Pre-order and Upcoming Events
00:00:01
Speaker
AC and Efforts, we're less than four weeks out from the publication of The Front Runner, so be sure you secure yourself a pre-order while supplies last. Call now.
00:00:14
Speaker
But seriously, go to your bookseller of choice, maybe pre-order it. Order from the independents if you can, not the big A if you can help it. Also, from May 28th to June 1st, the Archer City Writing Workshops at the Larry McMurtry Literary Center are having a workshop called Feature Writing, The Reconstructed Narrative, led by Kim H. Cross, Hampton Sides, and Gled Stout.
00:00:39
Speaker
Visit lmcmurtrylitcenter.org slash events to learn more. You will enter the retreat one writer and leave a new one, a better one. No, I don't get kickbacks or commissions.
00:00:51
Speaker
So get your cynical head out of your ass. It's not always about the money, man. You know, there's a difference between losing and being a loser.
Craft of Nonfiction and Promotions
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Speaker
It's the creative nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to primarily writers. Sorry, I split the infinitive. God damn it. About the art of what?
00:01:16
Speaker
About the art and craft shit of telling true stories. Talking to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. I'm Brendan O'Mara. It may be Friday on your calendar, but it's leg day in Oregon. How are you?
00:01:29
Speaker
We're in the throes, man. In the throes of the pre-book promo. Not like pre as in pre-Fontaine, like pre-book. You get it. The book will be reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, so I'm told.
00:01:42
Speaker
What could go wrong? A Writer's Digest author spotlight? A Lit Hub thing? Powell's? A Pub Day 5K in town? It's all coming together. or splitting apart, I don't know.
00:01:53
Speaker
Admittedly, it's hard to focus as I try to get the next book off the ground. We have John Gliana here today. Spoke to him in December, so you know we're making good time here at CNF Pod HQ.
00:02:06
Speaker
For the people who follow up with me from like a week ago, I'm like, you might want to get a burrito and a Pepsi Zero Sugar and just settle in for a bit. John's a fun guy. One of those great journalists cut from a different fabric.
00:02:19
Speaker
A pre-internet vintage. He spent 26 years at the l LA Times, and he's the author of No Friday Night Lights, Reservation Football on the Edge of America, published by Bison Books.
Introducing John Gliana
00:02:34
Speaker
Except there's not really much football in the book. This story takes place in a small, secluded town of McDermott, Nevada, on the border of Oregon and Nevada.
00:02:45
Speaker
The high school rarely has enough kids to field the team of eight or so players. They play like an eight-on-eight league. I think I got that right. It's been a long time since I read the book. forgive me man if they play they lose and they lose big it's the story about a town trying to keep its nose above water it's a town abandoned by the mining industry boom of the 1980s right before that too john's story is one of resilience and pride of losing but not being a loser shown us at this episode on more brendanamera.com hey there you can read hot blogs
00:03:17
Speaker
And sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. I'm getting more and more ragey. A bit ornery, CNFers. So, if you want book recommendations, cool links, and good cheer, sign up. First of the month, no spam. So far as I can tell, you can't beat it. Or maybe there's one thing that could. There's now a weekly companion pod stack at creativenonfictionpodcast.substack.com.
00:03:39
Speaker
If you want the transcripts and the text of the parting shot, deep dives into the archives, this is the newsletter to enrich in your podcast experience. It's pretty cool. You should shotgun a few. I try to have it published the day the an episode publishes, but it might trickle out ah and into the weekend.
00:03:56
Speaker
It's a lot. And while we're hawking product, don't forget to window shop at patreon.com slash cnfpod. If you want to support the show financially, you can also follow for free to be a wallflower.
00:04:08
Speaker
The $4 and up tiers get some one-on-one time with me to talk some things through. Maybe it's research and reporting. Maybe it's writing. Maybe it's marketing. Maybe it's that pesky voice in your head that tells you you're not worth it to and that your dream is stupid.
