Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So what started this?
Tell me about your day.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: I ain't gonna lie, man. I Woke up at 7:30.
I read for. I read for like, two or three hours.
And then my daughter's boyfriend woke up and was like, we should have a drinking day. And I was like, you know what? I'm with you.
So we started drinking like, vodka and dirty sodas since 11.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: It's a lot. That's early.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Each one had like, three shots in it, so I had about six, I think six or seven of them.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: So 12, 21 or 18, 21 shots.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Well, we switched up to Everclear for a little bit.
Oh, good. That's.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: That's responsible.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we ran out of vodka, so we switched up to Everclear.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: You know, I'm not sure I know what Everclear is.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: It's one shot for every three of vodka.
Yeah.
All right, man.
So I will say, pretty excited that Robert Duvall died.
Good guy.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: I was excited for you. I had him, huh?
You were the only one who had him.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Is it possible to have the same person as somebody else?
Yeah, we're not cross checking list.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: No. Yeah, you can have the same people, but you get an additional five. You get an additional five points for every month that you've had them on your roster without changing them.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: I had that motherfucker for a while, bro.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Yeah, so you. You got some additional points on that one. If someone else had him for, like, more time than you or less time, then the points would be. Be different.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: That person.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: No one had him. That person doesn't exist.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: All right, good.
So, yeah, man.
I mean, I'm sat.
Seem. I know.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: You're second on the leaderboard.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: I know. I saw that.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: You. You and Vince are the two new players, and you guys are on the top two spots, and everyone's furious. Just so you know, people who've been playing this game for four years are pissed.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Well, tell your dad you need to step his game up.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: So he's been talking about it for days on end.
He's stepping his game up.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And the great thing is Miami is like, hey, so and so died today. Do you got them on your list? I'm like, who is it?
She says the name. I was like, I don't know. I've never even heard that guy before.
Yeah, like, somebody died a couple days ago.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Was it Eric Dane?
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Oh, it was. It was. And I was like, I've never even fucking heard of that guy before.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: I had never heard of him. But my mom got the tip that he was on his way out, so she added him real quick.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Oh, shit.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: What a boss.
Did she get points off of that?
[00:03:35] Speaker A: I started.
Yeah, she did.
I. I started this game with a co worker who I think has ghosted me. She's not returning my text or anything. So she's not in the game anymore. But we, like, worked out all the rules.
Oh, yeah, I haven't added the points for Eric Dane yet.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: How many points was it?
[00:04:01] Speaker A: I don't know. Go to her list.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Oh, you updated her list, though?
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah, he's on her list. I just haven't added the points to her score.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Okay. Oh, 74.
Oh, that would have been. That would have put me.
I would have put me over the top. Damn, I wish I would have been paying attention.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that would have been good.
Also, if you go to the main roster, all the names are sorted by points, and if you go to the least amount of points, most of those people are terminal. So, like, those are the ones that you want to have. But anyway, so me and my co worker, we, like, worked out the rules for this game. Like, in our cubicles, there was this older lady in the cubicles with us who, like, was very offended by us coming up with this game.
But then for the next, like, two years, every time a celebrity died, she'd be like, did you guys have this person?
She didn't want to play, but she got super into letting us know who died.
Hey, I don't think I've ever asked you, do you use lined paper for your journal or do you use, like, dot grid
[00:05:20] Speaker B: line paper, blank paper for writing letters to people?
I got a journal sometime soon, dude. I got. I got some solid people, bro. I got some solid people, dude.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: You've got a good list. You've got a good list.
You're. You're set up to. To win it this year if. If things go well for you.
The journal that I use is a. Is a dot grid, and it lasts me, like, eight months, but it's 25 bucks.
So, like, even though it lasts me eight months, it's like a bummer every time I have to buy a new one.
So I'm experimenting with some cheaper, like, paperback ones.
And I can't remember why I was bringing that up to you.
I had a whole reason I was asking you about that. Okay, never mind. I'm dumb,
[00:06:29] Speaker B: dude. I got like 13 people that are over.
Over 80.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: 80 years old or 80 points.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: 80 years old, bro.
Yeah, I only got a handful of people that are under 80.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: A bummer happened for my dad on his list.
So he's got this guy named Jack Raider, an old actor, and it turns out that we had his birth date wrong.
His birth date is misreported in, like, half the sources, and it turns out he's, like, 20 years younger than we thought he was.
So I told my dad, like, I'll. I'll let you keep the points when we thought he was old, but only if you keep him. And now he's, like, a lot younger, so he's probably not gonna die as quickly as you thought. So he's like. He's taken him out, but he's had him for, like, two years, and he thought he was gonna clean up on him any day. Like, he just had to take him out.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Get out of here.
So.
Oh, hey, did. Oh, did anybody have James Vanderbeek?
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Nope.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Which is. My wife knew that he was sick.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: All right, man.
