The July 4th Terrible Right Wing Novel Spectacular
01:09:09 Share

Call zone media. That's what I always say. Yep. Uh-huh. How do you like that, you sick freaks on the subreddit? Do you enjoy that? Does that make you happy? Are you touching yourself a little bit? Robert, Jesus Christ. If so, you better not have any other people in the car because that's not cool. I don't want to lecture you about your lifestyle, but be respectful of other people. This is what we're doing now?

Yes, Opie. I'm lecturing. I'm accusing the audience of being perverts. That's what all of the greats do to build their audiences. And now who is on your list of the greats? All the cult leaders from various back episodes. Some cult leaders. What's his name? Not John Carpenter. The guy with the little mustache makes movies. Oh, John Waters. John Waters. John Waters. Yeah, I feel like John Waters would open a podcast that way.

He'd use a different voice. Why are we doing this? Because I love John Waters, Sophie. Don't you? This is completely irrelevant to what's happening here. I don't think John Waters is ever irrelevant.

Makes us proud to be from Maryland when I was a little weird kid in Maryland We get together and watch John Waters movies and not really upset, but be like proud of Maryland He is he's the only adult that I would want if I had a kid the only adult I would want them to admire That's that's how I feel about John Waters anyway, and that's why you don't have kids I want to play a game here It's called

Do either of you know who this person is? We both know John Waters. We both know John Waters, yeah. The horrible search engine Google has told me the most famous Gen Z people. And I would like to ask. Is it me? It's not because you're 952 years old. I would like to ask if either. I'm going to give you a couple and I would like to know if either of you know who they are. Okay. We'll start with an easy one.

Okay. Billie Eilish. I really like Billie Eilish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's that, the lady who did the music for the season four True Detective. You know, the one that's

that was okay, but still not as good as season one, but we should really stop chasing that high at this point. And I know her as goth music, pop music. That is goth music. And that makes me happy. And she was, she was also her debut acting role was in that, um, that show that, uh, Donald Glover produced. Um, we got this, we are like, what was it called? Uh, about the serial killer. She was fucking great in that. Also. She was like a cult leader. Uh,

I would never have guessed that that was her first acting role. I don't know that. Well, it's a very good show, Sophie. Do either of you know who Olivia Rodrigo is?

Hey, everybody. Robert here. Wanted to duck in. First off, we had a great Olivia Rodrigo bit for you guys. But per the most recent Supreme Court rulings, our legal counsel has advised us to cut all of that. So we've we've had to take that out. I'm sure you're all aware of why jokes about Miss Rodrigo are particularly dicey during this this moment in American politics.

Also, as a heads up, it is July 4th. And as a result, we will just be dropping one episode this week. The company gives us days off this week.

We like to give everybody, particularly our editors, time to not work, even though July 4th this year, maybe we're not all feeling it so much. So, yeah, we wanted to give you something, which is why Margaret and I recorded this book episode, but it will just be a one-parter this week. So go out and try not to think about things. Try not to think about politics for a second. Read some Herman Hesse, you know? Sit down with a copy of Steppenwolf and just...

Try to transcend the moment that we're in for just a second before being brought back rudely towards it. Anyway, here's the rest of the fucking episode where we read a stupid book from a guy I used to work for.

There you go. I was just going to do another Dire Straits cast opening where Magpie and I pretend to host a podcast about the Dire Straits, despite only knowing one and two of their songs respectively. But that joke doesn't actually change each time. It's just about neither of us knowing very much about the Dire Straits and having a podcast about them. We should do the Billie Eilish podcast instead. We should. Three Billie Eilish songs. And I am certain of one of them.

Yeah, this has been the Billie Eilish cast. Anyway, let's go to the topic of today, Margaret, which is one time I got fired from a job. But the guy who had my boss at that job had a self-published novel that he gave to me on my first day of the job. And he was he was a financial advisor. His name was Al Jones. I'm not trying to shit on him. I'm sure he's dead by now.

But he would hand it out to, we would do these meetings where he would try to get elderly people to buy annuities and he would give them a free shitty dinner at the Texas Roadhouse.

And yeah, that is he would hand out this book sometimes if he really vibed with somebody. And it's it's terrible. It's called Operation Nightwatch. And it's a very racist pseudo self-insert fiction story about the Navy SEALs going to war with drug dealers in Dallas. Yeah, it's it's it's great, Margaret. We're going to have a good time. But first, we're going to end this cold opening, which I feel like we fucking nailed.

What does a therapist do when her family is the one who needs a little help? Seek therapy, of course. Don't miss the new season of the Hulu comedy Unprisoned starring Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo. With a father out of prison, a son with growing anxiety, and a therapy practice in serious trouble, Kerry Washington's page needs to pull her family back together by any means necessary. Get ready for a new season of raw comedy and heartfelt connection on Unprisoned. All episodes are now streaming only on Hulu.

Okay, you say, I want some breakfast. Your so-called boyfriend says, we got eggs in the fridge. Obviously, when you say breakfast, you mean McDonald's. Definitely a side-eye situation. Bring home the bacon, steak patty, or others with a BOGO for $1 breakfast. Only in the app. Limited time only at participating McDonald's. Valid once a day. Must opt into rewards. Visit McDApp for details. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

What's good? It's Colleen Witt and Eating While Broke is back for season three. Brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. We're serving up some real stories and life lessons from people like Van Lathan, DC Youngfly, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and many more.

They're sharing the dishes that got them through their struggles and the wisdom they gained along the way. We're cooking up something special, so tune in every Thursday. Listen to Eating While Broke on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Wouldn't it be nice if making decisions was easier? With Xfinity, you have one less decision to worry about. Just say what to watch into your Xfinity voice remote to see editors' picks and find what's new. You can even search by genre or mood. You can also find the ultimate dance soundtrack and play all your favorite music and artists on iHeartRadio to get the party started right in your living room. So you can skip the endless scroll and get right to the good stuff.

This is Tracy V. Wilson from Stuff You Missed in History Class. The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new car. Like a legendary Camry built for performance and available with all-wheel drive, you can count on your new Camry to get anywhere you need to go. Or check out an

affordable, and reliable Corolla with a trim for every lifestyle. From the hip sedan to the sporty hatchback, there's a Corolla built just for you. Check out more national sales event deals when you visit buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.

Well, I feel warm. I feel hot. I feel like a heat dome just settled over this podcast. What is this? Is this hot zone media? Yeah. This podcast and not the entire East Coast. And if you survive that heat dome, everyone. Centered on very near where I live. Yeah. Good luck. Hope your AC is doing great. I have multiple backups and live in the mountains. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You simply need them.

Yeah, I had a little scare with mine earlier. But anyway, we don't need to get in that story. We need to get what story we need to get into. Margaret is Operation Nightwatch. Look at this cover.

Hell yeah. I guess probably reverse. Yeah. No, no, no. Invisible war. It shows properly. Oh, okay. Good. I love that he probably. Here's his face. Higher. Oh. Oh. Yeah. That's amazing. He's about 20 years older than that and looks by the time I met him. Again, I'm pretty sure he's got to be dead. This is I had this job 17 something years ago, something like that. It's kind of giving like knockoff dollar store Richard Gere.

Yeah, he does kind of look like dollar store Richard Gere. Yeah. I love that he hired someone to design that cover. That is the cover. He must have. That is the level of like competency that you get when you hire someone who doesn't know what they're doing. When you don't know what you're doing and you hire someone. Yeah.

And the publisher is NAJ Publishing Group, which I think is just a vanity press. I haven't heard of them. What year was it published? Well, Sophie, let's see if this has a proper title page. That will tell us 1997. Oh, but it had a second printing in 99. So, hey. Yeah. And it was edited by Victoria Lynn Scott, who...

If I remember this book was not very good at her job. My money is on vanity press where you go to a place and they're like, we're publishing you. Yeah. You give us money. Yeah. And there's a couple of variants of that. Some of them, they handle some costs. Like you do have to go through some sort of process, but you handle other costs. And some of them are just purely you pay and we put out a book for you. You've heard of Yogg's Law?

