Off the Record With Steven Rinella

Early on, I was very interested in engaging with that outside audience.

I felt this compulsion to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

here, let me show you.

There's a real effort to sanitize, because it was a fear of offending people.

I was focused there, and then over time I just realized I was more focused on being

like, isn't this a beautiful world, we inhabit.

How do you decide what other people get to see about your life?

Hey, what's up?

This is John Deloney, and this is a special episode of Off the Record.

This is kind of a new episode that we're dropping once every few weeks on Saturday

mornings.

These are interviews.

These are conversations I'm having with some of my friends, people I admire, and in today's

case, a hero of mine.

When I put together a list of, I would love to get these particular men and women on

this show.

This guest today was at the very top of the list.

I'm talking about the great and awesome Steve Ronella.

Steve Ronella is the founder of Meet Eater, which is a hunting and cooking show, but he's

also an amazing writer.

He's written a number of best-selling books.

He's a historian.

He's just a mastermind.

The show has very little to do with hunting today.

We're both big hunters, but it has very little to do with that.

We're talking about marriage.

We're talking about kids.

We're talking about balancing the chaos that's our life.

We talk about what scares us to death, about the future for our kids, and what we're excited

about for our kids.

We also talk about how do you manage things that you're really passionate about in a marriage

when your spouse is not passionate about those things.

He's one of my favorite conversations off camera and on Steve's an amazing guy, just

a great, kind human being and a wealth of knowledge.

Buckle up, put your headphones in, turn it up a little bit, and enjoy my conversation

with the great and wonderful Steve Ronella.

The most important thing we have to talk about is this.

You were on my friend Sean Ryan's show, and he lives right here.

I take Sean out hunting, and he shoots his first buck, and I said, Sean, you can't take

a picture of that buck and put it on the internet, and so he tells you the story, and I'm watching

it, and I was like, oh, that's me, that's me.

And then you go, man, I don't want to disparage your friend, but that guy is an idiot.

That guy's an old man.

I was like, oh, okay, so here's my question, it was awesome, by the way.

Here's my question, how do you decide what other people get to see about your life?

Well, I give you kids how do you post, because I'm navigating that, and all the parents

I talk to, like, what do I put this, and it feels, you do it at such a public scale,

and it's such a third-real issue, right?

Yeah, we, there's a dramatic pause, but it's not the minute it's more like, I'm faking,

it's not a dramatic pause, it's just a thinking pause, and the reason, because it's been

a little bit, our paths are toward, when I say we, like, our path toward what I share,

we share, is a we path, is something that my wife and I have navigated together.

Early on, we had our three kids, we had our first kid, remember, he, he wound up, our

first kid, James, wound up being in some media projects, I did, like, as a baby, okay.

And then, we just landed, where we didn't like the way that felt.

And we found that we had to make, we found that we just had to make a rule, and to an outside

perspective, it might seem arbitrary, but we just needed, like, make a thing, just y'all

too.

Yeah, we just, we're like, what is the rule?

Yeah.

And we hit on this rule, that we don't show our kids face as publicly, okay.

The reason it seems arbitrary is, because I might put, I would maybe, on social media,

I would show a picture of my kids looking the other direction, or if they're holding

the fish up, the fish might be in front of their face, but it just, like, made, it made

a thing that we don't do.

And then it ruled out certain things, right?

I mean, there's no way our kids are going to be, sort of, like, talking on video projects

or, like, coming on TV shows, right, they can't, because we don't show their face.

And it worked, it worked really well, because it just gave us, like, a line not to cross.

And you want to be, you don't have to debate, we didn't need to, like, debate everything.

The pros and cons of every possible.

Or she sent me posted and she gets upset, doesn't say anything.

Yeah, because, like, is their face or not their face?

And so it just was, it just, it worked remarkably well, and we never had to revisit it.

What we ran into now is, is now I have a, my youngest boy is now 15.

And so we let him, he's very interested in photography.

I don't know if he'll pursue it as a career, but he's, like, very interested in photography.

Very interested in wildlife photography.

We let him get a social media page.

And the deal at first was that he couldn't post anything without a can.

It was me, you know, because we were explaining him, like, man, you could, you could screw up

and forever be haunted.

Yeah, I mean, like, when it's out there, like, you do a, you do a dumb thing.

And it's just, it's out there.

The other day, he posted something or another, and I was like, I never looked at it.

And he pointed out, there's a guy who worked with a photographer who I worked very closely

with and have for a long time named Seth Morris.

We traveled together and I said, you never checked that with me.

He's like, well, I checked it with Seth.

I'm like, okay, it's not what we said, but it's good.

Got a check plate.

Well played.

It's a good guy to check with.

But now we said, so we're doing that now.

He's into it.

So that handles the kid aspect of it.

The other aspects of it, I don't really, I don't really know.

I don't do things quick.

You know, I don't do things impulsively.

And I found too that maybe this is a function of getting older.

I just turned 52 there a day.

I'm just less and less and I'm less and less interested in social media.

Like I don't get excited about it anymore.

Yes, yes across the board.

It feels like a different landscape.

I love video, I like doing stuff.

I mean, we distribute video in all mannerways.

Some people would regards YouTube as social media.

I don't.

I don't either.

You know, I love making things like, like,

pieces that I know are just going to live on YouTube,

love doing it, love books, love podcasts,

less and less interest in social media.

I can see a future where I'm just not, I'm out.

I'll just tape it off.

I got, I slowly tapered off alcohol.

I don't drink any alcohol.

I just quit.

I just quit.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

It wasn't a big event.

No, I just one day was like, wow, I don't drink anymore.

I could picture some day being like, wow, I don't,

you saw some videos.

That I'm hearing that, like, not even from people

who produce videos and things, but just the average people,

like, it's burned out.

Like, it hasn't, it hasn't solved the problem in my life.

It said it was going to solve.

In fact, it's made it worse.

And so, what if I just, how do I talk to a person in real life?

Now, how do I do that?

Yeah.

I struggle with that balance of,

because we made the same rule with our kids.

Oh, you did?

Yeah.

And mine was less thoughtful than yours.

Mine was more anxiety-ridden, like, one day,

this computer's, right?

Oh.

And that was 15 years ago.

I just, I didn't, I didn't want my son and now my daughter

to have to answer for their face beyond something

that they didn't have any input on, right?

Like, he'll have to, my son's 15,

the day's coming when he will be responsible

for what the world sees that he's put out.

But I don't want it to be on me.

Yeah, I know.

I already feel bad telling stories about him from stage a lot.

I had this debate, I had this debate with a friend of mine

whose kids have always been part of his stuff.

And he's like, hey, man, if I'm a dairy farmer,

my kids, they're going to get the morning of milk cows.

He's like, this media, that's a family business.

Yeah.

I get it, but man, it's his take, not my take,

but it's his take, and I was like, okay, you know,

you thought about it, you thought about it.

Yeah, but the cows see you.

Not every computer and cows keep a secret.

And they do.

cows look at you and they're like, we see, we know, man.

So how do you decide?

How have you navigated?

And you started talking about hunting.

You started showing what this looks like when it was,

it's way more accepted now.

Hmm.

You think so?

I think so.

Maybe I'm, I guess maybe the, I haven't heard of people

like Dowson cans of paint on people in fur coats recently,

right?

Like, correct.

You're still going to have people with that, actually.

I don't know what to do, but, but, okay.

I think that, but you came in this when it was like,

no one had ever seen, yeah, we were showing,

we were, you know, 12 years ago, whatever,

we were showing, hunting, we were showing aspects

of hunting that hadn't been shown to a large audience.

People knew grandpa went hunting,

they didn't know what they meant.

Yeah, yeah.

We were, we were like kind of capturing a very detailed

portrait, a very, you know, for lack of a better,

I mean, there are better words.

I don't mean for lack of a better word.

Come too lazy to find a better word.

We were showing a very graphic treatment of hunting

at a time when that just wasn't out there.

Even to the point where, you know,

we would, we would distribute licensed shows to sportsman

channel at the time.

And we never, and they always encourage what we did,

but they even had policies in place

and other outdoor channels, outdoor, like,

hunting and fishing programs, networks,

had policies in place to block portrayal of, like,

blood, like, even raw meat, you know what I mean?

Wow.

Like, there's a real effort to sanitize.

Yeah, yeah.

Cause it was a fear of offending people.