Damn.
Your mom got some points, bro.
Hey, is Jesse.
Jesse Jackson? Is Mel Brooks? Anybody got Mel Brooks?
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think he's on a couple people's lists.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: He would be.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: He looked fine last time I saw him, though.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, but he's a hundred years old.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's not so much about the age, man. It's about, like, can they walk?
Can they do an interview and, like, still string a thought together, you know? And, like, you know, fucking Dick Van dyke just turned 100, and he doesn't look like he's dying anytime soon.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Hey, do you know the list pretty well?
[00:09:07] Speaker A: I'm better with, like, the main roster than, like, who people have, but, yeah, main roster.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Do you know if anybody. Do you have you? Do you. Does Jesse Jackson ring a bell?
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah, the guy who just died.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Jesse Jackson didn't just die.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah, days ago.
Yeah.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Son of a bitch.
Did he really?
[00:09:35] Speaker A: He really did. You didn't hear?
Oh, Google it.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: No, you Google it.
I believe you.
Son of a bitch.
That's why he's red on this.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: You know what's. You know what's crazy? You know what's crazy? Well, he is at the list. He's at the bottom now because he's dead. But what's crazy is that a lot of people have had him over the years, but he's gotten swapped out. No one had him when he died. No one scored on him, but, like, everyone's had him at some point, but just swapped him out for what looked like better picks.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: You know what? I think I'm gonna swap out for.
They must swap out dude.
Think I'm gonna do maybe Sydney Cook or.
Sydney Cook or George Lazenby.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Okay, just text me the. The switch just so I don't forget.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: I just got to figure out who I want to take off because.
Hey, who. Who? Let's see. Monthly.
Oh, of course I didn't.
It's February still.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: You can add a bonus pick and then switch to the march ones. When the march ones come in, you
[00:11:17] Speaker B: gotta suck my dick.
Let's see.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: You're too toasted for this.
This is gonna be the second episode we do that never gets posted because you're too toasted.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Oh, dude. I'm here, bro. I'm just.
Just little noid, you know, I don't think Xavier Pozard is gonna die. So you know what? I'm gonna switch out. I.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: That is the one on your list that I would suggest switching out.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: First of all, you don't need a comment on my list. Okay?
Comment on your list.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Well, I. I told you earlier that you have a good list.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that doesn't give you a right. That doesn't give you a right to talk shit about my list, bro.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: I'm the dungeon master, dude. I do whatever the fuck I want.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Ah, that's a good comeback.
Who did I.
I'm going. Sydney Cook, bro, I'm gonna text you a little ass right now.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: I think it's normal size.
I think it's proportionate.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Sydney Cook for Xavier.
All right.
I did it.
All right.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: My question is, is Noam Chomsky ever gonna die?
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Who's Noam Chomsky?
[00:12:49] Speaker A: I've had him.
Noam Chomsky is a linguist, but he got really famous for being a really light. He's an anarchist, like, writer.
And he got famous during the Vietnam War for, like, writing very accurately, like, basically criticizing the Vietnam War and you know, every administration since then, and he's still rocking and rolling, but, like, he had a real bad health scare a of couple. Couple years ago where, like, he was reported dead and it turned out he was fine. But, like, I've had him since the very beginning, and I'm not going to take him out because he's going to go and I'm going to get an additional 60 points for him. But, like, I just feel like it's never going to happen. And now he. He.
So he.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: He.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: It turned out he was on Epstein's flight logs and.
And it turned out, oh, he's on one flight, just going from Boston to New York. Okay. No big deal. So, like, I was like, okay, this is like an anti authoritarian guy. Like, plenty of people were Hooked up with Epstein, who didn't actually do anything. So, like, I'm thinking this guy's fine. Once the files dropped, there were emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein where he was basically, like, telling him how to get out of the charges.
And it's like, oh, it's, like, way worse than I thought.
It's about as bad as it could be.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Hey, you've had Dick Van Dyke for, like, a long time.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Have I?
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Yeah, like, a lot longer than I have.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: You got another good one? Bruce. Bruce Willis.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Yeah. He's. I think everyone should get him at this point.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Dude, you have a lot of people. Like, nobody knows.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a good strategy.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Not really.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Nope.
I want to see if your list has died and if anybody has, just know.
I won't say a word.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: So I ran a list through ChatGPT, and it. It was the first time that it, like, gave me an answer to everyone on the list.
So it's getting better at doing that. But it was wrong about two people, so now I don't know if I can trust it at all. Like, it. I knew Scott Adams was dead for, like, weeks at that point, and Chat. GBT told me he was still alive.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: Edwin Martin is presumed dead, though.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Is he on my list?
[00:16:07] Speaker B: He is. However, until he's confirmed it, you don't get the points, bro.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: He's. Is he a bonus. Is he a bonus pick this month?
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Your mom's a bonus pick this month.