It is a science fiction and fantasy author law, which is all money flows towards the author. Yes. Okay. I have heard of it. Yes. Yeah. It's the number one advice I give new writers, which is like if somebody's now, and this is to be fair, there is a corollary, which is that if you want to make it as a writer, you will wind up doing stuff for no money a lot of the time, but you should never be paying. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. My law is if there is money involved on work that I made, I am one of the people making money on it. So I will donate to like fundraisers and things like that if no one else is getting paid. If the editor is getting paid, I'm getting paid. I think that's generally good advice. Yeah. I mean, I also, I have to say, I owe a big chunk of getting my career started to an unpaid internship. Yeah. Which that whole system...

Can be and is pretty fucked up. And it's it's bad that that's a way in for a lot of people. But, you know, most of writing is a lit for a living. Like you're going to have to do some shit that you shouldn't have to do to make it as a writer. If your parents are not.

If you don't have a nepotism in, right? Or your parents aren't rich. I did it through ghost writing. Ghost writing, trashy fiction. Yeah, I rewrote a bunch of fucking tech industry articles for a year or so to learn how to like, I mean, I got paid for it, but I also like, that was not a job that I think added much to the world other than that it taught me a lot about meeting deadlines and writing quickly. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the world. But anyway, my boss, Al Jones, decided to get into writing by paying somebody to publish his terrible, terrible novel. Do you think NAJ stands for Not Al Jones? Not Al Jones? Yeah, it just says NAJ Publishing Group. Oh, my God. I think you're right, Margaret, because its address is in Sherman, Texas, and that's where he lived. So...

I kind of think this is. Hell yeah. We're not going to look into that, folks. This is not, you know. No, no fact checking today. That's my assumption. Al did not fact check this book. So let me tell you a little bit about Al.

I got hired to be his secretary. Again, he had like this. He was like a financial advisor, but not a good one. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm picturing you as the secretary to a financial advisor. And I can't. I honestly can't. I was not. What? What?

I want to make one thing clear. I don't actually have beef with Al. He was a nice enough guy. He did fire me. But I was a terrible employee. I was like 19. No shit. You were a secretary. It might have been 20. I was a terrible employee. So I don't blame him for firing me. I have a question. Did you lie about knowing how to use Excel? No, I knew how to use Excel. I know how to use Excel.

But I didn't have to do, there were not many clients. And most of what we were doing is like, I would go to a website called Morningstar, which has these little summaries of how stocks are doing. And I would like print out a bunch of those different pages, templates.

to like mail to people about how their portfolio was doing or some shit. It felt like busy work. And most of what we would do is every week we would go to Texas Roadhouse and a bunch of people in their 70s and 80s would sit down and Al would try to get them involved in something called a split annuity.

And to this day, I don't know if he was scamming them or not. I know that it is potentially a real thing, but I also don't... The whole vibe of it seems sketchy. It's just like if somebody put a list of jobs that I had to verify that you have had, that would not be on the list. Secretary, no. Secretary to finance, bro. I have a hard time coming up with jobs that I can't imagine Robert having done as a kid. Thank you. Like, Robert...

Working as a secretary to a finance bro is just not... No, I can't picture it. No, he was not a finance bro. He was an old man. Well, he started as a finance bro. They all do. He might have. Let's see what Al says about himself. There's got to be an author page in here. Got to be an author. Oh, okay. Oh, great. Oh, there's an author's note. Oh, Grace B.,

Well, it starts with him talking about his lovely wife, Norma Ann, who died in 1996. And that's a bummer. Sorry for that, Al. He had mentioned that. He had another wife by the time I met him, though. So things worked out for Al. He seemed fine, other than being bad at his business. And then there's an author's note.

A part of this book has resulted from my fascination with special forces military tactics, especially Navy SEAL teams. The evolution of Navy SEAL teams from the forerunner underwater demolitions teams resulted in the creation of some of the most capable special warfare troops in the world. The only other special forces story that even comes close to the Navy SEALs is the Special Israeli Commando Unit, Saret Maktal, simply known as the Chief of Staff's Boys. That's what Netanyahu did as a young man.

Which unsurprisingly shows up in my second novel. I bet they do. Oh boy, Al, I bet they do. Ooh, he's got a second novel. Yeah. I chose to use Navy SEALs in Operation Nightwatch because their tactics fit perfectly into the chain of events. The other force in this book, gang violence, has become an ever-increasing problem, not only in the United States, but in other parts of the world as well. While the book is fiction, many of the violent activities were based on similar events taken from stories in several large city newspapers.

So while the book is fiction, the violence is very real. I've been asked what motivated me to write this book. Was it trying to hold some lofty moral standard to have a major impact on society, etc.? Truthfully, my main motivation, being an avid reader myself, was to have a book end the way I wanted it to.

I want to thank my... Oh, yeah. Anyway. And then it goes on to some personal stuff, which I'm not going to get into. But, yeah. Oh, and he thanks God for helping him make his lifelong dream a reality. Thank God and the publisher you paid, Al. Yep. Which might also be you. The publisher, not God. And again, just from knowing this guy somewhat, like...

He is a pretty normal middle aged, you know, at this point, elderly Dallas dude, like obsessed with the Navy SEALs, but not based on any point of knowledge, but just because he sat up through a lot of like documentaries and read a couple of the books that Navy SEALs publish. I wonder how he would have in Vietnam or anything. No, definitely not. No, Al Jones never heard a shot fired in anger in his life.

This man did not go to Dallas. He lived in the north. He lived out kind of near Oklahoma, and he drove to the Dallas suburbs in order to do his work. But he like avoided anything that's that looked like the inner city, like the plague. I am sure he kept a 1911 with a bullet in the chamber in the center console of his car at all times. Yeah, that's that kind of guy.

Oh, and he wrote, he signed it, Margaret, to Billy. I enjoyed meeting you. That's nice. So he may have handed this. Who'd you steal this book from? I bought it from Amazon. So Billy. I was like, I was like, I don't know what names Robert's gone by. There were crates of this book in the office. I liked, I liked,

I like that theory better, that back when you were a finance man's secretary, you went by- I was secretly living as Billy. I was really in the sire at Maktal, and this was a deep cover Israeli intelligence operation to make sure that this middling financial advisor in suburban Texas wasn't interfering with our nefarious plans.

When I was in high school, my teacher asked, first day of class was like, I'm going to do roll and anyone, if there's a name you'd rather go by, let me know, you know, for nicknames or whatever. And I, I'm an idiot and an asshole. So I was like, Billy,

which is completely unrelated to any name I've ever had. And for about two months, she called me Billy in class until it was like back to teacher, just back to school night. Incredible. And then I was in an awful lot of trouble. Oh, that's fun. I had,

I had about a year and a half, Margaret, where I, and this was in like middle school, junior high, where I just, I decided to stop learning any new names. And every single person I met, I would call Terrence. It was a pretty frustrating time to know me, I think. But retroactively woke. Yeah. Is that at the same time that you decided to not save anybody's phone numbers in your phone? Nope. That's just been my entire life, Sophie. My entire life.

I never know who's trying to talk to me. It's chaos. Regularly when like I have family reunions, they'll be like, oh yeah, you remember when you said this? I'll be like, oh, that was you I was texting. I

I thought that was like my old fucking repair guy from when I lived in North Dallas. So let's get on to Operation Nightwatch. And, you know, Al, like all the greats, you know how really great authors, when they've mastered their craft, like there's rules that you should follow when you're learning how to write stories, when you're starting to write novels. But like masters can break them all because. This starts with the character waking up. Hmm.

No, they just decided to put chapter one on its entire new page of its own. I think to bulk out the page length. But then we get Operation Nightwatch.

The long, battered, black 1970 Cadillac sedan slowly turned the corner onto Hickory Street. The sun momentarily reflected from the shiny, chrome-plated .357 Magnum pistol. Like a shark stalking its prey, the car slowed as it neared the school playground, pulled close to the curb, and stopped in sight of the cracked and crumbling asphalt basketball court.

Eight young men were in the middle of a spirited game of basketball on the old court. The street was quiet except for the sounds of the game. Mick McCord was deep in thought as he walked down Hickory Street towards the old schoolyard. He didn't notice the flash from the chrome pistol or the black sedan. Mick had planned the surprise visit for months. With a smile, his mind wandered back to the first time his cousin Timmy had visited the small farm north of Dallas near the Oklahoma State line. That's definitely where he lived.

That's definitely a little early for a flashback, but he's a master. He can break the rules. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Much like Faulkner, for example, writer Joyce. This book has a lot of Joyce-ian echoes in it. I'm imagining that Mick is masturbating through a hole in his pants pocket as he walks towards this basketball court.

