two, there was a lot of accountability. George. People 1:09:01.960 --> 1:09:05.280 know George Marshall for the Marshall Plan rebuilding Europe, But 1:09:05.600 --> 1:09:07.519 really what George Marshall did and a lead up to 1:09:07.560 --> 1:09:09.840 World War two and during World War two was hold 1:09:10.120 --> 1:09:13.040 leaders accountable and remove them. He'd give them a one chance, 1:09:13.520 --> 1:09:16.320 maybe two not a third out of the way. Put 1:09:16.360 --> 1:09:18.000 someone in there that can get this job done. And 1:09:18.080 --> 1:09:21.080 all those names that we know, from Nimitz to MacArthur 1:09:21.200 --> 1:09:23.960 to Patent, all those guys got there because someone in 1:09:24.000 --> 1:09:26.920 front of them failed and they were held accountable, they 1:09:26.960 --> 1:09:28.680 were removed, and we put somebody else in place to 1:09:28.680 --> 1:09:30.519 see if they could do it. Back to the Civil War, 1:09:30.840 --> 1:09:34.120 Lincoln replaced after general after general after general until he 1:09:34.160 --> 1:09:37.360 got to Grant. Then somehow those things start to change. 1:09:37.400 --> 1:09:39.840 Maybe it's in Korea, but for sure by Vietnam. Now 1:09:39.920 --> 1:09:42.599 we have failure on the battlefield and what happens, well, 1:09:42.800 --> 1:09:44.840 they are not held accountable, they get out, they sit 1:09:44.920 --> 1:09:47.599 on boards of these different companies, and that has been 1:09:47.680 --> 1:09:50.840 pervasive all the way through today. There's a great book 1:09:50.880 --> 1:09:53.519 called the Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post, 1:09:53.760 --> 1:09:58.240 who got these interviews through two Freedom of Information Act 1:09:58.320 --> 1:10:03.000 lawsuits with the I think Department of Defense. But it 1:10:03.280 --> 1:10:06.160 was these officers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan being 1:10:06.280 --> 1:10:08.200 interviewed in a way that they thought was going to 1:10:08.240 --> 1:10:11.840 remain classified. And then he juxtaposes what they said in 1:10:11.960 --> 1:10:14.719 those interviews with what they said in front of Congress, 1:10:14.960 --> 1:10:17.360 so essentially to the American people, to their troops, to 1:10:17.560 --> 1:10:20.800 our elected representatives, and it's one to eighty out. And 1:10:21.280 --> 1:10:22.800 there's one guy, I think it's a two thousand and 1:10:22.880 --> 1:10:25.840 nine one general or admiral that says something it's not 1:10:25.880 --> 1:10:27.880 even that bad. And he's like, hey, things aren't really 1:10:27.960 --> 1:10:30.800 going as well over there as we think. If you've 1:10:30.840 --> 1:10:35.080 been led to believe, that's about as bad as it got. 1:10:35.479 --> 1:10:39.080 And he was quietly removed a few months later. Yeah, 1:10:39.240 --> 1:10:43.040 So it's that non accountability that is really I think 1:10:43.360 --> 1:10:44.320 killing us as a nation. 1:10:53.960 --> 1:10:56.160 I got a friend that spent a lot of years 1:10:56.880 --> 1:11:01.120 fighting in Afghanistan and he had mentioned that before he 1:11:01.240 --> 1:11:08.040 went there, his some commanding officer had wanted to have 1:11:08.160 --> 1:11:14.240 a lecturer come to talk about Afghan history and it 1:11:14.400 --> 1:11:17.400 wasn't condoned. And he always admired this officer because they 1:11:17.439 --> 1:11:19.320 paid for the speaker out of their own pocket and 1:11:19.400 --> 1:11:23.360 flew the speaker out to come, and they basically came 1:11:23.439 --> 1:11:28.479 in ten years in advance, he said, looking back, they 1:11:28.560 --> 1:11:32.760 came and told us what would happen. Yeah, and this 1:11:32.880 --> 1:11:36.000 was this was an uncondoned perspective, but it was it was. 1:11:36.200 --> 1:11:39.000 It was an Afghan it was in the US and 1:11:39.040 --> 1:11:41.280 they were I can't remember. They were professors somewhere, and 1:11:41.360 --> 1:11:44.519 he said, looking back, they came and basically said, here's 1:11:44.560 --> 1:11:49.120 what will happen ten years from now. And when when 1:11:50.200 --> 1:11:56.040 when we pulled out and cobble fell, I texted to say, like, man, 1:11:56.280 --> 1:11:59.599 it's got to be emotional for you or in some way, 1:12:00.000 --> 1:12:03.000 and he just said, I've for a long time, I 1:12:03.160 --> 1:12:07.439 just haven't been able to see any other outcome. There's 1:12:07.520 --> 1:12:11.839 nothing we've done on like assessments that would suggest otherwise 1:12:12.360 --> 1:12:15.800 to act like this is a surprise as bullshit. Yeah, 1:12:16.080 --> 1:12:17.800 it was his take, his take on and now someone 1:12:17.840 --> 1:12:18.840 has spent a lot of years there. 1:12:19.040 --> 1:12:21.519 Yeah, no, we had all those years to study, all 1:12:21.560 --> 1:12:24.160 those years to prepare. You could see from the spring 1:12:24.520 --> 1:12:28.439 end of the summer, province by province falling and it's yeah, 1:12:28.600 --> 1:12:32.360 it's really remarkable being aptitude amongst our senior level leaders 1:12:32.400 --> 1:12:36.559 that allowed them to put these eighteen nineteen twenty twenty 1:12:36.600 --> 1:12:39.040 two year old kids at this gate at Kabo Airport 1:12:39.080 --> 1:12:42.360 in a tactically dis advantageous position when we held the 1:12:42.439 --> 1:12:46.840 tactically advantageous position for twenty years at Bogram And it's 1:12:46.960 --> 1:12:48.639 just for those who have been there, they'll know exactly 1:12:48.680 --> 1:12:51.160 what I'm talking about, the standoff distances and everything else 1:12:51.240 --> 1:12:53.639 involved in securing an area or an airport. In this case, 1:12:54.439 --> 1:12:58.120 I mean, it's it's criminal, and yet no one's held accountable, 1:12:58.200 --> 1:13:01.240 no one was no one was even quiet moved aside. 1:13:01.360 --> 1:13:03.680 At those senior levels, they just continue to do their 1:13:03.760 --> 1:13:05.559 job and they'll retire with a full pension and then 1:13:05.600 --> 1:13:07.280 sit on a board, go to a couple of meetings 1:13:07.280 --> 1:13:09.680 a year for some of these defense contracting companies, and 1:13:10.760 --> 1:13:14.200 the machine rolls on. Unfortunately, this is. 1:13:14.240 --> 1:13:16.040 So far removed from anything to do with hunting and 1:13:16.120 --> 1:13:18.160 fish and whatnot. But there's a lot of parallels, but 1:13:19.200 --> 1:13:24.560 I don't even care. Yeah, in hindsight, Okay, with the 1:13:24.640 --> 1:13:28.360 gift of hindsight, do you have any idea of what, 1:13:31.080 --> 1:13:35.720 when and what should have been done in Afghanistan overall? Yeah? 1:13:36.000 --> 1:13:38.280 I mean you can go back to December of twenty 1:13:38.320 --> 1:13:40.800 twenty one, that's what I mean. Yeah, And when I 1:13:40.800 --> 1:13:42.759 talk about those lessons that we learned from the Soviets, 1:13:43.200 --> 1:13:45.400 I think our senior level leaders took, hey, we need 1:13:45.479 --> 1:13:47.960 a small footprint there. The Soviets went in with too 1:13:48.040 --> 1:13:51.360 many people, too many targets too heavy handed and it 1:13:51.479 --> 1:13:53.840 ended up being their their Vietnam is what they you know, 1:13:54.240 --> 1:13:56.599 like to they like determin it for ten years. 1:13:56.640 --> 1:13:57.920 I think they maybe found a new one. 1:13:58.240 --> 1:13:59.960 Yeah, yeah, they to find a new one. We'll see, 1:14:00.479 --> 1:14:03.040 they've got nine years to see if that's and yeah 1:14:03.080 --> 1:14:05.280 they yeah, it's uh and they haven't even started. Really, 1:14:05.320 --> 1:14:07.200 I don't think as far as they're throwing bodies at 1:14:07.240 --> 1:14:07.679 that problem. 1:14:08.120 --> 1:14:11.200 But not if you look at history, Yeah that their 1:14:11.280 --> 1:14:13.439 previous commitments and manpower. 1:14:13.160 --> 1:14:17.960 Exactly, yeah, exactly. But yeah, December twenty twenty one, multiple 1:14:18.800 --> 1:14:22.720 requests from guys on the ground requesting either rangers or 1:14:22.800 --> 1:14:26.240 tenth Mountain Division Marines, somebody come in, block off these 1:14:26.280 --> 1:14:28.960 passes into Pakistan. We have Asama bin Laden right here 1:14:29.439 --> 1:14:34.800 in these mountains. All those requests denied and slips away 1:14:34.840 --> 1:14:38.679 and we get the next twenty years for whatever reason. 1:14:39.160 --> 1:14:42.439 So there's one. So there's there's one. But then now 1:14:42.560 --> 1:14:44.360 that you're in this thing, now what do you do? 1:14:44.479 --> 1:14:46.040 And now why are we there? And then well we 1:14:46.080 --> 1:14:48.320 get distracted by Iraq and all those resources that were 1:14:48.320 --> 1:14:51.200 focused on Afghanistan shift over to Iraq in two thousand 1:14:51.200 --> 1:14:52.639 and three, and you could see it on the ground 1:14:52.680 --> 1:14:55.000 in Afghanistan, you could see all these assets kind of 1:14:55.040 --> 1:14:57.439 pick up and and all these people that were doing 1:14:57.479 --> 1:15:00.479 all these jobs before just aren't there anymore. Just to 1:15:00.520 --> 1:15:03.360 a few people to keep things kind of keep things moving, 1:15:03.439 --> 1:15:07.200 keep these outstations supplied, keep this air overhead in case 1:15:07.240 --> 1:15:10.040 people need it. So, yeah, there are so many lessons 1:15:10.080 --> 1:15:11.720 that we can take and apply going forward. And that's 1:15:11.720 --> 1:15:13.040 what we're not so good at it as a country 1:15:13.360 --> 1:15:15.360 is taking those lessons and applying them going forward as 1:15:15.400 --> 1:15:17.840 wisdom because we're looking at for your election cycles, eight 1:15:17.920 --> 1:15:20.280 your election cycles for the real deep thinkers among us, 1:15:20.600 --> 1:15:24.280 But we're really not honoring all those people that either 1:15:24.360 --> 1:15:26.760 died or came home damaged from the wars in Iraq 1:15:26.800 --> 1:15:28.760 and Afghanistan. And the way we can now honor them 1:15:29.000 --> 1:15:31.320 is by taking those lessons and applying them going forward 1:15:31.360 --> 1:15:33.720 to this next generation. So these next these kids don't 1:15:33.760 --> 1:15:35.000 have to do the same things or don't have to 1:15:35.040 --> 1:15:37.120 suffer and through another twenty year war because of the 1:15:37.120 --> 1:15:40.040 ineptitude of senior level leadership. But really, in the military, 1:15:40.360 --> 1:15:43.000 as long as you don't pop positive on a piss test, 1:15:43.560 --> 1:15:45.559 as long as you don't get arrested, too many times 1:15:45.640 --> 1:15:47.760 or get arrested for like domestic violence or something like that. 1:15:48.200 --> 1:15:49.720 You're going to pretty much rise to the top if 1:15:49.720 --> 1:15:51.880 you just remain quiet, and you're going to see people 1:15:52.200 --> 1:15:54.479 that are kind of those go getters, those hard chargers. 1:15:54.680 --> 1:15:56.120 A lot of those people get to a certain level 1:15:56.160 --> 1:15:59.080 and move on out, either because they just want to 1:15:59.120 --> 1:16:02.080 do something in the private sect, or they they're kind 1:16:02.120 --> 1:16:04.360 of disenfranchised by what they what they see at senior 1:16:04.439 --> 1:16:06.240 level leaders or see their path ahead and they're like, 1:16:06.840 --> 1:16:08.639 I'm not gonna go work for that guy. I'm out. 1:16:09.600 --> 1:16:12.080 So really he's It's not the best and the brightest 1:16:12.160 --> 1:16:14.679 that are in my experien I'm sure there are exceptions 1:16:14.720 --> 1:16:16.800 for those that are listening. Yes, there are exceptions, but 1:16:17.000 --> 1:16:18.800 for the most part, if you just kind of keep 1:16:18.840 --> 1:16:20.960 your nose clean and stay out of trouble, you can 1:16:21.160 --> 1:16:23.840 rise up in any in government service in general. 1:16:25.120 --> 1:16:27.760 Do you I don't mean to keep beating this one 1:16:27.760 --> 1:16:32.240 into the ground, but do you think that do you 1:16:32.320 --> 1:16:36.519 think that the Afghanistans should have just been to focus 1:16:36.600 --> 1:16:39.560 on al Qaeda and then just that and had that 1:16:39.640 --> 1:16:39.800 be it. 1:16:40.479 --> 1:16:44.400 Yeah, we definitely did not understand that al Qaeda was 1:16:44.439 --> 1:16:46.920 a guest that there are guests of the Taliban, and 1:16:47.160 --> 1:16:49.320 over there, if you were the guests of someone, well, 1:16:49.479 --> 1:16:53.040 guess what that person or that tribe is now obligated 1:16:53.360 --> 1:16:56.560 to defend you. And we stepped right into that. And 1:16:56.680 --> 1:16:59.960 so we made enemies of the Taliban. Who I mean, 1:17:00.040 --> 1:17:03.920 they're not, yeah, not the greater. They're just destroying these 1:17:04.120 --> 1:17:07.800 the Buddhist statues or earlier on. And obviously they weren't 1:17:07.800 --> 1:17:10.000 in New York City. They're not. Well maybe now it's 1:17:10.000 --> 1:17:11.960 a little closer from what I've seen on the news 1:17:12.040 --> 1:17:17.160 and videos I'm seeing, but we definitely made an enemy 1:17:17.200 --> 1:17:19.760 of someone. The accidental Gorilla is a good way to 1:17:19.840 --> 1:17:21.519 put a David cookol And has a great book called 1:17:21.520 --> 1:17:24.880 The Accidental Gorilla, and we made a lot. It's also 1:17:24.960 --> 1:17:28.759 called insurgent math. So you go in and kill somebody 1:17:28.840 --> 1:17:31.680 and guess what his kid sees you do that. And 1:17:32.080 --> 1:17:34.559 but what's that kid going to do? Well, he's probably 1:17:34.600 --> 1:17:37.600 going to join the Taliban or whatever organization that's going 1:17:37.680 --> 1:17:41.920 to allow him to now also honor his tribe by 1:17:42.120 --> 1:17:44.599 getting revenge, because that's part of the culture as well, 1:17:45.240 --> 1:17:47.960 deeply embedded. It's deeply meted in a lot of cultures. 1:17:48.000 --> 1:17:50.880 Not just not just Afghan not just Taliban, but we 1:17:51.000 --> 1:17:54.679 made a lot of enemies for sure. In twenty years 1:17:54.720 --> 1:17:57.880 we had ample opportunity to do that. So if we'd 1:17:57.920 --> 1:18:00.320 gone in with taken a little more lessons from the 1:18:00.360 --> 1:18:04.240 Soviets and realized that if we went in heavy handed, 1:18:04.360 --> 1:18:07.200 did the job and got out, we would accomplish that goal. 1:18:07.280 --> 1:18:08.800 But for some reason we stayed and then for some 1:18:08.920 --> 1:18:12.320 reason we got out the way we did. So not 1:18:12.439 --> 1:18:18.519 a big nation building guy, no expeditionary counterinsurgency is very difficult. 