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Episode 9—Inside the Reporting Mind of John Scheinman
171 Plays10 years ago
John Scheinman won the Eclipse Award for feature writing in horse racing for his piece "Memories of a Masters" about the late Dickie Small. There's a bit of horse racing talk here so if you want to know John's sleeper pick for the Kentucky Derby this year stay tuned. About halfway through we really get into the weeds about reporting and some of the anxiety that comes with having to interview people. I think it's helpful to those who may suffer the same kind of performance anxiety I feel when I need to pitch or interview an intimidating figure. Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, sign up for the email updates at www.brendanomeara.com and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
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Transcript
Introduction to CNF Podcast and Guest
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to the hashtag CNF Podcast. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara. My guest today is John Scheinman. He is the Eclipse Award winning writer of Memories of a Master.
00:00:23
Speaker
about famed horse trainer Dickie Small. John is a claimed turf rider, and for those who don't know who turf riders are, it's just people who historically cover horse racing.
Interview Anxiety: A Common Struggle
00:00:40
Speaker
We talk about a lot of stuff, especially the anxiety that comes with interviewing people, something that I wrestle with every time I pick up the phone.
00:00:49
Speaker
John's a friend a season pro and just a cool dude to talk to so That's about it. So if you listen last week to a conversation with Maggie mess it. Thank you very much It's always up on iTunes for free. So go ahead and download it if you want to hear that otherwise just stay tuned for episode 9 with John Scheinman 3 2 1 podcast
00:01:23
Speaker
Hello. Hey John. Hey, how are you? Good, how are you doing? Oh yeah, let's talk.
Horse Racing Strategies and Kentucky Derby
00:01:29
Speaker
Cool. Alright, well let's uh, let's, the Derby is just a few weeks away, so let's talk horses to start. So, I know you've been following that closely as you always do, so who do you like so far? Well, I don't know if I'm following it as closely as I always do, but
00:01:47
Speaker
You know, I've been watching the preparations. I haven't been taking copious notes like I have in the past. I'm not like people boarding it, so things are a little changed. But I've been stuck on this horse for a while that was a real late returner from two-year-old to three-year-old campaign. And it's a horse named One Lucky Dane that is
00:02:14
Speaker
like the third or fourth string in the backward part. And this horse, it made a three-year-old debut after finishing sixth in the Breeders' Cup juvenile, and he won by nine and a half length in a mile at Santa Anita. And then he came back in the Santa Anita Derby and raced with his stable, maybe undefeated, Dortmund. So many people, you know, Dortmund will go into the Kentucky Derby as one of the few horses
00:02:41
Speaker
You know, he's going to go in as a horse that's undefeated. He's not the only one. There have been others, but he, I think he's six for six and, you know, he's highly rated and yet I'm still, I haven't abandoned one lucky Dane who came in second in the race. If you watch the race, one lucky Dane is off of Dortmund's right flank and then there's another horse supplying very heavy pressure to one lucky Dane who was stuck
00:03:06
Speaker
in between and if you follow horse racing you know that that's a bad trip to be between horses going around the track they just it's generally too much pressure and they get overwhelmed so when they hit the far turn he began to drop back and I said well that's the end of him but as they come into the stretch he rallies him back back into second place and is pulling away from the rest of the field and so he's going to be completely under the radar and I'm pretty sure he's got enough points to to get into the Kentucky Derby and
00:03:35
Speaker
There's a very esoteric old-school handicapping angle, which I probably shouldn't be giving out, all the weight. And there's people that know that I talk about this and think I'm nuts, but it's called the wave pattern. And what the wave pattern is is...
00:03:50
Speaker
If you would literally draw a wave and show the horse on the lead and then dropping back and coming again and that would form a wave wide. And to me it's a very strong angle as a preparation to move forward.
00:04:06
Speaker
And I think this horse will probably be 30 or 40 to 1 and forgotten. And then he's my derby horse. Nice. Well, yeah. A few years ago, you were very high on Animal Kingdom. And he was a horse, I think, that was very under the radar, having won his preps on synthetic tracks. And so I'm sure maybe this horse will be similar to, at least in terms of the attention not garnered to a horse like Animal Kingdom.
Insights from Kentucky Confidential Project
00:04:33
Speaker
Yeah, well, yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
a little bit into the project that you and I worked on, Kentucky Confidential. We had Kerry Thomas, who some people call a horse whisperer, who looks at certain kinds of law
00:04:50
Speaker
uh... dynamics of how horses interact with each other in the field and and then translate them to the racetrack and he was very high on animal kingdom and he was one of the people that i had hired on for that kentucky confidential dot com project and he picked animal kingdom
00:05:06
Speaker
and we also ranked animal kingdom in our top two, me and my hand-capping brother, action Andy Andrews, who was also brought on. So we really made a splash by selecting animal kingdom. I don't know if I think of highly of one lucky date, but I think extremely highly of him, and he's gonna be at least a bigger prize than animal kingdom. So maybe there's some more money to be made here. Yeah, Kerry's approach is,
00:05:36
Speaker
is just so innately biological, which I kind of like. You know, he looks at those herd dynamics and just how these horses socialize with each other on the track. It's a very unique way and kind of eerily accurate. I think he had, I'll have another as one of his other big horses. I think he just picked it year after year and one of his top three or four picks wins the derby ever since I've known him. And he did it again last year and he even had Danza and he just, you know,
00:06:05
Speaker
he's very good at that a funny thing about it isn't that sometimes i don't know what i mean well everything up to be in place for the horse though for that thing to work and a perfect example with or when orkwood crescendoing in his year before he won the kentucky derby when he was in florida racing
00:06:25
Speaker
when he would come down the way in the other horses would literally get out of the way like there was a bad man coming down the alley and they were crossing to the other side of the sidewalk or a bad dog and that they just literally stepped aside but after the derby that kind of
00:06:44
Speaker
that kind of a party and influence over the other animal seemed to diminish so if he went off former it's very you know he was tired of moving way to whatever the reasons were that kind of that kind of present disappeared in a subsequent races so i think there's got to be more in place than that but i put a lot of credit to the what kerry thomas thought that he had absolutely and and so how did you get your star uh...