Mick had lived there with his parents. He had attended school in the tiny town of Pottsboro. It seemed like yesterday. Mick laughed to himself as he remembered how at first he and his cousin had not hit it off very well. Today he's just thinking through his whole life as he has a stroll towards the basketball court to meet Timmy. He actually started off strong. You want to start in the action by like modern writing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give us some media res.

And then don't pull us back. I don't need to know this about Mick yet, right? No, you have to follow the action through a thing that happens before you can do that. Right, before you pull me back. I don't want to get pulled back yet. I want to see what this dude with a .357 Magnum is about to do to that basketball court.

Timmy had lived in Southeast Dallas near the fairgrounds. He was a street smart city kid and had a real chip on his shoulder. He had only been eight and Mick had been 18. Mick had been a farm boy. He had worked hard helping his family with the cattle. And again, we're like going back between here's Mick's backstory. Here's Timmy's backstory. But like- I already lost track of all these people. None of them have the gun, right? This paragraph is like-

giving us separate details about the backstories. Like that's two paragraphs. That's just how you do that. And you don't do it now anyway.

Okay, so we're just...

Oh, wait, no, there's another good line right under that. Due to the responsibilities on the farm, he had not had the time or the interest to attend the wild beer and drug parties that often followed the game. Ah, beer drug parties. I love a wild beer and drug party. I could go for a wild beer and drug party right about now, Marty. I'll tell you that much. Yeah. Well, how about an ad break?

Yeah. Speaking of wild beer and drug parties, all of our sponsors. I mean, I'm hoping that one of those ketamine companies sponsored us. Hit us up, folks. We will sell ketamine legally on the air. You know, get prescribed ketamine from one of our sponsors and then you can take ketamine and mail pictures of that to the FBI and they can't do anything about it because it's a prescription drug.

It's legal, everybody. It's legal. All ketamine is legal. Wait, no. Hold on. Definitely not all ketamine. You got to get prescribed. You got to go to a sketchy online doctor through some sort of weird service and pay them $130 a month, and then they will mail ketamine to your door, Margaret. Just like real medicine. Okay. It is real medicine. It's just a silly way to sell it. Anyway, here's ads.

With big wireless providers, what you see is never what you get. Somewhere between the store and your first month's bill, the price you thought you were paying magically skyrockets. With Mint Mobile, you'll never have to worry about gotchas ever again. When Mint Mobile says $15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan, they mean it. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.

Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts. Ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile's deal and get three months of premium wireless service for $15 a month. To get this new customer offer and your new three-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash behind. That's mintmobile.com slash behind. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash behind.

$45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.

Wouldn't it be nice if making decisions was easier? With Xfinity, you have one less decision to worry about. Just say what to watch into your Xfinity voice remote to see editors' picks and find what's new. You can even search by genre or mood. You can also find the ultimate dance soundtrack and play all your favorite music and artists on iHeartRadio to get the party started right in your living room. So you can skip the endless scroll and get right to the good stuff.

Nothing will fit into your day better than a Fit Crunch bar. Fit Crunch baked bars are chef-inspired from Robert Irvine and made with six layers of deliciousness. With 16 grams of protein and 3 grams of sugar, Fit Crunch is the perfect snack, whether it's at school, midday at work, or when you're on the go. Visit FitCrunch.com and use promo code RADIO15 for 15% off your FitCrunch.com order or find a retailer near you. Check out FitCrunch.com today. That's FitCrunch.com, promo code RADIO15.

You're probably careful with your personal information, but what about the other places that have it? Like the doctor's office that mixed up your files. They have your social security number. The power company that mistakenly cut your service has your payment info and last three addresses. And the hotel that lost your reservation has your passport info.

Your information is in endless places out of your control. Any one of them could accidentally expose you to hackers and identity theft through lax security, breaches, or simple mistakes. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second and alerts you to a wide range of threats. If your identity is stolen, a U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or

or your money back with plans covering up to $3 million for stolen funds and expenses. Mistakes happen. Don't let not having protection be one of them. Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com slash iHeart. That's lifelock.com slash iHeart to save up to 40%.

Terms apply. The best things in life, they come in twos. Two scoops of ice cream, two tacos. And now for a limited time, get our best deal of the year. Buy any phone when you switch to consumer cellular and get two months of service free. That's right. The same fast, reliable nationwide coverage as big wireless. Now with two months free. Proof

The best things in life really do come in twos. Visit ConsumerCellular.com or call 1-888-FREEDOM. Second and third month of monthly base service fee. Wave for new customers with the purchase of a phone and activation by September 2nd, 2024. Taxes, fees, and third-party charges will apply. See website for additional details.

We're back, and I can't wait till marijuana schedule three, and you can also get a sketchy doctor to send you that, and then just your ketamine and your marijuana come in the mail with the signature of a doctor you have never met on it, and everyone's going to be fine with it. Suddenly, the cops can't fuck you with you over it. I love the idea that ketamine is easier to get than weed legally. That-

What a smart country full of smart skits. Yeah, no notes. Yeah, obviously ketamine is less dangerous than marijuana, a drug that, for example, will not destroy your bladder for using it regularly if you overdo it. Anyway, good stuff. Everything makes sense. Speaking of the war on drugs, I'm betting that's where we're going to go. So I'm going to move ahead here. Oh, okay, good. So we learned that Mick...

Because we're not we're just not talking about Timmy anymore. We get like one line about Timmy and the flashback that's supposed to be about Timmy. And then it's all about the boring ass life. It doesn't even matter. He goes to the Church of Christ in Pottsboro regularly, which I'm sure is Al Jones's church. This is he is just Mick. This is justice. This is his self insert, I think.

The black car was partially hidden behind a tall oak tree. The driver reached across and nudged the young Hispanic holding the big gun. Not Hispanic man, not Hispanic boy, just the young Hispanic holding the big gun. The three passengers in the back scooted down in their seats. The boy seemed hesitant and reached up to wipe the glistening beads of sweat from his face. The driver turned to nudge him once again. The son gl-

How many times? Is this the second time he said glisten in his prayer? Maybe not. The son glistened from a peculiar silver cross hanging from his left earlobe. You're going to do it or not, the driver said softly. Oh, yes, yes. He's Church of Christ, so he does believe that the papist conspiracies include all of the gangs. The Pope is secretly running MS-13.

Yeah, yeah. Just give me a minute, OK? Give you a minute, my ass. What's the matter? You're not chicken or something. You want to be a scorpion or not, man? Oh, my God. It's a gang initiation. Oh, yeah. And the scorpions enter the scorpions. And then immediately after that paragraph, the next paragraph starts. Although Timmy was only eight, he seemed older. Now we're getting more of Timmy's backstory. Yeah.

Uh-huh. His mom fell for a drunken cab driver who worked at a fair. Seems like she works as a convenience. So this is his nightmare story of a family. Like your mom falls in love with a drunken cab driver. She meets at the fair park. She works as a convenience store clerk. Husband's an alcoholic. Great stuff. Before finally abandoning the family altogether, the stepdad had often beaten Tim with a belt buckle during his drunken fits while Gertrude was at work.

The beatings hadn't stopped with just Tim. Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Man, we just keep... Tim spends the summer with Mick. They become great friends. What a fucking, like... What happens with the fucking gun? What happens with the gun? Why are we looping back like this now? Oh, wait, no, here we go. Here we go. So Mick goes to Navy boot camp and keeps writing with Timmy. We're now learning about Mick's backstory again. Oh, wait, they write each other? How do they...

Because they're friends. They become friends when Timmy goes to the farm for a while to get away from his alcoholic, abusive dad. And Mick joins the Navy and he has a big special assignment in the Middle East. But the neighborhood declines while he's away doing his special assignment. He has an assignment in Iraq. So we're not in Iraq at this point. This is the late 90s. So I'm guessing that's either illegal or this is Desert Storm.

Finally, we're back to the present day where the guys with the gun are. He could now hear Tim's voice. Aunt Gertrude had been right. Tim was playing basketball with his friends. Watch this, Tim yelled. Throw me the ball, man. Throw me the ball, yelled a tall black boy wearing no shirt. The drops of sweat glistened like diamonds on his black chest. Everything's so shiny.