1:18:18.600 --> 1:18:21.920 So if you have a counterinsurgency campaign on your own soil, 1:18:22.479 --> 1:18:26.960 it's different than doing it overseas, doing it on someone 1:18:27.040 --> 1:18:30.040 else's turf, which can prove to be There are a 1:18:30.080 --> 1:18:35.080 couple instances of long term commitments playing out Malayia places 1:18:35.120 --> 1:18:39.040 like that, but that's a long term commitment with a 1:18:39.240 --> 1:18:44.559 cohesive strategy, not shifting here and there and not rewarding 1:18:44.600 --> 1:18:47.400 people for failure, which is what we do. People keep 1:18:47.439 --> 1:18:48.840 failing up in our system. 1:18:50.600 --> 1:18:53.120 You mentioned me last night that when you got when 1:18:53.160 --> 1:18:55.200 you finally got done at the military, you were looking 1:18:55.320 --> 1:18:59.080 for I'm sorry, I don't think this would be private. 1:18:59.479 --> 1:19:00.000 You were looking for. 1:19:01.479 --> 1:19:06.439 Physical and physical and psychological step, psychological separation. Yeah, I 1:19:06.560 --> 1:19:08.400 just saw so many during my last couple of years 1:19:08.439 --> 1:19:09.800 in I was at BUDS, so I was at our 1:19:09.840 --> 1:19:12.360 seal training commands, so I wasn't taking guys down range anymore. 1:19:12.600 --> 1:19:14.240 And I had all this leave built up from all 1:19:14.280 --> 1:19:16.280 these all these years that I wasn't really taking leave 1:19:16.280 --> 1:19:19.439 because I was so focused on being the best leader 1:19:19.640 --> 1:19:22.320 operator I possibly could. I was so focused and I 1:19:22.400 --> 1:19:24.800 think being honest with my wife about that, realizing that, hey, 1:19:24.880 --> 1:19:27.240 the team is coming first, and that's just how it 1:19:27.320 --> 1:19:30.400 has to be because you're responsible for those guys' lives downrange, 1:19:30.880 --> 1:19:33.439 so youhowe it to them, their families, the country, the 1:19:33.520 --> 1:19:36.599 mission to team. That's just how it's going to be. Eventually, 1:19:36.800 --> 1:19:39.240 when we're out, it'll it'll switch back. So when I 1:19:39.280 --> 1:19:41.439 got to Buds and I wasn't taking guys down range anymore, 1:19:41.439 --> 1:19:43.040 I could kind of take a breath and look around. 1:19:43.240 --> 1:19:44.880 I realized that I was going to get out. The 1:19:44.960 --> 1:19:47.960 pendulum started to just swing back. Because Buds is a machine, 1:19:48.280 --> 1:19:50.200 and it's push ups, it's sit ups, it's pull ups, 1:19:50.200 --> 1:19:52.639 it's runs, it's swims, it's it's what it has been 1:19:52.760 --> 1:19:54.400 for a long time. 1:19:54.760 --> 1:19:56.360 Oh, well, we know all about that because we have 1:19:56.439 --> 1:19:57.479 a thing now and then where you have to do 1:19:57.520 --> 1:19:58.519 one hundred push ups. 1:19:58.400 --> 1:20:00.559 In a day. Oh my goodness, you got to all 1:20:00.560 --> 1:20:00.840 about that. 1:20:02.800 --> 1:20:03.760 It's called the club. 1:20:03.800 --> 1:20:06.519 How many guys have you lost called the club? Well, 1:20:06.560 --> 1:20:11.559 it kind of comes was like, well, we'll. 1:20:11.479 --> 1:20:13.320 Have it be that we're gonna have the Hondole Club 1:20:13.360 --> 1:20:15.519 every day, but it winds up being like now and 1:20:15.600 --> 1:20:16.720 then we'll do a hondle club. 1:20:17.400 --> 1:20:20.920 So I completely understand now by the way you get it, 1:20:21.040 --> 1:20:24.920 I get for sure, But but I got to see 1:20:25.240 --> 1:20:27.960 people getting out and is My role is the operations officer, 1:20:28.000 --> 1:20:29.840 which is like a COO of a company, so you're 1:20:29.960 --> 1:20:32.120 kind of running day to day operations. But at BUDS, 1:20:32.120 --> 1:20:34.560 they're really running themselves because you have an officer and 1:20:34.600 --> 1:20:36.639 a master chief or a senior chief in every phase 1:20:36.680 --> 1:20:39.120 of training, and they've got it. Like they don't, they've 1:20:39.160 --> 1:20:41.160 got it. So you kind of have some some time. 1:20:41.439 --> 1:20:44.280 And I saw people get out of the military and 1:20:44.840 --> 1:20:47.439 have a hard time leaving it behind because you have 1:20:47.600 --> 1:20:49.960 this mission, you're so dedicated to it, You're best friends 1:20:50.000 --> 1:20:51.840 are a part of it. When you're downranged there to 1:20:51.880 --> 1:20:53.400 your right and your left and you're not worried about 1:20:53.400 --> 1:20:56.439 paying bills or leaky faucets or anything like that. You're 1:20:56.560 --> 1:20:59.719 solely focused on building target packages and going and executing 1:20:59.760 --> 1:21:03.160 those missions. Then you come home and you transition out 1:21:03.240 --> 1:21:05.200 and you think maybe you can recreate that in the 1:21:05.240 --> 1:21:08.760 private sector or something similar, and for some reason it's 1:21:08.800 --> 1:21:11.720 a surprise that you can't. And either you try to 1:21:11.760 --> 1:21:15.280 get back in or you're calling me as the operations 1:21:15.320 --> 1:21:17.320 officer saying, hey, can I bring my new boss buy 1:21:17.400 --> 1:21:19.560 for a tour? And I was always like absolutely, you 1:21:19.640 --> 1:21:21.800 know for sure, Even when I got told no by 1:21:21.880 --> 1:21:23.960 senior level leadership, I was always like, yeah, I just 1:21:23.960 --> 1:21:25.479 come by when at this time, because I know that 1:21:25.520 --> 1:21:27.200 guy is going to be gone and you know we'll 1:21:27.200 --> 1:21:29.120 get this, get this done for you. So I was 1:21:29.160 --> 1:21:32.240 always trying to hook up good guys in the teams 1:21:32.360 --> 1:21:33.000 or or out. 1:21:33.240 --> 1:21:35.000 But at the point being away. 1:21:35.000 --> 1:21:36.400 It was hard. It was hard for a lot of 1:21:36.400 --> 1:21:38.800 people to stay away all these foundation events that you 1:21:38.920 --> 1:21:41.400 have to support military families, you know, continuing to go 1:21:41.479 --> 1:21:44.120 to those going to the same grocery stores, the same bars, 1:21:44.160 --> 1:21:46.680 dropping your kids off at the same schools where you're seeing, uh, 1:21:46.880 --> 1:21:49.000 either somebody that was on your team before dropping their 1:21:49.040 --> 1:21:50.880 kid off because they happened to be at a shore duty, 1:21:51.000 --> 1:21:53.320 or you see the wife dropping the kid off and 1:21:53.400 --> 1:21:55.680 wondering where the husband's down range in a racker Afghanistan 1:21:55.720 --> 1:21:58.560 and you're feeling guilty about not being there. So I 1:21:58.720 --> 1:22:01.280 saw that those couple of years that I was at 1:22:01.320 --> 1:22:03.000 Buds at the end of my time in the military 1:22:03.040 --> 1:22:05.960 and decided that Okay, it's ull probably be healthy to 1:22:06.280 --> 1:22:09.000 make this physical and psychological break and head up to 1:22:09.080 --> 1:22:11.160 Park City, Utah raise our kids in a ski town. 1:22:11.439 --> 1:22:12.599 And I think that was a good decision. 1:22:12.960 --> 1:22:17.880 Yeah, because talking about that, you know, you're like, your 1:22:18.320 --> 1:22:21.280 boy likes the ski, your daughter likes the hunt. I mean, 1:22:21.680 --> 1:22:23.920 do you at night feel like you need to at 1:22:23.920 --> 1:22:25.000 the end of the day be like, you know, I 1:22:25.080 --> 1:22:29.840 want to remind you that there are are horrible things 1:22:30.320 --> 1:22:32.960 happened to people around this world. Or are you like 1:22:34.040 --> 1:22:36.439 that that the point of this is that that's not 1:22:36.560 --> 1:22:37.439 part of everyday life. 1:22:37.840 --> 1:22:37.880 No. 1:22:38.000 --> 1:22:39.920 I think about it and we talk about it, and 1:22:39.960 --> 1:22:41.960 I see that sun setting over the mountains and I 1:22:42.040 --> 1:22:43.840 think that it's going down here, but it's coming up 1:22:44.120 --> 1:22:47.240 somewhere else, that somewhere else may have a group of 1:22:47.360 --> 1:22:51.240 special Operators or sa PERI military guys just coming back 1:22:51.280 --> 1:22:53.240 from a mission or getting ready to go do some 1:22:53.320 --> 1:22:56.600 sort of daylight op somewhere. They're fixing gear from the 1:22:56.680 --> 1:23:00.519 night before, they're loading magazines, they're treating wounded, they're gassing 1:23:00.600 --> 1:23:03.559 up vehicles, or whatever they're doing. They will never hear 1:23:03.600 --> 1:23:06.160 about unless something goes wrong, and then we'll hear about 1:23:06.160 --> 1:23:09.400 it in the news. But if it goes well enough 1:23:09.640 --> 1:23:12.000 that no one dies, we're probably not going to hear 1:23:12.040 --> 1:23:14.040 about it. So I think about that. I think about 1:23:14.080 --> 1:23:16.880 that every day, but I don't dwell on it. I 1:23:17.000 --> 1:23:19.680 appreciate that they're out there doing that job so I 1:23:19.720 --> 1:23:21.560 can be back here doing what I love, which is 1:23:21.640 --> 1:23:23.880 which is writing. But I never forget it. I never 1:23:23.960 --> 1:23:24.680 forget they're out there. 1:23:25.080 --> 1:23:29.400 Did you get to it with writing? Did you also 1:23:29.479 --> 1:23:31.760 one day be like okay, because you knew you're gonna 1:23:31.800 --> 1:23:33.320 you know, you wanted to write since you were a kid. 1:23:34.479 --> 1:23:37.040 Did you one day be like okay, now now it begins, 1:23:37.400 --> 1:23:40.400 Oh yeah, yeah, just said a typewriter. 1:23:40.560 --> 1:23:41.920 Yep, yep, sat down my computer. 1:23:42.680 --> 1:23:44.479 Here's a movie. It'll be a type yeah exactly. 1:23:44.479 --> 1:23:48.160 I collect old typewriters now, actually at Havyway. Somebody gifted 1:23:48.200 --> 1:23:50.479 it to me in early twenty twenty. Yeah, he wrote 1:23:50.479 --> 1:23:53.360 a movable feast on it, published after after he died. 1:23:53.640 --> 1:23:55.720 But but yeah, so I have that. That's I really. 1:23:55.720 --> 1:23:57.720 A bunch of his stuff went up for sale. Yeah, 1:23:57.760 --> 1:24:02.360 the guy that started Newman's Owne with Paul Newman also 1:24:02.800 --> 1:24:05.400 was part of that that that crowd and had had 1:24:05.439 --> 1:24:08.479 purchased this typewriter for Hemingway to write a move Wolf 1:24:08.479 --> 1:24:11.160 east On in New York. Actually, and all his this 1:24:11.200 --> 1:24:13.240 stuff went up for sale when he passed away, and 1:24:13.560 --> 1:24:16.360 I was early twenty twenty, and a fan reached out 1:24:16.360 --> 1:24:17.640 and said that they wanted me to have it. So, 1:24:18.280 --> 1:24:20.720 I mean, waste typewriter now, but I don't work. I 1:24:20.760 --> 1:24:22.599 typed one thing on it. I wrote one Hemingway quote 1:24:22.880 --> 1:24:25.240 and I put it on there, and and I write 1:24:25.479 --> 1:24:28.639 everything on my MacBook. 1:24:29.120 --> 1:24:30.320 Cred. Do you think I should put him in his 1:24:30.400 --> 1:24:32.160 place and tell him about how we have that knife 1:24:32.200 --> 1:24:33.680 that was used to get the weights out of the 1:24:33.760 --> 1:24:35.519 walleye at the Walleye cheating scandal. 1:24:35.760 --> 1:24:38.519 Oh wow, I feel like this is a story that's 1:24:38.520 --> 1:24:41.240 been told him this podcast before anyway, typewriter. 1:24:42.640 --> 1:24:43.720 Yeah, I'm not. 1:24:43.840 --> 1:24:44.959 Sure the two campaigns. 1:24:45.640 --> 1:24:48.000 That's cool, but yes I did. 1:24:48.080 --> 1:24:51.000 I sat down, looked around after I was at buds 1:24:51.040 --> 1:24:53.680 and was like, Okay, my family needs me, son needs me. 1:24:53.880 --> 1:24:55.600 It's time to make this stay and I'm not going 1:24:55.680 --> 1:24:58.280 to go through this, uh this next ten years. So 1:24:58.560 --> 1:25:01.080 essentially come back as a commanding officer somewhere. It's time 1:25:01.160 --> 1:25:03.160 to get out. It was a good run. Started enlisted, 1:25:03.400 --> 1:25:05.080 did all the things I wanted to do, became an officer, 1:25:06.080 --> 1:25:07.760 got out as a troop commander at the end of 1:25:07.960 --> 1:25:10.080 when we got out a rack in twenty eleven, and 1:25:10.200 --> 1:25:13.400 now got home, looked around, realized that was a good 1:25:13.479 --> 1:25:14.920 run to time to get out. 1:25:15.000 --> 1:25:18.120 Did your wife think you were nuts? No, No, I 1:25:18.160 --> 1:25:19.639 will become a famous writer. 1:25:21.160 --> 1:25:23.640 We known each other since we were eighteen, and so 1:25:23.720 --> 1:25:25.200 the whole time I wanted to be a seal and 1:25:25.320 --> 1:25:27.799 an author. And so she's seen all these books travel 1:25:28.040 --> 1:25:30.200 with us from the days that I was eighteen, I 1:25:30.240 --> 1:25:31.880 still had books all over the place, and I still 1:25:31.920 --> 1:25:34.880 have those books. So she's been she's used to it, 1:25:35.280 --> 1:25:37.439 and she just knows that, yeah, this was my plan, 1:25:37.560 --> 1:25:41.000 so she's not she's not surprised by it. When when 1:25:41.080 --> 1:25:41.360 it was. 1:25:41.439 --> 1:25:45.600 Time to write like before that, like, leading up to 1:25:45.720 --> 1:25:51.479 that point, had you done anything to train yourself or 1:25:51.520 --> 1:25:53.920 school yourself in writing or you were just like, I'm 1:25:53.920 --> 1:25:54.840 going to write a damn book. 1:25:54.960 --> 1:25:57.280 Yeah, all that reading that I did, but no, like 1:25:57.560 --> 1:26:00.000 formal you didn't take any like didn't take a cloist 1:26:00.240 --> 1:26:02.880 or anything like that. I read On Writing by Stephen King, 1:26:03.000 --> 1:26:06.559 The Successful Novelist by David Morrell, all those Stephen Hunter 1:26:06.800 --> 1:26:09.160 books that were out at the time, on creativity. There's 1:26:09.160 --> 1:26:10.800 more of the mount now, there's maybe three or four 1:26:10.800 --> 1:26:12.960 of them out then, it's probably seven of them out now. 1:26:14.080 --> 1:26:16.479 So I read those and then I decided, okay, that's 1:26:16.560 --> 1:26:19.320 enough because today you can essentially study how to do 1:26:19.400 --> 1:26:23.080 something forever. You can take multiple online classes, multiple master classes. 