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Speaker 2: here now without further ado, My next guest is an
Speaker 2: author who has written a book called super Bowl Monday,
Speaker 2: which talks about, you know, going from the Persian Golf
Speaker 2: to Miami for the Super Bowl Monday, which is what
Speaker 2: the book is called. But today's book that we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about is The Wingmen. And so I wanted
Speaker 2: to bring you up with the Super Bowl Monday book, right,
Speaker 2: correct me if I'm wrong, Adam Lazarus the author. So far,
Speaker 2: so good. Right, So, so to preface it, you wrote
Speaker 2: super Bowl Monday, and then now you've come out with
Speaker 2: The Wingman, which is what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2: And then follows wow, history really you know, first of
Speaker 2: all baseball seasons upon us. It's springtime and we're going
Speaker 2: to be seeing baseball players. And Ted Williams was a
Speaker 2: major baseball player throughout the early days of the history
Speaker 2: of baseball. And then you have John Glenn, two unlikely
Speaker 2: individuals who have become friends. You have an astronaut Marine
Speaker 2: Corps pilot, multiple MiG shotdown during World War Two. John
Speaker 2: Glenn went up in space again in nineteen like ninety
Speaker 2: six or ninety eight at seventy seven years old. I
Speaker 2: think you know. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm glad
Speaker 3: to be here.
Speaker 2: Yes, so am I so far? So am I right?
Speaker 2: So far? And everything I've said.
Speaker 3: A couple minor things, very minor. Fix the super Bowl Monday.
Speaker 3: Book was about sort of the Persian golf War, the
Speaker 3: first person golf war, and it was about the Super
Speaker 3: Bowl played in Tampa, so not Miami but Florida, Ish.
Speaker 3: And about John Glenn. He did shoot down three Soviet
Speaker 3: Meg's duringing the Korean War, but he was also a
Speaker 3: very decorated, highly decorated World War Two pilot on the
Speaker 3: Pacific for a Marine Corps squadron. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: book about two men who really had virtually completely opposite
Speaker 3: backgrounds and worldviews and outlooks on everything from marriage to politics,
Speaker 3: to religion to family events and lived completely different lives
Speaker 3: from the day they were you know, could learn to walk,
Speaker 3: to the day they died. But they had this friendship
Speaker 3: that was that developed during the Korean War. They served
Speaker 3: together for about five months during the Korean War towards
Speaker 3: the end of the Korean War nineteen fifty three, And
Speaker 3: it's an interesting story. That's how they met, that's sort
Speaker 3: of how they got to know one another, but their
Speaker 3: friendship persisted for many decades after that.
Speaker 2: So those two were both serving and they both became friends.
Speaker 2: So Ted Williams is a Marine. Yes, wow, except for
Speaker 2: five Okay.
Speaker 3: It's well, I mean he comes around at a time
Speaker 3: that's very hard for probably modern people, like even people
Speaker 3: you're my age, but even like especially like my kids
Speaker 3: thought all these major athletes, and not just athletes, but
Speaker 3: like movie actors and everyone going to World War Two
Speaker 3: obviously got into for the most part, if you could
Speaker 3: walk and were a man between the ages of like
Speaker 3: eighteen and thirty, you went into service during World War Two.
Speaker 3: And that's how Ted Williams first got into the Marines.
Speaker 3: He was actually a Navy light and instruct trainer cadet
Speaker 3: instructed cadets at a naval air station during World War Two.
Speaker 3: He didn't serve in combat, but he stayed in something called,
Speaker 3: I don't even know if they still have it, the
Speaker 3: Volunteer Reserves, which meant you could basically stay in the
Speaker 3: reserves for the Marines in perpetuity. You didn't have to
Speaker 3: do any training, any kind of just any kind of
Speaker 3: you know, requalification or anything. You just capture Marine Corps
Speaker 3: rank in fact, oftentimes you got small promotions and you
Speaker 3: didn't have to do anything, and people liked that. They
Speaker 3: liked that. Ted Williams liked being called captain when he
Speaker 3: even though he wasn't flying a plane. But it meant
Speaker 3: that if when other war broke out, there was a
Speaker 3: chance he could be recalled. And he stayed in not
Speaker 3: thinking there was a chance that first there would be
Speaker 3: any other kind of war. But then when the Korean
Speaker 3: War breaks out, even that he didn't think was going
Speaker 3: to lead to him being recalled, And then turns out
Speaker 3: he was wrong, and he was recalled to service in
Speaker 3: the Marines during the Korean War.
Speaker 2: And so what did he take? What did he do
Speaker 2: in the Korean War? Was it? What was Ted's? You know?
Speaker 2: They pulled him in, He's like, hey, I'm Ted Williams.
Speaker 3: He well, for one, he was not happy about being recalled.
Speaker 3: He didn't like that he had missed three years during
Speaker 3: World War Two, but everybody missed during World War two.
Speaker 3: And he was older, he had a daughter that he
Speaker 3: was married with a daughter. At this time, he was
Speaker 3: the highest paid player in professional baseball, which for the
Speaker 3: most part, really meant he was the highest paid athlete
Speaker 3: in America and nobody else was really being not many
Speaker 3: people were being recalled. It was later in the war.
Speaker 3: The Korean War wasn't the same as like America. After
Speaker 3: the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he wasn't happy about it,
Speaker 3: and he did what he could get out of it.
Speaker 3: Once it was clear that he was going to go serve,
Speaker 3: he did his duty and he went over to a
Speaker 3: small Marine Corps base in the southeastern tip of the
Speaker 3: Korean Peninsula. And six days later John Glenn arrived at
Speaker 3: the same base in the same squadron. And that's how
Speaker 3: they met. Very good fortunate at least for my book
Speaker 3: writing career, that they wound up in the same place
Speaker 3: at the same time, with the same assignments. They went
Speaker 3: on missions together. They flew the same type of missions
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 2: Again. Now, Ted Williams was playing baseball, right, wasn't he
Speaker 2: an outfielder for like the Red Sox. Yeah, yeah, he was.
Speaker 3: Most people consider him the greatest hitter of all time.
Speaker 3: He piled up many, many records. You know, there's together
Speaker 3: and oftentimes they were paired together with John Glenn in
Speaker 3: the lead and Ted Williams as his wingman.
Speaker 2: Right, And the thing is he goes and does it
Speaker 2: like he doesn't get a waiver from some professional doctor
Speaker 2: to like say, oh, you know you got flat feet,
Speaker 2: you're not going. He didn't do any of that. He said,
Speaker 2: I gotta go. My call just came.
Speaker 3: Like was say that, Babe Ruth or some of the
Speaker 3: more modern players, but most real baseball history experts consider
Speaker 3: Ted Williams the greatest hitter of all time. And you're
Speaker 3: right in He started in nineteen thirty nine. By nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty two, when he was recalled to service, he was
Speaker 3: in the middle of his career. He was only thirty
Speaker 3: two years old, but he was still playing. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: year before, he had played a full season for the
Speaker 3: Red Sox, finishes the season in October nineteen fifty one,
Speaker 3: and then on January ninth, a couple months later, while
Speaker 3: he's fishing in Florida on his like break before spring
Speaker 3: training starts, he gets a memo saying, you've been recalled.
Speaker 3: So he goes and yeah. It was the middle of
Speaker 3: his career, which is something we could never imagine today,
Speaker 3: but I think is even more remarkable. He serves the
Speaker 3: two years in the Korean War, comes back and plays
Speaker 3: seven more seasons so it's very interesting. As I mentioned,
Speaker 3: he did do what he could to get out of service.