I had assumed Tim was black until I realized that this author is not capable of referring to someone without telling you very racially. The first thing you heard about Tim would be that he was black if Tim was black. Like that is the way Al Jones writes. And I also love that like first we described that he's a black man and then we described the sweat glistening like diamonds on his black chest and

You would just say like he was a boy wearing no shirt. Maybe that the like I honestly wouldn't use that line at all. But you don't do it twice in a row. We don't know. We get from the first time. This is a black man. Right. Yeah. Like it's OK to indicate the race of a character. Of course. Of course. It's often necessary. It's weird when you do it repeatedly like this. Maybe he just really wants to use the word glisten over and over again. But he loves that word. That was on his word of the day calendar when he was writing this chapter. Yeah.

Throw me the ball. Don't be no ball hog, man. He yelled as Mick got his first glimpse of Timmy dribbling the ball towards the hoop. Oh, man. The black boy groaned. Three times in one pair. We're aware, Al. We got it.

You think we're going to get that guy's backstory? Yeah. Oh, of course not. Oh, boy. But we are going to get a middle-aged man who has never been anywhere but the country of the North Texas suburbs try to do inner city African-American vernacular English. So I'm very excited for us to have this journey together, Margaret. I'm so glad you're the one reading it. Oh, man. The black boy groaned as Tim shot and the ball began rolling around the inside of the rim.

I could have made that shot in my sleep, man. He keeps groaning as the ball circled the hoop twice more and then dropped in. And, you know, that's on the editor that there's like repeated reuse of the same words in the same way in individual paragraphs. Some of that should be an editor. Yeah. But the editor is doing the same thing that Al Jones does, which is get people who don't know what happens to money to give you money and then not do work. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Like overall, structurally, this is a mess and the sentence and the rhythm of the sentence structure isn't particularly impressive, but this isn't, this isn't like bad.

bad writing. The prose of individual, what it's saying is bad and it's saying it badly and not impressively, but it's better than a lot of self-published stuff. If I was doing like a writing clinic and somebody came to me with a book that was written at this level of quality and like not racist, I would say like, we can work with this.

Like you are going to have to put a lot of effort in to get this thing. But like this is this would be salvageable. There's ways to reorient this in order to make it. For example, I would just do the whole scene of the shooting first. And I would you know, you can you can have through conversations through, you know, just, you know, or Mick, you know, thinking about it. You can get a little bit more of his backstory that way. Not this really awkward way that he's decided to do it. But anyway. Okay.

Okay, let's continue. I could have made that shot in my sleep, man. He groaned as the ball circled the hoop twice more and dropped in. Lucky shot, man. Why don't you let a superstar get hold of the ball? This is the guy that we've been told is black three times, by the way. I just did, homeboy. Tim shot back as Mick began running through the opening and the broken down chain link fence. You guys need me to give you a few lessons? You look like you could use them. I think that's Mick, but he doesn't tell us it's Mick.

He just comes running in. He just comes barging into the game. Are they all children? Because Timmy is eight. I think they're adults. Timmy was eight a long time ago. Now our protagonist is, I assume, a Navy SEAL because he was doing Navy stuff in Iraq. Yeah, okay. Tim is 10 years younger than him, but I'm guessing Tim is at least, he might be like 16 or 17, but probably like at least

Eight teams would be my guess. I just love that. I'm just like waiting through on the other side of the fence to come running in to cause a problem. This man would have choked that man to death on the subway. Anyway. Mick, when did you get in, man? I didn't even know you were coming. What time did you get here? Did you stop by the house and see mom? Tim quizzed as he started running to meet Mick.

The shot from the .357 Magnum echoed through the entire neighborhood. Time stood still as Mick hit the ground without even thinking. Looking around quickly, he tried to evaluate the situation. He glanced up just in time to see Timmy stumbling, then falling to the ground. A stream of blood trickled from the left side of his face. Timmy!

He screams the second, a third, and then a fourth shot rang out. A dull thunk resounded as the bullet from the fourth shot tore into the chest of Tim's teammate. The black boy... God damn it, dude. The black boy came off his feet as if hit by a huge invisible fist and landed solidly on his back. Mick could see the life draining from his eye.

Seven as he fell? Draining from his eyes, seven as he fell. That's just got to be a typo. Yep, that was like the page number at the bottom of the manuscript. Something like that. He had that faraway stare fixed on his face before he ever hit the ground. Mick jumped on his feet and began running towards Tim as the screech of tires from the fleeing black sedan reached him. He glanced up just in time to catch the blur of the Cadillac as it sped by. There were five of them. They were all Hispanic.

Each wore a strange looking bandana tied around his head. The bandanas had a cross within a circle crudely drawn on the front. In an instant, they were gone as the car sped around the corner. Tim! Tim! Mick was running as fast as he could go. Why does he need to run? He was close enough to talk at a conversational volume to them. And now he has to sprint to get to him?

He should be like three feet away. That bullet sent that kid flying. Launched him back a football field away. That's the power of the .357 Magnum. Yeah. Oh, God. Two of the boys were stupid. I'm surprised it wasn't 9mm that he wrote about for the...

No, I think the bullet glistened as it went by. It would have been more because this is like a big part of what must have motivated this. Right. Like ninety ninety one is kind of when like violent crime, especially like violent urban crime peaks in the United States. And it's pretty much been on a downward. You know, we had a little bit of a surge after covid, but now it's dropped. It is continued to drop pretty dramatically in the covid year or in the year since the start of the covid pandemic.

Yeah. So Al is reacting to this like panic that began over crime that reached its height in the early 90s, but has never gone away, which is why 75% of Americans believe that like crime is out of control, even though murder dropped by like 25% nationwide last year, something like that. Property crime down by 15%. Anyway.

Anyway, Al completely took that pill, right? Like where he just believes that inner cities are literal war zones. What's interesting to me is that he does arm these stereotypical Hispanic gangbangers with a .357 Magnum. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, you know, you're right. The standard armament to give these guys would have been like a MAC-10 or maybe an Uzi if you want to show they've got extra money, right? Totally. Or...

Or like a Saturday night special, maybe. But a Saturday, you're not really Saturday night special isn't what you do like a drive by with. That's what you like jam into somebody's belly and pull the trigger till it goes click. Right. A Mac 10. I don't know. But I'm not going to I'm not going to critique him on that. It's not bad to want to go with something a little bit different. That's fine. Well, he only knows one caliber. He knows one kind of gun. He has only ever shot a cowboy gun. Yeah, right.

Okay, so Mick runs to Tim. Some of his, Jesus, two of the boys were stooped down next to Tim and the other four were standing around the dead black boy. Again, every time, every single time he refers to this boy, he has to let us know. You know, if you give characters names, you can actually avoid referring to them by their names every single time. You could have Tim refer to him by a name and then you would, yeah, not have to do this. There's a lot of things you could have done here.

Their eyes were wide with shock. One began to retch violently just as Mick reached Timmy. "'Tim! Tim!' Mick yelled as he fell down by his cousin's side. Tim was barely conscious. His blondish hair was red with blood. The bullet had hit him at an angle in the back of the neck. Tim looked up at Mick with a distant, unfocused look in his eyes."

He doesn't look twice in the same sentence, huh? Mick had seen that look before. There we go again. He had to get help and he had to get it right now. Is there a phone nearby? Mick yelled. It's the late 90s. The six boys just looked at him. And again, there shouldn't... Yeah, six. No, that's right. The six boys just looked at him with blank shares of...

the stairs of shocked silence. A phone, a phone. Is there a frigging phone around here? Snap out of it. Timmy has to have help and he needs it right now. This seemed to care about the other kid. No, he was dead before he hit the ground. Mick can see it. His Navy SEAL training taught him to recognize that. Doesn't even need to go check. Not worth looking at. He's dead before he hit the ground. It's fine. This seemed to jolt the boys back to reality.

Oh, God. Oh, my God. Okay, here we get him really trying to do some AAVE. There's a payphone on the wall over there by the school door, but I ain't got no money on me, man. Finally volunteered one of the boys. There's a payphone. There's...

Sir, sir, what? Oh, wow. Man, this is a fascinatingly... Margaret, I need you to see how he actually wrote this paragraph. Let's see if we get to focus. I want it to focus. Is it gonna? You're almost there.

There's a payphone on the wall over there by the school door. There's no period at the end of that. But I ain't got no money on me, man. There sure isn't a period. It's just... Man, I had basic spelling grammar check by the late 90s. I was using it. Sue your editor, Al. Yeah.