00:04:22
Speaker
I can speak to it because my dreams are dumb too. And thanks to Kate Coppenter for upping her membership from $2 to $4. Thank you.
John Gliana's Writing Approach
00:04:32
Speaker
In this episode, we talk about what a Gliana story is.
00:04:38
Speaker
ah wish I had a story named after me. How John didn't punch down in his writing. Working with Glenn Stout on this book. what he loves most about this kind of work, and solving that thorny question of whether a story needs better writing or better reporting.
00:04:53
Speaker
You can follow the show on Instagram at Creative Nonfiction Podcast. And you can learn more about John at JohnGliana, with two N's, dot com, and at JohnGliana on Instagram. Stay tuned for a parting shot about why I'm not deleting my social media. Oh boy.
00:05:11
Speaker
For now, here's John. Huh.
00:05:20
Speaker
Does everyone know I'm a fucking genius? Thank you, everybody. Remember what Brendan said. he got it because we're sadistic motherfuckers. Go lemurs. is This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:05:40
Speaker
you know it were we didn't get into this because got into this because we're sadistic motherfuckers I know exactly it's uh that's uh maybe a good jumping off point it just uh I know the lane of journalism that drew me to it and I'm attracted to and uh for for you when you got into this line of work what was the the lane of journalism or what was the appeal for ah to it for you Well, i I started out as a long-haired, pot-smoking, ne'er-do-well in the 1970s at the University of Buffalo, or in Buffalo, Buff State. I was going to Buffalo State College, Teachers College.
00:06:19
Speaker
I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and and I didn't know. you know and And so I took a i took ah writing class by a local poet by the name of Penelope Prentice, and I remember one of the assignments, we had to keep a journal. And I you know i remember some of my journal entries that you know when i when I was with my girlfriend, the world was in color and there was all these fine. Then when I put her on the bus to go back to Syracuse, it reverted to black and white. And I saw the cum stains on the you know bathroom walls. and
00:06:52
Speaker
And so she so puts a note on the end at the end of the semester. She said, John, you have a fine eye for detail. You should try journalism. I was like, huh. First time I'd ever thought about that, you know, grew up in the sports page, never thought, oh, I want to be one of those sports writers. yeah never Never tuned in.
00:07:07
Speaker
So I transferred to the State University of New York at Buffalo, the bigger school in town, went into the student newspaper one day and i bought I went up to the features editor because I was always a features guy. i didn't where really want to go out cover hard news.
00:07:20
Speaker
I just I just wanted to write about the things I was interested in. And um she, I remember ah Denise and I told her, I said you know I've been reading your paper, lie. ah You know, i you guys do a good job, but, you know, I think I can add a touch of something.
00:07:35
Speaker
So she assigned me a story to go out and talk about. It's a good story, I think. the the The line when you move off campus, when you go to college and you you're in the dorms and then you connect with the people that that you really like, and they're usually not your roommate on the you know in the dorms.
00:07:52
Speaker
And then you move off campus and you have to you know deal with these you know wicked you know criminal
Gliana's Journalism Journey
00:07:57
Speaker
landlords and and pay your own bills. and And so I did the story and I was hooked. i I came back and I ended up becoming the features editor. And I um i just sort of like, i love the newsroom. I love I, you know, rather than, you know, kids, you know, the 1920s or nothing really different than the 70s, you know, the war was over and kids were kind of going on campus only worrying about how they were going to get, you know, good grades and
00:08:26
Speaker
and going from library to to you know to to hookups. and And kid the kids in the newsroom, they were they were living college in real time. they They were covering the campus.
00:08:38
Speaker
I remember there was like you know ah the the gay movie critic and denise was a Denise, the features editor, was a lesbian at the time. And and the first time I really, kind I was from Syracuse. I was i had this sheltered childhood. And I ran into these urban intelligent people And um I remember I walked into the and the the the one of the offices and tip the Tim Swatala was this kind of Buffalonian, long hair, John Lennon glasses.