Speaker 3: He did not want to go back to service. It's
Speaker 3: true he did what he could. He also he under
Speaker 3: went major arm injury playing baseball two years earlier, and
Speaker 3: he thought that that was going to lead to him
Speaker 3: being disqualified medically from his Navy exam, and it turns
Speaker 3: out it didn't happen, and they said, you're going to serve,
Speaker 3: and he says, this is in my book, and he
Speaker 3: said several years later that if he wanted a safe
Speaker 3: desk job, he could have gotten it. He could have,
Speaker 3: you know, made enough calls and lobbied the right people
Speaker 3: and been assigned maybe abroad, maybe in Korea, maybe in
Speaker 3: the United States to serve his seventeen months. Because he
Speaker 3: was an officer, he had to serve at least seventeen months.
Speaker 3: But he realized whatever, for a bunch of reasons, he
Speaker 3: didn't want to do that. One of them was he was,
Speaker 3: you know, he loved the challenge. He loved the challenge
Speaker 3: of everything fishing, chasing women, hunting, playing baseball, but he
Speaker 3: loved the challenge of being a pilot. And at this
Speaker 3: point nineteen fifty three, nineteen fifty two. It's the beginning
Speaker 3: of the jet age and jets had just come out,
Speaker 3: and he loved the heel of the jet, and he
Speaker 3: had never flown the jet. When he was in World
Speaker 3: War Two, he only flew propeller planes, the Coursera, the
Speaker 3: famous plane used during World War Two. But when the
Speaker 3: Korean War breaks out and they say he has a
Speaker 3: chance to go learn how to fly jets and fly
Speaker 3: the jet over in Korea, he says, yeah, I'm game.
Speaker 3: I want to do it. So to his credit, he
Speaker 3: did his service. He never shirked out of a mission,
Speaker 3: and he flew thirty nine combat missions in to communists
Speaker 3: North Korea across the thirty eighth parallel with people shooting
Speaker 3: at him, dropping bombs. And he had some very interesting
Speaker 3: adventures and a couple with John glenn On off of
Speaker 3: his wing.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Did he ever get a World Series?
Speaker 3: He went to the World Series the first year back
Speaker 3: from World War Two, which is nineteen forty six. He
Speaker 3: had a great year when the MVP took the Boston
Speaker 3: Red Sox to their first World Series in twenty eight years,
Speaker 3: and he didn't play very well and they lost, and
Speaker 3: he never got back to another World Series. It's kind
Speaker 3: of the one great regret of his life and the
Speaker 3: one sort of the lone Blome sh on his baseball career.
Speaker 2: So he kind of was involved in the curse right
Speaker 2: that whole he read.
Speaker 3: Sort of one of the early incarnations of the curse.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, no, I love that. Now. Now let's
Speaker 2: let's flip the coin over to John Glenn, right, United
Speaker 2: States senator for many years. To see, my brother was
Speaker 2: born in seventy four. I think John Glenn became a
Speaker 2: senator his first year seventy four, and then he served
Speaker 2: until like almost two thousand.
Speaker 3: Seventy four to nine, Yeah, to two thousand, that's right,
Speaker 3: but five to ninety nine, so yeah, but yeah, his
Speaker 3: four term senator from the state of Ohio, did some
Speaker 3: very important worked on some very important bills and some
Speaker 3: treaties with the reduction of arms in the late seventies.
Speaker 3: Ran for president. Not have a very good presidential campaign,
Speaker 3: and that's something that's outlined thoroughly in the book because
Speaker 3: there's a Ted Williams story in there about Ed Williams
Speaker 3: not endorsing him for president, which is a whole other
Speaker 3: story that I hope your readers, your listeners and pick
Speaker 3: up the book and find out more about But yeah,
Speaker 3: and then all before that, before he became a senator astronaut,
Speaker 3: first man to orbit the Earth was a very three
Speaker 3: times three times, yes, the first American to orbit the
Speaker 3: Earth three times. The third round trip around the Earth
Speaker 3: was pretty harrowing, as if anybody who's watched the right
Speaker 3: stuff knows, they thought there was a faulty heat shield
Speaker 3: that might incenterate his spacecraft when it re entered Earth.
Speaker 3: But even before, you know, one oft his he had
Speaker 3: a you know, a Marine Corps Navy funeral at Arlington
Speaker 3: when he died in twenty seven, when he died in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, but in April twenty seventeen, and one of
Speaker 3: the people were there was the senator who had occupied
Speaker 3: his seat after he retired, and the chaplain was giving
Speaker 3: a long explanation of John Glenn's career, everything he did,
Speaker 3: and the senator, who was Rob Portman at the time
Speaker 3: from Ohio, said something like, I didn't realize he was
Speaker 3: a hero, right even before he orbited the Earth three times.
Speaker 3: So his service in World War Two, service in Korea,
Speaker 3: his work as a test pilot, he was a remarkable
Speaker 3: individual and someone I think Americans today could really use
Speaker 3: a person like John Glenn and their and their government.
Speaker 2: You know, I was thinking about that when I was
Speaker 2: getting ready to talk with you about John Glenn. I
Speaker 2: was like, where is that guy today?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And I know, I was like, is he still alive?
Speaker 2: Is he still did I miss that? And I didn't
Speaker 2: miss it, And I'm glad I lived through John Glenn.
Speaker 2: I was born in nineteen seventy seven, so my whole
Speaker 2: life has known John Glenn in it right, It wasn't
Speaker 2: history to me. He was making history while I was alive,
Speaker 2: while we were alive. I'm fascinated with a friend of
Speaker 2: mine who came to me and I said, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: going to interview you. He was really excited that I
Speaker 2: was going to interview. He's like, ask him a question.
Speaker 2: I was like, what question do you want me to
Speaker 2: ask him? And he's like, ask him about the bogie
Speaker 2: at ten o'clock that John Glenn called to Houston. And
Speaker 2: so I guess John was in space or at some
Speaker 2: point and saw a bogie at his ten o'clock. He's
Speaker 2: there's a recording of it. Do you know anything about that?
Speaker 3: I don't know the necessarily being a bogey at ten o'clock,
Speaker 3: but I do know there's a famous episode while he
Speaker 3: was orbiting the Earth, and it's covered a little more dramatically,
Speaker 3: I think than it happened in real life in the
Speaker 3: movie The Right Stuff. But he saw these little particles
Speaker 3: of light when he was over the Earth, and at
Speaker 3: the time people didn't really know what they were, and
Speaker 3: there was speculation that, oh, they were little forms of light,
Speaker 3: they were little microbes, life in space. This is proof
Speaker 3: there's life in space. But I think it turned out
Speaker 3: in reality that it was just ice melting and the
Speaker 3: lights hitting the ice at a certain angle, and it
Speaker 3: looked like what he called fireflies. They were I think
Speaker 3: like yellowish orange, and he called them fireflies. And so
Speaker 3: that hole sparked up a discussion among people that it
Speaker 3: was life in space, and I think there was also
Speaker 3: concern that it may have fuel was leaking or something
Speaker 3: like that. But it turned out it was just ice
Speaker 3: melting in the atmosphere and the light shining off have
Speaker 3: I assumed the Sun or maybe the Earth made it
Speaker 3: look like these little particles were flickering, and they didn't
Speaker 3: look like drops of water. They looked like what he
Speaker 3: called fireflies. No, I think that maybe what he's referring.
Speaker 2: To is that Yeah, he said, yeah, he said, they
Speaker 2: asked that question. I was like, I could do that.
Speaker 2: I'm your guy. And that's good for the listener because
Speaker 2: someone out there has probably listened or heard that same
Speaker 2: you know reference. Like you said, they talk about it
Speaker 2: in the movie or they kind of hit on it
Speaker 2: in the movie The Right Stuff, Right, What a great
Speaker 2: movie that is about space and exploration. And you know
Speaker 2: his dimes in the capsule when he's trying to get
Speaker 2: his dimes, he's like, I need my dimes, you know,
Speaker 2: my space dimes, the little things. It's the little things.