No, he's not. No, he was last month.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Bummer.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, he's just presumed dead, but he's been presumed dead for a while, so I would drop him. He's gonna be presumed dead for a while. I don't think it's ever gonna be anything we can confirm. It's kind of going to be like the DB Cooper, you know, just.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: I don't even know who that is.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: D.B. cooper?
[00:16:57] Speaker A: No. Edwin Martin,
[00:17:00] Speaker B: dude. Yeah, you got him. As you're, like, in your 10 spot, how do you pick your teams, dude? Do you just fucking, like, put your finger on a list? And.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: I like to. I like to pick the oldest people in the bonus picks.
If someone on the older side comes up in those, I like to pick those. And then I go to the roster and just go to whoever's worth the least amount of points because they're the ones who are the most sick.
Try to try to populate my list with as many of those as possible.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Hey, Joanne Hawkinson.
You got her on your list?
No. You have Maj. Brit Hawkinson, and rightly So a bitch is 106 years old.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: Wow. Still alive at 106.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Any day, a good one, a good strategy is going for, like, the oldest person in the world, the oldest American in the world. Like, that's a lot of my dad's list. He's got, like, the oldest Japanese person, you know.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Here's how I roll, dude. I roll big.
I roll big, you know? I mean, come out swinging, you know?
Hey, so.
What is so funny, bro?
[00:18:47] Speaker A: You talk.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: All right, so.
What's tonight about, man?
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Books.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Bikes. Yeah, books. You're right.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Bikes.
And this is Pseudonyms.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: This is Pseudonyms. I am your get. I am your host, and I'm here with LeVar Burton.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Mike, I was gonna call you LeVar Burton.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: And welcome to Reading Rainbow.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: Bleeding Rainbow,
[00:19:42] Speaker B: man. Do you have a backup? If you're LeVar Burton,
[00:19:51] Speaker A: I guess you're gonna have to be Stephen King.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
I really thought I was going to be.
I really thought I was going to be.
Who's that old dude that reads inside a theater?
There was a guy that used to read on tv.
Like, that's what it was. It was him reading on tv,
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Just reading out loud or just sitting there quietly.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Maybe Wally Amos, John Edward.
Anyhow, I'm Stephen King, so.
All right, dude, what books are you reading right now, man? And what are they doing for you?
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Well, I don't want to get you too excited because I'm only, like, five pages in Playboy, but I am reading.
I am reading a little book called Mindset.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Oh.
By Carol Dweck. Dr. Carol Dweck.
Wow.
Life changing.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: Your favorite books.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Life changer right there.
Yep.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: So far, I have not gotten into the meat and potatoes. It's just like the real, like, introductory stuff that we've already talked about.
But, yeah, I'm kind of. I'm kind of going into one of those modes where I'm not reading a whole lot and I'm, like, writing and doing more creative stuff, which I try not to hate because I feel like I'm not getting, you know, like, as much done because I'm not reading and stuff, but I am, like, creating.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: So here's the thing, dude.
Reading, if the mind is your car.
Reading is the gas. Writing is the driving.
And have you read Cal Newton's book on deep work?
[00:22:19] Speaker A: No, but I heard him interviewed about it.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Good book. Great book. He talks about the 8020 rule. You know, 80% of people do 20% of the work, and there's 20% of the people out there that do 80% of the work.
But he talks about kind of getting. Getting away from the noise.
Great book for, for trying to like, improve your work, if you will. He's one that says like, slowing down is, is, is the best option.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: So you've read that book?
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: What's like your favorite takeaway?
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Favorite takeaway at the time.
It's probably been three years since I read it.
Favorite takeaway was slowing down, not multitasking.
You know, everybody says like, oh, he's a great multitasker.
It helped me realize that multitasking actually gives like you're given 50% on both parties.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's like neurologically proven that we're not made to multitask.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And everybody, like, kind of.
Everybody kind of gives themselves kudos for multitasking. I'm a great multitasker. Cool. That means you're a shitty one, Tasker.
Yeah.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: That means you can't focus.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: I will thank you though, because you, you, you challenged me to read fictional books, which has expanded.
Has expanded my non fictional book reading.
So I started reading this book tomorrow and tomorrow.
And tomorrow. Right.
Let me give you a little something on this author.
So this author is Gabrielle Zevin.
Real cunt, if you ask me.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: She has several critically acclaimed novels including Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, winner of the Goodreads Choice Fiction award and named Amazon's best book of 2022, as well as the best book of the year by the New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and many more.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: This book.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Which is the reason why I picked it up. I really thought, like, fuck yeah, dude. Like, you know what? Let's do this. Let's, let's, let's roll with this. She quotes Emily Dickinson. I'm thinking like, okay, okay.
Then this little goes on and, and starts to write. Here we go.
I'm going to read you something.
The coat is.
Its ridiculous scale only made him look smaller and more childlike.