Journey into Horse Racing Writing
00:07:11
Speaker
covering horse racing
00:07:14
Speaker
well i think we have time here so i can tell you a good story uh... uh... i i i was this uh... along i'm poor player and had done a tremendous amount of reading about the sport might want to be a spot wanted here uh... following it and
00:07:36
Speaker
when I worked at a community newspaper called the Montgomery Journal, which was a very, very good paper. I would, any opportunity I had to get horse racing into the paper, I would do it. So I'd always, you know, and I got to cover the DC International, and I really just, I was in love with the sport. Well, I was working at a company called Phillips Publishing, and I was doing, I had these really high level Fortune 200 type newsletters that I was writing that cost like
00:08:06
Speaker
they were easily i don't know to grant a year to subscribe to when i was pretty much writing them myself that would be a key report electronic commerce news interest with you know i was i was pretty much documented arrived at the internet for business-to-business electronica and went on maternity leave at who i did dork to this day and then she decided to quit and rape great children that come back to work and they put and i and i was sort of like
00:08:36
Speaker
i would put like the boy wonder in the company and uh... you know i didn't come to work on that on time like it went out but just for the author and when i woke up whatever that was you know but i was i was just hauling in awards and successes and but uh... so i was doing really great until i thought left and the people came in to decide that she was going to make an example of me and put me under a pop mhm but i i i tendered my resignation fairly quickly because i couldn't work in that kind of a fire but have no job and
00:09:07
Speaker
and and when when was this uh... nineteen ninety nine and what we have no job well i think we're going on at the washington park there's a great writer and a good friend of mine did make a quick uh... uh... but i don't know if you've heard of the but he had a column called cheap keep the the paper which of the alternative weekly at washington d state or a walk-up excellent column excellent writer sport music he's very personal is a great
00:09:33
Speaker
he's a great guy and he was caught so he was a freelancer and he got in this case they never put a full-time writer back after Vinny Pirani on the Washington Post horse racing beat and McKenna who didn't really know a lot about racing was covering it as best as he could he loved it but he just he didn't have that depth of knowledge that makes a really good racing writer so anyway
00:09:58
Speaker
this is just a winding story but i think i think it's a good one. One of the founding fathers of sports talk radio is a guy named Ken Beatrice and he has an encyclopedic memory of not only all the athletes in all the pro sports but he has all the knowledge of the minor leaders too. He just knew everything and he became you know like a star on the radio and really helped develop sports talk radio and he did it when he was in
00:10:27
Speaker
washington d.c. so the great columnist tony courthizer who was working at news day on one island got a job at the washington post and one of the first column he wrote to make sick make his name at the post what the expo radio guy can be a trick at the fraud and said he had made up his background he didn't really go to the college he went to and
00:10:57
Speaker
you know he basically fabricated his entire background and he writes this to the washington post and this guy who was a rising store on radio and it's like what he did about all his knowledge of sports had a virtually had a mental breakdown when he was exposed in the washington post by court heiser and he didn't come to work and stop going on the radio he basically just locked himself in his home and you know kind of freaked out and they were begging him at the radio station
00:11:24
Speaker
to come to work saying, the column is immaterial, your history that you fabricated is immaterial, your work is gold, please come back to work. And so we eventually did, and long story short, Flash forward maybe 20 years or so later, he is considered a pioneer and beloved throughout the industry. So on the final day when he retired, the flagship sports talk radio station in Washington, WTEM, had a day to spec him
00:11:53
Speaker
on the radio and they spent the entire day having athletes and writers and all these people from all around the country called in and wish it well and tell stories about having dealt with them across their sports careers. So it was like famous luminaries are all calling into the radio station throughout the day. One of them being Tony Kornheiser who had written the column that had sent him into hiding. So he called in and he wishes Ken Beatrice well. Well the following week
00:12:20
Speaker
In the city paper, cheap seats column, Dave McKenna, whites a withering assault on Tony Kornheiser. How dare he call in and wish this guy well without apologizing to him for nearly ruining his career 20 years prior? And he dredges up the entire story of what happened, right? George Solomon, the sports editor at the Washington Post, gets a look at this and he says, are you kidding me?
00:12:48
Speaker
Let me get this straight. My horse racing rider in the alternative weekly is lamb basting my lead cop of this. This is not going to stand. And he fires Dave McKenna at the horse racing rider. This is two weeks after I've tendered my resignation at my job. A friend of mine happened to work on the sport copy desk.
00:13:10
Speaker
at the washington company called me up and help me the story because you george noted because you've covered popping in the past week if you do at the fight to be noted you are just come in and tell you what to do right where do you know everything about what great thing which i think i thought it but i learned i did okay that sounds great so i get that flight call-up solid and i've made the point for the interview i get down there he's in this glass and closed office in the washington post-sports department at that he's like
00:13:40
Speaker
i mean it's almost like he's protected like the pope with an impenetrable shield no this is a it's like one of the god support that i think in the country and i walk into his office about waking in my shoes and in my suit i'm terrified of the sky cuz he's really it'll take time for better i go in there and he goes so john you want to try this horse racing thing i go yeah he goes you're not going to write about pony or yes
00:14:07
Speaker
I go, no, I won't. He goes, you got the job. And that was it. Wow. That's about every cable horse racing rider. Sorry if it's long winded, but I think it's a great story. No, it is. It has all the elements that just culminates so nice and tightly. And the timing of it was just how serendipitous was that for you, my goodness. Well, the company that I attended the resignation for, inside two months had fired that woman.
00:14:37
Speaker
though i couldn't stand working for and they offered me a job in london and they offered me a job in new york but making more money that i ever would have paid in my life and i turned them both down to be the horse-racing writer at the washington post for largely chump change but it was rich i just couldn't think of a better job than be a horse-racing writer at the washington post i couldn't think of a better job
00:14:59
Speaker
Right, and when you went in there, you said, well, at least you went in with the mindset that you thought you knew more than you did in horse racing. So, how quickly did you realize that your knowledge of the sport and the intricacies of the sport weren't quite up to speed with what you had brought to the table? Well, they were up to speed largely with what was going on out there.
00:15:26
Speaker
But I realized there was so much more to learn, so I was perfectly functional. But I really began to develop over time, and I realized, and it's one of the reasons that I really was attracted to horse racing, because it felt like both a handicapper and a rider, it felt like it could almost be a lifetime avocation because I could keep learning things. There's still so many pieces of equipment, for example, that they use on horses that I don't even know to this day.
00:15:52
Speaker
uh... i've learned some of them over time but but it just became a great learning experience as well with the writing experience to have that job so you know i didn't go in there realizing oh my god i've been over my head i went in there realizing
00:16:05
Speaker
oh my god, this is really exciting. There's a lot of stuff that I don't know about. You know, I began to learn about drug policies and how they're differing between the states and all the different rules that go on there. A story would eventually come up, and it would be a teaching experience for me. And that's really gratifying, especially as a sports writer, because some of that type of sports work really is not intellectually engaging.
00:16:32
Speaker
And you realize, well, you're just writing about games instead of important things in the world. But in horse racing, I did find that I was being enriched for a long period of time and learning.
Challenges and Potential in Horse Racing Journalism
00:16:43
Speaker
Do you find that, do you find it frustrating or irritating that the horse racing coverage or just horse racing as a whole just doesn't latch on to a broader readership than it maybe once did in the past?