They don't want to be in kind of the opposite

became true where it was like, people were wondering

what am I not seeing?

Yeah.

It was cathartic or whatever.

It was just to see it get turned into food.

Yeah.

Wanted to not being a detriment,

but it wanted to being additive to the experience

and made a whole new generation of people kind of

understand what it was all about.

But it was, but that was regarded as a risky move

at the time as odd as it seems now.

Well, and that's what I'm fascinated by is

what's your north star in that?

And what I mean by that question is,

I struggle with who gets a vote in my life.

Like, and we were just talking earlier,

35% of the calls that come into my show

are people who have cut off their in-laws

or cut off their parents or parents cut off their kids.

Because of that perceived, I'm tired of them telling me

I need to drive a camera instead of a whatever.

Or they don't like the way I parent my kid.

But I go all the way to, you did that

in the media ecosystem.

Like, I think this is the right thing to do.

And there's gonna be this many people

who not only don't like it,

but who tell me I'm a terrible person

and I'm evil, I'm a strong with the world in Yadda.

But there's a north star said,

no, no, no, this is right.

You know what I mean?

And I wrestle with who gets a vote.

Yeah.

And I look at you, I look at some of the,

what I call the pioneer hunting guys

who took us along with you to say,

at some point y'all said,

I don't care, I think this is right.

Does that make sense?

No, I understand.

I'll approach that in a couple of ways.

A thing I left off when talking about

our decision about our kids.

Years ago, I had gotten a threat

from an animal rights person

and they referenced my family.

And so that was a factor that played into it.

They wound up, it was funny

because it was enough where the FBI went to this person's work,

went to his garbage, he ordered a pepperoni pizza.

I mean, I'm not kidding, they told you everything.

They show up like, you know,

like dressed how they're supposed to be dressed,

the FBI, you know?

It's a guy and a girl,

a guy's got super short hair,

they got trench coats on that kid.

They're like, scared to hell out of this guy.

That influenced our decision.

So you're right, there was a thing

where there was a sort of threatening,

verbal opposition to what I do.

The thing that shocks me,

one of the things that shocks me,

most about kind of where I've spent the ideas

that I've spent exploring in exploring,

sorry, the ideas I've explored through my career,

is it, I don't really get,

that's not a big part of my life

is engaging with people who are like

vehemently opposed to what I do.

I feel like they look at I'm like a lost cause.

Okay, you know, because they can pressure,

like you can, let's say you're like,

there's a lot of closeted,

there's a lot of celebrities are like closeted

about their hunting.

Because there's a thing you can take,

there's a thing you can take away from them.

Right?

You don't get to be in like,

my mood, you don't get to play in Hollywood.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they, they, there's like, yeah, there's like a thing.

Dude, I, yeah, I could, yeah, I could tell you

great stories about, yeah, I could tell you

great stories about closeted hunters.

Because there's something that can be taken away from them.

Yeah, there's like, there's a,

there's a, there's a thing you can pressure, you know,

certain kind of advertisers,

there's a thing you can pressure that's threatening to them.

We recently had a high,

we had a high profile individual

who was going to come on our podcast

and pulled out, just recently,

pulled out the last minute for fear of punish,

getting punished by advertisers, right?

For being on your show?

Yeah, but it's like, this isn't a thing that I'm not even,

like, I don't live this at all.

Okay.

Yeah, cheers.

And I think I don't live it at all

because it's, I'm a lost cause.

Yeah.

What are you gonna take away from me?

You know, so, so in that way,

I guess that people that are opposed to the ideas

I talk about or the lifestyle I have,

like, they have no vote, you know?

Yeah.

To look at the question a different way,

I, I, I used to imagine, like I imagine

there's two audiences for, for a person like me.

There's two potential audiences.

There's one, there's like the audience

that sits on the outside of what I do,

sits on the outside of outdoor,

the outdoors,

it's on the outside of hunting and fishing, right?

So it's on the outside of like any kind of extraction.

It's like you're a zoo animal.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're like on the outside

and they're looking in and they're curious about the world,

they're threatened by it, they hate it, whatever.

And then there's the audience that's on the inside.

And I imagine that being like,

the people I grew up around, the people I hang out with.

Early on, I was very interested in engaging with

that outside audience.

I was like, I don't know why,

I felt this compulsion to be like,

no, no, no, no, no, like here, let me show you.

Like you got it all wrong.

You know, like let me explain all this to you.

I was focused there and then over time,

I just realized I was more like focused on

people from the inside.

Being like, isn't this a beautiful world, we inhabit.

Yeah.

Let's explore this and go deeper in this world

and like kind of push on its boundaries

and think about it together

and in final way to perpetuate it

and save the good parts.

Yeah.

And that's sort of where I imagine spending my time now.

Like I shifted, I was here talking to the outside

and now more and more.

I'm like, I'm very interested in on the inside.

Is that because you felt this is futile

or has this crew become more, more unhinged?

No, I think that's just who I've always heard.

See, like the way you bifurcated that,

I would have said that has been your superpower.

Is the only guy that will run an entire episode

that in obviously you're a great writer and order.

Like, I didn't get anything, I missed, right?

I wounded an animal, now I'm not gonna sleep for five nights.

Like, you're the only guy that's explored failure

in that way, which is awesome.

But it has like my daughter, like again, born in Texas,

two Texas parents, we probably even as in five nights a week

and as to what we have.

And she, she's 10 and she refuses,

she thinks hunting is awful and terrible,

but she watches your show.

All right.

But I put her in this problem.

When it comes to the, she's on the inside.

That animal, she'll do this, right?

She didn't want to see it.

And she's like, oh, you watch it in meter.

Okay, she'll pop down the couch.

And so, but it always felt there's a humanity to it.

Does that make sense?

And you've done it in a way that's not pornographic, right?

It's not just, but there's a human element to it.

Yeah, I, in all fairness, there is like at all times,

it's always been to both.

I guess that I just pictured the emphasis.

Yeah.

Or you know, like when, I remember a piece of writing advice

I got, there was a writer name is a writer name,

Ian Frazier, who's very influential to me

when I was in writing school.

And I don't think this is his advice to all writers,

but he was like, try to get like in your back,

like when you're writing, try to get in that,

your best self, right?

That like at the time, he'd like to drink, I'll drink.

He'd be like, you've had like, you're like in the bar,

you're with your best friends, you've had like a drink,

maybe two, and your best version of my self,

like telling your best, like the best way

you're gonna nail a story.

It's great advice.

You know, and it's like, who is that?

Yeah.

Right?

Not your preachy self.

Yeah, and it's like who is that?

And so when I'm doing my stuff, I guess if I imagine

that that's the me I'm bringing, you know,

I bring it better when I'm kind of talking

to people where I'm like, you know what I mean, right?

Yeah.

You know, maybe you never thought about it.

Maybe you don't have the luxury of thinking about this

all the time professionally, but when I tell you this,

I know it's gonna resonate with you.

You're a cheek on it, right?

And there's like, so that's kind of what I'm getting at, man.

It's a little bit, what I'm saying is,

I recognize it's probably a little confusing,

but it's just a way I've come to think about it.

So how do you, how have you established comfort with,

I mean, burning an episode,

and I say that intentionally.

Like burning an episode to show we missed,

I think it's a lot of courage.

You see what I'm saying?

You mean like, like using it.

Yeah, yeah, you know, and you don't burn anything.

I think those are some of those powerful episodes, right?

They're the fun and they're beautiful in there, whatever,

but being able to say, I, because you have an opportunity

to paint yourself as a hero, right?

The same as every, I was talking to a dad the other day

who's had some bad stuff and he has a, like a,

a 12, 13 year old son.

I said, the greatest gift you can give that kid right now,

so let him see you be sad.

And then he'll know his dad's a person

and then he'll see what you do next, right?

But all of us want to put up the best versions of ourselves.

And that takes a lot.

I've never seen anyone else do what you do in that way.

Yeah.

You know, we became known, when I say we,

like the folks that have always worked on the meat either

to show with, we became known for kind of showing

these different aspects of failure at times.

And it's great, and I like it, but it also,

it was motivated in part by how we worked early on

where you have a whole crew and that's what you got.

Yeah, I mean, we would, so when we started making the show,

I remember we left one time.

The first time we ever went out to make episodes,

we left and we knew we were gonna,

we were gonna make 16 of them in a year, right?