That is to say, Sam masseur at age 21 did not have a build for pushing and shoving. And so as much as possible, he weaved through the crowd Feeling somewhat like the doomed amphibian from the video game Frogger. He found himself uttering a series of excuse me that he did not mean. And a truly magnificent thing about the way the brain was coded. Max. I'm sorry, Sam thought was that it could say excuse me while meaning screw you.
So like, first of all, Frogger didn't go through a fucking crowd. Frogger was fucking skipping shit. Okay.
She goes on to use oh, dude, she. She really. She really pissed me off in this book, bro.
She overused words like. It was like someone. The. The. The review I left on Goodreads was like, someone learned how to use a thesaurus and was like, going to town.
It was like every other sentence had this, like, big word in front of it and you're like, okay. And so I started looking.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Hold on. Sorry. Sorry. Have you seen that meme where it's. It's a person complaining to their boss and they're like, he stole my thesaurus. And then the other guy goes. He pedals falsehoods.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: I did not.
All right, so he says her eyes were the same brown with golden flecks.
Anna, his mother, had had similar eyes. And she told Sam that coloration like this was called heterochrome chromia.
At the time, he had thought it sounded like a disease, something for his mother to potentially die from.
Beneath Sadie's eyes were barely perceptible crescents. But then she had. She had these on. I'm sorry. She has these as a kid too. Now, mind you. He says heterochromachromia up there. He goes down. We're gonna jump down a couple paragraphs. He says, did you actually see it? Sadie's lips were twitching upward. Those heterochromatic eyes looked at him with mirth.
He mentions this heterochromatic a couple times, so I looked it up.
He defines them as.
Brown with golden flecks.
Flakes in them, I'm assuming with flecks.
True heterochrochromatic eyes, or chromic eyes are like two different colors.
One's like brown, one's blue.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, like David Bowie.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Like they're two different opposite colors.
Okay?
And so. Dude, but she does this like so many times where she's like.
She uses these, you know, Cuz right now they're looking at a auto stereogram. In this book, he says he could guess that it was a Christmas tree, an angel, a star, though probably not a Star of David. Something seasonal, trite, and broadly appealing. Something meant to sell more Magic Eye products.
Audio stereograms had never worked for Sam. He theorized it was something to do with his glasses.
Now she uses this word audio stereogram, probably four or five times in this chapter.
It's. It's those things you have to, like, stare at, go close and. And then like the. The repeated. Okay, repeated pattern. You. You could kind of eventually get something.
Dude, I was so pissed off because she does this, and those are horrible examples. I wish I could find the one that just turned me off. Like, I wasn't even the first chapter in. I was like, fuck this book, dude. Like, I.
I literally wrote and was like, somebody found a fucking thesaurus.
Kind of pisses me off, or should I say upsets me.
However, I did pick up another book when I bought that one. So first of all, hashtag fuck Gabrielle Zebin.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: That's gonna be the name of the episode.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I hope so, dude, because I. She had so much praise for this book. And honestly, I wanted to, like, I wanted to read it. It was, you know, I wanted to read like a cool little love story.
This book just ended up pissing me off.
She goes on to, you know, basically, her sister Ella. I wish I could find the one about Alice.
Her sister Alice had cancer and ends up. I. I'm assuming ends up dying. But I. I can't even.
I'll have to highlight some, but. Well, just.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: You couldn't even get chapter one just in the, in the passages you read.
Mirth and trite.
And I'll be Honest, I'm not 100 sure what mirth is, but I know what trite is.
Whatever the case, you get maybe one of those words for every like 5,000. You don't get to cram two words like that into like three paragraphs, dude.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: She does it through the whole first two chapters. Like, no, she just crams these words in and it's like, why is this necessary, dude? Like, why are you.
It. It really wasn't, dude. And okay, it got to a point where I was just like, I can't do this no more.
Like, she has pissed me off.
[00:32:14] Speaker A: All right, I got a book for you. This is probably my favorite book I've ever read, fiction wise.
And it's, it's a. It's an easy read, but like a really good read. And that. It's called A Fig for all the Devils by C.S. fritz.
I'll. I'll send you a link, but. But it's a pretty short book too, but really good.
And basically, just for the sake of our listeners, I'll give you a brief synopsis.
Basically, the Grim Reaper has to find a replacement every 1,000 years.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Oh, you've told me this. Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Oh, have I?
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. So basically this kid in Oregon is. Is chosen as the replacement. And he's got like a week or something to decide whether he's gonna be the Grim Reaper. But it's just like him and the Grim Reaper, like, palling around.
He's like, trying to convince him and it's like, I will say the prologue is pretty dark and graphic and not at all a good representation of what the book's gonna be like when you get to the actual story. It's like a pretty, like fun, kind of funny read.