00:17:03
Speaker
uh... with one of the reasons that i uh... or one of the well-prepared for both behind the kentucky confidential dot com projects that we read for two years what was the problem for team and i think that will keep up with eighty two thousand eleven twelve yes i'm not even i don't know i was there will on the twenty eleven team and i and you guys did it for the year after and then not in twenty-thirteen right well one of the guiding principle behind that what to do to make to make horse racing
00:17:32
Speaker
that a wider audience would want to read. And if you remember, well, I don't actually think you missed the first meeting. I think you came down a little late in the day, but I had put a meeting together of all the people that were going to be on the project that morning, the first morning in the Churchill Downs Press Box. And I said to them, everybody introduce yourselves to each other. And they all did and said a little about themselves. And I said, here's the gliding directive of this project. I don't want any news.
00:18:02
Speaker
i don't care if the paper break his leg i don't want news you are all here to be storytellers that was a job and you were given uh... i think you were given a column called burden on the world yeah and just uh... you know i mean i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i
00:18:31
Speaker
but like a part of my computer right about racing i'd i have a bit disappointed because i think imagination and desire to do it is lacking and um... and the monotony of the game it can they can wear it they can wear you out if you don't move it into more interesting realm that i wish there was money out there too to do it you know i'd be happy to to relaunch that project if there was money out there to do it but
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, I was hoping for another crack at that bourbon underworld in 2012 because I wanted to do a little more
00:19:11
Speaker
immersive first-person stuff and just kind of get out into the more of the wackiness that goes on. I think I kind of got my legs under myself later in the week there as I just ran into random people at bars and especially this one guy who just ushered me around to different bars and then invited me to that party on Oaks Night. That stuff was pretty cool eventually, but it was. It was a great
00:19:39
Speaker
sort of medium to do non-newsy stuff. That's my taste and sensibilities is with not doing hard news stuff. It's with the storytelling stuff and that's why I really wish more people latched onto it because there was such a rich soil there to grow stories from. And I think a lot of that is grown on the internet. I mean I think there are sites out there that are, I don't even know what they are so don't ask me, but I think there are sites out there that are
00:20:08
Speaker
moving more toward storytelling, and I don't want to cut myself too much on the back or anything, but it was a great opportunity for me when the Blood Horse offered me one of their three long form pieces that went into the Triple Crown last year, and I mean, what a great opportunity. Two of the stampers and I was the freelancer who got one, and I took that ball and I ran with it as very
00:20:35
Speaker
just as fast as I could. I couldn't believe my fortune to be able to write a piece so long about what I wanted to. And I had rejected the offer that they gave me, which was to write about Sagamore Farm. I said, I don't want to write about Sagamore Farm. They said, well, what do you want to write about? I said, Dickie Small. And I wound up winning the Eclipse Award for the story. And it wasn't the Eclipse Award so much as just being able to do it. Just being able to hear the forum, John, write.
00:21:01
Speaker
well nobody else ever offered me that kind of forum very often you know and and it's a problem for treatment of a they have a good people and i kept on one of them that have this potential to really do uh... work that uh... above and beyond nobody's asking for it and that's a problem you brought up a good point which is uh... something that i
00:21:28
Speaker
what motivates me is that I don't really care about, I tangentially care about it, but like, of getting into say like best American sports writing or winning these nice awards. What I care about is,
00:21:43
Speaker
being able to do the type of work that typically gets anthologized. If I get anthologized or whatever, great. But what you just said is that you were granted this opportunity to do that kind of reporting, to do that writing, and that's where the fulfillment comes from. Anything else is just icing, but it must have just having that knowledge that you had this free reign
00:22:06
Speaker
to speak at length, to report at length, and then to write at length. That must have just been incredibly freeing, liberating, and satisfying. It was extremely, I mean, a man who was dying gave me the time of his life for the end of it. You can't beat, and not only that, it was a wondrous life.
00:22:26
Speaker
you know the thing with the award is it's such it's it's not the it's not what you shoot for but it's a validation for yep it was a great project and you did a good job on it and and and that's a good thing it's good to have that it's just not what you it's just not it's just not what you should be in it for but it's great to have that right now saying that you this was a good idea and blood horse one two of them
Storytelling Beyond the Formula
00:22:55
Speaker
and then this year that's what i know i don't even see any long-form pieces coming out of that that's like wait a minute you want to quit the work of why would you stop obviously you were doing something right that people validated that work with these fine honors and i don't and so i just don't i don't fully understand it but i think great things i think racing does need to reach out because
00:23:20
Speaker
and i think a lot of the people that make great stories are a kind of going away in the game it's it's hard to get up five to tell a good story but uh... so you know what uh... you know who the paper to the derby above a lot he's worked for for a walk that all my god i got tired of it i did it for ten years yeah and i just you know i just walked by but i'd love going to get a lot of races don't get me wrong but that's all that kind of like all that kind of grinding type of reporting you know the rush of it
00:23:49
Speaker
I think just appear a little bit for me. Yeah, exactly. Because it just gets incredibly repetitive, it's just formulaic at some point. Coming up, it's the same plug-in, these values, and it spits out the other end of the equation, and just hit repeat next year. I know, but it's a funny thing about it is, Brandon, you can be at the track!
00:24:14
Speaker
and it's exciting and you can watch a whole horse fiddle through a workout and it's exciting and you can get up to paratoga and there's tremendous renewal of your spirit when you get there which is a beautiful thing in a beautiful place but ultimately the work that you're tasked to do doesn't meet the measure of the experience that's the problem yeah yeah very good point
00:24:39
Speaker
I want to get back to your Eclipse Award winning story, which I forgot to... When I record an intro after this, I'll be sure to mention it. I got to congratulate you on Facebook, but I didn't get to congratulate you over the phone here. So first, congratulations. That's what an honor.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yeah.
Crafting an Award-Winning Story
00:25:04
Speaker
But how did you come to that story about Dickie Small, one of the iconic mid-Atlantic trainers? Well, I mean, I'd always known that he had been in special forces. And I'd always wondered, how many people did this guy kill? I kind of just stuck on my cross.
00:25:31
Speaker
I'd had times with Dickie where I was sick, when he was still based in Timlico. I'd wander out, leave the track, and there he is. There he is, outside his barn. And I'd wanna talk to him for an hour and a half. This was not gonna hold up, but it happened enough. And I really liked the way his mind worked. Sometimes he could be gruff and tough, and sometimes he was extremely expansive. And I just knew he'd have this fascinating life, and I knew he was sick.
00:26:00
Speaker
and i'd said to myself i think it's time i want to do this and that's about how it happened in my car i didn't realize the depth of his illness and and i'd like to add in my speech in the uh... when i accepted a couple words like i go down below i didn't have a whole story but i mean i said it really quickly to make it twenty-second spot like i got out of the track for the first day the first interview with it
00:26:29
Speaker
this past winter, everybody said it was really cold, but I kind of felt like two winters back was even colder down here in Maryland. And I get to the track, I don't know, maybe 5.45, 6 o'clock in the morning, something like that. There's Dickie in the pickup, sitting between the age of the 16th pole, watching his team's work and watching the horses and got somebody else in the cab with him. And he sees me and he sees most of the person believing for me to get in. And I get in, I close the door, and he's got the heat up really high. It was really cold.