Speaker 2: Go check that movie out. If you haven't seen that movie.
Speaker 2: The Right Stuff it's about I think it's like nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, right, that's what it came out.
Speaker 3: I'm not I think in eighty four eighty three. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And it's about the early years of the NASA missions,
Speaker 3: the Mercury missions, which really from about nineteen fifty nine
Speaker 3: to about nineteen sixty five ish is when the book is.
Speaker 3: When the book and the movie are covered.
Speaker 2: Now, as an author, okay, we haven't really talked too
Speaker 2: much about like where you've come from, right, So what
Speaker 2: was it that made you want to focus on, say
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl Monday style of writing, or this book
Speaker 2: right here, the Wingmen, where you're you're gonna bring the
Speaker 2: story of these two gentlemen, comrades Americans together in a
Speaker 2: book for us to enjoy.
Speaker 3: What was that?
Speaker 2: What path were you in school where you're like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be a writer? Can you tell me that, like
Speaker 2: high school or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I always been like a sports nut since when
Speaker 3: I was a little kid, and I think I in
Speaker 3: the early days, I remember writing like an English class.
Speaker 3: Everyone else was writing essays on you know, movies they liked,
Speaker 3: or things about their lives or I was always writing
Speaker 3: about sports. I remember I wrote one essay I think
Speaker 3: in like seventh grade that my teacher just hated because
Speaker 3: it was all about a football game that I had
Speaker 3: recently watched. And so it was just my background was
Speaker 3: is storytelling, and I like always enjoyed storytelling. And you
Speaker 3: tell a lot of times authors here they say you
Speaker 3: write what you know, and I know sports. So that's
Speaker 3: kind of how I got into writing. I was an
Speaker 3: English major in college and I went to graduate school
Speaker 3: in professional writing and journalism, and so I developed those skills.
Speaker 3: I think I'm a pretty decent storyteller. And like I said,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of times it turns out you
Speaker 3: write what you know. And for several years I wrote
Speaker 3: sports books and they were successful and I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: doing them. But what I came to realize after a
Speaker 3: while was two things. One it's always hard to write
Speaker 3: a book about individuals if they're famous, because other people
Speaker 3: have written to death about them John Glenn or in
Speaker 3: my earlier books, I wrote a book that's largely about
Speaker 3: Arnold Palmer, the famous golfer. I wrote a book about
Speaker 3: Joe Montana, the famous quarterback. And if you're going to
Speaker 3: do books like that on famous people, a lot of
Speaker 3: times you have to take a new approach, like a
Speaker 3: new angle, and you don't tell their whole biography, because
Speaker 3: there's biographies about everybody, biography about friend Than Roosevelt or
Speaker 3: Elvis Presley or Elon Musk. There's all those biographies to
Speaker 3: tell from the day they were born to the day
Speaker 3: they died. And if you want to write about those,
Speaker 3: to do it to get it people's attention and have
Speaker 3: a publisher by it a lot of times you have
Speaker 3: to sort of zero in on a certain aspect of
Speaker 3: their life, and all my books have kind of done that.
Speaker 3: I did a golf book that focused on this sort
Speaker 3: of late period on Arnold Palmer's career. This book on
Speaker 3: Joe Montana was focused on this middle part of his
Speaker 3: his NFL career and a part that's not often remembered.
Speaker 3: And then with this book with Super Bowl Monday, it
Speaker 3: was the same. It was like that I focused on
Speaker 3: a very particular part of one super Bowl and all
Speaker 3: the people who were made that super Bowl famous. So
Speaker 3: that was like a bunch of mini biographies that focused
Speaker 3: in on one specific part of all those famous players career.
Speaker 3: So the thing with the Wingmen about John Glenn and
Speaker 3: Ted Williams is both of them have autobiographies, both of
Speaker 3: them have multiple biographies written about them. Both of them
Speaker 3: have had thousands of magazine and newspaperball cards exactly there
Speaker 3: have been covered to death. And if you want to
Speaker 3: tell a story like that, you have to have sort
Speaker 3: of a unique angle that, like I said, sort of
Speaker 3: magnifies one small part of their life and expands it
Speaker 3: into a larger story.
Speaker 2: And that's what I did.
Speaker 3: With this book was I zeroed in on this friendship
Speaker 3: between the two and what that was about, how it
Speaker 3: came to be, how it ebbed and flowed, and how
Speaker 3: it what the you know, heartfelt moments of it were.
Speaker 3: But it also let me tell the larger story of
Speaker 3: the readers of you know, who were these people and
Speaker 3: what relevant stories helped shape their worldview at that time.
Speaker 3: That's kind of what I've what I've learned along the way,
Speaker 3: And I guess I'm always zeroed in on people more
Speaker 3: than plots. I think readers and not just readers, but
Speaker 3: people watch TV and watch movies. The plot's important, absolutely,
Speaker 3: but the characters is what people care about more. It's
Speaker 3: why we see so many like reboots of movies or sequels,
Speaker 3: because they don't. People don't want new characters. They want
Speaker 3: the same characters doing different things right.
Speaker 2: They want to see like them going yeah, you're totally right.
Speaker 3: That's what happened with this. John Glennon said, this book
Speaker 3: was sort of like these were familiar people. They were
Speaker 3: familiar people to the general public, but not many people
Speaker 3: know this side of their story. I would hazard did
Speaker 3: very few people, even if they were big Ted Williams
Speaker 3: fan knew anything about his military career and much less
Speaker 3: about his friendship with John Glenn. And John Glenn most
Speaker 3: people know, oh yeah, he's that senator who was also
Speaker 3: an astronaut. They don't know a lot of these stories.
Speaker 3: So that's sort of how I got to this.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't know John Glenn was involved in the
Speaker 2: Chinese like civil War.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, he was a He sort of patrolled the
Speaker 3: skies over China for during these parts in the late
Speaker 3: forties until eventually they had to be they pushed further
Speaker 3: and further out of China.
Speaker 2: And the fact is that he had already done everything
Speaker 2: he needed to do as a person in World War Two,
Speaker 2: like committing himself to the service and fighting and you know,
Speaker 2: risking everything everything, you know, everything everything for good versus evil.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure there are men any people in the
Speaker 3: history of the United States who gave back more to
Speaker 3: their country than John Glenn. I mean, he's not saying
Speaker 3: he's the only one. I'm saying he's on that Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 3: I think of people who served in our country, John
Speaker 3: Glenn would have to be in the discussion for one
Speaker 3: of the most central and that from you know, the
Speaker 3: time he joined the Army Air Corps, and then they
Speaker 3: didn't call him back, so he was two weeks later
Speaker 3: to a Navy recruitment station. From the time he joined
Speaker 3: the Navy in early nineteen forty two to the day
Speaker 3: he died in twenty sixteen, I think he was giving
Speaker 3: back to his country, whether it was as a fighter pilot,
Speaker 3: as a test pilot, as an astronaut, as a senator,
Speaker 3: as a humanitarian, as a statesman, as a politician in general.
Speaker 3: I think he was a man who believed in public service.
Speaker 2: Yeah him, you know, Gerald Ford, You know these guys
Speaker 2: that just continued to selflessly serve through the end, the
Speaker 2: bitter end, the Boy Scout through and through. Was he?
Speaker 2: Do you know? Was John Glenn in the Boy Scouts
Speaker 2: at all? Do you know?
Speaker 3: Gosh?