So. So don't, don't like check out on the, on the prologue.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: No, I appreciate you saying that. So I'm currently in the middle of five books.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: And so this was, this was brought on by your challenge or your mentioning of reading fiction and so forth. So let me just read another passage from this real quick.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Take me there.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah. You hear me?
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I can hear you.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Okay. She was barely 5ft, only an inch taller than the 11 year old Sadie. But she was always dressed impeccably in the bespoke clothes she brought in Paris. She bought in Paris once year.
Crisp white blouses, soft gray wool pants, bolt bochley or cashmere sweaters.
She was never without her hexa.
Hexahedronal weapon of a leather handbag. Her scarlet lipstick, her delicate gold wristwatch, her turbuous scented perfume, her pearls. Sadie thought she was the most stylish woman in the world. In addition to being Sadie's grandmother, Freda was also a Los Angeles real estate tycoon with a reputation for being terrifying and unfailingly scrupulous in business negotiations.
Fucking hexa hadronal.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: Okay, so weapon.
I know that means six.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: I have no idea what the rest of the word means.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: Yeah, the hexa, we get the hydronal. Dude, it was just. But it was just like that through the whole book. Dude, it was like.
So I threw that book on the shelf again.
It pisses me off so much.
Gabrielle Zevin. However, I bought another book called A Gentleman in Moscow. And I know they made a movie about this, but I refuse to watch the movie now until I read this book.
And I don't know how many chapters it has. I don't know if it's broken up into chapters, but this book has got me hooked, bro.
Starts out with a poem.
So you read the poem and you're like, oh, okay, like this dude quoted a poem.
This is probably the basis of his book.
Nah, man.
Yes, man.
It goes. Second page goes into like.
I don't know what it is, but it's a record of a court hearing. Like the manuscript from, from a court hearing. And it's about that poem.
So like the poem pops up and you're like, oh, the author of this book really like this poem. And this is. No, no, no, no. That's part of the book is that poem and then it goes into a court hearing. And so basically like this count, you know, basically because of what he's done for his country, Russia, because of what he's done for his country, he wrote that poem.
And the poem is kind of like, it sounds like the poem is.
What is it when like someone's kind of like pushing for an agenda, I forget what it's called. Propaganda. So it sounds like the poem is propaganda, but they're like, hey, because of what you've done in the past, we're not going to send you to prison. Instead you got to stay locked up in that hotel you so love that you're staying at. Currently, however you step out the Metropole, you're shot dead on sight. Fucking dead on sight.
So it's his life in the Metropole and that's where I'm at right now. And he, you know, he kind of brings up the, the people in the hotel. There's a barber shop, there's like a really high end restaurant, there's like a cafe, there's a coffee house, a tea house.
But it's post revolution and so like these places used to be buzzing and now they're kind of dead. They're kind of like crickets.
And so he does talk about the buzzing times, but for the most part they're crickets right now.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: And so this is like the start of the Soviet Union.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Probably so. Probably so.
But it really struck me because there's a line in here that I have in, in the book I'm writing and like, honestly was crazy because, like when I read it I was like, holy smokes. Like, that's a line I have in my, in my book.
And I just thought it was, I thought it was awesome. One, but two, This book, he's.
It's crazy because he goes from like this penthouse suite after the verdict is in, and they're like, hey, this is your punishment to like the base, the attic, where, like those who stay in the penthouse suite, their helpers would stay in the attic.
And so they're little tiny rooms.
And what I know so far is like, he's got a family, a bunch of family heirlooms, and his desk in the legs of his desk, they're all lined with gold coins inside.
Now he's only had to use one gold coin to give to a guy to deliver three letters. But I don't know what those letters consist of. Nothing. I just know that the legs have gold coins in them.
But he's reading back to that line Real quick. It says, having knowledge, having acknowledged that a man must master his circumstances or. Or otherwise be mastered by them.
The Count thought it was worth considering how one was most likely to achieve his aim when one had been sentenced to a life of confinement.
The. Like, a man mastering his circumstances is something I use in my book that I'm writing because it was like, if you don't master them, they're going to master you.
And it was more or less talking about your addictions, your.
Your desires.
But he's reading a book by.
And maybe you know this guy. I did not know this guy, but it's a real book.
The essays of Michel de Montaigne.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Nope. Can't say no. So you got that?
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm. I saw him reading it and he. And so I was like, dude, I want to know what this guy's reading. And the basis of this book.
Mind you, dude, this is like, It's a fatty, bro.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: And so I figured I would, like, want to know because the guy's dad. In the book. The guy's dad lived by this book. Like, he just held it all the time. And it says, montagnais is one of the great sages of that modern world, which in a sense began with the Renaissance.
He is a bridge linking the thought of pagan antiquity and of Christian antiquity with our own.
Colorful, practical, and direct and never intentionally obscure. He sets before us his modesty named essays, which are his attempts as sounding himself and the nature and duties of man so as to discover a sane and humane manner of living.