00:26:58
Speaker
And I look at him and I go, and I hadn't seen him in a while, and I said, oh my god. I said to myself, look at him. It's awful. He's a back of bone. It was awful. And he turned to me, he goes, so you're here to write my obituary. And I just said, oh, Jesus, this is, this is, I mean, I was really taken aback, and I just said, this is gonna be super tough. That's what went through my head. This is gonna be really, really tough. I've taken on a challenge that might be too big. That's what came immediately into my mind.
00:27:26
Speaker
But it didn't turn out that way at all. It turned out to be, you know, it turned out to be one of the greatest experiences of my writing and reporting life, to be able to just talk with him for hours on end. And he knew what I was there for, and it was almost as if he felt like, you know, he trusted me, and it was great, because I don't know if he would have, I don't know, it just felt
00:27:55
Speaker
i would like to take even though i picked the story but not like he picked me but like okay i'm going to get it to you and i would find bread like at the end of what we would have a political play an hour and twenty minute talk in the truck he was so tired from talking that he's got to a whisper we have to go home to bed and he looked at me and he looked at me up don't put any of that stuff it just right about the horse it took me an hour twenty minutes about the jungle the vietnam
00:28:24
Speaker
don't put that it just right about the whole great any now it wasn't going to know it wasn't just going to be about the whole thing but it's hard to put that it was uh... and to pay it like that but they think you know very couple eight but beautiful
00:28:40
Speaker
How were you able to dispel his initial aggression there of him just coming out and saying, oh, so you're here to write my obituary? Because right off the bat there, now he's kind of put you on the ropes and you have to, over time, sort of massage that feeling out of him to the point where he was ultimately comfortable with you to speak for hours on end.
00:29:06
Speaker
well you could have put it any better i think i can put me on the rope because what you might not know that about me but my background minus four eight in the journalism with professional boxing my first job in journalism was working at the ring magazine i've been i've been in to some pretty intimidating places already in my career i'd have death threat
00:29:29
Speaker
uh... in the middle of the night i'd uh... i've got pulled my body that i was supposed to keep writing about uh... i uh... you know i went to come that chance that that went down weird alleys that felt like you're in and then they were like we're not doing a story with you until you buy the gym equipment at paper club at all i mean i was used to intimidate intimidating people what you do basically i knew that you are you know what you do you just stay there if only
00:29:59
Speaker
you just they there because if you cower you're going to pick your car you're talking yourself out of it and i don't know maybe there's some young journalists that are looking to the park at that they should take that weapon when somebody scared you it don't leave elected threatening physical violence intimidation and director of two different things and you stand your ground until i did and i think that you did probably by saying you know
00:30:27
Speaker
i'm sure i turned over to come out the key i probably did it just like that but come on and and it it it goes a long way when you don't show fear of a long way right and where do you think something to learn it's not just it's not just in journalism it's in everything if you don't show fear if you don't show insecurity
00:30:50
Speaker
You get a longer way in life and tough lessons to learn. I'm over 50 years old now. It took a long time to learn some of those things. You've always struck me as a very just confident and sure of yourself person in the few years that I've known you. Where do you think that confidence comes from? Experience. Experience. Just having done things and been places.
00:31:19
Speaker
You know, but, you know, you have experiences that help you in certain realms, and then in other realms you might not have as much confidence. You try to, you know, make it part of your core, but in being a journalist, I mean, I used to get scared, and I probably still do get scared.
00:31:43
Speaker
you know i remember being practically quaking calling up bobby frankl because it was budget up not to crack new people are uncooperative you don't want to call them you know uh... sometimes when people are very big and famous like you a little bit he's so approachable in person but never particularly like calling them on the phone you know i would much rather walk into his office and be face-to-face but i would get anxiety when i called him on the phone and i would get anxiety when i got
00:32:13
Speaker
with certain people, and I still probably do, but it's a nothing-beef experience, because like I said, that experience with those boxing people, that really helped go a long way. I mean, you know, when I'm in a place called the Peppermint Beach Club in a freaking closet, and they close the door and stand in front of me, and another guy pulls a booty knife out,
00:32:36
Speaker
well i i'm not going to be a scared about the frank look up but before i come back here after that happened so now i don't know i guess that's it or strainers are not a lot of i'd like to joke a lot i'd like to put banter and talk though yeah so you know so that kind of character people people people are laughing it's very disarming you know but that's good but i've always been a a nice little
00:33:02
Speaker
you know weapon in my holster ice really i really analyzed how to be a a good reporter for a long time you know i never want to be one of these people who would hold a notebook in front of the person and just at questions in almost a monotone and that's how most reporters work i mean i was always a conversation person i want to talk to you uh... i'm sorry i'm a reporter but that's just what i am but really what we're going to do without a conversation i would always try to make it like that but i was
00:33:32
Speaker
but you know it was a little interview and what that much conversation i can have it possible it could have put me across and i think it's very well throughout my entire reporting career because i thought so many people that could never elevate themselves to that level and so that was always the sparkle wall of artifice between them and their subject even though positioning of the notebook and just the way they address the subject hurt them and i wasn't not that
00:34:02
Speaker
Right, I think everyone, they approach reporters with, it's very hard for them to let their guard down because they feel like they're just going to have the reporters out for some sort of gotcha moment. And I think you and I both and many others who
00:34:22
Speaker
Partaken more of a long-form narrative storytelling approach to nonfiction We don't necessarily care for that. We kind of want to set up base camp and Just talk to people and have and not just be there be helicopter in and then take off I don't think that's in our taste and sensibilities and I think once you're there and you prove that you're
00:34:44
Speaker
You're willing to hear people out and understand their worldview. They're much more willing to trust you. And I think you've experienced that. Exactly. I would say that it's not just a prerequisite of long form. It's a prerequisite for dealing with people in real life, whether you're a reporter or not. I mean, they understand the game.
00:35:08
Speaker
they understand the game you know what they were working well i don't work there anymore but when i was working with nyra and i would have to call someone up for a preview they understood it's a minute on the telephone and that we both wanted to get in and get out and i was good for both of us but when i was actually still you're actually writing about someone you don't you don't want to go in with preconceptions you don't want to go in with leading questions you never want to misquote someone and i would have conversations with people who did not know me
00:35:37
Speaker
you know they knew the name washington poets for example but they want they were going to talk to me about open a lot of doors but i would i would step out of my interview voted to look you don't know who i am but i i'm gonna let i look i would literally say that i'm going to burn your trust and you will never be misquoted here
00:35:54
Speaker
mhm and there are plenty of reporters out there who don't do anything but i'm not going to be one of them and you're never going to be able to take about john china screwed me over with that story couple not happen that will be balanced coverage you will get your points heard whether you're in the negative or the part of the story over time you're going to trust me so i hope you'll talk to me today and they will help that they all up that
00:36:20
Speaker
Right. And who were some of the writers and reporters that inspired you when you were coming up? Well, I know you told me to get this whole list of books together. That is my apocalypse book. My apocalypse list. So some of the people were on there. Certainly my first boss, Burt Sugar, was a great, great inspiration to me.