1:26:23.160 --> 1:26:25.400 You can just essentially research until the end of time 1:26:25.680 --> 1:26:28.040 on the internet. Eventually, if you want to get something done, 1:26:28.040 --> 1:26:28.799 you have to execute. 1:26:28.920 --> 1:26:31.200 So oh some people that's just what they do. 1:26:31.479 --> 1:26:33.240 Yeah, and that's fine, and that's fine. But I was 1:26:33.280 --> 1:26:36.479 ready to write. But more so and on writing for 1:26:36.520 --> 1:26:38.320 people that have read it, is more autobiography than on 1:26:38.479 --> 1:26:41.720 how to book by Stephen King. But I love reading 1:26:41.760 --> 1:26:44.599 autobiography as by authors, and typically they write them later 1:26:44.840 --> 1:26:46.880 later in life. There's a few more of them out 1:26:46.920 --> 1:26:48.800 now that weren't out at the time that I started writing. 1:26:48.840 --> 1:26:50.320 If they had been, I would have read those as well. 1:26:50.720 --> 1:26:54.200 But yeah, read those, But luckily I had that foundation 1:26:54.560 --> 1:26:57.720 already built and then sat down and wrote. But really 1:26:57.760 --> 1:26:59.760 I started with the title, and this is how it's 1:26:59.760 --> 1:27:02.040 been for every book thus far. I like to have 1:27:02.120 --> 1:27:04.000 the title right out of the gate, so I'm not worried, 1:27:04.000 --> 1:27:06.320 I'm not wasting bandwidth, worried about coming up with a 1:27:06.360 --> 1:27:08.080 good title. So even if it's a working title, I 1:27:08.200 --> 1:27:10.519 like to have that down, even if it's going to 1:27:10.600 --> 1:27:12.840 change eventually. I like to have that not just book six, 1:27:13.000 --> 1:27:16.080 but a title, a theme that's going to guide the 1:27:16.120 --> 1:27:18.200 writing process. So each book has a distinctive theme that's 1:27:18.200 --> 1:27:19.839 just a sentence. And I got that from Stephen Pressfield 1:27:19.880 --> 1:27:23.320 misinterpretation of something that Stephen Pressfield said on Rogan But 1:27:23.400 --> 1:27:27.560 I'm glad that I misinterpreted it, and I interpreted it 1:27:27.800 --> 1:27:30.200 as he would take a yellow sticky next to his 1:27:30.280 --> 1:27:34.120 typewriter and write a one word theme. So I was like, ah, 1:27:34.360 --> 1:27:38.280 wonderful revenge, and then I changed that to revenge without constraint. 1:27:38.360 --> 1:27:39.200 I cheated a little bit. 1:27:39.360 --> 1:27:39.960 What did he mean? 1:27:40.439 --> 1:27:42.559 He was telling a story about a playwright in New 1:27:42.680 --> 1:27:45.960 York who would write a few sentences about a theme 1:27:46.080 --> 1:27:49.599 that would guide his writing process, and somehow in your 1:27:49.640 --> 1:27:55.000 head yeah one word, yeah, well done, hurt to be concise? No, no, 1:27:55.120 --> 1:27:57.000 And now I have the same thing, but it's a 1:27:57.040 --> 1:27:59.439 little more wordy, not not much, but it's definitely not 1:27:59.479 --> 1:28:02.840 more than a say. So start with that, and then 1:28:03.160 --> 1:28:06.240 one page executive summary, and I write that out and 1:28:06.280 --> 1:28:09.800 then I ask myself two questions. I say, would is 1:28:09.840 --> 1:28:11.240 this worth a year of my life or a year 1:28:11.240 --> 1:28:13.479 and a half of my life? And if it's yes, 1:28:13.520 --> 1:28:15.200 then I ask another question. I say, if someone were 1:28:15.280 --> 1:28:18.599 to read this like walking through airport, going into Hudson News, 1:28:18.640 --> 1:28:20.560 pulling the book off and reading the back or the 1:28:20.640 --> 1:28:23.680 flap jacket, would they be willing to invest time that 1:28:23.720 --> 1:28:26.000 they're never going to get back in this story. And 1:28:26.120 --> 1:28:28.880 if the answer to both of those is yes, then boom, 1:28:29.360 --> 1:28:31.200 I'm all in. And then I take that, turn that 1:28:31.280 --> 1:28:33.479 into an outline, and then take that outline turn it 1:28:33.520 --> 1:28:35.840 into a narrative. But what I don't do is get 1:28:36.000 --> 1:28:37.920 stuck on the outline, because if I get to a 1:28:37.960 --> 1:28:39.800 place in that outline where I'm like, oh, how he 1:28:39.880 --> 1:28:41.800 is ever going to get out of this? Is anyone 1:28:41.880 --> 1:28:44.719 ever going to believe this? This is going to be terrible. 1:28:44.720 --> 1:28:46.519 I'm never going to figure this out. If I get 1:28:46.560 --> 1:28:48.720 to that, I just put a bunch of x's and 1:28:48.800 --> 1:28:50.600 go around it, and I keep writing, knowing that I 1:28:50.640 --> 1:28:52.679 have a year and a half to figure this out. 1:28:53.240 --> 1:28:56.120 And on the battlefield, you had seconds to make decisions. 1:28:56.439 --> 1:28:59.599 Now I have a year a year and a half 1:29:00.200 --> 1:29:00.760 that first book. 1:29:01.320 --> 1:29:03.920 Or are you working completely solo or did you have 1:29:04.000 --> 1:29:04.960 an editor or anyone? 1:29:05.000 --> 1:29:05.120 Ye? 1:29:05.280 --> 1:29:08.400 Yeah, so nobody yet. I sent it to twenty people 1:29:08.560 --> 1:29:10.760 or so maybe twenty five even maybe twenty seven May 1:29:10.880 --> 1:29:13.800 thirty when it was done, when I thought I got 1:29:13.840 --> 1:29:16.160 it to the place where I got it to being 1:29:16.160 --> 1:29:18.640 the best that I could get it, and I told myself, Hey, 1:29:18.720 --> 1:29:21.080 if one person says comes back and says, hey, I 1:29:21.120 --> 1:29:22.920 really didn't like this part, this part didn't make sense, 1:29:23.000 --> 1:29:26.240 you need to do this, I would discount it two three, Yeah, 1:29:26.320 --> 1:29:28.559 discount those two. But if it was like five, six, 1:29:28.720 --> 1:29:31.360 seven of those twenty five or thirty people were like, 1:29:31.640 --> 1:29:34.120 you should think about writing this part again, or I 1:29:34.160 --> 1:29:37.560 didn't really understand this. Then I've been okay, Roger that, 1:29:38.200 --> 1:29:40.200 but now I sent it to four people ahead of time. 1:29:40.880 --> 1:29:43.000 They were part of that original original group, but now 1:29:43.040 --> 1:29:44.720 it's four and I sent it to them before I 1:29:44.760 --> 1:29:47.519 send it to my editor, and they give me different 1:29:47.560 --> 1:29:50.280 things back and there it's all super valuable and they're 1:29:50.320 --> 1:29:52.479 they're amazing. I thank them and the acknowledgments of my books, 1:29:52.600 --> 1:29:55.120 and then I make those make those changes or I 1:29:55.160 --> 1:29:58.240 discard them, and then send it to my editor and 1:29:58.479 --> 1:30:01.479 so they're so she's getting the best product that me 1:30:01.920 --> 1:30:04.280 and a little bit of feedback from like a fan base. 1:30:05.080 --> 1:30:07.800 And three of those four guys are lawyers, so they're 1:30:07.880 --> 1:30:11.720 good at finding things in written documents, so they're good 1:30:11.720 --> 1:30:13.800 at finding finding things need to be explained a little 1:30:13.800 --> 1:30:17.240 more exactly, yeah, exactly, and usually it's fixed with just 1:30:17.280 --> 1:30:19.800 a sentence here or there. So I do that and 1:30:19.880 --> 1:30:22.000 then send it to New York and Emily Butler, my 1:30:22.120 --> 1:30:25.759 editor Simon and Schuster. Emily Butler Books was imprint of Atria, 1:30:26.200 --> 1:30:28.320 so she has her own imprint and she's amazing, and 1:30:28.360 --> 1:30:30.080 she's the only person I ever wanted to be my editor. 1:30:30.360 --> 1:30:32.120 And the reason I found her is that I looked 1:30:32.160 --> 1:30:34.120 in the back of books people in my genre, and 1:30:34.120 --> 1:30:36.639 I'm like, why is Vince Flynn thanking this person named 1:30:36.640 --> 1:30:39.200 Emily Butler? Why is Brad Thor thanking this person named 1:30:39.200 --> 1:30:42.200 Emily Butler? And I decided, Emily Butsler will be my publisher, 1:30:42.800 --> 1:30:46.400 so I should probably. Yeah, she didn't know this. She 1:30:46.479 --> 1:30:48.679 didn't know this yet, she had no idea I existed. 1:30:48.720 --> 1:30:50.400 And same thing as I started writing. Being a child 1:30:50.479 --> 1:30:52.000 of the eighties, it only makes sense to pick the 1:30:52.120 --> 1:30:54.080 star that's going to star in your adaptation of this 1:30:54.120 --> 1:30:56.920 book that you have a sentence written of. And I thought, 1:30:57.000 --> 1:31:00.639 you know what, Chris Pratt's the guy and in Guardians 1:31:00.680 --> 1:31:02.840 of the Galaxy, yet hadn't been in Jurassic World yet. 1:31:03.320 --> 1:31:05.160 He had a very small role in Zero Dark thirty 1:31:05.160 --> 1:31:07.599 as a seal, and he was in Parks and Rec. 1:31:07.680 --> 1:31:11.000 So I saw this transformation from Andy Dwyer in Parks 1:31:11.040 --> 1:31:14.240 and Rec to this seal operator. And I also thought, Hey, 1:31:14.240 --> 1:31:17.200 I need someone who's likable on and off screen because 1:31:17.240 --> 1:31:20.360 this role is going to require an audience to forgive him, 1:31:20.400 --> 1:31:22.160 possibly for a lot of the things that I'm about 1:31:22.160 --> 1:31:25.200 to write about. And I thought about Magnum back in 1:31:25.280 --> 1:31:27.719 the back in the eighties, and I thought everybody loved Magnum, 1:31:28.840 --> 1:31:31.719 all the all the wives love Magnum, all the dads 1:31:31.760 --> 1:31:35.920 love Magnum. Everybody loved Magnum because he was funny. You 1:31:35.920 --> 1:31:37.439 wanted to sit down have a beer with him. He'd 1:31:37.439 --> 1:31:38.880 sit down and to have beers with his buddies at 1:31:38.880 --> 1:31:41.360 the King Command Maa club. But then he could flip 1:31:41.439 --> 1:31:43.840 that switch. And there were episodes. It was the first 1:31:43.880 --> 1:31:49.760 time that protagonist in in primetime television had killed an 1:31:49.880 --> 1:31:52.760 unarmed bad guy, and that was in Have You Seen 1:31:52.800 --> 1:31:55.559 the Sunrise? And yeah, so I love that episode. 1:31:55.600 --> 1:31:58.320 It's just my dad that I don't remember, So I 1:31:58.320 --> 1:32:03.960 don't remember. I just remember, like the shirt anything, yeah, 1:32:04.360 --> 1:32:05.320 very short shorts. 1:32:05.840 --> 1:32:07.519 Yeah, yep. So I thought about that. I thought, Chris 1:32:07.560 --> 1:32:08.800 Prats the guy he'll start. And then I'm like, well, 1:32:08.800 --> 1:32:10.799 I'm choosing my star, might as well choose my director. 1:32:11.000 --> 1:32:13.840 And I thought Antoine Fuqua. I love everything that that 1:32:13.960 --> 1:32:17.760 he's done. He's amazing. Training day, training day, incredible with 1:32:17.840 --> 1:32:20.280 Denzel Washington, of course, and I did shoot her, which 1:32:20.280 --> 1:32:22.960 is an adaptation of a Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter, 1:32:23.360 --> 1:32:26.680 and uh like yep uh. Antoine will direct and that's 1:32:26.720 --> 1:32:30.200 who ended up starring and directing. So it's uh so 1:32:30.320 --> 1:32:33.120 it worked out, which happens all the time. He lives 1:32:33.160 --> 1:32:36.280 in Utah, doesn't he Nope, no, he doesn't in California. 1:32:36.360 --> 1:32:39.320 He's California, but from uh moved around, but from Washington State. 1:32:39.439 --> 1:32:41.360 But but he's somebody you want to sit down, have 1:32:41.400 --> 1:32:43.680 coffee with, have a beer with, and just an awesome guy. 1:32:43.680 --> 1:32:45.080 When he optioned it, he came out to Utah, he 1:32:45.120 --> 1:32:47.439 spent a week together out in the in the back country, 1:32:47.439 --> 1:32:50.240 and he's just a solid dude. And being on set 1:32:50.360 --> 1:32:53.760 with him, you can tell like everybody is happy to 1:32:53.840 --> 1:32:55.760 be there on that set because he's set in the 1:32:55.800 --> 1:32:58.320 tone him and Antoine. Antoine's like the commanding officer and 1:32:58.479 --> 1:33:00.599 Chris is like the troop commander, and they are setting 1:33:00.760 --> 1:33:02.960 that tone for the entire three hundred and fifty other 1:33:03.040 --> 1:33:05.479 people on that set. And so many people came up 1:33:05.520 --> 1:33:07.200 to me that didn't have to to tell me that 1:33:07.240 --> 1:33:09.519 they'd been on hundreds of Hollywood sets before, whether it 1:33:09.600 --> 1:33:11.599 was hair and makeup people or stunt people or whoever 1:33:11.640 --> 1:33:14.160 it was, and they'd say, I've never felt the way 1:33:14.160 --> 1:33:16.479 I have on this set. But that's all due to 1:33:16.560 --> 1:33:19.920 Antoine and all due to Chris setting this tone of positivity, 1:33:19.960 --> 1:33:22.760 and they're mentoring people along and everybody wants to be 1:33:22.840 --> 1:33:24.680 there doing their best work. But I can see how 1:33:24.680 --> 1:33:25.800 it would be the opposite too, if you had a 1:33:25.880 --> 1:33:28.120 crazy director. I can see how that could totally set 1:33:28.160 --> 1:33:30.439 a negative tone, or had a star though I number 1:33:30.439 --> 1:33:32.320 one on the call sheet, who was just crazy person, 1:33:32.560 --> 1:33:34.040 and how that could set the tone and how people 1:33:34.080 --> 1:33:35.479 would be like, Oh, I can't believe I have to 1:33:35.479 --> 1:33:37.320 go into work today and work with this crazy person. 1:33:38.120 --> 1:33:39.519 So we had the opposite of that. 1:33:39.920 --> 1:33:42.759 It kind of goes back to our earlier conversation about government. 1:33:42.840 --> 1:33:44.439 It's like, well, why do you put up with those 1:33:44.520 --> 1:33:45.959 people in Hollywood? 1:33:46.080 --> 1:33:49.960 Yeah? I guess these they're employing so many people, I guess. 1:33:50.280 --> 1:33:51.720 But it doesn't have to be that way. You get 1:33:51.760 --> 1:33:53.799 to choose, and Antoine and Chris choose to be positive 1:33:53.800 --> 1:33:56.799 and choose to be encouraging and choose to mentor people along. 1:33:56.960 --> 1:34:01.120 And it's just really cool to see that. And again 1:34:01.240 --> 1:34:03.400 the only reason that came to be is because of 1:34:03.479 --> 1:34:06.759 a good buddy, Jared Shaw, who in the Seal teams 1:34:07.000 --> 1:34:10.000 was getting out and it was when I was at 1:34:10.040 --> 1:34:12.120 BUDS and I said, hell, hey, you're getting out. Oh, 1:34:12.200 --> 1:34:14.280 come come see me in my office at some point 1:34:14.360 --> 1:34:15.840 and just let me know what your plans are and 1:34:16.160 --> 1:34:17.719 let me know if I can can help you in anyway. 