So this book is about the author, this guy. Like, it's about himself.
And he's just going through, and he's like, hey, like, if you want.
If you're in the middle of fear, like, this is how I viewed fear.
So I kind of like walk through. They're just about himself, but it's. And so really, really long.
Some of them are kind of sad. Some of them are.
But I'm reading as I'm reading A Gentleman in Mass Moscow.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: What. What else are you reading?
[00:42:27] Speaker A: I started going through the Daily Stoic again.
I read it. It's. It's kind of like. It's formatted like a devotional, where it's just like one page a day and there's a quote, and then the author kind of expounds on the quote. And I read it in 2022, and I decided I'd jump back in for this year.
They're pretty dense, so, like, I don't have a lot of recall on them, but I do remember one was, like, a quote from Marcus Aurelius about how, like, anger is actually not masculine.
There you go. Yep. Okay, so I read the Meditations last year, and it was fantastic.
Can I see the COVID again? That might be the exact one. Okay. No, that's a different version. It might be the same version with a different cover, but.
So, yeah, a lot of the quotes are from Marcus Aurelius, but there's Seneca and Epictetus and all those cats.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: But, okay, so it's a modern Montaigne guy, quotes all those people. Cynical.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know what? Based on what you were telling me, that's why I brought it up was because this guy sounds kind of like a stoic, you know?
Yeah, exactly. So, like, talking about surviving in your circumstances and mastering that and not, you know, oh, a day or two ago, the passage really got me because it was basically talking about.
It was basically talking about, like, having a desire for something, like, being obsessed with, like, the results of what you want, you know? So, like, you're obsessed with getting that new job just to get the new job, and you're not at all thinking about, like, the circumstance you're in right now where, like, you know, if you're. If you're constantly chasing the horizon, you're never gonna reach it, that kind of thing. So it's. It was kind of just about, like, you know, obviously we strive for things we want to improve, like, given. That's. That doesn't undo any of that, but, like, finding contentment where you are right now is like, you know, the only way that you're ever gonna be happy.
Because if you're constantly putting your happiness in this idea of what you're going to get tomorrow, then you're just kind of chasing the rainbow and you're never going to catch it, you know?
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I was a little disappointed.
He goes through, like, three phases. Stoic. Something else, Something else. But I was a little disappointed. I went in for my yearly review and, you know, I sit down and I kind of just kind of casually start talking about, you know, like, hey, man, like, it's been a good year. You know, I definitely have some growing to do. I definitely have seen where, like, you.
You have certain standards I need to meet. Now, mind you, I have created.
I've helped with the web. Web design on this company, done some web design for them, done some logo design for a new division, trained people.
I'm building a training curriculum.
I've sat in his place for networking events. That I wasn't necessarily happy about. But I went, I brought in new clients, I've retained clients, I've brought in new subs, I've trained people.
And so I go in and I'm like, spilling all this stuff and I'm like, so? And he's like, man, like, yeah. And he's like, where do you see yourself? And I'm like, you know, I really see myself kind of doing business development. And he's like, yeah, you definitely have a gift with people. I think that would be good, you know? And so we talked for like a half hour. And then I'm like, you know what? I gotta talk about it. So I was like, hey, how much kind of like financial room do we have to, like, so I get like a raise or something? He's like, yeah, we can't do that right now, dude. I was so like, I don't know, man. Took all the wind out of my sail, you know, And I guess I wouldn't be pissed off, but like, he's like, we just don't have a lot of business right now. And I'm like, well, that's like your division.
My division is manning the sales and.
And being a deckhand.
And I was kind of annoyed because, like, he is building a multi million dollar house and he's superintending it himself.
And I'm like, you. And I told him, like, literally three weeks ago, you shouldn't be superintending that. You should be at the helm of the ship directing its. Its rudder. Like, you have guys like us to pull the sails. You don't need to be pulling sails. You need to be directing us.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: And then to say, like, oh, well, you don't have work. And I'm like, well, that's kind of like your division, bro. Like, that's not my division, it's your division.
So I was a little disappointed. That and the last two weeks, each Wednesday. I'm sorry, Each Thursday. The last two Thursdays, last Thursday and the Thursday before, I got served twice at work with garnishment of wages.
So the first one for child support. Because the company I was with prior wasn't paying my child support, although they took it out of my check. They just didn't.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: Son of a. Dude. Yeah, get yourself a lawyer, dude.
[00:48:03] Speaker B: No, I've. I've tried to, like, lawyer up before.
Same company, and, like, no one wants to take it, dude.
And then the last one was.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: But that's. I'm. I'm sorry, I don't. I don't want to dwell on it. But, like, that's criminal, right? To, like, take child support.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: Then I got to.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: Well, I mean, what do you prove other than your pay stubs and this company saying or whoever's coming for the money saying they never got it?
I mean, isn't that a slam dunk?