00:36:43
Speaker
when i got my job at ring magazine like what kids when they're like my eighteen whatever they have pictures of a lock star on their wall or they have a picture of of a great running back a poster on their wall i have a picture of a sport that are on my wall because of the fact that it was bernard and i walked into getting a job with him i did walk into what i prepped him no end he was he was buried he was very
00:37:12
Speaker
important to me cuz he took no profit he would he'd seem to be he seemed to be standing against the tom schoolery of his enterprise in the sport that he covered he just he just caught up he just caught up machete through it every single time he wrote the ridiculousness of up and pop off of the on professional boxing and i love that and and i read it it's a lead wing
00:37:38
Speaker
the sweet science, and I realized, oh, you can look how you can write about, look how you can write about boxing. This is beautiful. And then I read Bill Mack's Secretariat book, oh, look how beautifully you can write about horse racing. And then going back even further, as a kid, you know, I mean like, I think the person who most led me into being a writer and sports writer that's in the public realm was Red Smith, the great, great storyteller
00:38:06
Speaker
in the sports department, I guess, largely in my lifetime for the New York Times, and anyone who has never read any of his anthologized work, I mean, some of it might read dated now, but what a magnificent writer, and so he was a real, you know, he was a real guiding light for me, you know, I was a very bad student, well, I was a very bad student, but something helped me, some courses helped me along, even when I was doing poorly, that made me realize where I was going, and
00:38:36
Speaker
And I did a paper on Red Smith and I realized, I can do this. You know, I have these values in me. I have these, I look at sports the way they do beyond it, just like an exciting game, but you know, more about lives, more about storytelling. And so that, those were big impacts for me, big impacts.
Cinema Studies Influence on Journalism
00:38:55
Speaker
Ryan, do you think that you weren't a good student just because it didn't interest you at all, it just didn't
00:39:03
Speaker
you know by just stimulate you in the way that uh... no no no no no but i mean we can't make this interview with my college the perfect perfect enough like ology courtier therapy weapon but you know i think that we're not going away at the time you know i i i was learning and learning about the world in college at my own paper in my own way and i would not trade experiences
00:39:30
Speaker
and the wildness that accompanied it for anything. And I'm not just talking about beer blasts or anything. I'm talking about some important outside the bubble type learning. It's not part of a curriculum. It's just like learning about life and learning about art and learning about music or cinema and the way people represent the world. I mean, those were the worlds I came out of.
00:39:59
Speaker
i was a cinema studies major in college and so i was just basically hold up in movie theaters and and seeing a lot of movies and i eventually switched into journalism but you know i i i i i come out of a artistic type background and and i think that's a strong way to process and funnel and interpret the world so here i am reading all these sports writers and gravitating to the ones that were actually writers instead of the game story writer yeah you know i wanted i mean i'm reading the column if i'm not reading the game story
00:40:29
Speaker
So those things intertwine for me, and it's, okay, here are the ways writers and filmmakers and musicians represent the world, and they all have their different format, but it's still a processing and still a filtering that is, I think, some ways very similar across those platforms. But we're all coming together in my head, that's how that works.
00:40:55
Speaker
And you had mentioned that with speaking to people, athletes, trainers, whoever, that you did and still do to some extent experience a certain feeling of anxiety. And I ask because I have the same thing. I almost get myself psyched out.
00:41:15
Speaker
before talking to people almost to the point of paralysis that I won't pick up the phone or knock on someone's door. It's like a palpable physical reaction to having to talk to people because sometimes I'm feeling I'm invading and sort of invading their life, whatever. How did you cope with that? I asked selfishly because I experience that all the time and I'd be interested to see how you work through that as well.
00:41:44
Speaker
but i think the perfect the perfect idea but but i was on the bed but i was working on my first daily paper i knew this was a problem until i made it like and i told the editor if i could i will never story about people or just died in a in a car crash or in a fire i will not do these pieces i will not call the family see how they felt you know how you know i'm not doing that
00:42:13
Speaker
that it's too much and i'm not going there so i put myself in a little bit of a comfort zone right there because i just said no you know but you also you also have to reach a point where you swallow your fear and i think it and i think it's in it's you know i think reporting it sort of like uh... you know you have to overcome these fears in your life in general you're not going to have the experiences so you push yourself out there
00:42:42
Speaker
you know i mean it's almost like you know what you know what it but it's it's like real you know i have to go out on a date how scary it can be yeah to to make that phone call it's terrifying sometimes don't want to deal with rejection you know you don't get it's just scary it's just gary and maybe it's a little belief that or maybe i'm not good enough okay well maybe that's the same belief that you're carrying into this reporting situation he's huge he is
00:43:12
Speaker
in the hall of fame but who am i i don't know what the heck that that that's where you are when you make a phone call and so before you know you said i thought i always have carried myself with a guy who seemed very confident in myself well yeah i i i guess like i think that i think that though i felt up to that level and began to make those calls and they did get get get confident that i realized no one killed me and no one had torn my head off and nobody still do get those anxieties i do and
00:43:41
Speaker
idea uh... workbook and you know is it good uh... vocal about what was it i don't know i read a lot about mike tyson mhm customer and custom auto and it might have been for the purpose fired here a lot of people have turned over the correct including tight themselves if you read his i have a part of our paper one of the things that really quote impressive at stuck with me
Managing Anxiety in Journalism
00:44:10
Speaker
customado's training of young Tyson, he kept emphasizing the butterflies that Mike fell when he was in the ring. He kept reminding you, you have the butterflies, you feel the butterflies, you're scared, aren't you? And he would just keep saying this stuff to Tyson. And what he would say is, you need to live with that. You need to recognize, okay, I'm really scared.
00:44:35
Speaker
this is what this is a natural reaction and this is what this is what fear feels like okay I accept that this is this is what humans feel in situations like this and then you give it a validity you don't try to run from it you don't try to you don't try to necessarily even overcome it you just accept this is how I feel and this is how I should feel because this is my natural feeling and when you accept it you maybe
00:45:01
Speaker
I don't think you can it but you can live with it. It's not gonna go away but you learn to live with it. Yeah, there's a scene in Lost, the first season of Lost. I don't know if you ever watched that show. Either way, Matthew, oh shoot, Matthew Fox, he played the lead character Jack as a spinal surgeon and he was a resident performing the surgery and he's retelling the story.