Great. Tim looked up at Mick with that dreamy other world look in his eyes. Mick could see that he was about to go into shock. His training took over. He threw off his windbreaker and removed his T-shirt after ripping it into strips and folding one into a compress. He pressed the makeshift bandage against the wound. Timmy groaned, the bleeding slow to trickle.

I love that he's like, rather than just like ripping off a shirt and using it as a compress, he's like carefully ripping it into strips in a way that nobody would do if their loved one was actively bleeding to death on the ground. But if you've read some books that tell you how to do first aid instead of doing first aid. Right.

Right. Yes. That is how it would be. Yeah. Good stuff. The bleeding slowed to a trickle. I need some help. Oh, yeah. So he just jams it in there and he stops. Hold on to me. Hold on. You're going to be OK. You've got to be OK. Timmy mixed said with tears welling up in his eyes as he began tying other strips around the compress lightly to hold the bandage in place.

Lightly's not going to do it. Can you hear me? Okay, Timmy, talk to me. Can you hear me? Tim blinked twice and then closed his eyes. Got to keep him talking. Got to keep him awake till the ambulance gets here. He's about to go into shock.

Mick mumbled to no one in particular. Timmy, stay awake, Timmy. Talk to me, cousin. Mick, what happened? What happened, Mick? I can't move, Tim whispered. The sirens blared and grew louder as the ambulance rushed down Hickory Street toward the schoolyard. Mick, I'm cold. Mick, why do I feel so cold? Shit, am I going to die, Mick? Tim whispered barely loud enough to hear. Mick covered Timmy with his windbreaker. Is that better, Timmy? Stay with me, cousin. Don't stay up all... So, anyway, we keep going through the ambulance shows up. Mm.

I now think Tim's going to live because he's going to be paralyzed. He's going to be paralyzed. So he can be a different type of... Yeah, so he can be our like... Yeah. I have a feeling we're never going to care about the kid who got blasted in the chest. Oh, don't worry. We hear from him in just a second because the dispatcher or the paramedics arrive and the paramedic says, the dispatcher said something about a shooting. The other paramedic came running...

the paramedics are seeing two people bleeding to death on the ground. Was there a shooting here? Yeah. The other paramedic came running around the front of the van holding two more medical kits as the second ambulance sped across the schoolyard toward the black boy. Well,

Why are we still talking about this? These guys were next to each other. Why is the second ambulance driving around to him? Like, they were standing next to each other playing basketball. Is this about how they're prioritizing the black kid over the white kid? Is that what's happening? I don't know, because there's two ambulances conveniently. Oh, okay. Yeah. Great. Okay.

So, yes, sir, that's right. How many? Two, Mick said. One over there. And I think he may be dead. I'm afraid my cousin is going into shock. So this is the first time when he says one over there, referring to the kid who's died. This is the first time that Al writes about that kid without calling him black. So, you know, that's.

That's progress. We're moving forward. I feel good about Al now. Yeah. The driver read Tim's vital signs, shaking his head in agreement while the other paramedic removed the makeshift bandages and checked the wound. Lost a lot. He's removing the bandage. Lost a lot of blood, he commented quietly as if speaking to himself while he lightly cleaned the wound.

He unwrapped it. Again, if you have been shot through the neck, the first thing the paramedic is going to do on the ground is not going to be to clean the wound. He is going to try to staunch the bleeding, which you, by wrapping a T-shirt loosely around the neck, will not have done. Yeah. Um...

Might be a higher level of care situation. Yeah, cleaning is not the priority with a gunshot wound to the neck right now. It's truly just bizarre. He unwrapped a fresh compress and applied it while the driver talked by radio with a doctor in the trauma center at Presbyterian Hospital. Start an IV.

Ringers lactate. Got to transport immediately. The other paramedic had already connected the bottle and was preparing to insert the IV. You say you're his cousin? The driver asked. Yes, sir. My name's Mick McCord. I'm on leave from the Navy. Wanted to surprise Timmy. Is he going to be okay? Mick, you are a Navy SEAL. You know that a man who has been shot in the neck is not going to be okay.

Also, that is an Irish ass name. Yeah. Fuck your anti-Catholic Protestant ass. Yeah. He belongs to the Church of Christ. Well, it is true that only the Irish really know the evil of the Catholic Church. Truly. Every detail he gives just makes the story less credible. You know what I mean? Like, say less. Yeah. Say slightly less. Can you move? Tim tried to answer, but he couldn't. He can only manage to not a feeble no.

Mick hadn't noticed the two police cars that had arrived shortly after the ambulances. Four officers had been grilling the six boys for details about the shooting. One of the officers left the group and walked over to Mick. I understand you're a cousin of one of the victims. Is that right? Yes, sir. My name's Mick McCord. We keep hearing like, yes, yes, it is true. The cops would ask him for his name again. But like, as the reader, I don't need to hear this guy introduce his full name repeatedly. Yeah.

I need to ask you a few questions if I could, Mr. McCord. The paramedics got Tim on the cot as the driver looked at Mick. We're taking the Presbyterian. They've got one of the best trauma units in the country. Will he be OK? Mick asked again. It's bad. I won't kid you. But Presbyterian has the man. He's really paid to do an ad for Presbyterian Hospital. Maybe that's where his wife went when she was sick. I don't know.

Anyway, they get in the ambulance and we're going to cover what happens next in chapter two, which also gets its entire own page. But first, Margaret, you know who won't shoot a child in the neck?

40 to 50% of our sponsors? I'm going to say upwards of 60. More than 60% of our sponsors will not shoot a child in the neck while they play basketball. The Washington State Highway Patrol? Sure. The Chumba Casino people? Yeah. If it'll help business. AI eventually. Yeah, AI eventually would do it, right?

you know, but, but not most of them, not 60% of them, you know, boost or whatever phone company advertises with us. They would never do that. They would never do. Mint mobile would never shoot. You read that basketball. Um, that would, it's not a mint mobile type. Ryan Reynolds owns them. He's a nice guy. He's not going to shoot a kid playing basketball, you know?

I assume. Unless he's got like a dark secret evil inside of him that he keeps locked away from the rest of us. Or that kid is like future Hitler. Yeah, what if the kid could be, you know what? Could be Hitler. Could have been Hitler. Yeah. Are we still doing the bit? Yeah, sorry. Anyway, here's ads.

Wouldn't it be nice if making decisions was easier? With Xfinity, you have one less decision to worry about. Just say what to watch into your Xfinity voice remote to see editors' picks and find what's new. You can even search by genre or mood. You can also find the ultimate dance soundtrack and play all your favorite music and artists on iHeartRadio to get the party started right in your living room. So you can skip the endless scroll and get right to the good stuff.

Nothing will fit into your day better than a Fit Crunch bar. Fit Crunch baked bars are chef-inspired from Robert Irvine and made with six layers of deliciousness. With 16 grams of protein and 3 grams of sugar, Fit Crunch is the perfect snack, whether it's at school, midday at work, or when you're on the go. Visit FitCrunch.com and use promo code RADIO15 for 15% off your FitCrunch.com order or find a retailer near you. Check out FitCrunch.com today. That's FitCrunch.com, promo code RADIO15.

You're probably careful with your personal information, but what about the other places that have it? Like the doctor's office that mixed up your files. They have your social security number. The power company that mistakenly cut your service has your payment info and last three addresses. And the hotel that lost your reservation has your passport info.

We

with plans covering up to $3 million for stolen funds and expenses. Mistakes happen. Don't let not having protection be one of them. Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com slash news. That's lifelock.com slash news to save up to 40%. Terms apply. ♪

Hey, have you ever used Cheapo Air? For years, and I really like it. With Cheapo Air, you can book online, use their app, or even over the phone. They've got great prices on over 500 airlines and millions of accommodations. They're my go-to for travel planning. And if you join their Club Miles program, you can earn points to save on the cost of your travel.

Book on the app and you get double points. Sounds like it's time I tried Cheapo Air. Call Cheapo Air at 855-247-3279 or visit CheapoAir.com slash podcast. Donna and her friends were excited to check out a new spot for game night in her Toyota Camry until they arrived and realized that this particular game night was bingo night. B14.

So Donna and her friends regrouped in the Camry and plotted a winning move to a mini golf course for some tried and true fun. Competitive drives. It's a Camry vibe. The all hybrid Toyota Camry. Toyota, let's go places. All right, we're back and let's let's get to chapter two.