Which is a ton way more than we make now.

We were making 16 a year and we'd go out

and we're gonna, let's say we're gonna go up,

whatever we're gonna go mess around Alaska,

we're gonna go do four and we have 20 days.

So we're gonna do this, this, this, this, this.

You couldn't, it's just like for a hundred reasons,

you couldn't come back and be like,

but we're not gonna use some of it.

Yeah, yeah.

It was just like, it was, there was no way.

Yeah.

And so we just found the way to, just to make it be a story.

And the guys, I've told us so many times that people,

like when I started making meat eater,

I wasn't making it with guys at hunt.

Like, so I was, I had a joint venture.

Like, meat eater was a joint venture between me

and a production company called 0.0 production.

They most famously did all the Bourdain shows.

Okay.

Cooking channel.

Yeah.

So they did, well, they did like a cook's tour,

I think it was called, and then it went to,

no reservations and parts unknown.

Okay.

So, I mean, they like all the Bourdain stuff they filmed.

What they loved about these trips

is they had this like very clear objective, right?

You're gonna, we're gonna try to get this thing.

And they're excited about it.

And they, they want to know if we're gonna get it too.

And then you don't, you don't get it.

They're like, well, that's what happened.

Like, we didn't get it.

To, in their mind to be like, who cares if he didn't get it?

It's like, the story is trying to get it.

And there's this, there's this explanation story

that got its most fundamental level.

Story is, you know, there's this definition of it.

It's like someone or something wants something.

Okay.

And then, but there are obstacles in their way.

Yep.

So it's like Joe, Joe Campbell,

one of one.

Yeah, it's like a snail, like a little snail.

He wants to like get a lettuce leaf.

But he's got to, but across the highway.

Whatever the hell, it's like story is like, you know,

it's sort of like, you wanted this bear.

That's cool.

You didn't get it.

And there was obstacles in your way.

They're insurmountable.

What's there to like, it's cool.

And so I got comfortable with it being cool, you know.

But what if we just, I don't know,

told the truth about what happened?

You know what I mean?

What are they?

Crazy thing.

No, they got a kick out of it.

They loved it.

We had a lot of fun in those days.

And there's, we have this in our crew.

We have this robust debate.

Like is it better, is it, is it better to go get a hunter?

Is it easier to get a hunter and teach him how to hold a camera?

Or is he easy or go get a guy that knows how to hold a camera

and teach him how to be out on a hunt?

It's got to be that one.

Well, there's a real split.

This is a contentious issue.

It's a contentious issue.

I thought it would be really easy to hold a camera.

And those two's are amazing.

In the end, in the end, and I like to tease them.

I like to tease our guys, the guys that work with the top

and then in the end, yeah, I think it's easier to learn

to be sneaky.

Yeah.

It should be quiet.

It is to learn how to have a really good eye and get

like the desert road.

So you walk off.

Man, I can't remember till you asked me.

No, it's a, it's a, well, I'm struck by that.

There's a humanity that runs through it.

And I have a, I was called a bad habit.

I just have a habit of taking any big issue,

global issues, politics issues, like big things,

and distilling them down to,

how does this work at my kitchen table, right?

And just what you give me an example, what you mean, what you,

like, what you, I'll use what you just said.

Like, okay, so we have this, we have this budget,

we have this time, and we have to come back with four episodes,

because that's what we promised the studio.

All right, well, we only were successful,

quote, unquote, in our hunch twice.

And so how are we gonna tell the story?

Yeah.

We could gloss it up, we could go do something else

and pretend it was part of the story, right?

Or we can just tell the truth.

And if I'm sitting with my wife,

trying to come up with a reason why I was late again, right?

I could, I can, you're like, well, you know,

or I could just say, so here's a great example.

Last night, I got home and I was like,

to my wife, her name is Sheila, and I was like,

hey, this has been weighing on me.

And I need you to come up, I've got a room where I write

and do all my stuff.

And I said, I need you to come up here.

I have a deep secret that I've been keeping from you,

and I'm ashamed of it, and I just gotta let it out.

Are you gonna tell me?

I'll tell you, yeah.

I think this comes out, so come on, yeah, yeah.

And she was like, well, okay, let's, here we go.

And long story short, as I had a,

I'm trying to come up with a, my son's gonna turn 16.

And I tried to come up with something

that was gonna be like just awesome, right?

And so I had a guy who makes custom rifles,

and he made this amazing thing and engraved some stuff

for me to my son on it and all that.

But the thing that I was upset about,

that it just, it was a light bulb for me was,

here's this cool passing of the torch gift to my son,

who's been with me, I didn't get a hunt until late,

so he's been with me every opening day, right?

Since he was little, little pity.

I didn't include my wife in it, right?

And so I've been thinking of like,

how do I like navigate this story?

And here I am with like a parenting and a marriage show.

And I'm like, well, how do I spend this,

and I was like, I'm gonna bring it up in my writing room

and say like, I left you out of this thing.

And after I finished it, she was like,

in this bullet, that's from your mom.

That's her.

Exactly.

She, she signed it, this little authority,

so it's special, right?

But, but when we got done, she started laughing,

she's like, that's really what we're doing here.

And I was like, well, I just want you to know,

she's like, yeah, yeah.

Okay, and she's like, every done now,

and she walked out, she's laughing.

But like, because she might be instinctively more collaborative

than you.

Well, it was, I'm usually the overly collaborative one,

but it was just, I got so absorbed with the thing,

but going back to, if you just told the truth,

like, this is what happened,

and then suddenly that becomes like a,

people, I trust that guy.

That's the thing that, the thing that I get

from you most is I trust that guy.

You know, in all fairness, there's a thing to consider,

is there's a, there's a built in artifacts to TV production

because we have a thing called like the shoot,

the shoot ratio.

Meaning, if you're shooting,

shooting weapons or shooting film.

Okay.

Picture that you're,

picture that you're shooting 20 minutes of film

for every minute used.

But it's usually, it's a bigger ratio, okay?

So you go out, let's say you go out

and you do something for five days,

and you're up before dark,

and you're still kind of doing stuff at dusk,

and all day you're just rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling.

The minute you go and pick your 22 minutes,

which a 30 minute show was 22 minutes of material,

the minute you go and pick the 22,

like something's happened.

Yeah.

Did you follow me?

Oh yeah, totally.

Where long, long periods of whatever get cut

and little side trips don't pan out.

Do you know what I mean?

So there is baked into it a, it's not all there.

Yes.

A bunch of stuff happened that's not there,

and it's condensed,

and the thing can wind up seeing,

perhaps more exciting than it was.

Boredom can seem poetic, rather than boring.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, totally.

Right, like boredom.

Our three of glassing is not fun.

Yeah, boredom is conveyed with some beautiful time lapse

of some sense.

And a great, like over, like yes, over.

If you're really gonna capture the feeling,

it'd be that we're just gonna have the video stop now,

and you the audience will sit there for hours.

I'm wondering when it's gonna start back up again.

So there is a, you know, you're making a piece of entertainment

and part of doing that is you're making decisions

about what goes, but I think that like striving to,

striving to maintain a level of like purity,

a level of responsibility,

that's good aspiration to have,

and I just have never found where that sits at odds

with making something that's entertaining.

Agreed.

I mean, they kind of work hand in hand.

But that is not a consensus view.

No, I don't think so.

I think the consensus view is I have to look

as good as possible.

And I deal with the married couples who are like,

yeah, but they have it all together,

or they're working on a great,

or I want it to be like,

I don't know, I have to be like this woman on this movie

or whatever, and it's like, that's not.

I should have brought the wife down here, man.

We're going to do it, we're going to do it.

Solve some stuff.

Solve some stuff, man.

She'd be like, I button.

Yeah, exactly.

One second, please.

We're talking about the crew about that.

That would be a great, just bringing an episode

of the wives of people who are on TV

and people who hunt and fish.

Like that would be a dark episode, man.

All right, so let's talk about that.

I want to talk about, you mind talking about being married?

Oh, no, man, I love being married.

All right, so you have this great quote here.

I love it.

Oh, really?

I'm writing a book about marriage right now.

And I found an article, it's an old school.

I didn't find it, one of the people on my team did.

Said, you describe your marriage one time

as a mismatch made in heaven.

What does that mean?

My wife is not the outdoorsman that I am.