00:09:04
Speaker
He goes, hey, Leona, um um I'm writing a review about this this new band. you know They got a song called Planet Claire. And um Planet Claire has pink air and all the trees are red.
00:09:17
Speaker
No one ever dies there and no one has a head. I go, wow, that's cool. are They had the B-52s and I was like, and what's i just that was I never would have had that conversation outside the newsroom.
00:09:28
Speaker
So that's what launched me into the world after I graduated from college. I mean, I was like, and to friends of mine, I was like a little pit bull. I had been on the ankle of journalism, and by all, I was going to make a living at that, and and I was going to do it because it it was what I wanted to do I didn't consider anything else.
00:09:43
Speaker
given that you were drawn to features, who are some of the the feature writers of the time that ah really lit you up and maybe some features today that you still occasionally like reread?
00:09:56
Speaker
Well, you know, obviously Tom Wolfe and the new journalism at the time was, was very instrumental. And I, yeah I, I went out and, and, and kind of did my, in college, I did my version of what I thought would be the Tom Wolfe story for me.
00:10:13
Speaker
And I called it, well, the headline, it was a double truck. This is when, like when you were a college journalist, and if you had the inside of the paper where it opens up, and and your stories, they're all covers over two pages with a layout.
00:10:25
Speaker
That was like nirvana. And the headline was pumping gas. And I went i went out in Buffalo looking for somebody whose job was to work in a gas station. And they did it there because that was their career. They were young guys, and they weren't college kids working an extra job.
00:10:41
Speaker
And the story was about my finding the character and I ended up finding Rich, this guy, and wrote about him. And what I liked about it is there's there's a certain saying and that there was a certain saying in the newsroom of the LA Times and other newspapers I've worked for. And I always took it as a compliment.
00:10:59
Speaker
But somebody would say, oh, that's a Gleona story. It's like, well, I can't. What's a Gleona story? Well, you only find a Gleona story if you're looking down on the streets of New York, you know, and and kind of peering away. What's in that sewer grate there as you walk by?
00:11:14
Speaker
It's it's kind of ah my wife says I write about people before they get famous. and And that's where I like to go. It's the
McDermott Football Team and Community
00:11:22
Speaker
real people, real stories. Well, there's a great ah shoe leather quality to the journalism that you were just talking about. And certainly with ah No Friday Night Lights, how you really just go out in the street, you meet the people and you embed with them. So it that strikes me as something that is a ah conscious choice on your part. And the I think a way of journalism that we've in a very digitalized way have gotten away from.
00:11:48
Speaker
As a journalist working for a newspaper, and it's gotten worse as we go, um you know you're they're you're constantly, you're connected ah by a you know feeding tube to publish.
00:12:00
Speaker
And now that there's online, you know the old days of writing a story before the internet, you know you had if you work for a morning paper, you had all day to write your story. And you'd research it, you'd write it, and then it'd be out the next day. But before I left, i mean,
00:12:15
Speaker
breaking news, I'd be writing the next day's story for the newspaper, but I had to put online updates of what was going on, like, on consulate. And so there's a harassment of kind of what do you got for me, like, right now.
00:12:28
Speaker
I'm proud to say I never had, at the LA Times, I worked there 26 years, I never had a desk in the main office in downtown Los Angeles. I was always somewhere out there. and That's where I wanted to be. I was in some bureau or I could, you know, the closest to being, you know, ah goat versus going into the city, although I did some urban reporting um and I found my my tribe in the urban areas, but I would go out go out in the hinterlands. And when you find a story as a journalist, you what I call it, and it's been called by many, is parachute journalism.
00:12:59
Speaker
You know, you got three days tops. That's it for news for an editor. he says, you know, you got three days come back, you know, as long as it's, you know, for a Sunday piece. So three days gives you a certain amount of insight into a topic, but you don't really you're taking a bite of the apple and then you're you're leaving.
00:13:18
Speaker
And then, and so I wanted to do something more. The first time I met Richard Egan and and the Bulldogs, I had left the Times and I was i was freelancing for the Review Journal in Vegas. ah I'd stayed in Vegas. My wife lived and in San Francisco. And after I left the Times, I didn't want to come back. My last job for the Times was the, I was a national correspondent based in Vegas.