Bob, what's this about? I was supposed to meet with the Joint Chiefs this afternoon. The President's secretary sounded pretty uptight when she called. That's not like her. Secretary of Defense Al Reynolds carefully unwrapped the long, green, hand-rolled Cuban cigar and clipped the end.

Never seen a green Cuban cigar. And also, all Cuban cigars are hand rolled. So you don't really need to describe that. Cigars generally are hand rolled. Like real cigars are basically always hand rolled. It's a weird thing to specify. I don't think Al smokes cigars. No, but he likes to imagine he does.

He likes to imagine that the Secretary of Defense does. Although, is the Cuban thing... Because we hate Cuba in the 90s, if you're this kind of man. Right, right. Yes. But Cuban cigars are still this sign of... It's almost the fact that we hate Cuba... Class and affluence, yeah. That makes it okay to smoke Cuban cigars. Yes. It's like, oh, they're cool because they're illegal or whatever. Yeah, yeah. No, that is the...

Speaking of Cuba, Margaret, I've been wanting to talk about this because I just watched A Few Good Men again, which is like both. It's one of those movies rewatching it. You understand like, oh, I get why Aaron Sorkin became a thing like this is a really complex and intricate script and it's really well executed.

But at the same time, there's also, because there's so many excellent performances, right? Like Tom Cruise is acting as fucking hard out. Obviously you got Jack Nicholson up on, that monologue is still one of my favorite monologues. I don't remember this movie. I have seen it. I remember seeing it and I don't remember anything about it. You'll enjoy it rewatching it, but it's also, it's all grounded in one of the, this fundamental absurdity that's impossible to ignore, which is like all of these military guys who are, because the basic plot is that like,

a kid gets killed due to hazing on our Guantanamo base. And the hazing was due to the fact that he wasn't a good soldier. He didn't formed on his old unit about like one of them had shot at a Cuban guard and stuff. So like, but the, the, the military guys are always like,

you know, my job is to save lives. And like, we have to have the most intensely strict discipline. You know, we need hard men up on that wall willing to do violence. That's the only reason you soft American liberals get to sleep at night, right? That is something Aaron Sorkin believed

Like he's a liberal, but he's also like, but we do need these like real violent shit up there. And it's, you get all of these different like monologues about that. And at the same time, the one thing he does call like Nicholson's characters is formally shown to be like a hypocrite because he's not actually willing to take accountability for his actions and tries to have his men take the fall for the fact that he had ordered this. But,

But at the same time, what the movie never investigates is the fundamental absurdity that like all of these guys talking about how important this is, talking about this terrible danger they're protecting the country from, which is why they have to be so harsh. It's like, well, it's Cuba.

Like, what are they going to do? What is what is Cuba going to do? Are they going to invade Guantanamo Bay, invade the country 80 miles off their coast that has nukes and a million fucking planes? What are they going to do? Are they going to sell us rum? Are you scared of them selling us cheap rum, Aaron Sorkin? Is that what Jack Nicholson's on that wall to protect us from?

There was that missile crisis, but that was so long ago. Yeah, yeah. And it wasn't even their missiles. Yeah. We've got this going on right now where that like Russian nuclear sub is docked in Cuba. And there's a certain chunk of people who are flipping out about it. There was a video today with like, look, it's a video of Cubans boarding the sub. And it's like clearly a bunch of people and their families doing the same thing Americans do at Fleet Week. Like, oh, you wanted to go look inside a submarine. Yeah.

You're on a this. You are literally like they're opening it up to visitors the way we do with our submarines a bunch of the time. Like stop being scared of Cuba. There's nothing they can do to hurt us. I I lost part of that because the Internet blinked. Yeah, but I feel like I still got the.

Yeah. The effect of it. You're doing great. It's the silliest thing to be scared of. Anyway, maybe not as silly as what Al Jones is scared of. So we've just met Defense Secretary Al Reynolds, who is smoking his green Cuban cigar.

He was a handsome... Hand-rolled, of course. He was a handsome man of military stature and had indeed been a naval officer during the Korean War. His graying hair gave him a look of distinction, and he was always smartly but conservatively dressed in tailored suits and the toned-down accessories of a business executive. Okay, so he likes this man. I think he likes this guy. And a little note, if you actually want to make a detail about how... You might actually list some of those accessories. A guy like this is going to be like...

I don't know. Whenever somebody says like, whenever somebody leaves it at, he has all the accessories of a businessman. It's like, well, you don't know what those are, Al. You don't know what those are. He never learned show, don't tell. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about his fucking cufflinks. This kind of guy would have a story about his cufflinks that he inherited from his Confederate great, great grandfather or some shit like that. Right. Totally. Like, give us a little bit of texture here. I don't know, Al. I was supposed to have a working lunch with the VP today. Oh, and his name is Al. So.

I don't know, Al. I was supposed to have a working lunch with the VP today. When Brenda called to tell him I had to reschedule, he was pretty pissed. She told him that the president was quite clear that I had better be here. You would think that he and Baird would talk to each other once in a while. Do you think this has anything to do with the bombing at O'Hare? Secretary of State Bob Barnett was dressed in a full-cut, three-piece, navy-pinned, striped wool suit. His vest gapped as his flabby, brown potbelly fought to escape from between the straining buttons. He was prematurely bald and he called

Yeah. Yeah, I think not. He's nervously cleaned his fingernails with a blade of the small fingernail clippers that he always seemed to have with him. The tension. Oh, so he's also effeminate. He's also effeminate. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep. The tension could usually be measured by how feverishly he cleaned. And this was the second time around for the right hand. What do you think, Dave? I'm not sure, but I saw Lynch yesterday. Also, you're introducing us too many names without context about who those people are too quickly. And so it just kind of makes this incomprehensible a little bit.

He told me that Baird was really pissed about something, a real bear to be around. He says he'd been ranting and raving around the White House, which is all one word in this. White House is all one word. Interesting. Yes. I wonder if he thinks that's how it's spelled. He'd never seen him this upset. Dave Campbell was a special advisor to the president. Baird seemed to rely heavily on him. They had room together at Clemson.

Incredible writing. He was a casual man and dressed more like a physics professor than a statesman. He wore a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard and his hair was long but well kept. He most often dressed in baggy pants and the traditional academic wool tweed sport coat with leather elbow patches complete with a sports shirt open at the collar or a solid turtleneck depending on the season. I do like he cares about menswear. He does. He cares about menswear. But I also like he never looked. His suit was never like

tailored it did like very clearly didn't fit so I think he might aspire to liking menswear but I think the menswear guy on Twitter would really give him some shit yeah

shit Barnett stammered as he nervously dug underneath his left thumbnail sounds like it's gonna be a real enjoyable meeting huh now you know what I'll give him something with a little bit of editing the whole a guy who is fastidious about cleanliness and shows his nervousness by how obsessively he cleans his fingernails you could think you can work with that you could know that's a good yeah yeah yeah you can although it's like that work balanced with he's the disheveled one with a pot belly bursting right through his right he looks like shit otherwise yeah yeah

Everyone stood as President Baird. And again, we haven't actually been told what room we're in. Like we've been had all these guys described, but we don't know where they are, whose office they are. It's only now a page and a half in that becomes clear that we're in the Oval Office or might not be the Oval Office. They don't say it might just be a conference room. Either way, the president is now walked in.

accompanied by a haggard looking press secretary, Michael Lynch. Take your seats. The president nonchalantly waved at the chairs in front of his desk. Nope, we're in the Oval Office. Okay, now we know. Just took us a little while.

Close the door, please, Mike. Gentlemen, let me get straight to the point. We have a serious problem. But before I would like to get straight to the point, I really would like to know. Let him. You know what you might start this chapter at? Is the president talking? Just the president saying something. Not these guys having a call about the president's call. We don't actually learn anything or even know where we are until the president comes into the room.

Close the door, please, Mike. Gentlemen, let me get right to the point. We have a serious problem. But before we get started, I want it understood. I don't want a word of what we're going to be talking about discussed outside this office. If somehow the honorable senator from Maine gets wind of this, I promise personally to have someone's ass on a platter. And that's actually, you know, Al, how you do it, right? If you're going to be like dropping, you know, you're talking about politics, the country, there's a lot of politicians who aren't going to be characters in the story. You don't name all of

them, but a little line like that where he's like, I don't want the senator from Maine on my ass or something like that. Okay, that works, right? Like you've made the world seem a little bit bigger there, but you haven't, like you're not just dropping last names that mean nothing to me in the conversation, you know, that works a little better.