Sort of coincidentally, we grew up not too far apart.

We met in New York.

We met like the first time I ever stepped foot in New York City.

I mean, the first time ever is I had sold my first book

to Miramax.

My wife worked for Miramax at that time.

Miramax publishing, are you going to get me into a film?

So no, the film house had a publishing arm.

Oh, wow.

So my wife used to work for Bob and Harvey Weinstein

at Miramax.

They bought my first book.

First time I ever stepped foot in New York

was to meet the publishing team.

Yeah.

That's how I met my wife.

Wow.

Turns out that she grew up a couple hours away from me

to try to get as far away from there as possible.

Yeah, so like I went to, I was at the time

I was living in Alaska all over the place.

No, that's not, where was I living at the time?

Not anywhere I was living at the time.

Montana, I think.

I was living in Montana at the time when we met.

And, but we knew the same rock stations, you know?

Like we both listened to KLQ, whatever.

Like we do all the same, like all the kind of same stuff.

We just knew about it.

But we met far away and she was like very committed

to urban life.

Like she wanted to work in book publishing

and book publishing at that time.

So that was where you went to work in book publishing.

So that's how we met.

And then some years went by before we were in a relationship.

By the time we were in a relationship, I was living tempered.

I tried to move to Alaska, but it didn't stick.

And because she was living there.

And so we just, we kind of bonded over shared experience.

I mean, we're very, I think emotionally,

we're very similar.

But just our, what we choose to do with our time

is very different.

Then in time we bond very much over kids.

And she has a relationship with the stuff we do in our kid.

My kids are obsessed with it.

They love hunting, they love fishing.

You know, they like sports too, but they like the stuff

I like to do.

And she is a, she observes it.

She loves that they do it.

Loves that they do it.

Loves that we do it.

What else is good about it?

This is advice to dads out there.

If I take all three kids to go do something,

you can do no wrong.

That's right.

That's right.

It's like there is no wrong.

That's 100%.

There is no wrong.

If I'm like, Hey, I'm taking all the kids.

Yeah.

And we're all in fishing.

It's like, you guys have a good time.

That's right.

Sounds good.

There's no greater gift.

And so it just, it works really well,

but there's just that lingering difference, you know?

And it's only becoming like, we have a 15 year old now.

And it's becoming where we do, we do talk about this.

And she wonders about it.

And it's good to wonder about it.

She's like, but what happens later?

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Someday the kids are going to be like all you,

like all your kids, all your little unofficial bodies

leave.

Oh no, I'm dead.

I'm dying.

Right, they leave.

And they go and like, they have their own families and stuff.

And then like, you know, and I've proposed to her arrangements.

I'm like, I got a deal for you.

We spend half the time doing what I want

and half time doing what you want.

And she's like reluctant to take the deal.

Any time the husband says, I got a deal for you.

I'm like, no, like half the days we do what I want.

Like we're retired.

You know, half the days I pick, half the days you pick

where they come in blocks.

She's reluctant to eat.

She's like, why would you not take that deal?

We're going to go from your deer hunting to downtown Denver.

Yeah, like we start hunting turkeys.

And like we start hunting turkeys in late March.

We finish hunting turkeys in late May.

And then you get a couple of months doing whatever you want to do.

My, my, I had an event I was doing.

And it fell on opening day this year.

And it was my 15 year old.

He's like, man, I hope this is important, dad.

And I was like, why?

And he goes, you only got three more left with me.

And then I'm gone.

And I was like, bro, that hurts, man.

That was low, dude, but he was right.

We've developed a lot of those, they kind of add up.

We have a lot of traditions now.

Like little hunting fish and traditions.

They eat up the calendar.

Like little family, I'm already pre grieving that.

Like so in my former life, I worked in universities forever.

And the number of dads who I would hug on move in morning,

who were just sobbing.

And I just rolled my eyes through the back of my head.

Like, good God, dude, shut up.

Now I'm like already pre.

Like I don't know what it's going to be like to walk out there

in September or my kids away in college and I'm by myself.

Like I don't know if I'm ready for that day.

I'm depressed about it.

I don't think it was like that.

Like I don't think with, I wonder if our dads thought that.

No, I know how to say it.

I was just going to get at it.

I don't think it was like that.

We just kind of like, I grew up with siblings.

And we were brought up to hunt fish and trap.

And just eventually, it's in high school.

We just really stayed all the way into it

but just moved kind of away.

Yeah.

And I never even thought to wonder what the experience was like

for the old man.

Yeah.

You know, that's what I was like the most.

Now it's like the most depressing thought in the world, dude.

You know, yeah, it's so funny to think about.

Like did they also need to wake up

and they're like all out, like they all went fishing

but didn't tell.

Do you know how you're like, well, yeah.

But not having like our dads, like not having the skill set

to be like, hey, I want to come.

Or I like, I don't know how dad's especially our dads

didn't know how to do that.

So they just probably went back to the newspaper.

I know you wouldn't know.

I was like, I'm telling you, man,

till still sitting here right now,

like I've never in my life contemplated.

Till this second, I've never in my life contemplated

how my dad had that experience.

I know.

What a terrible son, man.

What does I think about it all the time now?

Well, but here's the other side of it.

So a couple of years ago, I put together this big,

it was my fantasy.

I put together down in South Texas, a hunt.

It was going to be a three generation hunt.

My dad, me, my son, my dad and I have been hunting never.

And when he was a homicide detective

and Houston grown up and for a side hustle,

he would have had somebody who did taxidermy stuff.

So he would take me snake hunting.

We'd catch snakes and we'd turn him over to this guy,

this taxidermist.

And so that was the hunt we did.

And we fished all the time, but we never hunt together.

And so I put this whole thing together.

And of course, old man, my dad, he's in his seventies.

He's still a laser of a shot from all those years.

He shoots the biggest deer.

Of course, it was cool.

And then when it was over, he's literally,

I'll never forget this.

He goes, all right.

Well, I'll see you guys.

And I was like, no, no, no, you have to hug me.

We have to have a whole thing.

It's like, okay.

But it was very much like, all right.

Well, I did this.

So you'll have to get, so it, I had all this expectation on it.

But yeah, I don't know.

I don't know what it would be like.

You should call you, is he still alive?

No, no, no, he's been alive for a long time, man.

He's been dead a long time.

Yeah, I mean, he's old.

Yeah.

Dang.

I bet he cried.

I'm glad you're honest.

He didn't do a lot of that.

So go back to, I cut my thumb.

They're not too long ago.

Had to get stitched up.

And last night, I was driving my daughter home from her volleyball.

And she was like, when you cut your hand,

how can we hit cry?

I'm like, it's just like, people just quit crying.

You'll see, it just stops.

That's right.

How old is she?

She's 12.

And I was like, to be honest with you, it was, I won't say she's 13.

There's so many of them.

They change their ages so much.

I was confused.

But I was trying to explain her like, I know that your instinct would be to cry, but that'll

go away.

And at present, you won't cry at all.

Well, my daughter cries a lot.

I love that day will be awesome when it comes.

What did, what would you go back and tell your younger self about being married?

You could run some things back.

I don't know.

I feel like I'm better at it.

Well, I don't know if I'm better at it now than I thought it would be.

I don't know.

You know what wound up being, I think the thing that like, that's a good question.

I don't think I would have had anything, I think I got a laundry list of stuff.

I'd go tell myself, man.

Well, yeah.

If we had thrown in the towel, and if we had thrown in the towel and gotten divorced,

then I'd probably have all these things I was going to tell myself.

That's right.

What we want up doing, I don't know, I guess we did a, we're doing a fairly good job

of being married.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Keep following me.

Yeah, totally.

I mean, it's hard.

I think that that's, that's sort of like some people so we're going to talk about that

is hard.

We just, we're kind of hard, we're hard workers, you know?

And we're like, we have a loyalty, and we shield ourselves from impulsive actions.

What does that look like?

Well, I remember like, when you're in the dating phase, okay?

This is going to sound like terribly immature, but when you're in the dating phase, I'm

known for my maturity.

So you have, there's this idea, this is an observation that I made in my wife, actually

got married.

There's like, you carry this idea in the back, your head, where if you're wronged, right?

You're wronged.

You'd be like, well, I'll show you, you know?

Oh, yeah.

You know, I mean, like, yeah, you try to call me, you try to call me, like, I'm not good,

you know?