1:34:17.840 --> 1:34:20.400 So we sat down and talked, and I introduced him 1:34:20.400 --> 1:34:21.920 to some people in the private sector in the industry 1:34:21.960 --> 1:34:24.000 he wanted to get into, and followed up with him, 1:34:24.040 --> 1:34:26.400 and then I forgot all about it. And then five 1:34:26.479 --> 1:34:29.439 years later, about six months before my first book comes out, 1:34:29.720 --> 1:34:31.960 he calls and I hadn't talked to him in years, 1:34:32.280 --> 1:34:34.680 and he says, hey, do you remember me? And I said, yeah, 1:34:34.720 --> 1:34:36.920 of course, Jared, how are you? And he said, hey, man, 1:34:36.920 --> 1:34:38.160 I always wanted to call and thank you for what 1:34:38.240 --> 1:34:40.400 you did for me. The Seal teams, nobody else sat 1:34:40.439 --> 1:34:41.800 me down in their office. No one talked to me 1:34:41.840 --> 1:34:43.880 about transitioning out. No one introduced me to people in 1:34:43.920 --> 1:34:45.920 the private sector, no one followed up with me. I 1:34:46.080 --> 1:34:48.799 was just kind of brushed aside by senior level leadership. 1:34:48.800 --> 1:34:50.800 When I told him I was getting out, and I 1:34:50.920 --> 1:34:53.200 was like, oh, man, hey, my pleasure. How's it going. 1:34:53.560 --> 1:34:56.479 You know, how do everything work out? And he said 1:34:56.680 --> 1:34:59.040 everything's great, But I heard you have a book coming out, 1:34:59.280 --> 1:35:00.640 and I said, yep, come out a few months. I 1:35:00.640 --> 1:35:02.280 can send you a gally copy, which is like a 1:35:02.560 --> 1:35:04.120 I just learned what a gally copy was like a 1:35:04.160 --> 1:35:06.720 week earlier. It's like a rough draft, and I can 1:35:06.760 --> 1:35:08.160 send that to you if you'd like. And he said, yeah, 1:35:08.160 --> 1:35:09.680 I like that, but I'd like to give it to 1:35:09.720 --> 1:35:11.920 a friend of mine. And I said, who's that and 1:35:12.040 --> 1:35:15.439 he said Chris Pratt, Like, oh, that's convenient for me. 1:35:16.680 --> 1:35:18.839 So I sent it to Jared. He read it in November. 1:35:18.880 --> 1:35:20.439 He gave it to Chris in December. Chris read it 1:35:20.479 --> 1:35:22.559 in the at the end of December and then called 1:35:22.560 --> 1:35:25.560 a week later, want an option it? So yeah, do 1:35:25.720 --> 1:35:26.040 you have. 1:35:27.840 --> 1:35:32.400 People who are non like acronym pros that read your 1:35:33.120 --> 1:35:35.559 early drafts and kind of go be like, I don't 1:35:35.600 --> 1:35:38.960 know about this? Or do people just get on board 1:35:39.240 --> 1:35:43.040 with the vernacular so fast? And that's my assumption as 1:35:43.120 --> 1:35:47.200 people they do, They just like snap into those It's something. 1:35:47.040 --> 1:35:49.559 As you can tell from the context, like I pulled 1:35:49.600 --> 1:35:51.120 down my nods and now I can see it night 1:35:51.160 --> 1:35:53.200 type of thing. You're like, yo, a nod must be 1:35:53.240 --> 1:35:54.760 some sort of a night vision type of a thing. 1:35:55.360 --> 1:35:56.960 So a lot of times some context you can get it, 1:35:57.000 --> 1:35:59.240 but my editor will say, hey, can you describe what 1:35:59.320 --> 1:36:01.080 this is? Then I'll just put like little parentheses and 1:36:01.160 --> 1:36:03.360 say what it is. But I also brought back I 1:36:03.400 --> 1:36:04.800 don't know if I brought it back. I shouldn't say that, 1:36:04.840 --> 1:36:07.160 but I thought of it as bringing it back because 1:36:07.240 --> 1:36:10.519 before the Internet, glossaries in the back of books in 1:36:10.520 --> 1:36:12.240 the eighties were so much fun for me to go through, 1:36:12.280 --> 1:36:15.360 and I could go through the extra were I was like, Oh, 1:36:15.400 --> 1:36:17.200 this is so awesome. So I wanted to bring that 1:36:17.320 --> 1:36:17.920 back the book. 1:36:18.000 --> 1:36:19.360 It was just like an extra thing. 1:36:20.000 --> 1:36:21.240 So I put the glossary in the back. And some 1:36:21.320 --> 1:36:23.360 things are funny. I put some some funny things in there, 1:36:23.400 --> 1:36:26.519 and some things are actual definitions. But so I put 1:36:26.560 --> 1:36:28.519 that in the back for anybody that needs help with 1:36:28.560 --> 1:36:31.200 the acronyms. But otherwise you can pretty much get it, 1:36:31.360 --> 1:36:34.920 and you know, if not, maybe's not the book for you. 1:36:35.600 --> 1:36:36.360 You know, I don't know. 1:36:36.880 --> 1:36:40.400 I mean I think once people get into a story, yeah, 1:36:40.760 --> 1:36:43.799 it also is like it's just like language. 1:36:43.840 --> 1:36:46.080 Some people are like, oh cool, what is this? You 1:36:46.120 --> 1:36:47.360 can look it up? And now you can look it up. 1:36:47.520 --> 1:36:48.920 You know, you don't have to go to the labor anymore, 1:36:49.439 --> 1:36:51.519 you can like look it up like oh that's so cool, Okay, 1:36:51.600 --> 1:36:53.720 got it. But I try to describe at least what 1:36:53.840 --> 1:36:56.120 it is. But sometimes I do. Sometimes I'm just everybody 1:36:56.200 --> 1:36:57.400 knows what it not is now. Everybody knows what an 1:36:57.400 --> 1:37:00.080 idea is now after twenty years at war, but I 1:37:00.160 --> 1:37:02.200 might have to spell it out, improvise explosive device or 1:37:02.439 --> 1:37:05.519 explosively form penetrator or whatever it might might be. So 1:37:06.200 --> 1:37:08.200 so sometimes I make assumptions that that people are only 1:37:08.240 --> 1:37:10.960 to understand, and then I go back and I'll add 1:37:11.000 --> 1:37:13.320 a little something to describe what that means, because they 1:37:13.360 --> 1:37:14.880 are a little acronym heavy at times. 1:37:15.320 --> 1:37:19.120 Well I mean that's an acronym heavy profession. Like you 1:37:19.240 --> 1:37:21.800 listen to a group of you guys getting together. 1:37:21.760 --> 1:37:22.759 Like what language are they speaking? 1:37:24.880 --> 1:37:29.000 Yeah, I find that certain conservation meetings similar like that 1:37:30.160 --> 1:37:34.920 with the departments and then the package of the Yeah, 1:37:35.200 --> 1:37:37.960 it's just like yeah, absolutely, But you know, I'd say. 1:37:37.960 --> 1:37:38.040 I. 1:37:40.040 --> 1:37:44.080 Mediated a panel at Pheasants Forever this year and it 1:37:44.240 --> 1:37:49.160 was the it was the governance the governance board for 1:37:49.800 --> 1:37:53.400 p f q F, you know, an open forum. We're 1:37:53.400 --> 1:37:57.040 talking about the farm bill. And I kept asking the 1:37:57.439 --> 1:38:00.280 questions and they kind of pause, and I was like, 1:38:00.320 --> 1:38:02.240 what is going on with this group? And then they 1:38:02.320 --> 1:38:04.880 told me ended up telling the whole crowd that they 1:38:04.960 --> 1:38:09.000 had a bet between the three of them that basically, 1:38:09.080 --> 1:38:10.800 if you used an acronym, you had to buy the 1:38:10.840 --> 1:38:13.400 other two a beer. Oh that's rough, because they were 1:38:13.479 --> 1:38:16.960 trying so hard to make it user friendly, make the 1:38:17.000 --> 1:38:20.960 whole conversation user friendly, and there was a lot of failures. Oh, 1:38:21.080 --> 1:38:22.880 a lot of failures. Yeah, it was tough. 1:38:23.080 --> 1:38:24.439 That was the thing I knew i'd get right in 1:38:24.520 --> 1:38:27.200 the books, was like the acronyms and describing snapper weapons 1:38:27.240 --> 1:38:28.559 systems and that sort of a thing. 1:38:28.680 --> 1:38:30.600 Yeah, it was a cool factor of that stuff in 1:38:30.680 --> 1:38:32.720 a way that there's not around then, the way there's 1:38:32.760 --> 1:38:34.200 not around federal policy. 1:38:34.600 --> 1:38:36.280 Right, Yeah, you might have to work a little harder 1:38:36.280 --> 1:38:38.679 at the federal policy because you could do it. But yeah, 1:38:38.680 --> 1:38:41.040 it may be a little harder. But I knew i'd 1:38:41.040 --> 1:38:43.400 get that stuff. And what I didn't realize was how 1:38:43.479 --> 1:38:45.720 much of the feelings and emotions behind what I've done 1:38:45.720 --> 1:38:48.400 down range would make it in to the novel and 1:38:48.479 --> 1:38:50.640 now novels. But in that first one, even through that 1:38:50.760 --> 1:38:53.559 whole process I just talked about. Until I started turning 1:38:53.600 --> 1:38:56.240 that outline into the narrative, I still didn't really think 1:38:56.360 --> 1:39:00.080 about those feelings and emotions weaving their way in to 1:39:00.160 --> 1:39:03.000 the storyline. But as soon as I started changing that 1:39:03.240 --> 1:39:06.680 outline into the narrative, it was very apparent right off 1:39:06.720 --> 1:39:08.759 the bat that this was going to be an extremely 1:39:08.840 --> 1:39:12.320 personal writing experience, because I'm going to be describing taking 1:39:12.360 --> 1:39:15.280 the feelings behind things that happened downrange and applying them 1:39:15.320 --> 1:39:18.680 to this completely fictional narrative. So if my character gets 1:39:18.720 --> 1:39:21.400 ambushed in Los Angeles, California, I go back and remember 1:39:21.439 --> 1:39:23.200 what was like to get ambushed in Baghdad in two 1:39:23.200 --> 1:39:25.240 thousand and six, and then I take those feelings and 1:39:25.320 --> 1:39:28.599 emotions and I apply them to my protagonist in Los Angeles, 1:39:28.680 --> 1:39:31.439 California in present day. Same thing with the sniper stuff. 1:39:31.439 --> 1:39:32.920 I don't have to go seek out a sniper out 1:39:32.960 --> 1:39:35.000 there and find a guy who was in Remady at 1:39:35.000 --> 1:39:36.280 the height of the war and say, hey, what was 1:39:36.320 --> 1:39:38.640 it like to set up and pull that trigger? And 1:39:39.040 --> 1:39:42.360 then if I'm taking notes, I'm comparing his answers with 1:39:42.800 --> 1:39:44.720 someone else. I might have interviewed another book, I might 1:39:44.760 --> 1:39:47.439 have read another interview I saw on TV another book 1:39:47.479 --> 1:39:49.720 I might have read fiction or non movies that I've 1:39:49.800 --> 1:39:52.599 seen biases, I have whatever filters I have in place, 1:39:52.880 --> 1:39:55.439 and then putting it onto the page into my story. 1:39:55.680 --> 1:39:57.960 It all comes right from my heart and soul directly. 1:39:58.040 --> 1:40:00.800 Yeah, there's no substitute for a first person. Yeah right, 1:40:00.920 --> 1:40:03.400 It's like, because we have so much input coming in 1:40:03.520 --> 1:40:06.800 all the time. Yeah, it's kind of impossible to block 1:40:06.840 --> 1:40:08.000 that stuff out after a while. 1:40:08.040 --> 1:40:09.479 And I really think that's what stood out to Simon 1:40:09.520 --> 1:40:11.479 and Schuster because they see thousands of these things every 1:40:11.520 --> 1:40:13.760 year come across their desks, and I think that's what 1:40:13.840 --> 1:40:15.960 made stand out. With those feelings and emotions, that's what 1:40:16.040 --> 1:40:18.000 made it different from some of the other books out 1:40:18.040 --> 1:40:20.720 there that they had read, and why they decided to 1:40:21.080 --> 1:40:23.519 publish me, which is humbling. 1:40:24.400 --> 1:40:27.120 Uh T de late people on your next book, Only 1:40:27.200 --> 1:40:27.479 the Dead. 1:40:27.560 --> 1:40:30.800 So it's sixth novel in the James Reese series and 1:40:31.680 --> 1:40:34.960 it's the most brutal to date, which is saying it 1:40:35.120 --> 1:40:37.479 is the most brutal to date. And I didn't start 1:40:37.479 --> 1:40:39.080 out that way. I didn't say, all right, I'm gonna 1:40:39.120 --> 1:40:40.880 write the most brutal one. Now it's just kind of 1:40:40.960 --> 1:40:44.040 naturally happened that way. But yeah, that one comes out 1:40:44.080 --> 1:40:44.960 May sixteenth, And. 1:40:45.640 --> 1:40:48.679 Give the base, just give the basic, give the basic gist. 1:40:48.840 --> 1:40:52.400 There are some unanswered questions from my last novel, so 1:40:52.520 --> 1:40:53.920 for those who have read it, they'll know what I'm 1:40:54.160 --> 1:40:56.920 what I am talking about here. But really it's a 1:40:57.080 --> 1:41:00.639 novel of truth and consequences. That's the theme to this one, 1:41:01.680 --> 1:41:04.400 and in my novels James Reese he holds those people 1:41:04.439 --> 1:41:06.599 that we talked about earlier accountable those people that don't. 1:41:06.640 --> 1:41:08.479 You can't really hold accountable in real life because if 1:41:08.520 --> 1:41:10.160 you do, you'll go to jail for doing the things 1:41:10.200 --> 1:41:13.719 that my character you'll probably be executed in many states. 1:41:14.760 --> 1:41:17.120 But you can do it through fiction. You can do 1:41:17.240 --> 1:41:21.120 it in a thriller, which is very therapeutic to write 1:41:21.160 --> 1:41:24.840 and hopefully to read for some of us. But it's 1:41:24.920 --> 1:41:28.679 him uncovering a lot of his past and his father's past. 1:41:28.960 --> 1:41:32.000 Then all connects in present day in a of course, 1:41:32.040 --> 1:41:34.680 a conspiracy. I love a good conspiracy, especially in the 1:41:34.720 --> 1:41:36.840 pages of my novels. That's what I loved about some 1:41:36.880 --> 1:41:38.840 of the books I read growing up was the conspiratorial 1:41:38.840 --> 1:41:40.640 element to them. So I try to weave that in 1:41:41.000 --> 1:41:44.720 to my novels as well. So he tends to a 1:41:44.880 --> 1:41:48.320 he's a thinking man, but he also is someone very 1:41:48.320 --> 1:41:52.120 comfortable with violence because it's just a natural part of 1:41:52.160 --> 1:41:55.760 his life, and some people need to be dealt with 1:41:55.880 --> 1:41:57.160 in a very harsh way in this book. 1:41:57.240 --> 1:41:59.599 So when you mentioned therapeutic, I'm at, yeah, you get 1:41:59.680 --> 1:42:02.200 to be as the author, you get to be judged 1:42:02.280 --> 1:42:03.200 jury and execution. 1:42:03.479 --> 1:42:04.920 Yeah, oh yeah, it's fantastic. 1:42:05.439 --> 1:42:05.799 Guilty. 