00:13:43
Speaker
And when I left, I didn't pack up my house and move back to the city with my wife because I figured there was more hinterland out there in Vegas, you know, Nevada than there was in Northern California. It's all been discovered. So I just started writing, doing stories a freelance basis. And I went to the local newspaper and I happened to know the city editor and and they didn't really have a state reporter.
00:14:01
Speaker
I said, I'll do it for you. I'll just find stories for you out there. And so, yeah, he said, go out and can you give us one a week? I said, hell, I'll give you two week. Every time I'd go out up to, you know, somewhere out there in Vegas, in Nevada,
00:14:14
Speaker
I would stop at the library and bars and, you know, what do you got So I had been to out to a town, the town, it was Gabs, G-A-B-B-S.
00:14:25
Speaker
And Gabs had a one-room schoolhouse. And the one-room schoolhouse, it was a one-room high school. There was an elementary school and then one room for the whole high school. And one teacher taught everybody from 9th to 12th.
00:14:39
Speaker
And so he'd walk around the desk and he'd talk to the two ninth graders and go to the desk, talk to the 10th graders and the seniors. And it was just like, you know, pioneer days. And they didn't have enough kids. There was, you know, that was the whole concept that the towns were dying there. And to d much like Gabs and McDermott, you know, they had an industry, usually mining.
00:14:59
Speaker
and And, you know, and when mining left, life changed. And so GAPS had a basketball team called the Tarantulas, the GAPS Tarantulas, because the tra there's ah there's an every day, in this every year in the spring, there's a tarantula migration. Imagine driving around GAPS and having 40 tarantulas across the road.
00:15:18
Speaker
And they had so few kids that they combined their boys and girls basketball team. And I thought, wow, wow. But then they the the team folded because there wasn't even enough kids even doing that.
00:15:31
Speaker
So i called I called around and i wanted to find a I wanted to find a sports team somewhere out there in the ether of Nevada, rural Nevada, that what are the struggles of a team that you've got to struggle to find ah finding enough players?
00:15:46
Speaker
And so I called a guy that I knew was on my my source list, Dave Jensen, who was the superintendent of schools in Humboldt County. which includes Winnemucca and I'm sure you've been there, Brandon, on your travels. It's most people know it only from the Johnny Cash remake of I've Been Everywhere Man, right?
00:16:05
Speaker
Dave, when I told Dave, I need, this is what I want to find. He goes, oh, you need to call Richard Egan. And um yeah, who's Richard? Yeah, he he's up, you know, he's up in, and mcdermott right on the border real small school, really isolated. And, you know, he's on a tight tightrope every, every season.
00:16:21
Speaker
And when I called Richard, he almost didn't pick up the phone because it was a four one five cell phone that I had. And no one would ever call him in a four one five area. It was like getting a, if Mars had an area code, my point about, I would, I wanted to go and do a story, but I was a freelancer and I rolled in to do the first story about the McDermott bulldogs.
00:16:42
Speaker
With a photographer, we were doing another story because when you went on a road trip, you I said, I'm going to go here, I'm going to go there. Because it was it's a long way. If you drive from Vegas up to McDermott, it's it's a 10-hour drive.
00:16:54
Speaker
Wow. And so we rolled in in the afternoon, and they were having ah they were having a ah practice. I met Richard. I met some of the kids. And you know we talked. then a lot was a sort of you know back story. Richard would about what happened.
00:17:07
Speaker
i got I interviewed some of the kids. I never saw a game. didn't have time. You know, their game was Saturday. I was out of there. So I wrote the story about, you know, this small town's team and what Richard brought to them. and And it ran and and um Richard just stayed in my mind along with his his his fellow coach, Jack Smith.