I'll show you what's up, right?

This is always in the back.

You had like the scorekeeping.

Yeah.

Like, you're going to stick to them, or like, they're going to wish they had never said

that.

You know?

On the other side of it, like, I got flowers.

That's fine for me, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Just whatever.

You're doing this thing that there's like, there's these actions you're going to take

that are going to set records straight, you know?

And I just remember getting married and just being like, you know, saying to myself, like,

let's be honest.

You ain't going to do nothing.

You're like a gitty kind of revenge.

No.

It's just, you know, it's not going to come to you and like beg for your forgiveness.

You know?

Whenever I do live events, I always talk about the imaginary conversations we have in our

heads.

And that's one of a few that the audience is like, it's like, I will have full, and I always

win.

And I always have these mic drop moments and cause of this, right?

And she's like, oh, you're right.

Hey, I'll never have that conversation ever.

It doesn't work that way.

I wish I had had that wisdom at 24 when I got married.

And she's, oh, he's a man.

I discovered that like three years ago.

I remember another buddy of mine taught me about the peace of mind.

I already mentioned Morgan Fallon who I've worked with over years of bunch.

He had this observation to me about getting married where he said that he got married and

he said it would have this feeling like, you know, like in old movies, someone like

the, the, you go to the got the co-wrack, you know, in your hat, you know, and like

you're head off to work.

And they put their hat on, you know, in like their briefcase.

Yeah.

He got married.

He loved it because it sort of gave him, he'd get out and it was like he's putting his

hat on and grabbing his briefcase like a purpose.

Yeah, he had like a thing he was supposed to be doing.

Yeah.

And he'd always been, and for parts of his life, he was, he wasn't, you know, you'd wake

up and you weren't quite clear on what you're supposed to be doing.

Okay.

Okay.

Yes.

So the question that has haunted me for the last two years is, why did Jeff Bezos

get remarried?

Like why?

No.

Like why would you do that?

Like there's something, and I've talked to nerds, I've talked to scientists and anthropologists,

like, you know, and you mean talk all about the nerds?

Yeah.

I guess like fear of, like, there's like a fear of death, there's like a showoffiness.

But the thing that keeps coming back to is this wired for purpose or this wired for service.

Like this thing of, I'm aimless and at this, at all, does that make sense?

Like in a strange, I don't know, you're the historian here, but like a strange, weird

cultural and coupling.

It feels like every string that tethers us together has just been cut overnight.

Yeah.

But the idea is the most sacred thing is to be unconnected, uncommitted, right, to always

have a line in the water somewhere doing a thing, right, professionally, personally,

whatever.

And there's something of, that's a beautiful way to put that.

The alternative is I could wake up every day saying like, dude, I got, I've got a thing

I can contribute to.

I've never been in graduate school and we would, I would work, uh, I'd work in the mornings

doing tree work, uh, like I was a tree climber, no working mornings doing that.

Which hold on.

I'm going to talk directly to the camera for the men in here.

I mean, for the women watching this, that was a huge flex.

He just did.

Huge.

I was either that was a ground crew, I was a climber.

So I, if I stood on this table, I, I come so scared of heights.

Oh, really?

Okay.

I took my hat to you.

That's my hat to you.

This guy worked with, we would have these contracts where we would do, we would get a

contract to do these, um, boulevard trees.

Yep.

And he would bid out.

We'd have a bid to like 400 boulevard trees in a winter.

But we sort of had a pace to it, you know, but anyways, we would often get done.

He was a writer too.

And I was a, I was an aspiring writer learning to write and we would get done at noon.

Yeah.

You know, we usually wrap up like we work from seven to 11 or 12.

And sometimes I'd wander down, I'd be with friends of mine and we like, like, long

and a, you know, probably right later in the day, but let's go down to Charlie's and we

get a, we'll get a pole boy and a, you know, maybe a cocktail and then, you know, and

then all of a sudden it's one in the morning and they're, I mean, it's one in the morning

and they're, they're playing a closing time.

Yeah.

But man, do you mean to tell me we just like shot pool for 12 hours, for 12 hours?

Yeah.

I was going to write.

Yeah.

And, and a lot, a little lot, it would, it would like, we laughed.

It was fun.

I kind of learned a lot in some weird way and if inefficiently I learned a lot, um,

I needed, like, I needed to get serious.

Yeah.

I don't know that I would have gotten serious.

Oh, I had, I don't think I would have found it myself to get serious if I hadn't gotten

into, if I hadn't become a husband and become a parent, um, because it's really easy

to not get serious.

But you and I both run with people, I don't know if we run with people, we don't know

people who got married and continued.

Oh, yeah.

Where's that model come from?

Man.

Wow.

I mean, maybe it wasn't modeling.

Yeah.

Like, dude, it would be like, it'd be like, I don't, you know, it's hard to tell what you

pick up as influences, um, because that, like, it would have been like, for, for me as

a kid.

Yeah.

We ate, we had dinner time.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And there was exceptions, but generally it was like, there was dinner time.

There's no way in the world, there's no way in the world my dad would have been out

on the bars without my mom knowing where he was.

It's just like, yeah, there was a lot of things that, you know, um, there's a lot of things

you look and you're kind of like, what was going on there about growing up?

But um, there was no sense of insecurity.

I mean, you knew what the house was going to be like.

You knew what the mood was going to be like.

You knew when you got home, there was food.

You knew when you got home, there was people wanting where you'd been.

You had, there was expectations of you, expectations that you had of home were met, right?

Yeah.

And, and I, you know, I absorbed some amount of that, um, my wife didn't grow up that way

young.

When I, when we got together and started having kids and I was very insistent on family

dinner, it was a little bit of a, not, it was, you know, it wasn't her program as a kid

doing that.

Yeah.

Um, for, for a long time, she just lived in a single family household, um, and she's

kind of surprised by it.

It was a little bit surprised about how adamant I was about it.

But if I'm out of town now, they sit down family dinner.

It's just like, we have family.

We say that.

We sit at a table like this, right, our little boy, for whatever reason, he's at the head

of the table like, like I sit here, my wife sits there, my daughter, you know, I mean,

and, and maybe it's boring.

It's just, I don't know.

It's just, it's just like, there's a rigidity to things and, but you know, I like that.

It's one of the highest predictors of childhood outcomes.

Is that right?

It's family dinner time.

Really?

Yeah.

It really is.

It's, it's, my wife and I were both nerds and that was one of our, when we started

having kids, it was like, this is, this is everything stops for this.

And that's it.

Now, though, that my kids, my wife had this idea, like when she found out, she was pregnant

and she found out we're having a boy, she was like, hey, we got to talk about this.

Like there's, we have one job with this kid and I was like, oh, here we go.

It's going to, and I thought it was going to be some big poetic.

And she said, we have to raise a kid that we like, that we like being around.

And now I've got two hilarious, funny, like smart kids.

I don't like, let me put it this way.

I had a buddy named John and I've told this before on the show, like I've had a buddy

named John.

He had a kid.

He was the first one of our little gang to have kids.

He disappeared.

Like we only had every Monday night, kind of like you said, just blowing the night away.

And I, his wife is a long, 20 year friend of mine, but I was like, man, she's the worst

dude.

Like he has a one kid to get hang out anymore.

It wasn't until I had my son that him and I were having dinner one night and I was like,

you didn't tell me that it wasn't, that you didn't want to hang out with us.

You'd rather be doing that.

And he was like, you wouldn't have understood, man.

I couldn't have explained it to you.

But now I don't, there's not very many places I want to be other than that silly goof

field.

Too loud, too messy, too funny, too whatever table, I just think it's, yeah, it's an anchor

point for me.

Yeah, I get a guilty, I get a real guilty conscience.

And people, I don't know, there's probably a school thought of the things that like living

under guilt.

Not like it's like a cloud of guilt, maybe guilt's not the right word.

I have a strong sense of obligation, yeah, yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, unless you straight, man, I miss a lot.

I travel and, but my promise, my sort of promise to my family is like, when I'm home,

I'm home.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

When I'm home, they're part of the plan.

You know, like I, like engaged, get my kids to do stuff, we make them do stuff with us

still, you know, that those days will end.

But, and I think that that's somewhat motivated by that feeling of an awareness of what

I miss.

And I do wonder, if I liked work for, I don't know, what kind of job you have, when

Bob's treat trimming.

Okay.