Speaker 2: I think so. I think I always like to say
Speaker 2: that our boy Scouts kicked Germans boy Scouts ass in
Speaker 2: World War Two. That's how it goes right there. These
Speaker 2: young men you know, in the early thirties growing up
Speaker 2: to be those trying to get in at fifteen sixteen
Speaker 2: years old. Bro.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean they also were hardened by the Depression.
Speaker 3: John Glenn was a child with the Depression he was
Speaker 3: eight years old when the depression hit, and it really
Speaker 3: hurt his family. His family very much thought they were
Speaker 3: going to lose their house in the thirties. And I
Speaker 3: think what he said years later was that became one
Speaker 3: of the reason became a Democrat, was that he believed
Speaker 3: that Franklin Roosevelt had helped all this country out of
Speaker 3: the depression and Green Deal and everything saved his family.
Speaker 3: So yeah, again, I just I try not to necessarily,
Speaker 3: you know, say how great people were, and when I'm
Speaker 3: doing a book about them that I don't want to
Speaker 3: sound like a cheerwriter for them. Because John Glenn had
Speaker 3: his flaws. He certainly had a U boss and his
Speaker 3: words he was exact. But I think you again, we
Speaker 3: could ben America would benefit if there were ten or
Speaker 3: fifteen more John Glenn's in the federal government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know really that had that same kind of like,
Speaker 2: let's just do the right thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think he put he put policy he believed in
Speaker 3: the United States, not Democrat, Republican or any of those
Speaker 3: kinds of issues. I think he always did.
Speaker 2: What was I get a lot of big dogs on
Speaker 2: here that have a lot of stars on their shoulders
Speaker 2: that I talked to and I asked him, you know,
Speaker 2: you transition from like one president to another, right as
Speaker 2: the chief or of staff, et cetera. It's like, how'd
Speaker 2: you do that? And they usually came back. They usually
Speaker 2: come back to me like this rat. It doesn't matter
Speaker 2: my political affiliation because it says US Army, US Marine,
Speaker 2: US Coast Guard, US Navy on our stuff in the military.
Speaker 2: So we understand what we're doing because it's the US.
Speaker 2: That's what he said. And I think John Glenn probably
Speaker 2: had that same taste. You know, it's like the US, right,
Speaker 2: what's better? What's the best for the the US, not
Speaker 2: my pocketbook, you know what.
Speaker 3: I think you're absolutely right. And as I say in
Speaker 3: the book, John Glynne I think was a tremendous statesman.
Speaker 3: He was great as a senator and a figure for America.
Speaker 3: He wasn't a particularly great politician. It's one of the
Speaker 3: reasons why I don't think he ever really got close
Speaker 3: to being president. And he was a World War Two
Speaker 3: and Korean War astronaut hero, and that's I think one
Speaker 3: of the reasons. It helped get him elected four times
Speaker 3: as a senator. But I think that was one of
Speaker 3: the reasons why he wasn't a great politician was because
Speaker 3: he didn't always play partisan politics. He believes in the
Speaker 3: United States, and there were things he was willing to
Speaker 3: work for if he thought had benefited the country instead
Speaker 3: of benefiting the Democrats or this committee or his own
Speaker 3: personal political aspirations.
Speaker 2: Right right, he was. He's willing to do the right thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, I think that's I think that was almost
Speaker 3: always the case to John Glynn.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I love that. And I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: put him in some type, but he would be on
Speaker 2: my Mount Rushmore of I would say selfless Americans for sure,
Speaker 2: now that we have a Mount Rushmore in our brains,
Speaker 2: of who that would be. And I want my listener
Speaker 2: to think, who would you put on a mount Rushmore
Speaker 2: of selfless Americans? You know, I also want to say,
Speaker 2: like John McCain, John McCain, Marine Corps, Navy pilot, pow
Speaker 2: selflessly served, ram tried to become president, always just tried
Speaker 2: to do the right thing, you know, just selflessly served.
Speaker 2: Now aside from the politics, now, let's get back to baseball.
Speaker 2: Sound good. So Ted Williams lived a long life, but
Speaker 2: he lived kind of like an extravagant lifestyle. Didn't he
Speaker 2: as his later years in life?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say he lives in an extravaging lifestyle. I know,
Speaker 3: if you're trying to think about it, maybe it's untimely demise.
Speaker 3: Is the troubles at the end of his life. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't really think that had anything to do with finances.
Speaker 3: He didn't live.
Speaker 2: I don't think he lived collected. Is that the Lord
Speaker 2: I'm living?
Speaker 3: Sorry?
Speaker 2: Is it eclectic? Is that the word is?
Speaker 3: He?
Speaker 2: Was he ecolectic?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Did he? Isn't he still? Like in Priirostasis?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So that was an unfortunate episode that I think
Speaker 3: had to do with those of you who don't unfamiliar
Speaker 3: with it. When he died, his body was frozen cause
Speaker 3: his children, two of his children, believed that and maybe
Speaker 3: one day he could be reanimated and brought back to life.
Speaker 3: And it's frankly, it's not something I really wanted to
Speaker 3: cover in the book because it's not relevant to the
Speaker 3: Ted Williams shown Glenn friendship, except for the fact that
Speaker 3: one the only the third child, the oldest child of
Speaker 3: the family, was very much against this and one of
Speaker 3: the people she publicly lobbied to come help her in
Speaker 3: her quest to stop this was John Glenn. She said,
Speaker 3: you know John Glenn. Uh. She went on TV and
Speaker 3: she said, John Glenn, my daddy was your wingman during
Speaker 3: the Korean War. He needs you to be his wingman
Speaker 3: now and stop this cryogenic freezing business. And it was
Speaker 3: a very ugly family dirty laundry being aired through the public.
Speaker 3: And my take on it has always been there was
Speaker 3: some deception and some uneasiness about what exactly true was
Speaker 3: the truth, But I think part of it had to
Speaker 3: do with Ted Williams did not have a very good
Speaker 3: relationship with his children for the most part of their
Speaker 3: lives and his life. He had three wives, we all divorced,
Speaker 3: and he didn't, you know, he wasn't the stay at
Speaker 3: home dad who was always there for his children. And
Speaker 3: I think part of it he probably had some guilt
Speaker 3: over how things went towards the end of his life,
Speaker 3: and his children sort of persuaded him two of his
Speaker 3: children's or persuaded him to do this fright cryogenic freezing,
Speaker 3: that they were going to be frozen two so that
Speaker 3: at someday maybe we could all be brought back to
Speaker 3: life and together. And that was one of the interpretations.
Speaker 3: One of his friends and doctors at the time told
Speaker 3: me was basically like, yeah, sure, I'll do it. Maybe
Speaker 3: we will get come back together and we can have
Speaker 3: a good life together, even though we didn't have a
Speaker 3: great life for the past thirty or forty years. But
Speaker 3: it was a sort of hopeful maybe one day we
Speaker 3: can all come back thing. And again, it was, as
Speaker 3: I've said in the book, I think it's a sad
Speaker 3: ending that it all happened, but it's even worse that
Speaker 3: it was all happening through the media and the newspapers
Speaker 3: and tabloids and people were making crude jokes about Ted
Speaker 3: Williams frozen head and things like that, and it's just
Speaker 3: kind of an ugly thing. I didn't. Yeah, I went
Speaker 3: to dinner with a friend of Ted Williams a couple
Speaker 3: when I was writing the book. He was a very
Speaker 3: nice guy. He's an older gentleman. He's sort of was
Speaker 3: a very high ranking general in the Marine Corps. Actually
Speaker 3: he was friends with Ted Williams, and he was a
Speaker 3: huge baseball fan and he was very very kind and grateful,
Speaker 3: great help to me on the book, and I appreciated
Speaker 3: him so much. And we went to dinner, and he
Speaker 3: knew the owner of the restaurant, and he said, hey,
Speaker 3: let's say hi to the owner.