00:17:25
Speaker
And I would call him up and, you know, I just
Cultural Connections and Shifting Book Focus
00:17:27
Speaker
I loved it. I was, you know, I played high school basketball in the church, the CYO team, and and I played on the golf team. So I didn't really have to ever have that kind of coach, coach player relationship. But I i i just loved it. I'd call him up and I'd call Richard. ko Hey, coach, what's up? You know, what what's what are the prospects look like?
00:17:44
Speaker
And one day I just said, you know, damn it. I want to come up there and spend a whole season with you. I'm just curious. I wanted to, it was really what would attracted me. um And I've said this to to groups that I've talked to.
00:17:57
Speaker
I thought I would be, i thought I would be sort of a hipster kind of blade runner, kind of urban journalist to these rural, mostly Native American kids. And they'd kind of want to know what the, what's out there.
00:18:07
Speaker
I didn't really identify with the kids at all. They, if they were a hard not to crack the the boys and I, and I did try, but i the The adults in town, Richard and Jack and mike my landlords, I could see the sense of the friendship that those two men had from disparate kinds of the world. Jack was a white guy from Reno's. Dad was a professional wrestler and boxer and boxing coach, and he grew up in the backseat of his father's car on on tour. and Richard was a Native American, you know,
00:18:38
Speaker
And he, yeah his greatgre great, great, great grandfather was was the a famous Native American chief who was murdered by, you know, killed in the Indian Wars in the 1860s.
00:18:49
Speaker
And they both, but they both were ended up there and they both had these interesting backstories. And so I went in and that's, you know, to answer your question, you know, embedding was the only way to tell their story, even though I had to suffer three months in a town where there was nothing to do.
00:19:05
Speaker
and you know and I did every Saturday. i look forward to driving the 73 miles down to Winnemucca to go to the local Walmart to do my shopping. I did. That's what everybody else did.
00:19:16
Speaker
And I take orders from my friends and they are going down to the Walmart. What do you need? But I was so glad that I did have a few bars on my cell phone that I'm a big Dodger fan. So I would listen to the Dodger games at night.
00:19:28
Speaker
there so There was my only, you know, no television. And, But man, did I that i see a my whole shtick, my internal clock slowed down.
00:19:41
Speaker
And when I got out there, when I left, I felt that I had kind of gone into some sort of like, you know, retreat. Every night after practice, I would come back. Practice was after school, five o'clock.
00:19:57
Speaker
but It was summertime, so it didn't get dark till later. I'd come back and type up my notes in the practice so they were fresh. still lot of light. And I would take a walk on a road that just headed off due west out to right at the sun.
00:20:09
Speaker
I walked a couple miles and walked back and it was really contemplative and it was a lonely road that I like to be on. And and i end the book on that road. So, yeah, I mean, um one of the things that, you know, perhaps we can we can, in your interest in taking, having read the book,
00:20:29
Speaker
it A lot of people who have read it said it's kind of a misnomer because it's not really all about football. And it kind of isn't. And, you know, through no fault of anybody, I mean, the season I was out there, the Bulldogs couldn't get enough kids to play.
00:20:44
Speaker
And I remember right that when I found out that they weren't going to have a season, I called my editor and I said, there's no season here, but... I think I got a book anyway. And so it's, it's a kind of a book about humanity and small town people. I had imagined a book about a football team, couple of real interesting men, coaches and molding, you know, kids and teach them how to lose and, and having what that says about the town.
00:21:15
Speaker
But then it ended up to be a story about a town where it was dying and people, they, they, they they held out to live there and you know what the football team said about the town. It was a complete... I looked around, I didn't have a i didn't have a main actor anymore, so I took the supporting supporting actress and made her my star.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah, the book really is, and I don't mean this as a criticism, like I was surprised how little football was in it. I was just like, oh wow, they this is, a like to your point about McDermott being essentially the main character, but it it really is a book about resilience, really.
00:21:52
Speaker
i had a i had a a review in that in the los angel the LA review of books, it was interesting. ah the the The reviewer, somebody once said reviewers always have to say something negative, right? They can't, although sometimes they've fallen over books if you're a big if you're a big writer.