I was still, yeah.

I was still working for a tree service and we just worked around town and every night

I came home.

I wonder like, would I have gotten complacent then?

Yeah.

Would I have been like, I'm here all the time.

Yeah.

Or I'm here all the time.

I'll just spend a time sharing my phone.

Yeah.

And that wasn't trying to be like, super dad when I'm home, you know, that's not here.

I'm not like super, like intentional death.

Yeah.

But it's guilt motivated in some way.

It's maybe not the perfect word, but I do feel a, like I know, yeah, I feel like

a, like a, I don't know, man, I'm like a, like a obligation to hold up and end of

the deal.

Yeah.

Philosophically, I, I remember having a feeling and I had to do a quick drink and two.

I remember having like this, this, this thing that like, about kids, like, and thinking

about my kids, like they didn't like, they didn't ask to be born and come live here.

I dragged you into this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It wasn't like, well, they're like, please, not a sin, you know, I'm like, it gets my

better judgment.

Right.

You're in for a day.

Yeah.

It was like, we like dragged them into this situation.

So like, we asked them, right?

We like asked them.

We invited them into this existence that we created.

There's some level of, you know, there's this Greek principle, like Zenia, like a guest

host bond, be like the bond between a, I think it's like something to do with like the

flower and a pollinator or something like that.

But yeah, there is like a guest host bond, a little bit, you know, we still like constantly

bust our kids' balls.

But there is a little bit of like, they didn't ask.

We did this.

So there's a certain obligation now, I've never thought through that, but like on its face,

I love that.

I love that.

They had to do it.

You know what it had to do with what it was I brought it up, it had to do with the feeling

of being hung over in the morning and, and, and, and, and, um, resenting them, because

you know, when they're real little, they get real, resenting them for being up at five.

Like, why are you up at five?

And just that feeling of like, man, I got like, hey, now you're up, yeah, and I go back

to bed.

Yeah.

And you're going to pull some, you know, furniture around yourself and, if I'm not all

there watching here, you know, you can like get up.

Yeah.

And, and I've ever just thinking like, how could you have the, um, how could you be so

arrogant?

As like, resent them for being awake in the morning.

Like, that's, that's bad.

Zinho.

And even worse, happy to see you, right?

First stop.

How dare you want to come see you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the first stop.

I chose to stay up till 2 a.m. and be stupid.

Yeah.

And there's the thing in the minute I get up, I'm going in that guy's room and I'm waking him up.

And then he's bombed.

Okay.

I'll go.

Yeah.

That's a dude.

That's a great point.

And I'm, I mean, I think I, I could extrapolate that out to be married too.

Like, no, I chose you.

I said, yes, I said, I do forever to one of us dies.

Yeah.

I mean, I could choose for today to not be great or I could choose to just pick up the

tales and get on with the day, right?

I, how do you all navigate travel, fame, differing?

Like, you got a tension that pulls you here.

Yeah.

She says, no, no, your mind.

Yeah.

I've often explained that the central conflict in our marriage, the central conflict was

a travel 100%.

It wasn't like, um, it wasn't like lack of faith, like a trust.

It wasn't finite.

It was, it was, it was, it's never been money.

It was like the, the central conflict was travel.

And what was underneath that?

Like another central conflict?

No, just like the core conflict, but be like, I miss you or you care about that

more than me and I wish I was there and unspoken.

I miss you.

Okay.

And it would be, uh, it would, it would play out a couple of ways.

Like, like picture from picture from my wife's perspective.

I hadn't early on, I didn't build good limits for myself.

So we would have little babies and I'd be like, I remember, I remember at

a point saying like, I'm not going to go away for more than two weeks because we

would go away for three weeks or whatever.

Um, when I had, I had little kids, I had three kids one year when I was gone over half

of the nights of a year.

Yeah, that's all right.

Yeah, it was a lot.

So here, you, here you have a person, and my wife always worked, she worked through

her, I mean, she'd take materially, but she always worked.

It was very challenging.

So, so picture that like here, they have this whole program.

Right?

And it's like everybody's getting done with the need to get done.

You know, they're like the kids are getting more than need to go.

They're doing all the stuff.

She's doing her work.

And then you come in and you want to, when I say you, me, like, like you come in,

I come in and, and there's this like terrible desire to like to piss on a post.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right home.

There's like, it's like, well, I would have done it.

Yeah, and that, yeah, right.

That's those tough, man.

There was this thing early on too that we had, um,

it would be, I remember my wife saying, um, she's like, if it's not going to be

a big deal when you leave, it's not going to be a big deal when you come home.

What that meant was, what that meant was, it's not as brutal as it seems.

What it meant was, you want to be able to, you want to be able to be like,

oh, shoot, we got to take off for a week and go do something.

And you want it, you know, you want it to be like everybody's, right?

In the program, you take off, you know, but then when you come home, it's not like

balloons and stuff.

Like you got to, you got to like kind of merge back into the lane.

You know what I mean?

Like you're on a controlled access highway and you're exiting smoothly, you know,

not a lot of horn honking and like, right?

And then when you merge back into the family and, um,

and so learning that, learning that what, looking into my house right now,

dude, like, learning that stuff was different.

And I would come in and it's like terrible.

Like I have a, there's certain areas where I have very, uh, I don't know.

I like, I like things exceptionally organized in my home space.

I like open surfaces.

Like like picture like counters.

Yeah.

I don't like things on the counters.

Do you know what I mean?

So anyways, I would come home and I'd look and let's say I look and, um,

someone has taken one of my, like, like a, a knife of mine and cut something out of

plate.

And I look at like, right, or they've like scrubbed the cast iron pan, like a soapy

brillo pad.

I would like, I would come in.

I'm so excited and happy to see everybody.

But in the next day, I'm a little bit like, what, what happened here?

I've got my inspector gadget glasses on.

Do that cause like enormous tension, man.

Yeah.

So now, and I still am not perfect on it, but now I would look and be like, looks

like the, I would think to myself, looks like that cast iron pan is kind of ruined,

dude, but, uh, we'll just deal with that quietly later.

I'm trivializing it by coming up with goofy examples.

But, but, and, and then bigger ones, you know, I don't mean to like, it's not like

pans and knives, but those are, my past days, those are examples.

I have a, I have not a picture of what it's going to be when I get home.

I have a sensation that I'm seeking.

I think it's going to feel a certain way.

And I walk in the door and my wife's in the middle of a project she's working on.

I got my daughter doing this and my son's trying to get his chemistry homework done,

but he forgot to do this and they got a cross country thing.

And it doesn't feel like I thought it was going to feel

and so I immediately goes to, to why isn't this feeling like I wanted to?

Oh, there's this thing and there's this thing or the other, I, I try to manufacture it.

So he's in there.

My son's working and I'm like, hey, you want to go?

I'm doing homework and it took, it's taken a season for my wife and I'd be like, Hey,

there is a flow to this house.

Yeah.

And when you exit out, we're glad that you're doing that, right?

It's providing all this, but like, I like that.

It turned out like you have to exit back in.

You can't just ramrod through and be like, all right, everybody

because he's like, check your lane.

It is because there's like that homework assignment to ask to get done.

And the meal that's halfway done, we can't just go out to dinner because you're home.

It's like there's a rhythm to this thing and learning that rhythm and check

in my own guts as I walk in the door.

Like this rhythm doesn't owe me something, right?

It doesn't need to perform for me.

That's an interesting point, man.

I know the point you make about that you're expecting it to feel and it didn't

feel the way it did, you know?

That's the most common way to put it.

First hunters, first job, the first time they could be sale.

Like I remember distinctly, it was such a powerful thing.

Like I'm driving in a suburban to a book signing at a Barnes and Noble kind of thing.

And Dave calls me off the phone of the publisher who hands it back to me like this.

And I get it and he's screaming, you're number one.

And I was like, oh, we did a man and we do a book signing thing.

And I went back to hotel and then I called my wife and I was like, hi, good night.

And then it's just, oh, this, I don't know what I thought this was going to feel like,

but it just feels like yesterday, except I got this thing, right?

And nothing changed.

And I remember telling a buddy of the next couple of days, I get now why people do drugs.

Because it's like, or people drink too much from the road.

Like I get it now because it doesn't feel like you think it's going to.

So I got to either take away the way I feel now or I got to try to prop something up.