00:45:28
Speaker
he was cutting open this woman's spinal girdle and just these nerves spilled out like angel hair pasta and everyone's looking at him for for the answers and as he's relaying this he said he felt the most palpable fear he had ever felt and he decided that he would let that fear in for five seconds and it's kind of what you're saying just recognizing it
00:45:52
Speaker
letting it in, don't fight it, but after that five seconds, granted this is fiction, but the principle applies, he then goes in and fixes her up and patches her up, but it's like not exactly running from it, it's sort of learning, it's kind of like holding its hand for a little bit and then letting it go, I think is probably, it's kind of what you're alluding to in a lot of ways. Yeah, absolutely, and
00:46:19
Speaker
and i think when you're at therapy to the kind of thing they talk about it well okay i've got these negative thought through my head well over your thoughts and you say okay there they are but yet they are here they are again welcome i'd know you guys you know welcome to my head i realize that you're here i accept that and this is the direction i'm going in uh... yes but you know but when you were when you were on the front feelings and
00:46:48
Speaker
and thought, you're not going to get anywhere. And when you begin to understand that and learn to live with that, you know what's funny? You begin to see it in other people. You begin to see that, I don't want to call it a deficiency, but you begin to see that struggle in other people that aren't doing that. And you feel good because, wow, I recognize this not only in myself but in others.
00:47:15
Speaker
but you kind of feel for them as well you want to help people get over the hop but if you don't like the park it up yes later i think part of you want to and you and you need to think about all the stuff flowing around by doing a lot more like you know primitive feelings really even though it i come from but they're there and they show up and you got a word that they are capable of what happened because it's always happen
00:47:37
Speaker
So what are some of the other artistic media that you draw inspiration from that you use to shape some of the stories that the nonfiction or otherwise that you write? I don't know. I think you're overselling my writing.
00:47:54
Speaker
I don't think so. I found your writing first when I was researching my first book as of yet unpublished when I was on the Maryland circuit. It was following Phil Schoenthal, who I'm sure you know. Oh yeah, yeah, sure. And when I was doing research on his early successes before he was sort of on his own, he was training for Mike Gill.
00:48:16
Speaker
And he had White Mountain Boy, Kiowa Prince, a bunch of the precocious three-year-olds for Gil. But some of you were covering him at the time, and this would have been 2004-ish, right around there.
00:48:31
Speaker
And when I came across your stories, there was a fluidity that I came across that I knew was, it read easy because you know that it was labored over. And I always, it always, your name stuck in my head at that time when I was doing this research around 2006, then 2007. So I don't think I'm overselling your,
00:48:53
Speaker
your uh... you're writing capacities because your stuff reads very it reads effortlessly which i know means that you labor over intensely well i appreciate that when i was drinking heavily i said to myself while you're really on the hook so i needed to created and i'm not saying i was really i don't want was just to think that i have a huge alcohol problem
00:49:22
Speaker
but i'd be but if i put that i have been treating and i have a story to do i needed a bench line and i said to myself and i can literally cut it myself i think your worst stop have to be a good at their best off meaning everyone i was around not with a pic i have to have that so that was a little but one of the first things i put in my mind when i started to reach you know i didn't want anyone to know i was having a bad day
00:49:47
Speaker
And what that boiled down to was like really getting the mechanics of writing down. And I think it's really a lost start. I edit newspapers right now a few days a week, and people aren't teaching
Effective Quotation in Storytelling
00:50:00
Speaker
writing. I had people that taught me writing. I learned how to speak in a focused, active voice. I learned how to not make my lead a thesis, but actually an entree into a store. I mean, all the things that go into
00:50:15
Speaker
storytelling i absorb them from a variety of sources and i mean when i tell you that i've read that book with uh... uh... early uh... you know card out of mine if that's the right word it's true and i mean if you read his work at the mackerel we written a field effort with the need any if you like we'll be sitting at a bar with him and he's telling you this story right but i want these things in my work and and so what i what i learned what i've learned what is that the the quote is your best friend
00:50:45
Speaker
And when you learn to hear people's voices and have an ear for something clever or different or something or illustrative, there's so many different things to pull from quotes. And people that are reporters set up a quote that's going to basically get a yes, no answer. Or, how did you feel? I felt fine. I felt great. I gave it 100%.
00:51:14
Speaker
You have to frame a question in a way that does not elicit a cliche or a one-word answer. So a lot of making the writing better to me was fine-tuning the art of the conversation, getting back to what we were talking about. I needed to talk to people in a way that they were going to talk to me naturally.
00:51:35
Speaker
And then I needed to have a good enough eye and ear for the quotes to select the best ones, and place them in the stories for maximum impact, and then let them carry the piece along. And then I had taken a lot of poetry classes, and I learned the art of whittling things down to their essence. And that kind of practice carried over to my
00:52:04
Speaker
all my writing, you know, I learned to pare down. I learned to economize. You know, if I'm given 12 inches in the story, I want to still tell a story. I don't want to write the game story. I want to tell a story. And when I was covering high school sports,
00:52:23
Speaker
they would give you know what i was doing really well i'd like to say but when they gave out the beach they're offering me what they thought with a plot and i rejected them i think that i don't want to cover football i don't want to cover baseball i don't want to talk to the coaches i'd want to cover girl gymnastics if i wanted to be the individual sport you know about what and no boxing individual or no no keepers no handlers
00:52:53
Speaker
No, you know, no dais. You just go into the gym and you talk to people. Horse racing, you go into the barn and you talk to people. The press conferences are very rare. It's more one-to-one with people who are free agents in life and not playing for a team. And they're much more realistic than the BS that you get when you cover organized sports leagues. And I've never been a beat writer that's followed a team around, except for the University of Maryland men's basketball.
00:53:20
Speaker
team, but all the other things I never pursued. And I could have gone in those directions and covered baseball. I mean, I knew baseball pretty well, and I knew basketball really pretty well. And I just said, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do them. Because I didn't think they were open to realistic storytelling. And the one thing that I've grown over time to loathe is hagiography, because I think it's extremely dangerous.
00:53:47
Speaker
You look at what the writing about Lance Armstrong that came down the pike year after year after year, and he turns out to be a fraud. I didn't want one of those kinds of stories pinned on my resume. I didn't want to be writing laudatory pieces about someone who turned out to be a fraud, because I was supposed to go out there and mythologize.
00:54:06
Speaker
somebody who's supposed to be some kind of role model. No, that's not what I do, and that's not what I want to do as a person. So I think all these factors that I'm going on and on and on about, they weave into who I am as a writer and reporter, and I think it's served me well.
00:54:23
Speaker
You say you learned to hear people's voices and I know that you take aggressive notes in a notebook, in a big notebook, and you don't use the voice recorder as... Oh, well, I've moved to the voice recorder and I came to it, but I have moved to it. I've got to figure it out because it's so time consuming that that's what I've been using lately.
00:54:47
Speaker
I find that it takes me about a ratio of three times as long as the recording to transcribe or recording. So if the minute it will take... Murdering me right now on a piece I'm working on, it is murdering me because I have three hours with someone and it's not working.
00:55:07
Speaker
I use recorders. I like the idea of it being a catch-all net that I can then filter through and vet out because I don't trust my handwriting and I tend to miss stuff because I'm scribbling too fast. So I do like the fact that a recorder catches everything.