00:22:08
Speaker
But he dinged me on two things. And one and I think, you know fair enough. The one of them is the the title. Anytime you attach your tail to a kite like Friday Night Lights, which is the seminal book about high school football and about youth sports ever written, Buzz Bissinger's book has been made into movie, a series.
00:22:27
Speaker
And so, you know, Glenn and I were talking about what the title was. And it truly was a perfect title because there are no Friday Night Lights. in Right. You know, that especially not not this team. And so he he said, you attach your titles and no fire highlights. And it's a pretty it's a pretty tall, and you know, to it's a pretty tall demand.
00:22:48
Speaker
And this book doesn't quite meet it. But what book could? And so I was a failure longer than everybody else who wanted to write about high school football after Buzz did. And the thing he wrote about was there's enough football. and You know, i I went in and, you know, I'd sat the coaches down.
00:23:04
Speaker
i talked about losing seasons. I went into history. I tried to be as a narrative writer. I tried to put the reader in football situations through the eyes of ah of people that were, you know, that were there. I remember a very poignant moment in the book.
00:23:22
Speaker
When Richard Egan, who was the coach, he played in the 1983 championship team. And Richard was a tough kid. He hit, he broke somebody's leg once in a hit. Years later, the guy the guy at a bar, I mean, decades later, it was another Native native American guy. And he said, that was a dirty hit, Richard. He goes, it was not a dirty hit.
00:23:40
Speaker
He went up, I hit you, you came down wrong. And the quarterback that year was a guy who was a rancher now at the time. So I called him up and we were chatting about, you know, he played. And and so he was in the the McDermott glory days when they had a mind, they had they had money and they had success. And his son went out for the team. and He drove his son across the California border to some away game, and they got trounced, and they, you know, 75 to nothing.
00:24:09
Speaker
And on the way home, he was trying to give his son some advice. He said, you know, don't worry about the score, son. And the son said, then why do they have a scoreboard? and And, you know, the kid was hurting.
00:24:21
Speaker
And he said, Dad, I don't want to do it anymore. And and that remember the father said, listen, I like to preach to my son the idea about quitting. And I don't think quitting is a good thing, but I couldn't, as a father,
00:24:32
Speaker
encourage him to go back because he was going to get hurt. And and for, you know, for for what? Because they were small kids. they played They played teams sometimes from towns, which which had a pulse, which had kids that were going to go on and play Division I, you know, college football.
Team Victory and Lessons from Losing
00:24:48
Speaker
And they were just out of their league. After the book was published, I got a call one day from somebody and ah lo and behold, McDermott had won a game. And I was so excited. I wrote a blog post for my blog.
00:25:02
Speaker
And I called, they had beat one of their, their ah it was a home game. And because they've been they you know because they'd had so many seasons where they couldn't come up with a team, ah the the league didn't really want them to give them a full eight-game slate because they probably figured they were going to just default for the season. So they they put them on sort of they they put them on but on on waivers, and they gave them four games. So I called some of the kids that I called ah called Jack and talked about it.
00:25:33
Speaker
One of the one of the the the the kids, the bunch couple the kids had taken the Gatorade container and dumped it down Jack's back, which you see all the time. It used to be done more than it is today.
00:25:45
Speaker
And Jack described what Gatorade feels like going down your back. And I was like, but he loved it. And and it was it could have been a good postscript for the book, but you know it wasn't. So I don't think the book suffers without it.
00:25:58
Speaker
Oh, for sure. and there's There's a ah passage in the book that i that I love. And you've been speaking to it a lot. Just what you're drawn to and just this idea of outcasts and bar flies and underdogs who stay under.
00:26:11
Speaker
i love that that phrasing of it. And, you know, given that yeah the McDermott and the team itself, it is like they're in that permanent ah underdog status.
00:26:23
Speaker
It would be easy and to to punch down and to even make fun of from from a remove. But you treat it with with deafness and respect. How cognizant were you of treating treating them with the respect that they deserved?