Mike check with we have no idea who's saying this Mike check with Lois have her should be sure to be to clear ever be sure my Schedule has been cleared for the next two hours. Tell her not to disturb us for anything short of a nuclear exchange President it's just a separate paragraph and a separate quote without any kind of interstellar text Okay, press secretary Lynch press the button on the president's intercom miss Adams make sure that we're not disturbed and I

I guess that's her talking. Miss Adams, make sure that we're not disturbed for the next two hours. So we need to hear the president. Al knows the best rule of writing is tell forever, like way too much. Just keep telling, but don't show. Yeah. The same thing over and over again, ideally. Yeah. Yeah. So the president gives the order and then we have to hear the secretary execute it rather than just assume she'll have done her job. Yeah. And we have to hear he orders coffee. We have to go through all that. Yeah.

Michael W. Lynch was a small, nervous man with a massive ego that caused him to be despised by the majority of the White House staff. Oh, it is two words now. He knows how to spell White House. He just fucked up. Oh, interesting. That's good. I wonder whether there's this different, it's a different meaning. You know, like how it's, when it's adjectivial, maybe it's one word. Yeah. Yeah. When something, like you use it as one word if you're describing something as White House-like. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great.

Even so, he had a brilliant mind and was very capable. The president had come to depend on him heavily. He had a bachelor's in political science from Harvard, a master's in international political relations from Princeton, and his PhD from Harvard in international communications. I love how there's no sense of who the observational point of view is. Yes, I have no idea who's right. Because we're in every single person's head and we're in every single person's backstory, which is...

A style of writing, just a wildly old-fashioned and unpopular style. Because it's like third-person omniscient is what this is supposed to be. But instead it comes across as third-person ADHD where it is an omniscient third person, but he keeps darting around between different things in his world and honing in on them and focusing on them to the extent that the overall story is incomprehensible.

Because it's head hopping instead of a big picture looking at everything. I think there's two ways. If you want to let me know that this guy is brilliant-

Great to say like he was despised for and then give like a one or two sentence example of like a time where he made a hard call that worked out for the president, but it fucked a lot of guys over or something. You tell me nothing by just listing all of his degrees. Now, if you want to show me that a guy is an arrogant asshole who won't shut up about his education and that annoys everybody, have him list all of his degrees to try to like make a point about like how he's right in an argument or something like that.

Yeah. But I don't care that he got a master's in international political relations. That doesn't tell me anything about this character. Not really. He's in the fucking White House. Like, I assume he has a bunch of degrees. Yeah. Yeah. Like, master's, so he's a chump. Yeah. Like,

Great. You think that the people in the fucking Oval Office are like PhDs or weird mavericks? Well, he's got a PhD in Harvard in international communications. Oh, right. Okay. Having written numerous treatises on the Middle East for various publications, his predictions on the Iraq problem with Saddam Hussein. Oh, my God. He spells both. How did you spell? He spells both parts of the name wrong. Please, please. Yeah, it's S- Wait. S-A-D-A-A-M-

H-U-S-S-I-E-N. Incredible. How do you do both? How do you think he pronounced his name? Do you think he went full boobs? He went full boobs. He went Saddam. Saddam Hussein. We're written well before the attack on Kuwait had taken place. He had been right on target, but no one had listened. And as a result, we were caught with our pants down around our ankles.

Man, that's a switch in the narrator to like, okay, so now the narrator is referring themselves as Americans as a we. Just a little odd, just a little bit off there. Again, the way I might do this is have like,

He had a constant chip on his shoulder because he had predicted this thing and nobody had believed him. And that's why everybody thought he was an arrogant prick because he never let them forget about it. But he was right. Something like that as opposed to doing it this way. Lynch's ego thrived on the power that came from being the closest advisor to the president. He worked 18 and sometimes 20 hours a day to ensure that nothing would threaten the security of his position.

I'm sure you're all aware of the flack we're catching on the gang violence problem. I think this is the president. The honorary Senator Storm has already made the honorary. Is this supposed to be honorable or is he like not a real senator? Is he a fake senator? Senator Storm, like a sick, this is like a kid with cancer. They gave like a fake senator pin too. He's sitting and he's on fucking interferon or something slowly dying. Yeah.

Given pronouncements, the honorary Senator Storm has already made it clear in his specially called news conference. That's a weird way to describe a news conference that it's our fault that these these malcontents are out there raping, murdering and plundering with no apparent concern for the laws of this great nation of ours. Of course, we know the braying ass just wants to be the next president and the primaries are just months away. Good info dump there, Mr. President.

Oh, this is the president talking again, but they don't tell us. I also really like their plundering. Plundering. Because I'm really glad that they have ships and they're pirates. So the president's speech continues, but periodically at random, it's just split up into four separate paragraphs that are all quotes, but he doesn't reiterate who's talking. So it feels at the start of each paragraph, you're wondering until you get to the middle of it, is this someone else in the room talking? Yeah.

If only there were a specific grammatical thing you do where you don't include the ending quotation marks at the end if the next paragraph is the same speaker. Right. Or if you're going to have a guy talk for four paragraphs straight, I don't know, maybe you're Cormac McCarthy, you can do some monologues now and then.

A lot of writers will break it up a little bit with the detail about like what he's doing physically. Is he gesturing? Is he fiddling with something at his desk because he's nervous? Are other people in the room fiddling or reacting some way, you know, makes it a little bit better, right?

It's called writing. A lot of people have heard of it. You might try it one day, Al. Gentlemen, this issue has become the political hot potato of the decade. It seems the voters are becoming downright pissed. They're more upset over the gang mess than the terrorist problem. Though to me, terrorism seems to pose a much more serious threat in the long term. Al Jones predicted 9-11. Got to give him credit for that. Good work, Al.

As an afterthought, the president added, how we ever allowed the Iraqis to get hold of plutonium during the breakup of the Soviet Union. Wow, this is 98. So he's doing a Saddam's got nukes. I mean, he's not the only guy saying it, right? That was kind of a conservative bugbear, but it tells you a lot about where he was because that was not like, it was kind of a little more on the obscure end of conservative bugbears in 1996, I think, when this was published first.

Well, at least it happened before we came into office. We can't catch shit on that one. Mr. President, how can this be such an important political issue? It's nothing new. The problem has been around for years now. The last two administrations didn't seem to catch any flack on it, Barnett declared.

Come on, Bob. The reason it's such a hot potato is because the primaries are around the corner. The mayors are catching hell from their opponents in the primaries over gang activity. They're beginning to panic. They're actually starting to fear not being reelected. Politically, it's a fact that all loyalty and normal rules of conduct go down the crapper when there's a chance of being booted by the voters. Shit, most of these assholes would cut their mother's throat with a dull knife to stay in office one more time.

Hey, that's a good line right there. That's a single good line from the president. We got one good line. I'm proud of you, Al. I'm proud of you. You would say that line is- Oh, no. That was Lynch, not the president. It's very unclear because he never tells us who's talking. I just think that that line was really glistening.

It really knocked me back like 10 feet. Yeah. It knocked Margaret who was white black back on her white, white leaf. Wow. We did it. Oh, great stuff. Okay. So this meeting is going to continue. Yada, yada, yada. Um, they're talking about gangs, uh,

There's a whole long discussion where someone tells the president you can't fight gangs like an army because they're a bunch of autonomous groups that aren't all run by the same guys. So you can't make peace with them for the same reason. That's true. Have any of the mayors tried to get the gang leaders together? Maybe if they could get them to talk, we might be able to find up a way to set up special education opportunities, maybe even city job programs to get these people back on the right track. Oh, OK.

Dave Campbell added while he was fidgeting with his neatly trimmed mustache. He's trying. Come on, Campbell. Get real. These people don't want to work or finish school. They operate on their own home turf like a bunch of gorilla fighters. You want to guess how he spells gorilla fighters? It's the animal. Spells it gorilla. Yeah.

They want what they want. They badger and bully the poor people that are still forced to live in these war zones. I grew up not far from Harlem and they were they were the same way then. Just not as blatant about it. They rule by fear. If you met together with them to talk, they most likely would steal your friggin wallet and then kick your ass. Shot back Lynch.