1:42:06.680 --> 1:42:10.880 It was so different about writing screenplays versus this is 1:42:10.920 --> 1:42:12.120 that I can do anything. I don't have to worry 1:42:12.120 --> 1:42:13.640 about the cost of a set piece. I don't have 1:42:13.680 --> 1:42:16.160 to worry about flying them to Siberia or down to 1:42:16.240 --> 1:42:19.400 South America, up to Alaska wherever. I can just do it. 1:42:19.600 --> 1:42:22.639 There's no no problem. I can have huge set action 1:42:22.760 --> 1:42:24.519 set pieces, and I have to worry about the cost. 1:42:25.080 --> 1:42:27.000 Now when you get talked to start talking to Amazon 1:42:27.120 --> 1:42:29.600 and start breaking things down where you're gonna film and 1:42:29.640 --> 1:42:31.519 what these set pieces are gonna cost, Well, now you 1:42:31.600 --> 1:42:34.280 have to factor that in. You can't just directly take 1:42:34.320 --> 1:42:36.599 what you have on the page and transferred over onto 1:42:36.640 --> 1:42:39.000 the screen because there are there costs involved to a 1:42:39.080 --> 1:42:40.439 lot of that. So you have to work through some 1:42:40.520 --> 1:42:42.840 of that. But I love the freedom to be able 1:42:43.040 --> 1:42:45.400 to do anything that I want on that page, and 1:42:46.040 --> 1:42:47.160 I didn't know how it was gonna be. When I 1:42:47.160 --> 1:42:48.840 got into this. I thought, as Simon and Schuster might 1:42:48.880 --> 1:42:51.360 ask me to kind of take you really need to 1:42:51.360 --> 1:42:52.720 have all that hunting stuff in there? Or does it 1:42:52.760 --> 1:42:54.760 need to be so violent or do you really need 1:42:54.800 --> 1:42:57.480 to mention this about concealed carry in here? It seems unnecessary. 1:42:57.600 --> 1:42:59.960 Can you? Never have they even hinted that I need 1:43:00.120 --> 1:43:01.519 to take any of that out. It's been one hundred 1:43:01.520 --> 1:43:05.680 percent creative control the entire time, which is which I love. 1:43:06.280 --> 1:43:08.920 Yeah, little bits of political. 1:43:09.240 --> 1:43:12.799 In there, yeah, yeah, yeah, But a lot of authors don't, 1:43:13.160 --> 1:43:17.680 and you know, I didn't. Really you don't really get 1:43:17.720 --> 1:43:20.280 to know them those characters in the same way as 1:43:20.320 --> 1:43:23.519 you do from authors that give you a glimpse into 1:43:23.640 --> 1:43:26.280 their protagonist through how he feels about certain things. So 1:43:26.479 --> 1:43:30.439 my character is carrying a pistol in Washington, d C. 1:43:30.720 --> 1:43:32.519 He's not just carrying a pistol in Washington, d C. 1:43:32.880 --> 1:43:34.800 He has to think about the consequences of getting cut. 1:43:35.360 --> 1:43:36.040 Warren's coming. 1:43:36.520 --> 1:43:39.519 Yes, because if I'm doing that, or if I if 1:43:39.600 --> 1:43:41.880 I was to do that, I would need to. I 1:43:41.920 --> 1:43:44.960 would think about it and realize, Okay, here's the consequences 1:43:45.080 --> 1:43:47.600 to doing this. So my character does as well, and 1:43:47.680 --> 1:43:49.960 he has thoughts on it. But a lot of authors 1:43:50.000 --> 1:43:51.960 don't do that, but but I do, and I feel 1:43:51.960 --> 1:43:55.479 it gives people greater insight into his character. And because 1:43:55.800 --> 1:43:57.320 you're going to think about it. If you're doing something 1:43:57.360 --> 1:43:59.519 like that, you're thinking about rules and regulations as we 1:43:59.600 --> 1:44:01.519 head into the field, and these different states and things 1:44:01.560 --> 1:44:03.200 that are you can do in some one state you 1:44:03.240 --> 1:44:05.439 can't do in another. And I mean, you're gonna follow 1:44:05.479 --> 1:44:08.519 the follow those rules. You're not gonna not think about it. 1:44:08.680 --> 1:44:09.840 And just all of a sudden, if I was a 1:44:09.880 --> 1:44:12.200 writer talking about hunting and I'm putting them in the 1:44:12.240 --> 1:44:14.840 springtime in somewhere else, and I have him going deer 1:44:14.920 --> 1:44:16.680 hunting in a state where you can't do that in 1:44:16.800 --> 1:44:19.400 that area in the springtime or whatever whatever it is, 1:44:20.200 --> 1:44:22.880 you're gonna lose that hunting audience. And you're like, if 1:44:22.920 --> 1:44:24.400 he's doing that, he should at least be thinking about it, 1:44:24.520 --> 1:44:26.640 he should least be thinking about why he's poaching, and 1:44:26.720 --> 1:44:29.360 it should make sense for the story. But a lot 1:44:29.400 --> 1:44:30.920 of times you don't. You don't get that, so I 1:44:31.000 --> 1:44:33.439 try to give the give what I'd be thinking in 1:44:33.479 --> 1:44:34.480 a lot of these situations. 1:44:34.680 --> 1:44:35.880 Do you read Box? 1:44:36.200 --> 1:44:38.240 I have read CJ. Box, not all of them, because 1:44:38.240 --> 1:44:40.360 he's a lot of books out there and he's amazing. 1:44:40.479 --> 1:44:43.960 Oh my goodness, yeah, yeah, very good, very very interesting 1:44:44.600 --> 1:44:45.719 writer and very popular. 1:44:46.080 --> 1:44:48.559 Is h a lot of hunting in there? 1:44:48.600 --> 1:44:48.760 You know? 1:44:49.240 --> 1:44:51.000 Is this character going to be around for a while? 1:44:51.080 --> 1:44:53.840 Are you getting the antsy to explore a different character. 1:44:54.200 --> 1:44:54.439 Nope. 1:44:54.479 --> 1:44:57.120 I feel so fortunate that a readership and audience is 1:44:57.160 --> 1:45:00.400 connected with this character. Uh So the first one, as 1:45:00.400 --> 1:45:02.120 you're writing it, people don't know. They think it could 1:45:02.120 --> 1:45:03.960 be just a one off book. So your first one 1:45:04.280 --> 1:45:06.320 as people are reading it now, people find that first 1:45:06.360 --> 1:45:09.519 book today they or watched the show first, they realize, oh, 1:45:09.920 --> 1:45:12.040 or even if they haven't seen the show, they realize, oh, 1:45:12.080 --> 1:45:13.840 there's four other books, five other books out there. He's 1:45:13.840 --> 1:45:17.640 probably gonna survived exactly. Yeah, he's gonna shake it off. 1:45:17.920 --> 1:45:21.160 He's gonna shake that thing right off. But the first one. 1:45:21.200 --> 1:45:22.840 That's why the first one is so fun, because if 1:45:22.840 --> 1:45:25.360 you're reading that and don't know that it can continue, 1:45:25.479 --> 1:45:27.080 then you and the way that I end that one. 1:45:27.120 --> 1:45:29.400 I kind of leave it up in the air. It's 1:45:30.160 --> 1:45:31.880 it's interesting, but now that they're out there, you kind 1:45:31.920 --> 1:45:32.400 of know that it's going. 1:45:32.800 --> 1:45:35.280 It's a serious just wondering if this guy had a 1:45:35.360 --> 1:45:37.280 life span yet or if he's gonna be around for 1:45:37.320 --> 1:45:37.599 a while. 1:45:37.640 --> 1:45:39.519 Yeah, I think around for a while. It's I've for 1:45:39.640 --> 1:45:41.840 other authors talk about how they you know, they kind 1:45:41.840 --> 1:45:44.040 of get connected to their character and they're not thinkfully 1:45:44.080 --> 1:45:46.400 aren't allowed to do anything else, almost, But I don't 1:45:46.400 --> 1:45:48.439 feel that way. Love. I just feel so fortunate. 1:45:48.479 --> 1:45:52.360 So the twentieth book will be like kicking it and relax, Yeah, we. 1:45:52.400 --> 1:45:55.120 Get to that twentieth book, or I kind of think 1:45:55.120 --> 1:45:58.240 about it in terms of Indiana Jones, Right, there's a 1:45:58.320 --> 1:46:01.280 lot there's a lot crossover there, Like people are like, 1:46:01.400 --> 1:46:04.519 oh yeah, and he can go back in his story 1:46:04.520 --> 1:46:08.040 and go forward in a story and he has that longevity, right, 1:46:08.479 --> 1:46:10.240 And there's a lot of those Yeah. 1:46:10.600 --> 1:46:13.640 Well, I mean I'm familiar with the main one, but 1:46:13.720 --> 1:46:15.000 I didn't know that there was a lot to it. 1:46:15.560 --> 1:46:19.680 Well in every it's like dad son, Oh yeah, you know, 1:46:20.000 --> 1:46:21.200 it's like there's a lot there. 1:46:21.360 --> 1:46:23.599 I very intentionally wrote things into the novels that I'd 1:46:23.600 --> 1:46:27.320 be able to explore later different families. Explore the Hastings 1:46:27.360 --> 1:46:28.760 family in Africa. A lot of people want me to 1:46:29.080 --> 1:46:33.280 do that, and I explore the Salut Scouts and all that, 1:46:33.479 --> 1:46:36.240 So that'll be something I'm looking at doing in the future. 1:46:36.600 --> 1:46:40.000 James Reese's dad in Vietnam, his transition from seal into 1:46:40.040 --> 1:46:42.559 the CIA back in the seventies, so there's a lot 1:46:42.600 --> 1:46:44.920 to explore there into the eighties. What did he do 1:46:44.960 --> 1:46:47.360 in the eighties, So I and his grand grandfather's on 1:46:47.439 --> 1:46:50.360 both sides, So I throw that stuff in there too, 1:46:50.920 --> 1:46:52.680 sometimes with the history of the firearms that they use 1:46:52.760 --> 1:46:54.600 that have been passed down. So I put all that 1:46:54.640 --> 1:46:57.720 stuff in there very intentionally so that I can I 1:46:57.800 --> 1:47:00.559 can go back and also it gone a little interest 1:47:00.560 --> 1:47:01.160 ahead of time. 1:47:01.240 --> 1:47:03.160 And you can turn it into a family business. You 1:47:03.160 --> 1:47:06.479 can get those kids get back on the on. 1:47:06.640 --> 1:47:09.840 The computers and be like, listen, some people have yeah, 1:47:09.880 --> 1:47:12.760 Clive Custler, his son, Dirt Custler, Stephen to. 1:47:14.040 --> 1:47:16.240 Leave them all those executive summ reasons. 1:47:16.240 --> 1:47:17.360 There you go here they are. 1:47:17.560 --> 1:47:17.760 Yeah. 1:47:18.160 --> 1:47:19.479 So yeah, there's like there's a couple of people have 1:47:19.520 --> 1:47:21.080 done that. Nelson de mill Is working on his second 1:47:21.080 --> 1:47:24.320 book with his uh, his son, So that has that 1:47:24.439 --> 1:47:27.200 has happened, that has that has been a thing. But yeah, 1:47:27.280 --> 1:47:29.400 I just feel fortunate that it's connected and people are 1:47:29.439 --> 1:47:32.320 reading these things and want more and and now there's 1:47:32.439 --> 1:47:35.559 and there's a responsibility also because uh, people are trusting 1:47:35.600 --> 1:47:37.280 me with this time that they're never going to get back. 1:47:37.400 --> 1:47:40.160 So whether it's a Instagram post or a blog post, 1:47:40.560 --> 1:47:42.840 that those sentences get as much thought as any sentence 1:47:42.880 --> 1:47:44.880 in my novel. Because people are trusting me with my 1:47:45.000 --> 1:47:47.839 time there on the social channels as well on those blogs, 1:47:47.880 --> 1:47:50.639 on my podcast, whatever it might be, they're never getting 1:47:50.680 --> 1:47:51.639 that getting that back. 1:47:51.760 --> 1:47:54.280 Do you ever read the book Misery? Stephen King Misery? 1:47:54.360 --> 1:47:55.920 I only saw the movie. I should, I should? 1:47:55.960 --> 1:47:56.639 I should read book. 1:47:56.640 --> 1:47:58.599 Sure, you should read the book for sure. But that's 1:47:58.840 --> 1:48:02.639 that's the other trap you're getting yourself into. At some point, 1:48:02.720 --> 1:48:05.799 you're gonna have some rabid fan who's like, I demand 1:48:06.640 --> 1:48:10.280 to know what happens to your character. Yeah, because I'm 1:48:10.360 --> 1:48:12.000 so dedicated to them. 1:48:12.160 --> 1:48:14.080 Yeah, there's a book. Landon Beach has a book out 1:48:14.080 --> 1:48:16.839 called Narrator where he does something similar with a narrator 1:48:17.600 --> 1:48:19.960 and it's it's really it's really good book. It's really clever, 1:48:20.280 --> 1:48:22.519 really well done. But but yeah, no, I think I 1:48:22.600 --> 1:48:27.280 take some security measures. I tend to still think things 1:48:27.320 --> 1:48:28.719 that way I did before I went to the military, 1:48:28.800 --> 1:48:30.720 and I continue to think that way today. This is 1:48:30.800 --> 1:48:33.240 a natural way for me to think, so I do 1:48:33.360 --> 1:48:36.519 take a little precautions here and there. It only only 1:48:36.560 --> 1:48:38.280 makes sense today where it's so easy to find somebody. 1:48:38.560 --> 1:48:42.160 Sure. Yeah, all right, guys, well me order it now. 1:48:42.280 --> 1:48:44.160 Can you pre order the book in the audio right now? 1:48:44.240 --> 1:48:46.960 You sure can? You sure can? Yeah? Audio, ebook and 1:48:47.280 --> 1:48:50.439 hardcover all come out on May sixteenth. Rayporter is narrating 1:48:50.600 --> 1:48:53.599 again and uh yeah, coming in to Hot May sixteen. 1:48:53.760 --> 1:48:57.120 Order it now comes out May sixteenth. Find it, I'm 1:48:57.120 --> 1:49:01.760 assuming anywhere everywhere, but everywhere book are sold. Only The Dead, 1:49:02.400 --> 1:49:06.960 the sixth book from our guest today, Jack car Available 1:49:07.000 --> 1:49:12.080 from Simon and Schuster. Yep, Only the Dead. It'll ship 1:49:12.120 --> 1:49:14.280 to you soon. You buy it now. Thank you very much, 1:49:14.400 --> 1:49:14.880 Jack car. 1:49:15.080 --> 1:49:16.360 Man, Thank you so much for having me. This has 1:49:16.400 --> 1:49:18.200 been awesome. This has been awesome, and I can't wait 1:49:18.200 --> 1:49:20.519 to see the new studio. Not that this one is 1:49:20.680 --> 1:49:23.120 lacking in any way, shape or form, but I'm really 1:49:23.120 --> 1:49:24.240 looking forward to seeing the new one. 1:49:26.120 --> 1:49:26.280 Here. 1:49:26.920 --> 1:49:28.639 It is awesome. Thank you guys, appreciate everything. 1:49:34.520 --> 1:49:35.880 Ride on. 1:49:41.360 --> 1:49:51.400 Seal gray, shine like silver in the sun, right. 1:49:53.680 --> 1:49:56.240 Right alone. 1:49:59.240 --> 1:50:06.200 Wait, done, beat this damn horse today, taking a new one, rive. 1:50:09.439 --> 1:50:09.680 With it. 1:50:09.880 --> 1:50:15.400 Done, beat this damn horse today. So take your new 1:50:15.479 --> 1:50:17.280 one and ride on. 1:50:22.439 --> 1:50:29.439 Chapter ten, Killing proper. There is a right way and 1:50:29.520 --> 1:50:31.519 a wrong way to kill a wild animal, and I 1:50:31.600 --> 1:50:35.000 don't mean that in a practical sense. An explanation of 1:50:35.040 --> 1:50:38.040 this is tricky, similar to explaining why it's more pleasurable 1:50:38.080 --> 1:50:41.040 to spend money earned through hard work than money earned 1:50:41.080 --> 1:50:45.439 through dubious means. It comes down to metaphysical issues, things 1:50:45.520 --> 1:50:48.040 of the heart. I was thinking about this one day 1:50:48.120 --> 1:50:50.080 while I was hunting mountain lions with a pack of 1:50:50.160 --> 1:50:54.280 about a dozen dogs in southeastern Arizona. They were tall, 1:50:54.400 --> 1:50:58.480 lanky hounds, most of walker bloodlines, owned by my companions, 1:50:58.560 --> 1:51:01.920 Floyd Green and Joe Mitty, two well known mountain lion 1:51:01.960 --> 1:51:05.639 of hunters with a combined lion hunting experience spanning about 1:51:05.720 --> 1:51:10.120 sixty years and five hundred cats. Many of their dogs 1:51:10.160 --> 1:51:14.759 showed physical evidence of past skirmishes with lions, including slit ears, 1:51:15.000 --> 1:51:19.639 lacerated noses, and scarred muzzles. The injuries were usually suffered 1:51:19.640 --> 1:51:22.240 when they brought a lion to bay, a term for 1:51:22.360 --> 1:51:25.519 when hounds chased their quarry into a tree or corner 1:51:25.680 --> 1:51:28.400 against the cliff, or trap it in a cave, and 1:51:28.479 --> 1:51:30.880 then hold it there until their master shows up to 1:51:31.000 --> 1:51:34.439 deal with the beast. Earlier, I had mentioned to Floyd 1:51:34.640 --> 1:51:36.600 that it seemed as though a dog would lose his 1:51:36.800 --> 1:51:40.080 taste for hunting lions once he got scratched a time 1:51:40.200 --> 1:51:43.880 or two. It's the opposite of what you'd think, replied Floyd. 