I had a friend that she had some, I don't want to get off on this, but I had a friend

who had addiction issues and I remember her explaining someone I knew in school, her

explaining like the first time I'm doing like, first time doing hard drugs.

And at where she's like, oh, I'm it.

I mean, I was supposed to just like, me, I can just feel that way all the time.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Why would I, why would I not do that?

Like this rational thing, you know, this rational decision about it.

But we talk to people in recovery.

Like that's the, that's the inner secret of the inner inner core of recovery is,

no, that works.

It's incredible.

It'll kill you and take everything you recognize.

It served a role like it works a thing.

I, and thinking about this thing about being gone and these complications of the marriage.

What I have, what I have, what I feel compelled now that I have to bring up is I have,

I have a number of friends who got and, you know, rolled up in the war on terror.

When I say that, I mean, service members deployed, yeah, you know, and then, man,

all this is like, child's play.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Do you follow them?

Oh, 100%.

Like we're talking about, I was gone two weeks.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you, then you realize you get into like a lot of guys, man, they weren't gone two weeks.

I got a friend, I think he was telling me that in, in the first, in the first three years

after 9-11, in a three-year period, within which he had kids, a three-year period, he was home

for 200 days.

He says, in those 200 days, you're not really home.

No, you're not.

Yeah.

Right.

And then I'm like, yeah, man, it's just like, I just want to, like, I feel that I'll begin

to acknowledge that having a number of friends went through that because like to sit and talk

about being gone and you're like, you're kind of like out hunting and fishing, you're being

well compensated.

You're right, right, right.

I mean, I'm on a stage.

Yeah.

People come.

They're like, dude, I love your stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

And you're going and just to think of some guy sitting at home being like, you pompous.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

I totally totally.

Like, I have to acknowledge it because just how, I remember being down, I tell the story

a bunch of times, but I got invited down to talk to a special forces group at Fort

Bragg one time and, um, number sit there, people said, it was enough years ago, there's

still a phone book around.

I'm sitting there talking to this.

He's a green beret captain and I remember he's, he's, um, happens to have a phone book

with like the yellow pages and I remember him grabbing his big chunk of pages like in

the yellow pages, like a big chunk, like a finger-thick section and him saying to me, that's

a divorce attorneys.

Wow.

Yeah.

Right.

In Fort Bragg, you know, and I was kind of like, oh yeah, I get that, you know, I get that.

These guys are just gone, man.

They're gone.

They're gone.

And they come back a different person they love.

And their kids are two or three years older and they're different human beings.

Their spouse is different.

Yeah.

So it's like I just, anytime now, and you know, anytime now when discussing this issue,

I just, I feel obligated to acknowledge that it's like some people might be sitting there

being like, must be tough.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, you were hunting with a film crew.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, but but again, the other side of that is a thing that plugs everybody, but I think

it plugs men, especially these days is just profound loneliness, right?

Not having somebody that I can complain to or be like, I just need to say this sucks.

Right.

Yeah.

I know of examples like that.

I don't want to name names, but I know of examples like that in my life where I do

look, and I do look, and I'm like, man, I wonder if what their experience in life might

have been like, had they taken on that reason to put your hat on and grab a briefcase?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, well, it's as much as they'd love what they would tell you about the freedom

they have.

I'm like, I don't know, man, it might have been better if you had to grab the briefcase.

Or I mean, it's easy to say, look how sore I'm not, because I'm not lift and weights.

And the other side of it is like, yeah, but look how strong I got year after year, getting

under that squat rack and going again, right?

And so you can say that great, but I'll take this temporary discomfort, this constant

obligation for the what comes on the back end of the day, man.

Okay.

So you're a historian.

It's the last thing I'll ask you.

I can talk to you all day, man.

And by the way, for folks, listen, like you talked earlier about it, it's 22 minutes

of of an episode.

And there's always some tag that you've written or some tag where you've thought through

something.

Yep.

And you're knowledgeable about where you are, the history of where you are.

You remind me of I remember being so disappointed.

I followed like the metal band Pantera around when I was a kid, like I was obsessed, obsessed.

And I remember being so disillusioned.

The Pantera guy.

Oh, man, pathologically so.

I remember being so disillusioned.

Is that a lot different than being a big Metallica guy because I'm older than you.

I'm assuming I'm quite a bit older than you.

You're worth, we're close.

I'm 48.

Oh, I'm 40 years old.

Yeah, so you're.

Yeah, my sister was in Metallica.

Yeah, probably.

They were like Metallica's younger younger brother.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Cause older brother got all the attention.

Yeah.

But I remember when their guitarist who had big red beard, the whole thing, he came out

with a column in guitar world magazine, talking about like different scales and keys and how

to play.

And I remember thinking like, oh, I thought you just like jammed, man, you know what I mean?

It was like, bro, like, like, oh, it was a level of professionalism.

Yeah.

Like, oh, you like know what you're doing, right?

Like, you all have song structures and you play in time.

And so, but like, you can only be philosophical and poetic when you put the time in, right?

And so I think like the most, like, the one of my favorite things about watching your

work from afar and reading your work is what a story you are.

Hmm.

And this is a question I'd love to ask.

I grew up working in the university, so I love singing with historians.

And I look at them almost as like oracles, like future tellers.

So if you look backwards and you've gone through, man, your history knowledge and we'll

link to all that stuff, but your history knowledge of the United States, political movements,

land movements, like economic movements, if you look forward, what's pretty exciting

for you and what scares you to death for the world that our kids are about to have?

Well, man, first off, you know, like, you know, the difference in a cook in a chef, okay?

There's a difference in a writer and a historian.

That's true.

I appreciate it.

Yeah.

But yeah, I'm a writer.

I know historians.

That's fair.

I'm a writer.

That's fair.

Who's very interested in history?

That's fair.

I'm a cook, not a chef.

That's fair.

I'm a writer, not a historian.

That's fair.

A thing I'm very concerned about is polarization, political polarization in the country,

horrified, horrified.

I can, it's horrific.

I can make myself feel better by looking and saying, well, there was the Civil War.

There was the late 60s in Vietnam, which cut or, you know, rift through the country.

In the fifties, you could hang a man semi-publicly from a tree in face no legal recourse if you

lived in the right zip code, right?

That's pretty divisive.

So maybe it's not so bad.

It just is really scary to me, except when I stop and look at it, though, what is scary

to me is what I understand to be true from the reading I do online.

By and large, though, I don't see it reflected in my lived experience, meaning this is the

thing I like to bring up.

I live on a, you know, I live on like a, there's like a, it's a road.

It's a public road, but I live like a, like a, like a circular drive.

I'm not, I'm not kidding when I tell you this.

I could look around my area and I don't know how any of those people vote.

I don't want to know how they vote.

I know that they would do anything to defend my family, to defend my home, to, if there

was a problem, any of them is going to run over.

Likewise, I would run to any of them.

In any reason, if the some happened and their kids needed to come, they would be brought

into our house, like they would be taken care of, you're right, taken care of.

I would without question, without even thinking, like if something all of a sudden happened

and we had to run off somewhere, my wife and I had to go to deal with some emergency in

our neighbors, like, we'll take care of the kids.

I wouldn't even think about it.

Yeah.

I don't know how they vote.

Yeah.

So there's that, right?

We still hold that, but I'm just getting really concerned about terrible polarization and

also, and I really don't want to cite examples at all, because it's just going to lead it

in a different direction, but like a, a denial of, of, of objective reality.

One million percent.

Yeah.

Like, I still believe that there, there are areas where I feel like there are objective

realities.

Yes.

Yes.

Comfortable and toying with those objective realities and I see cases where my kids will

come from school and they will, and they don't even know, they don't even believe it, but

they're throwing out.

I heard that, yes.

I heard that, and it's things that are just like objectively false.

Not sensical.

Yeah.

Well, and that's the definition of, of, not the definition, but that's the definition

of mental illness is a divorce from reality, right?

That's the whole ecosystem.

It could be a thing about 9-11, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's madhouse, right?

It's madhouse.

Yeah.

And, and it's, I almost find it being like a thing like, because it's hard to keep my

cool.

Yeah.

And so I, I have, you know, other concerns like, you, you know, you wander with AI, like

what the hell they're going to do for living, but they'll figure it out, they'll figure

it out.

But, but the country, the country going through something like what we went through in the

late 60s, something like we went through in the 1860s, that scares the hell out of me.