[00:48:35] Speaker B: I would think. And then because she also filed BK last Thursday, I got served with garnishment of wages because her breast job.
I'm still on the loan. I. Although she's filed bk, she's off the loan.
I'm still on the loan. So they're hitting me with the balance of that.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: Son of a.
[00:48:55] Speaker B: So I'm out 2500amonth on those two things.
So before I even get my check, I'm out 1300 each check.
Jeez.
Yeah, dude. I'm, like, drowning over here, dude. So I'm like, hey, bro, like, what do we think about a raise? And he's like, yeah, it's not gonna happen.
I ain't got. I'm like.
So I picked up a second job when Thursday left our Friday. I left work early.
I said, fuck you right now. Don't want to talk to anybody. I'm leaving at 9:30.
Left at 9:30 and went. Grabbed lunch with stretch marks and then went. Looked for another job. And I had one by 12pm doing sales.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: So every day after work, I'll go do some sales.
Okay.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: I know that sucks, but let's think back to a little over a year ago when you didn't have a job that was worse.
For sure, that was two of them.
Right?
But, like, even.
Even with the garnered wages, like, we're in a better position than we were a year ago or over a year ago. Right? So, like, we're still.
We're still, like, the graph is still going up right now you've got the second job, and that sucks. But, like, that's something that you're probably really good at, I assume.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: Well, the good news is the guy is a Christian friend of mine, and he said, look, if you can get.
I'm only commissioned. There's no base pay, so there's no hourly. There's no salary.
I only get money if I bring in business and it's selling tires.
So he said, if you can get the business, if you can get business up and. And like, bring in enough, like, fleet work, technically, I could pay you 150,000 a year and you can just quit the other job.
And I was like, let's hope that happens, because there's nothing more I would like to do. And say fuck you to the guy who didn't fucking take care of me.
You know, Like, I felt like I gone above and beyond. Like, my salary for the company I work for is to be a superintendent. It's not to be a trainer, a curriculum builder, an SOP developer, a website designer, a logo designer, a networking personnel.
It's none of that. It's to manage job do that.
So there is a part of me that wants to say, fuck you. That's what you're gonna get. You're just gonna get a 9 to 5 superintendent. But I know if I go back in six months, which is what I'm giving it, six months. And I say, hey, how about a raise now? And he says, well, I feel like you've dropped off in the last six months.
I probably won't get a raise.
So unfortunately, I have to keep pushing and pressing in like I'm doing in order to have a fighting chance of getting a raise.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: But you said fighting chance. Do you. What do you think about the odds of, like, that effort actually being rewarded?
[00:52:38] Speaker B: I don't know. We'll see. In six months.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: I'm not gonna change. I don't have a position to actually leave right now and maintain the income I have. So I'll stay.
And then in six months, if nothing, well, I will be tall. My bonuses are paid out, and then I'll just be like, hey, I'm out. I appreciate the opportunity, but this wasn't, you know, this. This isn't going the way I planned it to go. So.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: Yeah, peace.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: I probably gave him a notice.
[00:53:10] Speaker A: Okay.
Do you have any idea, like, how long they're gonna be taking 25 out of your paycheck?
[00:53:21] Speaker B: I need to look because 5 of it's from the IRS and 8 of it is from her boob job.
And I think the 8 of it goes for four pay periods.
Okay, so two months.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: Okay, so that's not as bad as I thought.
I mean, it's bad.
[00:53:48] Speaker B: Two to four months. It's two to four months.
[00:53:50] Speaker A: Okay. I don't know, but it is. It's. It's not like for the rest of the year you're gonna have that much taken out.
So, like, at least. At least there's a light at the end of the tunnel there.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: And then 1600amonth is for the child support stuff.
Okay.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: And then that's ketchup. Right. So that'll eventually.
[00:54:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: Lower. Okay.
[00:54:16] Speaker B: Hopefully.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: Okay.
All right.
So it's not. It's not impossible.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Not impossible, but it sucks.
Yeah.
[00:54:29] Speaker A: Well, if you did start making 150. Which.
Did he give you a time frame on that? Like, how long before? Like, how long you had to.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: If. Right now. Maybe in the future.
Okay, we'll see. We'll see. Meanwhile, my counterparts buying $15,000 worth of tools just because that's what he needs. So I'm a. I'm a little. I'm a little annoyed. Well, a little annoyed. You know, my counterpart makes more than me. Stretch Marks has had two promotions, two raises. Not promotions, but two raises since he started. And he started eight months ago.
And he's got. Yeah, he started at like 16.
[00:55:14] Speaker A: Making. Making half of what you make easily.
[00:55:17] Speaker B: Yeah, but he started at 16. He's at 20 now.
[00:55:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: So, I mean, it's not a lot, but $1 bump a year is $2,000. He said four.
[00:55:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:27] Speaker B: So it's $8,000. I got $15,000 in tools over here being purchased in one sitting.