1:51:44.400 --> 1:51:48.240 It just makes them hungrier. I was camped with Floyd 1:51:48.240 --> 1:51:50.720 and Joe at an old abandoned ranch house not far 1:51:50.800 --> 1:51:53.120 from ara vip A Canyon, at the end of a 1:51:53.240 --> 1:51:56.840 driveway that takes more than an hour to travel along 1:51:56.960 --> 1:51:59.599 this route. On our way in, we saw where something 1:51:59.680 --> 1:52:02.400 had been dragged across the road from west to east 1:52:02.760 --> 1:52:05.800 and then down into a dry arroyo. At the end 1:52:05.880 --> 1:52:08.320 of the drag marks was a dead buck with pick 1:52:08.439 --> 1:52:10.920 clean bones that had been buried with leaves and dirt 1:52:10.960 --> 1:52:14.320 beneath the scrubby little oak. The hide was in pieces, 1:52:14.360 --> 1:52:16.800 but still connected to the carcass here and there, like 1:52:16.880 --> 1:52:19.519 a person who passed out drunk in bed without getting 1:52:19.560 --> 1:52:23.439 completely free of his clothes. Floyd tipped his cowboy hat 1:52:23.520 --> 1:52:25.519 and peeled back the deer's skin to show me the 1:52:25.600 --> 1:52:29.120 blood clots and teeth marks around the animal's neck. He 1:52:29.280 --> 1:52:31.759 also showed me where the spine had been wrung around 1:52:31.800 --> 1:52:35.040 in circles three or four times. There wasn't a doubt 1:52:35.080 --> 1:52:37.280 in his mind that we were looking at a lion kill. 1:52:37.760 --> 1:52:39.960 Though it was at least a week old. This was 1:52:40.040 --> 1:52:42.840 good news. We'd come to hunt this area because a 1:52:42.880 --> 1:52:46.040 local ranger had lost fifty calves to lions here the 1:52:46.160 --> 1:52:49.840 previous spring, about nine months earlier, and this was proof 1:52:50.040 --> 1:52:55.479 that at least one lion was still hanging around. If 1:52:55.520 --> 1:52:57.640 you had asked me ten years earlier, I would have 1:52:57.760 --> 1:52:59.840 told you that I'd never want to hunt a mountain lion. 1:53:00.240 --> 1:53:02.640 What's the challenge? I would have asked in shooting a 1:53:02.760 --> 1:53:05.840 cat out of a tree. The notion of challenge is 1:53:05.920 --> 1:53:09.840 one of the most hotly debated aspects of hunting. Definitions 1:53:09.920 --> 1:53:13.840 of the word evolve so constantly and are so subjective 1:53:14.200 --> 1:53:16.479 that it's hard to find two hunters who define it 1:53:16.560 --> 1:53:19.080 in the same way. As a way of dealing with 1:53:19.200 --> 1:53:22.240 the confusion, Some of us abide by a more readily 1:53:22.400 --> 1:53:26.679 definable synonym known as fair chase. It's an ethical term 1:53:26.760 --> 1:53:29.840 that provides hunters with a guiding principle to abide by. 1:53:30.600 --> 1:53:34.880 Jim Posowitz, the founder of Oryan, the Hunter's Institute, writes 1:53:34.960 --> 1:53:38.600 that fair chase addresses the balance between the hunter and 1:53:38.680 --> 1:53:41.800 the hunted. It is a balance that allows hunters to 1:53:42.000 --> 1:53:48.320 occasionally succeed while animals generally avoid being taken. Some hunting 1:53:48.400 --> 1:53:51.000 strategies are such an affront to the idea of fair 1:53:51.120 --> 1:53:54.840 chase that hunters share in almost universal disdain for them. 1:53:55.720 --> 1:53:59.160 For example, most hunters would agree that dynamite shouldn't be 1:53:59.280 --> 1:54:02.320 used for duck hung because it would take away the challenge. 1:54:02.880 --> 1:54:06.040 Most hunters would also agree that night vision goggles shouldn't 1:54:06.040 --> 1:54:09.280 be used in deer hunting for the same reason. Often, 1:54:09.520 --> 1:54:12.320 as is the case with these examples, our notions of 1:54:12.439 --> 1:54:15.920 fair chase are enforced by law. It's illegal to kill 1:54:16.000 --> 1:54:19.200 ducks with dynamite. It's also illegal to hunt deer with 1:54:19.280 --> 1:54:23.760 the aid of artificial lights. However, fair chase is not 1:54:24.040 --> 1:54:28.960 universally legislated. Certain activities that are definitely not fair chase, 1:54:29.400 --> 1:54:32.520 such as the pathetic practice of hunting animals inside high 1:54:32.600 --> 1:54:36.280 wire fences is permissible in many regions as long as 1:54:36.320 --> 1:54:39.480 it's done on private property and with the proper legal permits. 1:54:40.080 --> 1:54:42.680 Whether or not a hunter chooses to participate in this 1:54:42.840 --> 1:54:47.280 limp dict activity comes down to personal choice. Other issues 1:54:47.360 --> 1:54:50.720 of personal choice are much more nuanced than this example, 1:54:51.160 --> 1:54:55.240 though they're taken no less seriously by many sportsmen over 1:54:55.320 --> 1:54:58.680 the years. I've met hunters who eskew rifles with telescopic 1:54:58.760 --> 1:55:01.839 scopes because they I prefer the challenge of using rifles 1:55:01.880 --> 1:55:05.560 with open or iron sights. I've met hunters who don't 1:55:05.640 --> 1:55:08.800 use rifles because they favor the additional challenge presented by 1:55:08.880 --> 1:55:11.800 compound bows. And I've met hunters who gave up on 1:55:11.920 --> 1:55:14.840 compound bows in order to take on the even more 1:55:14.920 --> 1:55:19.240 difficult challenge of hunting with a handmade long bow. However, 1:55:19.640 --> 1:55:22.440 some hunters who use handmade long bows hunt dear by 1:55:22.480 --> 1:55:24.600 sitting in a tree stand next to a bait pile, 1:55:25.040 --> 1:55:28.520 a practice that is considered unchallenging by many guys who 1:55:28.640 --> 1:55:32.600 prefer hunting on foot in open country with a rifle 1:55:32.720 --> 1:55:37.840 and a telescopic scope. I generally believe these differentiations to 1:55:37.920 --> 1:55:41.760 be positive, however, nitpicky because they demonstrate that hunters are 1:55:41.840 --> 1:55:44.800 thinking people who struggle to define the limits of their world. 1:55:45.440 --> 1:55:47.640 I know that I certainly do, though I've come to 1:55:47.720 --> 1:55:52.200 realize that rigid boundaries are sometimes hard to determine. Consider 1:55:52.320 --> 1:55:54.040 something that happened to me while I was living for 1:55:54.120 --> 1:55:56.839 about nine months along the Big Horn River in Wyoming. 1:55:57.560 --> 1:56:00.600 While there, I became friends with a hay farm whom 1:56:00.640 --> 1:56:04.400 we'll call Bill. He had a side business raising game birds. 1:56:04.840 --> 1:56:08.120 He would buy pheasant and chucker hatchlings from a wholesaler 1:56:08.240 --> 1:56:11.240 for around a dollar apiece and then raise the birds 1:56:11.280 --> 1:56:15.200 to maturity inside huge tent light structures made of netting. 1:56:16.080 --> 1:56:18.720 Hawks and falcons would dive at the birds from above 1:56:18.800 --> 1:56:21.640 and hit the netting so hard that they'd blast through 1:56:21.680 --> 1:56:24.200 it like it was wet and newsprint, so the upper 1:56:24.280 --> 1:56:29.000 portions were reinforced with wire fencing. Bill fitted each bird 1:56:29.080 --> 1:56:32.000 with a little piece of plastic called the blinder, which 1:56:32.080 --> 1:56:35.120 worked like the blinders you see on draft animals. But 1:56:35.240 --> 1:56:37.880 while the blinder on draft animals keeps them from getting 1:56:37.960 --> 1:56:41.960 spooked or distracted by objects in its peripheral vision, the 1:56:42.080 --> 1:56:44.480 blinder on a pen raised game bird is meant to 1:56:44.560 --> 1:56:48.240 keep him from seeing clearly enough to maul his penmates 1:56:48.280 --> 1:56:51.680 out of the frustration and anxiety that are hallmarks of 1:56:51.760 --> 1:56:55.040 wild animals that are forced to live in tight confines. 1:56:56.640 --> 1:56:59.320 When the birds were mature, Bill would sell them to 1:56:59.400 --> 1:57:01.800 want to be hunters for nine or ten dollars each. 1:57:02.520 --> 1:57:05.320 When a client called, he'd go into his bird tent 1:57:05.400 --> 1:57:07.720 and collect the number of birds that the guy wanted 1:57:07.760 --> 1:57:10.560 to shoot. He'd put the birds into cage and load 1:57:10.600 --> 1:57:13.240 the cage on his ATV, and then drive them out 1:57:13.320 --> 1:57:16.240 into a field one at a time. He'd pick out 1:57:16.320 --> 1:57:19.040 the birds and twirl them around with a windmill motion 1:57:19.520 --> 1:57:22.320 that Pete Townshend from the who famously used to play 1:57:22.400 --> 1:57:25.920 his guitar. This would put the birds to sleep, or 1:57:25.920 --> 1:57:29.400 at least something resembling sleep. Then Bill would form a 1:57:29.480 --> 1:57:31.880 little hut out of field grass and tuck the bird 1:57:32.000 --> 1:57:35.600 into it. The timing of this was delicate. He wanted 1:57:35.640 --> 1:57:37.840 the birds to come to their senses soon enough that 1:57:37.880 --> 1:57:40.680 they'd fly away when the clients came along, but not 1:57:40.880 --> 1:57:43.160 so soon that they'd wander off in search of food. 1:57:43.240 --> 1:57:48.000 Before that happened. When the clients came out, their activities 1:57:48.080 --> 1:57:51.480 certainly hinted at hunting. They would lead dogs and carry 1:57:51.520 --> 1:57:54.600 shotguns and shoot at edible birds that were flying through 1:57:54.600 --> 1:57:57.880 the air. But while game farm hunting does have these 1:57:58.040 --> 1:58:02.480 attributes of actual hunting, lacks the beautiful essence of uncertainty 1:58:02.840 --> 1:58:05.800 that is to hunting what pan drippings are to gravy. 1:58:06.600 --> 1:58:08.840 The hunter's success did not come from the fact that 1:58:08.880 --> 1:58:12.040 they'd studied the species and learned its ways and scouted 1:58:12.080 --> 1:58:15.360 its habitat. Instead, it came because they paid some guy 1:58:15.480 --> 1:58:17.680 to raise the birds and then make sure they were 1:58:17.720 --> 1:58:20.400 put out in the field where the hunters almost couldn't 1:58:20.440 --> 1:58:24.400 help but find them. One day, Bill invited me to 1:58:24.480 --> 1:58:27.520 hunt his place. This seemed like a strange choice of 1:58:27.600 --> 1:58:31.560 words for him to use. While Bill definitely advertised his 1:58:31.720 --> 1:58:35.000 business as hunting, he in no way actually thought of 1:58:35.080 --> 1:58:35.800 it as hunting. 1:58:36.360 --> 1:58:37.600 For him, hunting was. 1:58:37.640 --> 1:58:40.880 Packing his horses twenty miles into the upper Gray Bowl 1:58:41.000 --> 1:58:44.480 region of the Absorca Mountains to chase mule, deer, elk, 1:58:44.800 --> 1:58:48.000 and sometimes big horned sheep on a landscape defined by 1:58:48.120 --> 1:58:52.520 craggy peaks, narrow trails, and big grizzlies. When I asked 1:58:52.600 --> 1:58:56.000 him about this, he explained that his season was winding down, 1:58:56.400 --> 1:58:58.720 and that they were months worth of runaway birds on 1:58:58.800 --> 1:59:02.040 the property that had either eluded his clients or escaped 1:59:02.080 --> 1:59:05.839 his nets. At first I told him that I couldn't 1:59:06.440 --> 1:59:08.960 with all due respect, I said it ran contrary to 1:59:09.040 --> 1:59:11.760 my ethics. But then I got to thinking about it. 1:59:12.280 --> 1:59:15.200 I thought about how these bird species were not indigenous 1:59:15.280 --> 1:59:18.440 to this region or even to the continent, about how 1:59:18.480 --> 1:59:21.880 they'd probably never survived the winter, and about how if 1:59:21.960 --> 1:59:25.000 they did, their presence on the land was at least 1:59:25.160 --> 1:59:27.880 as false a concept as hunting for them would be. 1:59:28.720 --> 1:59:31.680 I also considered how tasty they'd be, so I went 1:59:31.720 --> 1:59:34.000 out with Bill, shot a few birds, boned them out, 1:59:34.080 --> 1:59:36.520 and cooked them in a stir fry. To this day 1:59:36.560 --> 1:59:39.600 I find myself thinking about the rightness and wrongness of 1:59:39.680 --> 1:59:42.760 that hunt, and I only mention it now so that 1:59:42.920 --> 1:59:46.400 I don't come across as overly cocky about the certitude 1:59:46.440 --> 1:59:50.240 of my own moral compass. It's helpful to think of 1:59:50.320 --> 1:59:53.000 the ethics of hunting as a form of religion, and 1:59:53.120 --> 1:59:56.200 that most people's beliefs are influenced as much by where 1:59:56.280 --> 1:59:59.600 they were born as bout what they've learned since leaving home. 2:00:00.480 --> 2:00:02.600 I grew up in an area where hunting deer over 2:00:02.720 --> 2:00:06.320 bait was the normal way of doing things. In late September, 2:00:06.640 --> 2:00:10.800 we'd sometimes drive to a carrot processing facility near Grant, Michigan, 2:00:11.120 --> 2:00:13.800 where we could buy a pickup load of oversized and 2:00:13.920 --> 2:00:17.720 misshapen carrot rejects for five dollars. We'd then go to 2:00:17.800 --> 2:00:21.200 our hunting areas and shovel these carrots into a duluthe 2:00:21.240 --> 2:00:23.680 pack and lug them into the woods near the intersection 2:00:23.760 --> 2:00:27.240 of deer trails. Once a pile started getting hit by deer, 2:00:27.520 --> 2:00:29.920 we'd add more carrots and hang a tree stand in 2:00:30.000 --> 2:00:34.960 a nearby tree. Hunting over bait, I spent an incalculable 2:00:34.960 --> 2:00:38.040 amount of cold and miserable hours without seeing a single deer. 2:00:38.840 --> 2:00:41.960 Sometimes the bow season would pass without my getting a 2:00:42.040 --> 2:00:45.440 shot at an animal, except maybe a squirrel or grouse 2:00:45.480 --> 2:00:48.920 that passed beneath my tree. The limited number of deer 2:00:49.040 --> 2:00:52.080 that lived in my hunting area had adapted to the 2:00:52.200 --> 2:00:55.360 absurd abundance of bait piles in the woods and had 2:00:55.480 --> 2:00:59.280 learned to simply avoid them during daylight hours. After all, 2:00:59.600 --> 2:01:01.760 there were plenty of other foods for them to eat, 2:01:02.160 --> 2:01:04.680 such as the apples and corn, and the orchards and 2:01:04.800 --> 2:01:07.160 fields that were often within a few hundred yards of 2:01:07.240 --> 2:01:10.760 our bait. So by using a strategy that some might 2:01:10.880 --> 2:01:13.960 describe as cheating or as taking away the challenge of 2:01:14.000 --> 2:01:17.400 the hunt, we were doing something that, in hindsight, had 2:01:17.440 --> 2:01:21.440 the effect of making deer hunting almost too challenging. Twenty 2:01:21.560 --> 2:01:24.880 something years later, I no longer hunt over bait at all. 2:01:25.520 --> 2:01:29.040 My reasons for this are not based entirely on ethics. Instead, 2:01:29.160 --> 2:01:32.280 I am not interested in using artificial bait because I 2:01:32.320 --> 2:01:35.680 am not interested in hunting animals that are doing artificial things. 