Great race stuff. So let's see. Okay. So finally they go through, can the mayors do it? Can the cops do it? Can the FBI and the CIA do it? None of them can handle it. Right. The FBI. What about one Navy SEAL? He says the FBI and the CIA have surveillance programs on gangs. And like,

If you're going to do that, you should have somebody acknowledge at some point that it is illegal for the CIA to conduct domestic law enforcement. Yeah. Like, it's fine if you want to be like the CIA is doing an illegal gang task force in the US. But you do have to like be like, so everyone knows that we're breaking the law, right? We're all we're all aware that this is a crime. The problem is,

The problem is that the author is not aware that the FBI and the CIA, besides being different letters, are also different organizations. Okay. And here we get a fun line. So they're talking about how the FBI and the CIA, they're trying, but they don't understand the workings of the typical gang power structure. So the information is not as useful as it might otherwise be. We need someone who understands something about the concept of unit integrity or the close-knit way these gangs function. Someone who can infiltrate them. Like a Navy SEAL. Oh.

Oh, because like there's not special forces units in the FBI that are functionally the same as any military special, like a bunch of guys who train all the time together and go into combat together. Those don't exist in the FBI. Only Navy SEALs understand what it's like to be in a unit. They're a higher level than anyone else except the Israeli military.

Yes. Yes. Except the Israeli murder squad. Cool. Cool. So, yeah, the president's like, are you talking about like Green Berets or some shit you want us to send special forces in? And Lynch, I think it's Lynch, says not exactly. Well, on second thought, yeah, that is sort of what I mean. And, you know, using Green Berets or some other spec war team to do.

Spec war? Spec war. Okay. To deal with these dipsticks might not in itself be a bad idea. They're trained in camouflage and disguise and there are no better... He spells guerrilla fighters wrong again. I think he just thinks that's how it's spelled. Yes. Okay. And so that's where I think we're going to close, right? The president and his men have suggested... Yeah, it's on a cliffhanger. They decide...

We're going to try to get a special forces team. Oh, boy. No, no. Okay. He uses a slur in this paragraph. I need to read it. That was the most Robert thing that has ever happened.

So they've got to solve this problem. They've got to fix the gang problem no matter what it takes. The stakes are so high. This is the presidency hangs on it. Yada, yada, yada. Listen, Mike, I want you to discreetly check with the CIA and the FBI. I know you have

people you can trust in both agencies. I want to know what they have in their files on their work on the gang problem. They've been putting more and more attention on gangs since the fold-up of the Soviet Union. I guess they have to justify their existence somehow. I want to know what they've done up to this point before I call either of the directors in to visit. I know that both of those, F-word, would love nothing more than to see Storm get the presidency. They're not going to help us any more than they have to. If I know what they have and I catch them lying to me, I can kick their asses and get them with the program."

Oh, OK. And then he gets a phone call from Trixie Puller. Unclear to me who Trixie Puller is. Maybe he's having an affair with Trixie Puller. Yeah. Yeah. We'll find out. So anyway, the president has given his orders to Mr. Lynch. He needs to find a solution to the gang's problem. Always referred to as the gang's problem. And, you know, not by the name of any gangs, just vaguely the gang's problem. He's never heard of a gang.

I and so far, every time the FBI or CIA have come up, it's been the FBI and the CIA, which I think is further confirmation that like Al doesn't know how to spell gorilla. Al doesn't understand any differences between either agency. So he just has to include them together. Yeah.

It's like when I say the House and Senate, because I always forget who's a senator and who's a who's a congressperson. That's I do that. That's true. I know the differences. I know representatives. Sorry. I know the differences, but I always fuck it up. Yeah. Anyway, Magpie, how do you feel about Operation Nightwatch now that we've gone through the first two chapters? I'm on the edge of my seat. What could possibly happen? I hope that...

Mick is able to save the day and get justice for paralyzed Timmy. Presumably paralyzed Timmy.

And the unnamed black boy who died. No one cares about him. Why are you bringing him up? I hope that the president and his friends who all have are introduced as an indistinguishable storm of names. Yeah. Win or lose re-election. Unclear to me if they're supposed to be worse than Storm at this point. I hope they do one or the other. I hope everyone has fun. Storm, the sick boy with cancer who gets to pretend to be in the Senate.

I hope that the gangs win and bring about peace on earth. That's what I hope happens. Yeah. I love that. Like the person who was like, what if we get all the gangs together to talk? I'm like, fuck that. That'll never happen. You fucking piece of shit. Liberal. Like I have actually been in places where the gangs have called truces and work together. It's when cops murder people and they have to temporarily put aside their differences to like shut Baltimore down. Yeah. Well, Magpie,

Speaking of Baltimore, you have a podcast. It's true. Not like Baltimore in any particular way, other than that Baltimore, I presume, has cool people doing cool stuff in it. Yeah, the people who later invented the paramedics, they did it in Pittsburgh, but the guy started in Baltimore. He started in Eastern Europe. There you go. He was in Baltimore for a while, and sometimes...

I wear a Baltimore shirt while I record, but people don't know it because my podcast, Cool People Did Cool Stuff, is not available on video. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you're going to have to be like, how am I going to listen to Margaret? And the answer is that you have to use a podcast app. But you can do it by listening to me every Monday and Wednesday with Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You can do that.

And I don't have a shirt that says Baltimore, but I'm often thinking about that song that I heard in The Wire, What You Know About Baltimore. Whenever someone says the word Baltimore, that song comes into my head. So there's some lore for Robert. Anyway, I have a novel. It's called After the Revolution.

You know, it's a it's a debut novel. There's some things I would have written differently if I were writing it today. But I can tell you one thing. You generally know who is saying what, because it's it's easy to include that in your book. But how many times did you use the word glisten?

I think at least a couple. Great. Probably a glisten or two in there. Yeah. Yeah. I'd imagine. That's great. And Magpie, you have a book called The Sapling Cage, which I can confirm is much better than Al Jones' Operation Nightwatch. I would hope so. And also, like an actual writer, you were paid to publish it. It's true.

It comes out in September from Feminist Press. If you are listening to this in the middle of June 2024, it is available for Kickstarter right now. And if you're listening after that, then it is either available for pre-order or regular order. And it is about a young trans girl who becomes a witch and saves the world from people destroying magic and trying to institute a bad government. There's a lot of good spear porn in it too. Yeah.

So if you like in the way that you are currently thinking, not in, no, like in the, in the way of like people using, cause, cause Spears are cool weapons. God damn it. You're right. Okay. I should, I do have to qualify that. Yeah. I like Spears. Can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can we, can

Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Wouldn't it be nice if making decisions was easier? With Xfinity, you have one less decision to worry about. Just say what to watch into your Xfinity voice remote to see editors' picks and find what's new. You can even search by genre or mood. You can also find the ultimate dance soundtrack and play all your favorite music and artists on iHeartRadio to get the party started right in your living room. So you can skip the endless scroll and get right to the good stuff.

Nothing will fit into your day better than a Fit Crunch bar. Fit Crunch baked bars are chef-inspired from Robert Irvine and made with six layers of deliciousness. With 16 grams of protein and 3 grams of sugar, Fit Crunch is the perfect snack, whether it's at school, midday at work, or when you're on the go. Visit FitCrunch.com and use promo code RADIO15 for 15% off your FitCrunch.com order or find a retailer near you. Check out FitCrunch.com today. That's FitCrunch.com, promo code RADIO15.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's a simple truth. No matter who you are, mental health challenges can affect you, and how you manage them can make all the difference. That's why everyone should have access to mental health support that meets them where they are and helps them get through. BetterHelp provides online therapy on your schedule. It's flexible, simple to use, and more affordable than in-person therapy. Connect with a licensed therapist selected just for you. Learn more at BetterHelp.com.

That's BetterHelp.com.

Book on the app and you get double points. Sounds like it's time I tried Cheapo Air. Call Cheapo Air at 855-247-3279 or visit CheapoAir.com slash podcast. At Amica Insurance, we know it's more than just a car. It's the two-door coupe that was there for your first drive, the hatchback that took you cross-country and back, and the minivan that tackles the weekly carpool. For the cars you couldn't live without, trust Amica Auto Insurance.

Amiga. Empathy is our best policy.