00:55:32
Speaker
But it is such a pain to go back and transcribe. If I ever reach any sort of level of affluency, which things are not trending that way, I would hire someone to transcribe. Well, you know, it's good that we're having this conversation because I think I kind of got lazy and just stopped using the notebook, and I think I want to go back to the notebook. With the Dickie Small piece, the recorder to me was indistensible.
00:56:00
Speaker
It was just indispensable. The piece took three months, maybe a little longer from start to finish. That's a long time for a single piece. But I couldn't have done it in the way that I did it without the recorder. But for shorter term projects, like this one particular one I'm working on right now, I kind of wish I had just gone with the notebook. And you really have to think long and hard about what you're doing. It's good for very short, quick hits.
00:56:28
Speaker
If I'm taking a jockey out of a winner's circle, I'm happy to hold a recorder right in front of them, because that interview's left me no longer than a minute and a half. If I'm getting into a realm where my interview's going to a half hour or longer, that transcription time, the transcribing time, is taking a lot longer than the time it took to record the interview. It's taking a lot of hours. So, I wish I had used the, I wish I was still using the notebook as much as you could see.
00:56:57
Speaker
Yeah, I romanticize the notebook a lot. I know writers like John McPhee rail against recorders. They say that they're not selective because they catch everything. He likes to trust his ear to catch what goes from the mouth to the notebook.
00:57:19
Speaker
I view the recorder as the way a photographer has different lenses, that it's a good tool to have, but not the be all and end all. So I see it as a tool. Did you read Joseph Mitchell? You read Joseph Mitchell, all right? Oh yeah, his Up in the Old Hotel anthology is a go-to book for me. It's a cornerstone work for people like us. Well, very interesting, there's a biography of
00:57:49
Speaker
that's all that it's coming out that week and jannet malcolm the uh... uh... i guess the steamed writer rick reviewed it in the new york times this week and one of the things that she talked about that talked about in the biography is that but reporting is not actually accurate and a lot of it is made up in composite work and
00:58:13
Speaker
i've been talking to another writer friend of mine about that will catch on well how do you feel about learning that up in the old hotel with the actually this grand reporting that he made up a lot of it any composited people and i have such mixed feelings about it because unlike dot when i read up in the old hotel stories i said to myself this is the nineteen-forties if i didn't carry around a big tape recorder how did you how did he do that how it is
00:58:43
Speaker
like this. And he faked them. He probably didn't fake all of them, but he faked a lot of them. And, you know, I'm not going to come out and say that about Missy, but I also have the same wonder about him a little bit. How did he do what he did? So, I don't know.
00:59:03
Speaker
i'm not but i'm not going to pick the data might have barely picked up yet what i'm saying is that that that there are writers in the non-fiction world that the work at some time so majestic in the quarter so flowing i do have that wonder while i'm reading it being a professional journalist how would this done you know because i am very interested in the mechanics of writing yeah though i was not surprised to read this about mitchell and they are somewhat and whether they were composited or
00:59:33
Speaker
or she made some of it up to me. These are some of my favorite pieces of writing. So you have to make a decision. Is he a disappointment and a, worse, a fabricator as a reporter who appeared in the New Yorker and showing these stories as being real or is he just a great writer and this is what he did and you just have to accept it.
00:59:54
Speaker
i think it's extremely complicated but i would suggest if you do have young listeners did not go down that road and thank your joe mitchell you better be
01:00:04
Speaker
You better be Joe Mitchell before you start doing things that Joe Mitchell did. Right. Yeah, and another thing that a recorder is good for is, you know, legal reasons, too. If somebody says they didn't say something, as long as you didn't take their quote out of context, you can always play it back to them and say, here's the proof, here's your voice, you did say this. Exactly, but if your person never existed, you can say that you can
01:00:30
Speaker
so that uh... and we've seen this over time in journalism in the past ten years that story to come out about reporters who are nailed for making up people that they've interviewed that did not exist because when there was questions about i don't know plagiarism or whatever and that i'm not probably that uh... an investigation may be by an editorial board or editors in general to go or three even up by sources to go look at where these where this reported out of information problem and i think they all of a person doesn't exist and they're out it
01:00:59
Speaker
And maybe the make-believe person that they put in the story said something very compelling. But you have to be able to trust the news. And as a news person out in the world, you better be not making it up, because you're undermining the foundation of trust in our society and whether people, newspapers and the news itself are taking a beam as is these days. But to me, it's one of the most critical elements
Role of Independent Media
01:01:29
Speaker
to an open society to have a healthy functioning media independent boy
01:01:35
Speaker
Absolutely, and you're kind of changing gears a little bit. I do want to be respectful of your time, so let me get to, you already alluded to it a little bit, but I want to talk to you about your bookshelf for the apocalypse, which is just my goofy name for the 10 books or so that if you had to keep in your survival pack, if there's a global pandemic and zombies running around, and you did have to,
01:02:03
Speaker
Anchor yourself to a previous world where books were important. What those books would be and I pose that question to you. What would your bookshelf of the apocalypse be? Betty and Verloc as Christmas Spectacular in Berlin was a great comic book. I don't know, this is a horrible question.
01:02:24
Speaker
uh... you know you're not the first person to say it's a horrible question i don't know i mean i don't read a lot of book anymore right now but i've had a lot of people what the question about that i would bring it would be the that that i would like apocalypse book
01:02:41
Speaker
I guess, in my pack, I would have my copy of Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby. Just these books I reread over and over again that just mean a lot to me. Or if I was building a tiny home. I think I would have Galway Canal, the Book of Nightmares in there. My favorite book of poetry. I love this book and it made a profound impact on me and I do actually go and read it. I love the book. Bye.
01:03:10
Speaker
an author named and he's a new york writer you might know him uh... he's worked up statement looks happy and he wrote a book called lowlife and it's uh... and it's uh... i think that subtitle of the book of the words and snares of old new york uh... it's sort of uh... alternative underground history of in new york city probably from late eighteen hundred maybe nineteen twenties or thirty i'd love this book
01:03:40
Speaker
And that would be a favorite book of mine. Up in the old hotel, I think I'd probably throw that in there. I could probably read that over and over and over again. I told you I really liked A.J. Liebling. And he wrote a book called The Honest Rainmaker that I haven't been able to turn too many people on to, and I don't know why. And I think it's one of the funniest books I ever read.