Speaker 2: I know him.
Speaker 3: I'll tell him about you, what you're doing. And he
Speaker 3: totally he met. We shook the owner's hand and I said, oh,
Speaker 3: it was very nice to meet you. And he said
Speaker 3: to him, but this is my friend Adam. He's writing
Speaker 3: a book on Ted Williams and John Glenn and then
Speaker 3: there are heroes of mine and it's I'm you know,
Speaker 3: I'm helping him out. And the owner of the restaurant.
Speaker 3: The first thing you just said was did they really
Speaker 3: freeze his head? And I was like, I felt horrible
Speaker 3: because his TEDI his friend, was right there. But it
Speaker 3: was also like that kind of summed up how a
Speaker 3: lot of people remember Ted Williams, right, And it's a
Speaker 3: shame to me given not just his baseball career, but
Speaker 3: the fact that he served in two wars, one of
Speaker 3: which he flew thirty nine combat missions in over communist
Speaker 3: North Korea.
Speaker 2: So yeah, exactly nineteen years as a baseball player too,
Speaker 2: I think, right, he played like nineteen seasons, right, that's
Speaker 2: you know, spring training, you know, I get it. You know,
Speaker 2: he's got a good old cigar in his mouth. He's
Speaker 2: a pro athlete. Yeah, Okay. When I was young and
Speaker 2: I was sixteen, I had aspirations of professional baseball. I
Speaker 2: wanted to be a pro ball I could play, I
Speaker 2: could hit the ball, I hit fastballs. That's the life
Speaker 2: that you think of. So you know, get at it.
Speaker 2: Holy cow. Now they got like, you know, the Dodgers
Speaker 2: are paying seven hundred million dollars to their players. Holy cow.
Speaker 2: But he did crack one out of the park yesterday,
Speaker 2: But geez, where's that.
Speaker 3: Money's making about one hundred thousand dollars a year, which
Speaker 3: was outrageous, outrageable back then.
Speaker 2: Yes, so much money for a ball player to make,
Speaker 2: and you know, like that's big money.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I mean, you know what the the worst
Speaker 3: part is. I mean, it all gets passed down to
Speaker 3: the fans who have it now buy seventeen dollars beers
Speaker 3: and yeah, one hundred and eight dollars tickets and sixty
Speaker 3: five dollars for parking. It's it's it's all, it's all
Speaker 3: kind of out of whack.
Speaker 2: How does the kid from Sandlot try to get in
Speaker 2: to watch his favorite player, you know, like peek through
Speaker 2: the fence, to try to see the Cubs play or something,
Speaker 2: you know, or someone at the green wall has a
Speaker 2: hole he can look through in Boston. You know, I
Speaker 2: love baseball. When and when you were coming on and
Speaker 2: when you're introduced, it's like it's baseball season. Rad we
Speaker 2: should have Adam on. I was like, boom, let's go, dude.
Speaker 2: I love it. So as a sports writer, are you
Speaker 2: writing about baseball?
Speaker 3: My next book is not about baseball, though, I'm going
Speaker 3: to keep that under wraps what the next book's about
Speaker 3: because it hasn't quite gotten off the ground yet to
Speaker 3: use a military aviation front. But you know what, I
Speaker 3: do foresee another baseball book down the road. Nice it's
Speaker 3: or another definitely another sports book, but another baseball book.
Speaker 3: It is certainly possibility, especially since you know, even with
Speaker 3: this book, you know, baseball is kind of romanticized more
Speaker 3: than I think any other American sport. And that's one
Speaker 3: of the reasons why I feel like I'll come back
Speaker 3: to it. Even in this book, there's like, there's really
Speaker 3: only like fifteen pages of baseball in it, but I
Speaker 3: loved writing those pages covering the history what Ted Williams did,
Speaker 3: particularly one year where he was thirty nine years old
Speaker 3: and he led the league in batting. It's I foresee
Speaker 3: eventually coming back to baseball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had like a four hundred batting average. I
Speaker 2: think he had like a a three something.
Speaker 3: He's the last man to hit four hundred. He hit
Speaker 3: four oh six and nineteen forty one, and then sixteen
Speaker 3: years later, at the age of thirty nine he almost
Speaker 3: hit four hundred again. He hit three eighty eight. So
Speaker 3: that's one of the reasons why people.
Speaker 2: What do you think the average fastball speed was then?
Speaker 2: I'm just curious what you think.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, I don't. I don't think it was
Speaker 3: one hundred. I think it was probably mid nineties. I
Speaker 3: think someone said, I'm a big fan of the Ken
Speaker 3: Burns Baseball series that was on PBS in the nineties.
Speaker 3: I think someone said back then that it's not how
Speaker 3: fast the pitchers are relative from one era to the next,
Speaker 3: it's more who is the fastest of each era. And
Speaker 3: I think if you put Ted Williams in today's playing
Speaker 3: not if you transported him using a time machine, but
Speaker 3: if Ted Williams grew up in this age, I think
Speaker 3: he would still be the best hitter in baseball. If
Speaker 3: he had worked, you know, he had trained three hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty five days a year instead of four months
Speaker 3: fishing in Florida and in the offseat. If he was
Speaker 3: had access to you know, the kind of weight training
Speaker 3: programs they have today, if he had access to ban
Speaker 3: engages and all those things, I think Ted Williams would
Speaker 3: still be the best hit in.
Speaker 2: Baseball, right exactly. If Randy Johnson was who he had
Speaker 2: a face off, he'd be trained to probably face off
Speaker 2: against Randy Johnson, right. You know, as simple as that
Speaker 2: that you know, you're you're surrounded by what you got
Speaker 2: to train against. I get that one hundred percent, right,
Speaker 2: And then it just evolves, you know, we just get
Speaker 2: more and more sports doctors that say, hey, work your
Speaker 2: tendon this way, you know, and just more science involved
Speaker 2: in you know. Then there's Moneyball. It's like, hey we
Speaker 2: just trade your penya wait what Yeah, just get on
Speaker 2: base Love that movie, bro. I just have to say,
Speaker 2: I know, has it's just baseball. It's just a different take.
Speaker 2: It's a different angle, and I love that. I look
Speaker 2: forward to anything you write. And I'm going to tell you,
Speaker 2: are you looking at like transitioning this into some type
Speaker 2: of like movie or TV show.
Speaker 3: Well if that, if I had the power or authority
Speaker 3: to do that, sure, I have not heard anything on
Speaker 3: that front yet. It is I mean, I do think
Speaker 3: it's kind of a story that lends itself to a
Speaker 3: Hollywood screenplay. Hollywood, you know, I think adaptation. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, well, you know I've said this before because
Speaker 3: they're from Boston. Ted Williams was the Boston baseball history example,
Speaker 3: I feel like Ted Williams and John Glenn should be
Speaker 3: played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. But so maybe
Speaker 3: one day, maybe they'll come across this and option it.
Speaker 3: I do think it's the kind of story that you know,
Speaker 3: friendship and politics and war and space. I think it
Speaker 3: lends itself to that.
Speaker 2: I do know that.
Speaker 3: I feel like if it became a movie, I would
Speaker 3: watch it with grit, my teeth, grit the entire time
Speaker 3: because they Hollywood it. You know, it changed this fact,
Speaker 3: changed this neck. But I guess if I saw my
Speaker 3: name on the big screen and as as adapted from
Speaker 3: Adam Lazaru's books, I'd be okay with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so too. It'd be cool if it
Speaker 2: was a series too, because check it can follow along
Speaker 2: different episodes, and then it could keep going along and
Speaker 2: then they you know, today's day and age, everybody can
Speaker 2: just binge the eight or ten twelve episodes in one night.