Yeah.

I'm with you on that.

Yeah.

I'm with you on that.

The, the, not inability, but the unwillingness to say, I changed my mind, or I was

wrong, or I actually thought this, but this is what happened.

Or I voted for this, but this is what's actually happening.

Then in a, a refusal to say, all right, I'm, I'm going to get off that boat then.

That's the part that I can't, I can't wrap my head around, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Um, because all of us, if we're trying to go to, you know, Arby's down in the corner

and we go the wrong way, we'll turn around and go the other way, right?

But for some reason, I can't, I can't put my finger on it.

It doesn't make sense to me.

We just keep hitting the gas and going the wrong way.

Yeah.

Like, hey, but Arby's is right here and we're like, we're going that way, dude.

And, uh, yeah, I don't have, I don't have a, I get scared because I don't have a psychology

for it.

I don't know.

I don't know if that's a way to say that.

I don't have a, I don't have a mental model for that.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's just like, dude, what are you doing?

What are you talking about?

Right?

And I think there's also a, it seems to be a growing tendency, maybe I'm wrong, seems

to be a growing tendency that you would condemn that, that every, every human, every person

has a suite of beliefs and those beliefs are full of contradictions, of course, but, and

they changed or evolving all the time.

But this thing where someone would look and go within your suite of beliefs is a belief

that I see and I will condemn you for having and it wipes out all the, yeah, every, I

condemn every aspect of you because within your suite of beliefs is one that I've decided

I condemn.

Now, that belief could be something horrific that deserves to be condemned, but I think

that it could also be, they grew up in a different place, they have a different set of experiences,

their families different, their finances are different, different people talk to them.

Like, I don't know how they arrived at that, but I'm not going to condemn the guy over

it.

Yeah.

There's something powerful about being curious, like tell me more about that.

As opposed to saying, Oh, now I've got you figured out I can either put you in this category

of this one.

And when the reverse is true, all of these other things I'm not okay with, but you got

that one.

All right.

Yeah.

All over look.

Yeah.

All of this because we're aligned on that one.

Yeah.

There's a flip.

That's right.

Yeah.

There is that.

There is that.

Yeah.

I've wrestled with how to explain to my kids the importance of objective reality when

the picture they're getting that success is just in our reality to the end.

Right.

Write it off into the sunset.

Yeah.

And you can kind of shape it however you want.

And like, yeah, it'll catch you at some point, they're like, I don't think it will.

It's been with having kids, it's been fun.

It's been fun to see that they'll have opinions that you don't share.

That's my favorite thing.

Yeah.

And like, and the me's saying there, like, and, you know, you want almost like a tag.

Yeah.

And you're like, easy.

Yeah.

Cause this is the future.

That's right.

That's right.

Well, and, and that like these kids are going to have spouses and those spouses are going

to have families.

Yeah.

Like, you're going to be hearing some opinions that you don't agree with, and you better

learn how to be like, that's interesting.

Yeah.

Well, and why not look in the mirror and be like, what is it about a 10 year old's thought

on whatever that sets me as a grown man off?

If I'm, if my beliefs are that fragile and my self worth is that dependent on this 10

year old, who probably still believes in dragons or whatever.

If it's that fragile, I probably need to go talk to somebody or guy need to go do some

work, right?

Yeah.

There are some things that they've floated that we have said, um, not in this household.

Yeah.

That's true.

And that's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, you know, getting into like whatever, like, you know, their perspective on what, you

know, how our country should be handling itself in the Middle East or whatever.

Like, I'm, I'm hoping for some, I'm hoping for some level of individual interpretation.

Yeah.

To a limit.

To a limit.

To a limit.

What excites you about the future for them?

Oh.

Man.

Um.

I like to think about, uh, I really like to think about this is very granular.

I like to think about the, the, the sort of outdoor adventures, you know, that they'll

go on to have.

Um, I only am just now started to think about the second act, which would be, you know,

like, this is my boy will be 15.

My oldest will be 15.

It's like, it's not.

It's closer than it is what I'm trying to say, like, they're, they're going to have

families.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, he's 16, man.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

This is, this is closer than it is far away or whatever, or really, I can't, um, yeah,

I don't know.

I'm trying to say.

It's not something.

He's been with us for 16 years.

Yeah.

When that amount of time has passed again, there's a high likelihood, he's got a family,

he's got his own ecosystem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is, you know, and, and so we're already starting to think about like, what does that look

like?

I got a friend who's a little farther ahead of me where his kids are in college and

not a college.

And, um, and what I think that he's done very well and he's proud of it is, um, he's

still big part of his kids life, right?

And they like call him about buying a house, they call him about buying a car, they call

him about relationship issues and, and he's got four, they're all out of the house and

he says, you know, I talked to all of them multiple times a week and I'm like, he's

like a concilierge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I'm falling for all of me.

Yeah.

But that means he was a, and I say this not in a, in an eye-roly way.

That means he's been a safe place of wisdom and he could hold their attention in their whole

childhood.

And so he's a, not like that's, that's a trustworthy guy, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Oh, not over, no, not a lick over bearing, which is incredible.

Yeah.

So I know, I know you asked him what excites me for them.

I'm talking about what excites me for me, but forget them, it would be cool.

I'm starting to think about that.

It would be very cool to have, right, to earn that respect.

I want to wear, they don't just split.

I just kind of split.

Yes.

When I split, I split.

Yes.

I say, I want, when my son thinks I'm going to take my son out fishing, I want him to

think, oh, we got to call dad, not, we got to call dad, you know, we have to, right?

And I got to tell him, so I'll buy how he used to catch him.

Yeah.

Well, and I want him to tell us and dad's going to tell all kind of crazy stories.

That's what he does.

I like that part of it, but there's something about my wife, um, several years ago, man,

he came, he was in seventh grade.

He was, he would always come down and his hair would be crazy.

And I would ask like, dude, turn your shirt around, fix this, fix this.

And every day was the same.

And I remember my wife, she came in one day, and I was just picking him apart.

And she said, you would not hang out with somebody who every interaction was 18 things

you need to fix about yourself.

You know, I was like, I'm wholly unlikable.

I'm unlikable.

You know what I mean?

And I can wrap it up in why he needs to be ready for that.

So we set down, we went to, we used to go to breakfast every single, every week, went

to waffle house, dude.

It was our diabetes trip every week.

And at one of our breakfasts, I told him, I said, hey, I'm out on like the middle

school wolves are going to take care of your wardrobe and your hygiene and whatever.

And I want you to know, I love you and you know, it's come home, but I'm turning you

loose.

I'm going to stop mentioning, you want to grow your hair, go here, you want to not brush

teeth number, like whatever.

And I remember at the end of his eighth grade, we had, like his old friends came, we all

had to get together.

And I was like, y'all failed to me because they were like, we accept everyone, like everyone

was, I was like, man, you need some old bullies, like we had, right?

They're just mean, but not really, we don't.

But like, I focused on what Hills don't need to die on and like, hey, in this house,

we don't talk to each other like that, right?

And we got that on the wall, but I wouldn't listen to that, but what do you like about

it, right?

Or I'll get tickets to that show, but you're going to have to show me why this is a good

show.

And vice versa, I took him to a punk rock show recently and I was like, hey, he's in

the 90s country.

He loves it.

I failed him at some level, but he's into it that I was like, I need you to go to the

smosh.

You know where you live nearby, right?

Oh, I know.

It's in the air.

Literally, it's in the air.

I had an old weather radio when he was out in the woods by himself.

He would turn it real low and he was hunting.

And it would only catch the one 90s country station and he's dead.

You, Carth Brooks's.

I was like, ah, yes.

But I was like, hey, you need to come to the show with your old man.

This is for me.

He's like, ah, I'll do it.

So I like, oh, yeah, that, that sounds awesome.

Like I want a man, and I hate to say it this.

But I don't hate to say this.

That's one of the big reasons I exercise as much as I do.

I remember my first like major climbing up mountains, elk hunting trips several years

ago.

And I was like, oh, if I don't do something different with my health, I've got about

seven more years of this.

And this is, this was too awesome.

And there's too many memories and too much fun and too much like I need to take care

of myself on a regular basis so I can do this for another 20 years instead of seven.

And I like that.

Like I'm able to go fishing with my kids.

Thanks for coming to hang out, brother.

Appreciate you, man.