2:01:36.280 --> 2:01:38.480 To go out and find a deer by solving the 2:01:38.600 --> 2:01:41.440 riddle of its natural patterns is far more enticing to 2:01:41.560 --> 2:01:45.600 me than finding a deer by interrupting those patterns. Baiting 2:01:45.760 --> 2:01:48.400 is not, in my opinion, a type of hunting that 2:01:48.600 --> 2:01:52.680 fosters an intelligent understanding of animals. But if you enjoy it, 2:01:53.000 --> 2:01:58.040 go ahead. My impression of hunting animals with hounds was 2:01:58.160 --> 2:02:02.240 formed through an equally subjective and haphazard set of experiences. 2:02:03.080 --> 2:02:05.920 My introduction to this kind of hunting came when I 2:02:06.040 --> 2:02:08.839 was about eighteen years old and was invited to accompany 2:02:08.880 --> 2:02:12.320 a raccoon hunter whom we'll call Dave. It was the 2:02:12.440 --> 2:02:16.200 late summer training season, when you're allowed to exercise your 2:02:16.280 --> 2:02:18.240 coon dogs in the woods, but you're not allowed to 2:02:18.280 --> 2:02:21.960 kill any raccoons. We went out at about eleven PM 2:02:22.280 --> 2:02:24.320 and turned the dogs out of the truck along a 2:02:24.360 --> 2:02:27.600 two track. We then drove along with the dogs running 2:02:27.640 --> 2:02:29.920 out ahead of us, the way you see some lazy 2:02:30.000 --> 2:02:33.600 people exercise their pets. We hadn't gone a mile when 2:02:33.640 --> 2:02:36.120 the dogs struck a hot trail and bellowed their way 2:02:36.200 --> 2:02:39.200 down a slope and across a creek and into the darkness. 2:02:40.160 --> 2:02:42.960 Dave cut the truck's engine and we listened to the dogs. 2:02:43.680 --> 2:02:46.080 He could tell from the pitch and intensity of their 2:02:46.160 --> 2:02:48.640 barks that they had already brought the raccoon to bay. 2:02:49.480 --> 2:02:52.000 With headlamps, we walked down the slope and across the 2:02:52.080 --> 2:02:55.160 creek and found the hounds scratching at a small oak. 2:02:56.000 --> 2:02:58.480 Up in the limbs were a female raccoon in several 2:02:58.560 --> 2:03:01.640 of her young cubs. Dave then explained to me that 2:03:01.760 --> 2:03:03.760 it wasn't good to pull the dogs away from the 2:03:03.840 --> 2:03:07.240 raccoons without killing one, because they might lose interest in 2:03:07.360 --> 2:03:10.720 hunting if they weren't properly rewarded. So he raised up 2:03:10.760 --> 2:03:12.880 a twenty two pistol that I didn't even know he 2:03:13.080 --> 2:03:15.920 had and shot one of the raccoon cubs dead out 2:03:15.960 --> 2:03:18.560 of the tree. After that, I told him I was 2:03:18.600 --> 2:03:20.720 done for the night, and I honestly figured that I 2:03:20.760 --> 2:03:23.800 wouldn't be hanging around any more houndsmen for at least 2:03:23.880 --> 2:03:28.280 a long time. But now in the deserts of Arizona, 2:03:28.640 --> 2:03:31.320 I was not only hanging out with a pair of houndsmen, 2:03:31.600 --> 2:03:34.240 I was doing everything I could to help them, And 2:03:34.600 --> 2:03:37.120 as I was learning, the pursuit of a lion is 2:03:37.240 --> 2:03:40.080 much more complicated than simply shooting an animal out of 2:03:40.160 --> 2:03:43.320 a tree. The real challenge was getting an animal into 2:03:43.400 --> 2:03:46.800 a tree in the first place. Doing that required finding 2:03:46.920 --> 2:03:49.840 something known in the parlance of lion hunters as an 2:03:49.920 --> 2:03:53.440 overnight track. That means a lion track that was made 2:03:53.520 --> 2:03:57.200 within the past eight or nine hours, when conditions are right, 2:03:57.440 --> 2:04:00.760 not too windy, not too dewey, not too rare. A 2:04:00.880 --> 2:04:03.640 track of that vintage is likely to retain enough of 2:04:03.680 --> 2:04:06.880 the lion's residual odor for dogs to be able to 2:04:06.960 --> 2:04:09.760 pick up the scent and trail it. Yet, despite the 2:04:09.840 --> 2:04:12.920 slaughter of calves that had occurred here, the previous spring, 2:04:13.400 --> 2:04:16.400 and despite the recently killed deer that we found, we 2:04:16.520 --> 2:04:20.320 had yet to locate a promising overnight track after days 2:04:20.360 --> 2:04:24.520 of searching for one. Every day, Floyd and I would 2:04:24.560 --> 2:04:27.920 wake up well before sunrise. Joe would already be gone, 2:04:28.040 --> 2:04:30.600 having left so early in the morning that it was 2:04:30.720 --> 2:04:33.800 more like nighttime. Floyd and I would head into the 2:04:33.880 --> 2:04:37.880 desert with some predetermined landscape feature as our ultimate destination, 2:04:38.600 --> 2:04:43.480 masas rocky buttes, deeply in sized canyons, high ridge lines, 2:04:43.720 --> 2:04:49.240 saddles passes, all places where lions are likely to either hunt, sleep, 2:04:49.440 --> 2:04:52.960 or travel through. Floyd is in his mid fifties, and 2:04:53.040 --> 2:04:56.280 his appearance brings to mind Robert Redford when the actor 2:04:56.400 --> 2:04:59.880 was about that same age. He's part owner of Western 2:05:00.160 --> 2:05:04.000 Hunter and Elk Hunter magazines and full owner of Outdoorsman's, 2:05:04.080 --> 2:05:07.640 an iconic Phoenix sporting goods store that specializes in high 2:05:07.840 --> 2:05:11.640 end European made optics, as well as Outdoorsman's own line 2:05:11.680 --> 2:05:16.080 of American made backpacking tripod systems. His line of work 2:05:16.160 --> 2:05:19.000 allows him to think of chasing lions as a business 2:05:19.080 --> 2:05:22.120 related activity, which means he can hunt as much as 2:05:22.200 --> 2:05:24.600 he wants to without having to feel guilty about it 2:05:25.480 --> 2:05:28.640 some years ago. He and his girlfriend owned and operated 2:05:28.720 --> 2:05:33.160 an aerial photography company. This required Floyd to buy a helicopter. 2:05:33.680 --> 2:05:35.800 I learned to fly a helicopter in a month, he 2:05:35.920 --> 2:05:38.880 told me. Meanwhile, I've been hunting lions for twenty years 2:05:39.000 --> 2:05:42.360 and I'm still learning stuff. Lion hunting is the hardest 2:05:42.400 --> 2:05:46.160 thing I've ever done, At least on this hunt, Floyd 2:05:46.280 --> 2:05:49.680 mostly preferred to look for overnight tracks without the assistance 2:05:49.720 --> 2:05:52.720 of his dogs. For one thing, he didn't want them 2:05:52.760 --> 2:05:54.920 to get tired out before it was time to actually 2:05:55.000 --> 2:05:58.320 chase a lion. For another thing, the passage of all 2:05:58.440 --> 2:06:01.640 those dogs pause has the potential to disturb the delicate 2:06:01.720 --> 2:06:04.960 evidence that a lion might leave while traveling over a 2:06:05.040 --> 2:06:09.480 portion of the Earth's surface that is covered predominantly in rock, cactus, 2:06:09.560 --> 2:06:13.400 and grass, surfaces that do not readily collect the tracks 2:06:13.400 --> 2:06:17.760 of a passing animal. Floyd calls himself a bare ground 2:06:17.880 --> 2:06:21.400 lion hunter, a description that differentiates him from guys who 2:06:21.520 --> 2:06:25.720 hunt colder and wetter regions with predictable and frequent dosages 2:06:25.800 --> 2:06:30.120 of snow, the world's most track friendly substance. While a 2:06:30.200 --> 2:06:32.920 big lion can weigh up to one hundred and fifty pounds. 2:06:32.960 --> 2:06:35.280 It can kill an elk weighing four times as much. 2:06:35.800 --> 2:06:38.240 They seem to walk about as gently as a balloon 2:06:38.400 --> 2:06:41.320 hitting the ground. The only place that they'll leave a 2:06:41.400 --> 2:06:44.680 track is in the sand, and around here sand occurs 2:06:44.760 --> 2:06:48.880 primarily in the same places creek beds. Game trails that 2:06:49.040 --> 2:06:55.400 attract a lot of competing traffic from mule deer, havevelina, cattle, quail, bobcats, coyotes, 2:06:55.480 --> 2:06:58.760 big horn sheep, and dogs if you let them run 2:06:58.800 --> 2:07:02.839 out ahead of you. Floyd spends so much time studying 2:07:02.880 --> 2:07:05.360 the ground for lion tracks that has begun to affect 2:07:05.440 --> 2:07:09.360 his posture. His natural stance has his eyes staring at 2:07:09.440 --> 2:07:12.600 the ground directly ahead of his boots. He's trained himself 2:07:12.680 --> 2:07:14.840 to tune out everything on the ground except for the 2:07:14.960 --> 2:07:18.480 tracks of lions. On average, these measure about three and 2:07:18.480 --> 2:07:21.000 a half inches from front to back and side to side. 2:07:21.800 --> 2:07:25.560 Perfect complete lion tracks are far less common than imperfect 2:07:25.840 --> 2:07:29.160 partial lion tracks. You might just see the imprint of 2:07:29.240 --> 2:07:32.000 a few toes in the sand, or the outline of 2:07:32.040 --> 2:07:34.720 a track that's interrupted by a flat piece of rock. 2:07:35.440 --> 2:07:38.040 The important part of a lion track, the part that 2:07:38.240 --> 2:07:42.440 eliminates impostors, is the trailing edge of the heel pad. 2:07:43.200 --> 2:07:46.080 It leaves an impression in the sand that looks like 2:07:46.200 --> 2:07:51.800 the bottom of three letter us placed together. When we 2:07:51.840 --> 2:07:54.200 were out looking for tracks, Floyd and I had many 2:07:54.320 --> 2:07:58.400 conversations that went like this, here's something interesting. I'd say, 2:07:58.480 --> 2:08:00.680 this has got to be a lion. Looks a little 2:08:00.840 --> 2:08:03.520 like a dog, but it's a lot rounder. You should 2:08:03.600 --> 2:08:06.720 check it out. Can you see the heel pad? Floyd 2:08:06.760 --> 2:08:10.200 would ask, No, I'd say, look for another one, he'd say. 2:08:11.800 --> 2:08:15.360 Then finally it happened. After five long days of doing 2:08:15.440 --> 2:08:18.160 little bit walking and looking for tracks, I found what 2:08:18.240 --> 2:08:21.280 we were searching for. It was blow a large butte 2:08:21.400 --> 2:08:24.080 in a dry creek bed where a few boulders funneled 2:08:24.120 --> 2:08:27.120 the animal traffic into a narrow gap. Here you go, 2:08:27.240 --> 2:08:30.000 I called out to Floyd, here's a heel pad. Sure 2:08:30.080 --> 2:08:33.960 than hell. Floyd walked over to have a look. His 2:08:34.120 --> 2:08:37.880 face registered a moment of interest, but then his enthusiasm waned. 2:08:38.600 --> 2:08:40.880 Looks to me like a coyote track where he spun 2:08:41.000 --> 2:08:43.560 around in the sand, so it looks bigger than normal. 2:08:43.640 --> 2:08:46.680 He said. Then to have Alena step down the back 2:08:46.720 --> 2:08:49.520 of it. That's what gives it a lobed. Look and 2:08:49.680 --> 2:08:51.960 notice how you don't see any more good tracks ahead 2:08:52.000 --> 2:08:54.680 of it or behind it. Just coyote and have Alena 2:08:55.240 --> 2:08:57.760 keep in mind. He went on, anything can make a 2:08:57.880 --> 2:09:00.880 lion track once it takes a line to do it. Twice, 2:09:01.400 --> 2:09:04.360 you find me two good tracks with lob pads, and 2:09:04.440 --> 2:09:07.800 then you've got something worth looking at. While I was 2:09:07.880 --> 2:09:10.880 disappointed by our inability to find a good lion track, 2:09:10.960 --> 2:09:14.680 I was hardly surprised. Prior to my visit to Arizona, 2:09:14.760 --> 2:09:18.280 I had had only three physical encounters with wild mountain lions. 2:09:19.080 --> 2:09:22.360 Each of those encounters reinforced my notion of the animal 2:09:22.680 --> 2:09:27.200 as a secretive and elusive creature. The first encounter stands 2:09:27.240 --> 2:09:30.560 out in my mind most visibly. It happened near Clearwater 2:09:30.720 --> 2:09:34.680 Lake in Montana's Swan Mountains, just after I moved out west. 2:09:35.480 --> 2:09:38.120 That night, i'd been fly fishing for cutthroat trout, and 2:09:38.160 --> 2:09:40.640 I stayed on the water until a little past dark. 2:09:41.320 --> 2:09:43.720 When I was done, I hiked three quarters of a 2:09:43.800 --> 2:09:45.880 mile through the woods back to where my van was 2:09:45.960 --> 2:09:49.320 parked on a forest service road. It was pitch black 2:09:49.360 --> 2:09:51.680 by the time I began to long and bumpy drive 2:09:51.800 --> 2:09:55.760 out toward Highway eighty three. About halfway along, I came 2:09:55.840 --> 2:09:58.360 to a place where the forest service road had been 2:09:58.440 --> 2:10:01.839 cut into the side of a steep hillside. I rounded 2:10:01.880 --> 2:10:03.720 the corner and there was a gang of meal, deeer, 2:10:03.840 --> 2:10:06.080 doze and fawns, all bunched up in the middle of 2:10:06.120 --> 2:10:09.040 the road. When I got close, they ran to the 2:10:09.160 --> 2:10:11.960 right and struggled up the steeply pitched hillside in a 2:10:12.040 --> 2:10:16.680 whirl of hoofs and falling rocks. Just as this was happening, 2:10:17.040 --> 2:10:19.360 I caught in my side view mire a sudden flash 2:10:19.440 --> 2:10:22.720 of movement and the halo of the brake lights. I 2:10:22.840 --> 2:10:25.680 shoved the shifter upward into reverse so that the van's 2:10:25.760 --> 2:10:28.360 backup lights would come on, and then I stuck my 2:10:28.440 --> 2:10:31.600 head out the window to look. There it was, standing 2:10:31.720 --> 2:10:35.160 within inches of the rear bumper, the first mountain lion 2:10:35.240 --> 2:10:38.120 I ever saw. He spun himself in a turn that 2:10:38.240 --> 2:10:42.000 seemed like wine swirling in the glass. With that, the 2:10:42.120 --> 2:10:46.320 lion vanished into the dark. Over the next few weeks, 2:10:46.360 --> 2:10:48.960 I thought about that mountain lion far more than I've 2:10:49.040 --> 2:10:52.520 ever thought about any single living creature, besides a dog 2:10:52.680 --> 2:10:56.040 named Duchess that my family owned for about thirteen years. 