Speaker 2: But still, I think that would be kind of cool
Speaker 2: because then you see, you know, like you said, you
Speaker 2: see the characters doing other things continually. Yeah, that'd be cool.
Speaker 2: I think anything that you write, you seem like you
Speaker 2: have just a really cool demeanor and just you respond
Speaker 2: really well. And I think that you probably write just
Speaker 2: as well. So it'd be cool to watch any of
Speaker 2: your movies, bro, or read any of your books.
Speaker 3: I agree with you. Let's get Peacock and Paramount Plus
Speaker 3: and Netflix all on board with that.
Speaker 2: Agreed. Yes, And so to my favorite executives at those
Speaker 2: places that watch this, you know what to do now, Okay,
Speaker 2: just give them a call or just hit me up,
Speaker 2: text to me. It's cool, no problem, Yeah, I'll be
Speaker 2: I'll be in mission controlled. Don't worry about the braids
Speaker 2: in my beard. It's totally period.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what. I have been asked by people
Speaker 3: if you know if it should be a move or
Speaker 3: have you heard anything about it being a movie? And
Speaker 3: I always tell him when I told you but then
Speaker 3: I add, but like, if it is a movie, I
Speaker 3: want to be the like Pilot number seven in the
Speaker 3: background of some like meeting, you know, some officers mess
Speaker 3: or officer club like scene where they're partying. I just
Speaker 3: want to be in the background as an officer, like
Speaker 3: drinking a beer or something. That's all I want.
Speaker 2: You would see the movie Top Gun, Yeah, you know
Speaker 2: the part where he goes to meet Charlie in the
Speaker 2: bar and like, she's like, I'm waiting for a friend.
Speaker 2: So I interviewed a guy who was at Top Gun,
Speaker 2: who was a part of the movie of Top Gun,
Speaker 2: and he told me, in that scene, the guy that
Speaker 2: she's waiting for is actually the Top Gun instructor of
Speaker 2: Top Gun. Oh really yes, and so which is like
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for my friends over here, and she goes
Speaker 2: and sits down with the guy and he's like, oh man,
Speaker 2: I'm getting dissed.
Speaker 3: You know you got to you got to reward someone
Speaker 3: with something like that.
Speaker 2: That's the cameo, dude, that's the cameo of it.
Speaker 3: I want, or I could be in I got I
Speaker 3: guess I could like someone in the background of a
Speaker 3: scene where John Glenn's funeral was going on.
Speaker 2: Look at Tarantinos at all his flicks, you know, in
Speaker 2: some way or somehow, whether you know he knows how
Speaker 2: to make a couple of coffee. Yeah, exactly, you know
Speaker 2: I cannot.
Speaker 3: That's my one bargaining point. I'm I'll take one dollar
Speaker 3: for the right now. It's just kidding. No, I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it, and you should. You should have that
Speaker 2: in your write up. It's like, look, I'm in it
Speaker 2: as pilot number seven, and pilot number seven lives by.
Speaker 3: The way, Yeah, or I could land to be heroic ending.
Speaker 2: Oh man. I went off for this movie and it
Speaker 2: was John the Baptist was the character, and I said,
Speaker 2: I'm cool with getting my head cut off and served
Speaker 2: on a platter. Do you know many people would realize
Speaker 2: that that was me? There you go, it's like, all right,
Speaker 2: all right, all right, no, that's great. Well, so you
Speaker 2: got a book coming out, there's something else, and you're
Speaker 2: not going to drop that right now on the show.
Speaker 3: I don't get that, No, No, I'm just I'm in
Speaker 3: the very very early stages of thinking about another book.
Speaker 3: It's uh, part two prestition, part embarrassment that I don't
Speaker 3: really like to talk about it until it's a little
Speaker 3: further down the road. But again, like I mean, without
Speaker 3: going into details, I think I've started to realize that
Speaker 3: I think people like characters more than plot. And then
Speaker 3: I'm getting kind of you know whatever they call it
Speaker 3: inside baseball in this but I think, and I think,
Speaker 3: I really think that's true. It's like, why do they
Speaker 3: make fifteen Marvel movies because people want to see Captain
Speaker 3: America again?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Or that? Why did they Rea? Why did they bring
Speaker 3: back Top Gun? People wanted to see Goosen Maverick.
Speaker 2: Again, you know, and so I think back to the
Speaker 2: future in another one, you know, it's like everybody wants
Speaker 2: to see Marty mckea. I keep going.
Speaker 3: Seriously, That's why I made it into a Broadway show.
Speaker 3: I think people want you know, we don't people don't
Speaker 3: necessarily want to hear about new people. They want to
Speaker 3: hear about people that they're familiar with and Ted Williams
Speaker 3: or Arnold Palmer or whoever whatever person in history. If
Speaker 3: I was to do a book on Elvis, Like again,
Speaker 3: I'm not doing a book on Elvis, But if I
Speaker 3: was doing a book on Elvis, and you know, maybe
Speaker 3: the whole story behind his famous Hawaii Comeback Show in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight, Like that could be a book because people, oh,
Speaker 3: it's Elvis, you know, I don't know this chapter Elvis's story.
Speaker 3: That's very interesting to me. Everybody knows some of the
Speaker 3: background and you know, the movies he made and things
Speaker 3: like that, and him dying and all those things.
Speaker 2: Because I think just seeing this last movie that was
Speaker 2: about Elvis, I didn't know that he was under the
Speaker 2: thumb of the kernel.
Speaker 3: That's kind of was part of the original take on it.
Speaker 3: I think I think people want to sort of latch
Speaker 3: onto history they know, but learn things they don't know,
Speaker 3: which is a weird like kind of a paradox, but
Speaker 3: it's true because nobody knows, Like you could name the
Speaker 3: most famous person in American history, George Washington, like Hamilton.
Speaker 3: Just think about the play Hamilton exactly way show Hamplton,
Speaker 3: Like people knew he was a dollar on a ten
Speaker 3: dollar bill and one of the founding fathers, all these things,
Speaker 3: but nobody knew all these things that were prominent in
Speaker 3: the biography and then the movie Hamilton, the play Hamilton.
Speaker 3: I think people want to hear about characters that are
Speaker 3: familiar with but learn new things and I think the
Speaker 3: Wingman is an example of that.
Speaker 2: And what's funny about that mentioned about Hamilton real quick,
Speaker 2: just to piggyback, is my fifteen sixteen year old daughter
Speaker 2: at the time was just obsessed with all of the
Speaker 2: soundtrack and so here she is. She could tell me
Speaker 2: all about Hamilton. She's like, oh, no, let me tell
Speaker 2: you all about Hamilton. I was like, oh, just put
Speaker 2: it in a song and you'll know your math.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's funny because yeah, my kids, my wife
Speaker 3: got big into Hamilton, and I hope she's not going
Speaker 3: to watch this because she is like she has like
Speaker 3: the lowest threshold for history, Like she could listen to
Speaker 3: like thirty seconds of all my book ideas before she's like,
Speaker 3: that's too much history. I'm not interested. But she loves Hamilton.
Speaker 3: And he's for for months was asking me all these
Speaker 3: questions about the Revolutionary War and Washington and who's James
Speaker 3: Madison like, And now my kids are the same way,
Speaker 3: and like one son is really into Hamilton, and he
Speaker 3: became really interested in the American history American presidents after that,
Speaker 3: and he's fascinated, which strange enough, he's more fascinated by
Speaker 3: the ones who are assassinated. But that's just how it is.
Speaker 2: And I think why, yeah, you know, why, what was it?
Speaker 2: He's maybe a detective in the making.