I mean, right there alone, we got $23,000 in. In. In money going out. That, mind you, Stretch Marks is. Is a great assistant. But, you know, and it's to help him get by in life. I get it. He's not moving mountains.
These tools.
[00:55:51] Speaker A: He's technically retarded.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: But these tools we're buying, I mean, like, yeah, they can make us money, but we've been subbing them out for the last five years. Why. Why now? Why now?
You know, why now do we need
[00:56:07] Speaker A: the tool when there's no money?
[00:56:10] Speaker B: All of a sudden we got money for the tools. We ain't got money to justify my. The guy who's going to these networking events when the owner can't go. The guy who's helping with the website, the guy who's building the curriculum. The guy who's doing the logo design. And it's. It's.
And on top of that, I'm PM in my projects. I'm doing bids. I'm not just doing superintendent work. So I was a little fucking annoyed that that happened. Anyhow, back to books.
I was reading this until I kind of got the little fuck you attitude.
The Art of the Builder.
Elevating Construction superintendents.
But that's gonna go on the shelf for a while because I got. I gotta figure out the Art of selling instead.
[00:56:59] Speaker A: Have you ever read.
Sorry. Have you ever read the Secret to Selling Anything by Harry Brown?
[00:57:08] Speaker B: No, I did not. I thought you were gonna say how to. It's really good When Friends Influence people.
[00:57:14] Speaker A: That's one of my favorite books because, like, I really think it doesn't even Apply just to sales. Like, the way that he lays out sales is really like a way to live your life.
[00:57:29] Speaker B: Like, he, I think, really told me about this one.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: I definitely have at some point. But, like, he really lays it out like, your goal in life is to provide value to other people.
So you find a product that you actually believe in and you tell people the truth about what that product can do for them, and you. And you listen to their problems and you find a solution for them.
You know, he. He actually made his fortune selling ad space and then. And then, like, went on to be, you know, a millionaire in. In a bunch of other industries and ran for president a couple times.
Oh, yeah, yeah, he. He ran.
He ran on the Libertarian ticket, so, you know, whatever that's worth. But he did run, like, twice. And.
And it was a very successful guy. But, yeah, like, the. The quote from the book that really got me was like, your balance sheet. What the fuck is that?
Is that a cicada? Get the. Away from me, bro.
[00:58:37] Speaker B: Cicada's. What are you.
[00:58:38] Speaker A: No, no. Fuck off. No, go away. Fuck you.
[00:58:41] Speaker B: It's a. It's a June bug. It looks like a Juno.
[00:58:44] Speaker A: No, it's. Oh, my God. Dude. What the is it. It looks like a bat. It's like the size of a bat. What the is that? Okay. It's. God. Jesus Christ.
What the.
It was the Mothman. The Mothman just came for me.
Okay.
The quote from the book that really got me was your balance sheet is a direct representation of how much value you've brought to other people, which fucked with me because I'm poor, which tells me.
Tells me not only.
Not only am I not bringing value to people, I'm $70,000 in debt. So, like, I'm. I'm really, like, taking value from other people and not providing it.
[00:59:42] Speaker B: That's funny.
I did. So here's the thing about this book, though. This book, I started reading it. It, you know, again, is the Art of the Builder. Elevating super or Construction Superintendents. I'm only a couple chapters in.
It's good. In the intro, though, he mentions another book I'm reading, which is how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
An old classic. It is a classic.
Some people consider it a book that teaches you how to manipulate people, but it's got some good value to it.
And he also references something I started reading, just something that intrigued me. And I brought it up in an older episode of ours, which was George Washington's, like, ethics that he had learned.
And so it's kind of like those two things together. It's like Carnegie's stuff and format coupled with Washington's, I think.
[01:00:50] Speaker A: One second.
[01:00:51] Speaker B: So what?
[01:00:58] Speaker A: I can be.
What's going on?
Okay. Is she not going to sleep?
All right, you want me to wrap it up?
Okay.
[01:01:14] Speaker B: Hey, real quick. Does she work tomorrow morning?
[01:01:18] Speaker A: She does.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Oh, that.
Does she not know to take Sundays off?
[01:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
Yeah. Okay, so the kid's not sleeping and she's got to get up at 5. So I gotta go deal with that.
Do you wanna.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: What are the books you read? You reading any of the books?
[01:01:40] Speaker A: Nope, that's. Those are the two I'm working through, but do you want to do like another 45 minutes tomorrow? Splice it together?
[01:01:50] Speaker B: You know what? Hit me up. I'll let you know.
[01:01:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:01:53] Speaker B: Depends where I'm at.
Until. Unless. Until that happens.
Thank you guys for joining Pseudonyms.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: Sorry. Sorry, dude.
[01:02:04] Speaker B: No, no, you're good, man. It's not you. Get your wife on the phone, tell her to apologize to me. All right, brother. I love you, man.