2:10:56.760 --> 2:10:58.680 I did a fair bit of thinking about what the 2:10:58.800 --> 2:11:02.440 lion was doing before interrupted its hunt that night, but 2:11:02.560 --> 2:11:05.160 I did a lot more thinking about what it did afterward. 2:11:05.760 --> 2:11:08.040 To the north of where I saw the cat was 2:11:08.120 --> 2:11:11.680 the largest tract of contiguous wilderness in the lower forty 2:11:11.720 --> 2:11:14.880 eight I was baffled by the mystery of that lion 2:11:15.000 --> 2:11:17.960 amid all that country. What did it do over the 2:11:18.080 --> 2:11:21.080 next few days? Where did it hunt? What did it eat? 2:11:21.280 --> 2:11:23.920 Where did it sleep? How did it react to the 2:11:24.040 --> 2:11:26.640 world that it encountered? Where did it go? 2:11:28.400 --> 2:11:31.680 As I pondered these questions and research the answers, I 2:11:31.800 --> 2:11:35.160 realized that the people with the most sophisticated understanding of 2:11:35.240 --> 2:11:37.960 mountain lions were the men and women who hunted them 2:11:38.040 --> 2:11:41.680 with hounds. By following their hounds as they track a lion, 2:11:42.040 --> 2:11:45.120 houndsmen get to literally walk in the trail of their quarry. 2:11:45.560 --> 2:11:47.960 They see where the lion hunts, They see where the 2:11:48.040 --> 2:11:51.720 lion eats, They see where the lion sleeps. They experience 2:11:51.840 --> 2:11:54.720 the land on the terms of the lion. They know 2:11:55.040 --> 2:11:59.640 where the lion goes. The lion hunter is also I 2:11:59.720 --> 2:12:02.160 found out one of the most hated types of hunters 2:12:02.240 --> 2:12:05.400 in the country. If you think of the conflict between 2:12:05.520 --> 2:12:08.720 hunters and anti hunters as a long term war, the 2:12:08.880 --> 2:12:11.920 right to hunt lions with hounds is the current front 2:12:12.000 --> 2:12:15.760 line battlefield in many Western states. This would have been 2:12:15.960 --> 2:12:19.120 unforseeable just one hundred years ago, when it was common 2:12:19.240 --> 2:12:22.440 practice for states to offer bounties on mountain lions because 2:12:22.480 --> 2:12:26.960 of the cats tendencies to prey on livestock. In Arizona, 2:12:27.320 --> 2:12:30.240 killing a lion would earn you fifty dollars. In the 2:12:30.360 --> 2:12:34.600 nineteen sixties and seventies, Western states began to recognize mountain 2:12:34.680 --> 2:12:37.920 lions as an important part of the ecosystem and also 2:12:38.040 --> 2:12:41.400 as a species of interest to big game hunters. Most 2:12:41.440 --> 2:12:45.360 states reclassified lions as a game species and made it 2:12:45.480 --> 2:12:48.520 necessary for hunters to buy a legal hunting license in 2:12:48.560 --> 2:12:52.480 a mountain lion permit in order to kill one. There 2:12:52.520 --> 2:12:55.600 are several ways to hunt lions. You can attract them 2:12:55.640 --> 2:12:58.600 with a predator call, which typically mimics the sounds of 2:12:58.680 --> 2:13:01.840 wounded deer or rabbit. Or you can hang around in 2:13:01.920 --> 2:13:04.880 good lion country hoping that one of the cats happens 2:13:04.920 --> 2:13:07.840 to come along. But by far the most effective way 2:13:07.880 --> 2:13:10.240 to hunt mountain lions is through the use of dogs. 2:13:10.560 --> 2:13:14.560 In Montana, eighty nine percent of lion hunters used dogs, 2:13:14.800 --> 2:13:18.960 and Wyoming it's ninety percent. Over the last twenty five years, 2:13:19.360 --> 2:13:22.680 sixty five percent of all lions harvested by hunters in 2:13:22.720 --> 2:13:27.640 Arizona were killed with the help of dogs. Anti hunters 2:13:27.680 --> 2:13:30.839 have long recognized the importance of dogs and hunting lions. 2:13:31.560 --> 2:13:35.000 I believe that the more organized factions of anti hunters 2:13:35.400 --> 2:13:39.040 camouflage their opposition to hunting in general as a more 2:13:39.120 --> 2:13:43.400 specific opposition to hunting lions with dogs. It allows them 2:13:43.480 --> 2:13:47.680 to wage small scale legal battles against the broader spectrum 2:13:47.760 --> 2:13:50.880 of hunting without having to conquer the issue had on. 2:13:51.880 --> 2:13:55.040 Some of these battles have proved winnable, as it's easy 2:13:55.120 --> 2:13:57.880 to convince people who have never once hunted or laid 2:13:57.960 --> 2:14:00.880 eyes on a wild lion that hunt Hunting animals with 2:14:00.960 --> 2:14:05.240 dogs is somehow a perverse activity. In nineteen ninety four, 2:14:05.640 --> 2:14:09.600 Oregon voters passed an initiative that banned hunting lions with dogs. 2:14:09.880 --> 2:14:13.520 The hunting lions by other means remains legal. The same 2:14:13.600 --> 2:14:17.440 thing is true in Washington and South Dakota. Hunt lions, yes, 2:14:17.760 --> 2:14:21.400 with dogs no. If you're puzzled about how such laws 2:14:21.480 --> 2:14:25.000 could ever come into existence. Consider the results of a 2:14:25.080 --> 2:14:28.920 two thousand and one pole of Arizona residents. While only 2:14:29.040 --> 2:14:32.520 twenty nine percent of those polled indicated that hunting should 2:14:32.520 --> 2:14:36.680 be banned outright, sixty two percent indicated that the use 2:14:36.760 --> 2:14:41.080 of hounds two hunt lions should be illegal. To be 2:14:41.200 --> 2:14:45.560 perfectly honest, I was inspired by my personal lion experience 2:14:46.000 --> 2:14:49.640 to reconsider my own suspicions about the practice of hunting 2:14:49.680 --> 2:14:52.320 them with hounds. I wanted to see one of the 2:14:52.400 --> 2:14:55.360 animals up close and to experience the thrill of eating 2:14:55.400 --> 2:14:58.200 its flesh, and the only realistic way for me to 2:14:58.320 --> 2:15:00.400 do this was to join up with some high hensman 2:15:00.760 --> 2:15:02.800 and head into the hills in search of a track. 2:15:03.480 --> 2:15:05.440 If we got one into a tree and I didn't 2:15:05.520 --> 2:15:07.880 like the way it felt, I could always walk away 2:15:07.960 --> 2:15:13.720 without killing it. While we were hunting lions, Floyd's partner, Joe, 2:15:13.840 --> 2:15:15.640 slept in the back of his pickup on a pad 2:15:15.760 --> 2:15:19.440 of carpet. He kept his dogs tethered outside of the truck, 2:15:19.520 --> 2:15:22.440 scattered apart so that they didn't fight or get tangled up. 2:15:23.160 --> 2:15:25.560 When he got up at three am, he would pull 2:15:25.640 --> 2:15:28.720 on a pair of faded Levi's Danner hunting boots in 2:15:28.840 --> 2:15:32.520 one of Floyd's outdoorsmen's backpacks, and then he would unclip 2:15:32.600 --> 2:15:34.640 the pack of hounds and they would take off together 2:15:34.760 --> 2:15:38.480 into the darkness. They would cover several miles before it 2:15:38.560 --> 2:15:41.480 got light out, and then another six or seven miles 2:15:41.520 --> 2:15:44.960 after daybreak. This was an impressive bit of walking for 2:15:45.080 --> 2:15:47.800 a man who'd retired from the concrete laying business, with 2:15:47.960 --> 2:15:51.839 pass injuries including but not limited to a shattered Sternham 2:15:52.240 --> 2:15:56.480 concrete finisher, a gnawed leg, mountain lion, and a gunshot 2:15:56.560 --> 2:15:59.920 wound sustained after dropping a three point fifty seven revolve 2:16:00.160 --> 2:16:02.840 in such a way that the hammer hit the concrete 2:16:03.120 --> 2:16:06.800 and discharged around. As Joe walked, he would use a 2:16:06.880 --> 2:16:09.600 headlamp to study the earth in front of him for tracks. 2:16:10.240 --> 2:16:12.760 His dogs would range out to the sides and ahead 2:16:12.800 --> 2:16:15.160 of his line of travel with their noses to the ground. 2:16:15.800 --> 2:16:18.880 By their specific barks, he could tell whether they were 2:16:18.960 --> 2:16:23.760 detecting the recent passage of a lion. He spent five 2:16:23.880 --> 2:16:28.080 whole days this way without any significant strokes of luck. Then, 2:16:28.240 --> 2:16:30.520 on our last day of hunting, Floyd and I were 2:16:30.560 --> 2:16:33.520 getting ready to leave camp when we heard a cacophony 2:16:33.560 --> 2:16:36.600 of bellows coming from Joe's dogs high on the mountain 2:16:36.640 --> 2:16:40.000 above us. It sounded like someone torturing a gang of 2:16:40.120 --> 2:16:43.920 opera singers. Even from a great distance, Floyd knew exactly 2:16:43.959 --> 2:16:47.400 what Joe's dogs were saying. That dog you hear there 2:16:47.600 --> 2:16:50.760 with the low bellow. He doesn't make noise on an 2:16:50.879 --> 2:16:54.160 old lion trail, said Floyd. He's too old and wise 2:16:54.280 --> 2:16:57.879 for that. He only makes noise on a good overnight track. 2:16:59.360 --> 2:17:02.000 We studied the mountainside where the barking was coming from, 2:17:02.080 --> 2:17:05.240 and soon spotted the flickers of light from Joe's headlamp. 2:17:06.040 --> 2:17:08.640 He was moving quickly across the face of the mountain. 2:17:09.280 --> 2:17:11.440 There was a notch in the skyline that marked the 2:17:11.640 --> 2:17:15.080 entrance to a canyon, and soon Joe's light disappeared into 2:17:15.160 --> 2:17:18.600 that notch. The sound from the dog's barking began to 2:17:18.680 --> 2:17:22.560 fade as the distance increased. Joe's voice then came over 2:17:22.600 --> 2:17:25.840 the walkie talking. He implored Floyd to cut loose some 2:17:26.000 --> 2:17:29.760 of his dogs. Have you seen a track yet, asked Floyd, 2:17:29.840 --> 2:17:32.480 Any idea? What way the lion's going? Is it a tom? 2:17:33.040 --> 2:17:36.320 No tracks yet, said Joe, But they're really moving the trail. 2:17:36.680 --> 2:17:38.840 Just get some dogs loose and get them up here. 2:17:40.440 --> 2:17:43.520 Floyd unleashed six of his own dogs, who immediately headed 2:17:43.640 --> 2:17:46.960 uphill towards the source of the barking. Floyd then turned 2:17:47.000 --> 2:17:50.720 to me and said, we better get moving. The canyon 2:17:50.800 --> 2:17:53.760 that Joe and the dogs entered described a long arc. 2:17:53.920 --> 2:17:56.760 Floyd explained he figured that we might catch up with 2:17:56.879 --> 2:17:59.920 them by following a neighboring canyon through a straight or route. 2:18:01.000 --> 2:18:04.880 We headed across a sage patch, passed them sauaro cactuses, 2:18:05.240 --> 2:18:08.359 and then into the mouth of the canyon. The daylight 2:18:08.480 --> 2:18:11.200 grew as we made our way into the dry brown mountains. 2:18:11.680 --> 2:18:14.680 As we walked, Floyd explained the trouble of chasing a 2:18:14.840 --> 2:18:17.520 lion that the dogs could smell, but that you haven't 2:18:17.560 --> 2:18:20.640 seen a track from. While the dogs can certainly tell 2:18:20.720 --> 2:18:23.440 that a lion has passed through, they are not able 2:18:23.520 --> 2:18:27.000 to determine which direction it is traveling. This can lead 2:18:27.040 --> 2:18:30.880 to obvious and considerable confusion. As Floyd put it, there's 2:18:30.920 --> 2:18:33.280 a fifty to fifty chance that the dogs are taking 2:18:33.320 --> 2:18:37.160 to you in the wrong direction. After a mile of walking, 2:18:37.240 --> 2:18:39.240 we still hadn't heard the dogs, and we couldn't tell 2:18:39.280 --> 2:18:42.360 where Joe had gone. We were unable to reach him 2:18:42.360 --> 2:18:46.200 on the walkie talkie as the deeply cut topography interfered 2:18:46.280 --> 2:18:49.960 with the transmissions. We traveled another mile and then left 2:18:50.000 --> 2:18:53.199 the canyon bottom and started walking uphill toward a ridgeline. 2:18:53.720 --> 2:18:56.320 When we got up there, we still couldn't hear anything. 2:18:56.959 --> 2:18:59.880 I noticed a high, thumb shaped spire of rock that 2:19:00.200 --> 2:19:03.080 rose out of the mountains like a city skyscraper, rising 2:19:03.200 --> 2:19:06.920 above buildings half its height. I commented to Floyd that 2:19:07.040 --> 2:19:09.560 the lion was probably headed that way, or at least 2:19:09.640 --> 2:19:12.000 that's where I'd had if I were being chased and 2:19:12.160 --> 2:19:15.720 wanted to elude my pursuers. Floyd replied that the lion 2:19:15.800 --> 2:19:18.840 still didn't know it was being chased. He'd been here 2:19:19.080 --> 2:19:23.120 hours earlier and was probably off sleeping somewhere oblivious to 2:19:23.240 --> 2:19:28.200 our presence in the world. We pressed on. Hours went by, 2:19:28.600 --> 2:19:32.320 and the day passed into afternoon. As it would turn out, 2:19:32.440 --> 2:19:35.520 the line had indeed headed toward the thumb shaped spire 2:19:35.600 --> 2:19:39.480 of rock, whether or not he knew he was being followed. Later, 2:19:40.000 --> 2:19:42.200 Floyd and I would finally meet up with Joe near 2:19:42.240 --> 2:19:44.920 its base. By then, the dogs would have lost the 2:19:45.040 --> 2:19:47.960 lion's trail, and they'd be too exhausted to follow it. 2:19:48.080 --> 2:19:51.520 Even if they hadn't, we would find them lolling around 2:19:51.640 --> 2:19:54.560 on a jumble of rocks. Now and then one of 2:19:54.600 --> 2:19:57.800 the dogs would lick a certain rock and bellow it's saliva, 2:19:57.959 --> 2:20:01.320 having released some trace of a lion's order. Then it 2:20:01.360 --> 2:20:04.560 would head off in some direction or another, making a ruckus. 2:20:05.000 --> 2:20:07.600 I would get excited all over again, thinking that I 2:20:07.680 --> 2:20:10.240 might still get my chance to see a lion up close. 2:20:10.680 --> 2:20:14.200 But each time the dog would return, having lost interest 2:20:14.320 --> 2:20:19.119 in what was becoming an increasingly cold trail. Finally, Joe 2:20:19.200 --> 2:20:22.160 and Floyd suggested that we start the long walk back 2:20:22.240 --> 2:20:25.640 toward camp. We all had to be somewhere the next day. 2:20:26.440 --> 2:20:30.360 I walked away in silence, disappointed that I was unable 2:20:30.440 --> 2:20:33.320 to learn whether it was challenging to shoot a lion 2:20:33.480 --> 2:20:36.240 out of a tree. Getting to that final moment of 2:20:36.320 --> 2:20:40.520 truth had been quite simply too challenging.