Speaker 3: I don't know, bro Ma, well, I think it was
Speaker 3: because Hamilton was kind of assassinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Lincoln and Kennedy, so uh, it's it's.
Speaker 3: Uh, there's people. We need to learn history. Obviously, it's important.
Speaker 3: There's that whole If you don't learn your history, you're
Speaker 3: doing to repeat it. But you don't have to get
Speaker 3: it by picking up a ninth grade textbook.
Speaker 2: Either, right, right, No, I get that, yeah, because sometimes
Speaker 2: that's hard to read.
Speaker 3: We're just we're just born.
Speaker 2: I'm just no, I'm playing a playing No. I loved
Speaker 2: history in school. I just I went to the school
Speaker 2: where there was no emails, man, and there was no
Speaker 2: one tracking me like that Today. Now we got it
Speaker 2: all on our phones. It's like you didn't turn you
Speaker 2: assignment in back then. I was like, oh I turned
Speaker 2: everything in for the day. Man, oh man, So what
Speaker 2: year did you come to this Earth? Eighty two? All right, yeah, see,
Speaker 2: I'm just five years older than you, So listen to
Speaker 2: the future. Let me tell you what's up. Grow your
Speaker 2: braids out, You'll bet five years you learned a lot
Speaker 2: more than I did. Oh those five years, I just
Speaker 2: learned that it's always front foot forward. Just keep going,
Speaker 2: just keep hacking, and when you get like writer's block,
Speaker 2: go outside and get some fresh air and go for
Speaker 2: a walk and enjoy some nature and just come down
Speaker 2: from whatever you know has just blocked you. And it
Speaker 2: might just come to you just when you don't expect it.
Speaker 2: Like I get hit up by people like, hey, rad
Speaker 2: I have a book. You'd be surprised how many times
Speaker 2: I get that. How do I get it published right?
Speaker 2: How do I get the next How do I get
Speaker 2: in the space I have ideas? It's like, well, it's
Speaker 2: not so easy. Publishers already have writers that do certain space,
Speaker 2: and so they rely on writers to write that space.
Speaker 2: So if you can come in like what you're suggesting
Speaker 2: and take a different spin on it, or you know,
Speaker 2: what would you give somebody out there right now, like
Speaker 2: maybe two pieces of advice that are that have ideas
Speaker 2: that would like to see it happen? What steps should
Speaker 2: they take? I have?
Speaker 3: I get asked a lot of that questions like that.
Speaker 3: And I will preface this by saying, like this is
Speaker 3: what works for me, and obviously what I say or
Speaker 3: pick whatever famous writer their advice may not work for everybody.
Speaker 3: But my first piece of advice is always, if you
Speaker 3: want to be a writer, then you need to write.
Speaker 3: And by that I mean, like, I have a lot
Speaker 3: of people who tell me they're sort of overwhelmed by
Speaker 3: like the blank page, or they don't know where to begin,
Speaker 3: or you know, I'm worried. I'm sure there's some people
Speaker 3: who are just worried about like embarrassing themselves or the
Speaker 3: fear of rejection. The only way to get better at
Speaker 3: writing is by writing, Like whatever you're thinking about writing
Speaker 3: your life story, you're a poem, your favorite recipe for
Speaker 3: banana pudding, Like write it down, get it down on paper,
Speaker 3: and then you spend the next week rewriting it and
Speaker 3: start over, or scratch out half of it and rearrange
Speaker 3: it and cut it up with the you know, the
Speaker 3: red pen like we used to use in grade school.
Speaker 3: The only way you're going to get better at that
Speaker 3: is to do it, like even if it sucks, like
Speaker 3: that's your one point zero start over, Like you're not
Speaker 3: going to write by thinking about it and you know,
Speaker 3: worrying about it. You have to actually do it. And
Speaker 3: even if it's just like your brain pouring out onto
Speaker 3: paper or onto the computer screen, that's the only way
Speaker 3: to get started. And then you just you just keep polishing.
Speaker 3: The word I use a lot is like polishing and
Speaker 3: polishing and polishing. So that's probably the first advice. And
Speaker 3: I do think what I said earlier is also a
Speaker 3: really good start for people who whether they're like four
Speaker 3: years old, or whether they're a high school senior, or
Speaker 3: whether they're like my grandfather who had retired the late
Speaker 3: night he'd retired in the early eighties and then decided
Speaker 3: in the mid nineties he wanted to write a novel.
Speaker 3: Write what you know, so you don't You don't have
Speaker 3: to Your whole career doesn't have to be, you know,
Speaker 3: if you were an accountant, your whole career doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be writing about the history of accountants or a
Speaker 3: murder mystery is starting an accountant. But it's a good
Speaker 3: place to start, Like write what you know. If you're
Speaker 3: a baseball fan, write a baseball book. If you love poetry,
Speaker 3: you know, nature poetry, go out and write poems about
Speaker 3: a beautiful park or something like that. I mean poetry
Speaker 3: is not my thing for the record, but I guess
Speaker 3: what I'm saying is like, whatever you're passionate about. I've
Speaker 3: always been passionate about sports. It's how I sort of
Speaker 3: got to the point I am. Your passion will come
Speaker 3: through when you start writing. So that's why the whole
Speaker 3: write what you know, like you're usually passionate about things,
Speaker 3: you know. That's the other piece of advice I would
Speaker 3: give is like you're just starting, write what you know.
Speaker 3: Like my I'm thinking about my grandfather who wrote a
Speaker 3: novel at age eighty one. I think was very interested
Speaker 3: in like finance and stuff like that. His novel was
Speaker 3: a lot about I think it was like about the
Speaker 3: stock market and things like that. So he wrote what
Speaker 3: he knew. And that's always a good place to start and.
Speaker 2: At least kind of like a little bit of a
Speaker 2: legacy for you, you know that they can say, hey,
Speaker 2: this is what grandpa wrote. You know, this is what
Speaker 2: we have this book. It's been passed down through thirteen generations,
Speaker 2: and you know, keep it safe. You know, Grandpa's writings,
Speaker 2: you know, or your writings or your kids writings or heaven,
Speaker 2: you know, like you know, who I think is our
Speaker 2: Shakespeare of the day, and it's no offense all the authors.
Speaker 2: It's Taylor Swift. So I think that she is our Shakespeare.
Speaker 2: Where she's written all of her stuff. She writes it
Speaker 2: out there, she puts it out there. She's willing to
Speaker 2: take the rejections. She's really willing to take the ridicules.
Speaker 2: She's willing to take the success. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, like you said, write about something you're
Speaker 2: passionate about. And if you listen to a lot of
Speaker 2: what she writes about, it's a lot of songs that
Speaker 2: are all about relationships in life. And so she seems
Speaker 2: to be passionate about it and she's very successful. You're
Speaker 2: passionate about sports yourself. Yes, I just put you in
Speaker 2: the same realms as Taylor Swift, Okay, And so you
Speaker 2: are successful because you believe in it, you're putting it
Speaker 2: out there, You're following through with what you've been taught
Speaker 2: and also what you've had to learn on your own.
Speaker 2: You may have gone to school, and there are people
Speaker 2: who are book smart, but can you put your book
Speaker 2: smart from saying, say, becoming an entrepreneur actually doing it?
Speaker 2: And so here you're taking, Hey, this is how you
Speaker 2: like indent the first paragraph, bro in dent, Okay, capitalize
Speaker 2: the first lady.
Speaker 3: There are some things you only learn by It's kind
Speaker 3: of what I was saying, is that you only learn
Speaker 3: by doing. Like it's great to have education, like traditional
Speaker 3: educational background, but it's it's gonna you have to apply
Speaker 3: it in the real world. I was watching a big
Speaker 3: Law and Order fan and there was one Law and
Speaker 3: Order where they were talking about something and one of
Speaker 3: the attorneys was saying how they didn't learn this kind
Speaker 3: of this kind of stuff wasn't taught in law school.