00:26:38
Speaker
You know, as you know, ah ah by by reading the book, I mean, I'm a character in the book. I write about how much I get in trouble. So I got, I got on some people's nerves in town. I was this big city guy. I kind of came in here.
00:26:50
Speaker
The only thing you can call a writer who has a book talk and 12 people show up is a loser. And I was always, played on losing teams. And I mean, my philosophy about life is losing is what happens in adulthood. lose a lot. I mean, post them on Facebook, but pretty much for the, pretty much for most of our, you know, you know, a large percentage of our lives, we kind of let ourselves down. We don't,
00:27:14
Speaker
We don't live up to the moment. We do this. We just go along. So in another way, I mean, I looked at it. I mean, I've been a sports reporter. No wisdom ever came from a winner's locker room. right the the The insights always are from the loser's locker room, the heads down, what you learn.
00:27:29
Speaker
and And so, you know, these kids were there. They were they were sort of and incubating, you know, the incubation stage ah of learning a pretty tough lesson in life.
00:27:42
Speaker
And I remember that I talked to somebody about this. It's like, these are kids that are minors, really. and And you really kind of watch, you have to watch coming in and saying ah that the kids, you never really want to put that label on them.
00:28:00
Speaker
And, you know, that they were losers because A, it's not fair. And, you know, there's a difference between losing and being a loser. And one thing interview I did, which to me was really important to illustrate this.
00:28:13
Speaker
You learn in journalism about telling and showing. And, you know, when you're a kid or a young writer, you tell, you write a story, it was cold out. But if you show, it's like it was so cold out that the screwdrivers snapped, right? Or, you know, the other thing is like Dave was hearing voices. That's the tell. The show is, well, what were those voices saying to Dave? i wanted to show what it meant by being a kid learning to lose. And I ran into a referee who was so impressed in one game that they were getting, they were just getting their asses handed to him.
00:28:46
Speaker
I was like you know, 80 to nothing. And he and he so he found himself like the other kids were there was another res team. And, you know, and I talk about this in the book about the particular passion between reservation teams. I like to beat each other.
00:29:01
Speaker
And, you know, it's one thing to get beat by a bunch of white kids and win a mock-up. But if you're, if it's the res team down the road, you do not want to lose them because you have relatives over there. And the res team was kicking their butts.
00:29:12
Speaker
And he would notice is that they were picking each other up and they weren't the older kids. There was no recrimination. And he wrote a letter to the superintendent saying, these were men out there. They, they,
00:29:22
Speaker
they didn't you know they didn't you see like all this You see it today, you know, the taunting that goes on in the NFL. and You know, you make a play and a lot of professional sports where, hey, you you know, the the the end zone dances and it's like rubbing a nose into a defeat. And and the other players were hitting him hard and they were saying stuff. These kids wouldn't take the bait.
00:29:44
Speaker
And so that is that said as much about about those boys as anything that I that that I that I could observe. And, you know, they were but but they're boys.
00:29:55
Speaker
I would stand. i would stand in the near under the one of the goalposts at night and Richard and Jack, the two coaches are friends and they're running and and they were just like shaking their heads about like this guy was dogging it again. He wasn't showing up. And and, you know, they were talking. they Of course, they never say it to the boys, but they were it was locker room talk about they knew what they had.
00:30:20
Speaker
and And so they, but they, in in the ears of the boys, they tried to say that let's go out and have a game because in McDermott, having a game was a victory.
00:30:35
Speaker
Just being able to go out there and show up on the field, it was like winning was like, really winning? You know, it's it's like just going on being in the joy of competing.
00:30:46
Speaker
And it's like, As a writer, I mean, my were my life as a writer, it's like you know selling a lot of books. That's that's sort of like winning from the bulldogs. I'm a bulldog. i write I have games and I love playing in the games. I write my books.
00:31:00
Speaker
And they go out to the world and I find my select audience and and i i understand the idea of you're not going to get it all. Just have enjoy what you enjoy, the experiences that you do have at your at your disposal. And that is lining up and playing a game that Americans have played for a long time.