01:04:04
Speaker
and it's um... and this is complete fabrication that he was that he he writes as real and it's um... the life and times of it's called the life and times of colonel john or stingo and i think it looks you would love this book and it fits the with the rainmaker they actually they actually in the park dot park brings this guy in to forecast the weather the race and he set up
01:04:34
Speaker
he set up like a weather station flash laboratory in the infield at belmont park keepers with smoke coming out of them and all that stuff like like you'd like this guy is able to predict the weather if we make it look like you've got a lot but what he really doing is going to the new york public library and reading like the farmers all the back of the product like
01:04:56
Speaker
this is a great book and i would i would recommend it to you when it mixes racing this is the kind of book and i thought i'd read it about what you're going to look at the book that that maybe stick it in my head i'd rather it'd be really when you work at the new yorker could be heard howling in his office while he was writing because he was making itself that i what he was putting down that beautiful you read that book different you'll get you'll get it because you keep because anyone who had the
01:05:23
Speaker
the audacity to write this kind of if you see that retail beautifully it got to be making about that uh... one of them uh... i'd love to keep richard's book life that's a great book i don't know how he did it but he did it and it's great uh... i've got got booked up but i actually did that there's a book called the great deep the c unit threshold i actually think the books been renamed in the spot on the author named james hamilton patterson
01:05:53
Speaker
He's done fiction work that doesn't work for me, and he's done a lot of writing about food, which doesn't work for me, but he's also done a lot of writing about the outdoors in the natural world. And this book, to me, just is... It's one of the... It's sort of about... And it was written, I think, in the 90s, and you could probably get it for a penny on Amazon, but it takes various looks at coasts and reefs
01:06:22
Speaker
and ironed the world and and discuss it being in peril state of the world in in some of the most magnificent writing I've ever read and one of the one of the things he does in the book that he just keeps weaving in this character who has taken a boat off into the ocean and and backed off the boat to take a swim and when he comes up he can't find his boat
01:06:53
Speaker
and he's at sea level with its head and his boat is very near but he can't see the boat because of the 12 of the waves and so the boat, he knows the boat is near but he can't find his boat and so he leaves this in and out through these really beautifully written and thoughtful stories and well researched stories of the imperiled state of the natural world and
01:07:21
Speaker
Also, just this one person's view of, you know, this person who's stuck in the water looking for a boat, a lot of things begin to go through his mind, too. So it's just, it's vitally written, and it's a little bit of a high wire act from that perspective, but it's wonderful. Cool. How many have I done here? Ooh, get buttoned up on 10. I think overall you probably got seven or eight. Okay, I'll do two more. Cool. I really like a book called Blues People.
01:07:48
Speaker
by Leroy Jones or Amira Baraka who just died, I think he just died maybe a year ago, but he was a, you know, he became, you know, he's a poet, he's, he's, I don't know how to, how do you describe him? I don't know if black nationalist is the right word, kind of a strident type character, but
01:08:13
Speaker
his bitterness came from a very real place. What this book that he wrote before he changed his name, Blue's People, it's a history of how black music developed in the country. And it's absolutely fascinating because the blacks that are brought in from Africa as slaves, they were allowed to have their churches. They were allowed to have churches.
01:08:41
Speaker
and go to church on Sunday because, of course, all the good white people wanted to make these savages into, you know, good Christians. And what they were doing was, they were using, they were coding. So they would go into the churches and then they were coding their, their, and this happened in this country, they were coding their, what do you call their, not ceremonies, what do you call them when you go to church? Do you have a what? A sermon? I'm not really a churchgoer.
01:09:11
Speaker
I thought, but you know what I'm talking about? They would go in there and have a church service. They would code their service. They would code their service with all these things that were from their religions back home in Africa, and they would code them into the Christian service that they were being forced to do. So their style and the things that they were doing to
01:09:32
Speaker
present Christianity to their white slave owners to make it look, okay, palatable. They were palatable. They were doing, you know, the Christmas service, but they were quoting in all these things from their own religions. And this was fascinating to me. And then they begin to, you know, and then the music develops from there and then the kinds of songs they sing and the spirituals and all these things, you know, they kind of
01:09:56
Speaker
they keep their own language and make their own language but they are forced to do it in a way to make it palatable for their owners and so it kind of becomes this whole mishmash and this is how the music developed and it traces it all, you know, it traces this kind of development and oppressive development forward and how it, you know, an overcoming of their conditions and then that's how popular music was created and this was to be the mind-blowing part
01:10:25
Speaker
and then the last book i'm going to give you a book that i've read fairly recently that is i like reading books i don't know if you read any niktosha i really like niktosha no i haven't well he's to me he's one of the great literary journalist and everything he covers is basically delved into the heart of darkness that's what he's attracted to so he's but he wrote a great book called hellfire about jerry lee lewis and he grew up and one of my favorite book is a book called dino
Book Recommendation: 'Nightmare Alley'
01:10:53
Speaker
uh... and that he wrote and it's about the martin and like the empty which you know hollow-eyed soul of team barton i couldn't really care about the bar but what a riveting book and he wrote about funny lifting which isn't a great book but it's in that it's not that that that path so i've i'm attracted to the the kind of writers that get the truth by going into you know for the darkness of of existence in this book that i read
01:11:18
Speaker
called Nightmare Alley by a writer named William Lindsay Gresham, who actually committed suicide. And it's about life in, like, the sideshow carnival world. And these people, again, they come up with another thing with coding, but they come up with this coding where they can
01:11:42
Speaker
they they could pick up this mind-reading game by you know like the man of the mind reader and the woman is giving him a code right who who'd like working with the audience and they come up with these fantastic scam but they become bigger and bigger and bigger and and they think that they could they move it into the spirit world the spiritual world where they they they get gullible rich people they go and research record and so forth to find out people's dark secrets
01:12:10
Speaker
and then they that are rich and then they and so they've been involved in a tragic death or something they they make that person think that they can bring someone back to life but only for a huge amount of money so this is a monstrous monstrous scam that are taking place in all sorts of double crossings and it's just it is the creepiest scariest
01:12:32
Speaker
fantastic book maybe that i've ever prepared and i think very few people could stomach it but man a book called nightmare alley that goes to those places that's a good book to me fantastic well like i said i want to be uh... respectful of your time uh... thanks so much for coming on the podcast and talking shop this is a lot of fun for me i think this was uh... a lot of fun this was enjoyable for me fantastic well congratulations again on the eclipse awesome story
01:12:58
Speaker
And I'll be sure to link up your work and then hopefully get this thing up and running shortly and we'll be able to blast it out so that everyone can hear your wisdom in the trade. Yeah, and I'll be like, that guy's crazy. And that would be perfect. Alright, well thanks again John and we'll be in touch for sure. Okay, Brandon, take care. You too, take care.
01:13:25
Speaker
I want to thank you again for listening to the hashtag cnfpodcast. If you get a chance, head over to BrendanOmara.com and sign up for email updates. It's just a weekly newsletter that has the latest posts that I've written for the week, links to stuff that I've written, stuff that I admire, and updates on the podcast, obviously.
01:13:53
Speaker
Also, if you want to find another way to connect, I'm on Twitter, at Brendan O'Mara, and Instagram, just Brendan O'Mara. Beyond that, thanks for listening. If you get a chance to give the podcast a review, that would help. If not, no big deal. I just appreciate the fact that you made it this far and you're still listening. So in any case, stay tuned for more episodes. And that's about it. Thanks again.