Speaker 3: And professor said something like that's because it's a law school,
Speaker 3: not a lawyer. So it's like you learn the law,
Speaker 3: but you don't learn how to be a lawyer. Like
Speaker 3: that's becoming a lawyer. You learn on the job and
Speaker 3: going through experience and practicing maybe like I don't know,
Speaker 3: mock ales or whatever, but like and you really only
Speaker 3: learn by being in the courtroom in a real world situation.
Speaker 3: Same thing with really most anything, And it's the same
Speaker 3: thing with writing is no one's going to teach you
Speaker 3: how to write. They may give you tools for you know,
Speaker 3: storytelling and the basics of like grammar, and spelling and
Speaker 3: all those things that they may give you tools for
Speaker 3: character development and plot twists or whatever. But the only
Speaker 3: way you're going to ever get to where you want
Speaker 3: to be in that kind of field is by doing
Speaker 3: it and you being your best.
Speaker 2: Teacher, pursuing it until you die. Just keep going, just
Speaker 2: keep at it, don't stop. Like you said, your father
Speaker 2: or your grandfather was eighty one. Today we have presidents
Speaker 2: that are running at eighty years old. Okay, so if
Speaker 2: you're sixty, you said about twenty years of job left
Speaker 2: in you, sir. Yeah, okay, I don't know who that
Speaker 2: is I'm talking to, but get it done already, all right,
Speaker 2: it's not going to clean itself, Okay, all right now,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: We could use it. I think we could just for
Speaker 3: the record, not democratic or Republican. Probably could use like
Speaker 3: a forty seven year.
Speaker 2: Old and one that spoke about language fluently or something like,
Speaker 2: you know, even Spanish, like just ola, like how you
Speaker 2: guys doing? Like I agree with you one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: And I know I've had you for almost an hour
Speaker 2: of time, and I feel like I could keep talking
Speaker 2: to you for a long time. And I know you're
Speaker 2: very busy and there's a lot of people that want
Speaker 2: your time, So thank you for giving that to us today.
Speaker 2: Thank you to your wife, thank you to your kids
Speaker 2: for supporting you and being there for you and always
Speaker 2: listening to you whether you know it or not. And
Speaker 2: you know and your Wingman, The Wingman, the book The Wingman.
Speaker 2: When does that come out? Has that already launched? Or
Speaker 2: am I just getting it came out and came a fall.
Speaker 2: I would just say, anybody who wants to buy it
Speaker 2: or read more about it, or see some of the
Speaker 2: reviews or some other interviews I've done along the way,
Speaker 2: some other podcasts and newspaper write ups, just go to
Speaker 2: my website just just Adam Lazarus books dot com, la
Speaker 2: zaar U s Adam Lazarus books dot com. There's a
Speaker 2: lot there about this book and all my other books.
Speaker 2: And there's even, I believe even a couple like audiobook
Speaker 2: chapter samples so you can before you can shop before
Speaker 2: you buy it. Do you do your audioble? Do you
Speaker 2: do your voiceover?
Speaker 3: No? I haven't, which a part of me wants to
Speaker 3: be like the next book I do, like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: probably do want to read it, except I a feel
Speaker 3: like I would be so self conscious the entire nine
Speaker 3: hours of it. But be I also think somewhere online
Speaker 3: someone's going to be like, you're a bad book reader.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't be doing this.
Speaker 3: And hopefully it would be like someone in the production team,
Speaker 3: like before the book comes out and not after it
Speaker 3: comes out. But yeah, I think while that would be fun,
Speaker 3: I don't think that's my I don't think that's in
Speaker 3: my future.
Speaker 2: Usually the people that say that about someone who reads
Speaker 2: a book for you is because they didn't get to
Speaker 2: do it. They usually had maybe I think, you know
Speaker 2: the ones that are like, oh this guy, this day's
Speaker 2: dude's too fast, or this dude's.
Speaker 3: Maybe a whole nother problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also, like I'm gonna watch when you post this. Whenever
Speaker 3: you post this, I'll watch it and I'll just cringe
Speaker 3: every time I'm talking.
Speaker 2: No, don't craze. Stop stop no, look, we're together. It's okay.
Speaker 2: You're great. I just told you you're awesome. I just
Speaker 2: put you in Taylor Swift's category.
Speaker 3: That's true, that's true. You are the second person to
Speaker 3: mention Taylor Swift to me in a podcast like this.
Speaker 3: You know the books about John Glenn and Ted Williams. Yes,
Speaker 3: and someone said something to me, like, tell us about
Speaker 3: this John Glenn Ted Williams friendship connection. Is it like
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey. Yeah, I know, but I
Speaker 3: guess they were sort of just saying it was more
Speaker 3: like two massive celebrities from two different worlds.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. And I guess that's why it's apped.
Speaker 3: You know, it is kind of app but it's just
Speaker 3: it was just funny to me, and it was I
Speaker 3: was like, Oh, I should have piggybacked on that. I'm
Speaker 3: sure someone's writing a Taylor Swift Travis Kelcey split bio
Speaker 3: right now, So good luck to them.
Speaker 2: Well, she is the man, so she gets to get
Speaker 2: talked about in everybody's podcast. All right, so including ours
Speaker 2: major quota today. But yes, okay, t I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: take a break. Now.
Speaker 3: You're going to get that. You'll get the extra check
Speaker 3: mark on your social media profile.
Speaker 2: In heaven, Bro, I'm looking for heaven here. I need
Speaker 2: the check market Heaven when I get there with I'm
Speaker 2: not sure tellers just that kind of power. Maybe maybe
Speaker 2: in a couple of years. Oh you're great, bro, you're great.
Speaker 2: Look I hope we can get your book into our
Speaker 2: book club, our software book club. You heard me drop
Speaker 2: that in the beginning of the show, and we do
Speaker 2: have a book club. And the guy's Brandon Webb. He's
Speaker 2: the author of Steel Fear and Cult Fear, and he
Speaker 2: also runs the website softwap dot com. He's a former
Speaker 2: Navy Seal sniper instructor and so he transitioned into an
Speaker 2: author and writing and he kind of had the same thing.
Speaker 2: He's like, you just got to do it, just got to,
Speaker 2: you know, put it on paper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And anybody gets the book for your book club
Speaker 3: or anyone listening now, and you want me to sign
Speaker 3: it or dedicate it. My email address is on the website.
Speaker 3: Just go there and and I'm happy.
Speaker 2: And that's Adam Lazarus dot com, right.
Speaker 3: Books, Adam Lazarus Books dot com.
Speaker 2: Adam Lazarus books dot com. And what we'll do is
Speaker 2: my producer Anton, he'll listen, and the guys Mark and them,
Speaker 2: they'll dissertate everything down below on the website and they'll
Speaker 2: be hyperlinks. So I trust in them to just link
Speaker 2: to your website. And then if my listener or viewer
Speaker 2: wants to know more, go check out soft rep dot
Speaker 2: com or wherever you're watching it, leave a comment down below.
Speaker 2: I've had Adam's time for almost a solid hour. We've
Speaker 2: really enjoyed you being here. You're welcome back with any
Speaker 2: endeavor that you want to bring to us and to
Speaker 2: our community. Welcome to the soft rep community, and congratulations
Speaker 2: on your transition. And I just want to say on
Speaker 2: behalf of everybody here at soft rep. On behalf of
Speaker 2: Adam Lazarus and myself. This is rad saying thank you
Speaker 2: and peace.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to self rep Radio