00:31:21
Speaker
So like i I got it ah Unfortunately, I didn't see those boys in person doing that. and I haven't been back to McDermott. I want to go back up and see the coaches. they I was cognizant that those boys had pride and they were they were they were kids.
00:31:39
Speaker
It wasn't just that there were so many barriers between me and some of those young young men that I that i met.
Cultural Challenges and Parallels in Writing
00:31:46
Speaker
ah Largely, they were There were a couple of white kids on the team and their families were ranchers and were, you know, Nevada Highway Patrol, one of the sons and or they were you know Native American kids. And I tried.
00:32:00
Speaker
How come I'm not relating to these boys? And and Richard said I was trying to hard. And I remember one that there was over the best athlete on the team.
00:32:13
Speaker
um who who was he was ah the running back and he was a scorer in the basketball team. One day I asked if I could come out and talk to him you know outside of school. And so I drove out to his house on the res one day and we we sat we sat there and and I realized that I was i didn't get him. And there was there was a lot of territory. I didn't live his life.
00:32:34
Speaker
I was coming in and and i was trying to understand, until maybe having a being father, I'm not a parent. And so maybe that would have helped me. um And, you know, and trying to relate to somebody, but kind of thinking you're whatever you say is the wrong thing.
00:32:49
Speaker
Maybe you like having a 13 year old daughter. So we said we talked and I remember I let long silences pass between us. We sat on the stoop. He didn't invite me in because his parents said he didn't want strangers in the house when they weren't there.
00:33:01
Speaker
And we talked a little bit about football. And then i remember I let the longest silence go. And I asked him if he was a virgin. And he didn't flinch. Yeah, you know, he was it was an admission of, well, that's an experience I haven't had yet. You know, I haven't scored 10 touchdowns in a game either.
00:33:19
Speaker
But that doesn't mean I won't. And he told me a story about, you know, life on the reservation and the Pai Shoshone reservation that met a young girl when they were out. they were it was a Future Farmers of America group and they were in some town outside off the reservation he met a girl and he she started texting him and you know he liked her and they they hit it off and he went to his grandmother and there's something about her last name kind of rung a bell and he had grandma we related and she said oh yeah yeah she's your like third cousin right and then immediately he stopped answering her text because this wasn't for him and on the reservation
00:33:54
Speaker
And so I remember he said, I'm going to I just can't date here because I. I'm just too close, I'm going to have to wait till I get off you know the reservation and now he's going to UNLV and I check in with Jack and he's doing well.
00:34:08
Speaker
And so there were my moments of when I kind of you know related, but a lot of people were kind of aghast that I would ask that question. um about you know being you know being a virgin but so you just really have to ask the question you know at parties my wife used to criticize me saying what are you doing writing a book well yeah i was writing a book you know and uh and that's sometimes you have to you have to pry and and and you know ask ask questions about that that are uncomfortable to answer as long as you pose them in the right way
00:34:42
Speaker
Yeah, and to to your point of being in in the story, I think is ah is a great tactic to to be to be in there and to be the guide and to be a a foil.
00:34:55
Speaker
You're right, you can lose games and even be beaten badly, but honor still counts for something. And in their eyes, it's the biggest lesson that can be learned on a football field. Yeah. A moment ago you were talking about just kind of seeing a lot of your yourself in them and being the grind of writing writing these books is kind of similar to the grind of McDermott trying ah put a football, feel the football team together. And you're like one person away from maybe having a season or not.
00:35:22
Speaker
and there I imagine there was a a relatability that even if the kids weren't relating to you, there was something about McDermott and even that team that you were relating to. Yeah, it's it's like um I mentioned this phrase before, but it really is life in real time.
00:35:38
Speaker
It's what you what what you do. You live in McDermott or you live in you know San Francisco and your days and you you're paying attention to what is going on around you. And and you find through that attention ways to enjoy the moment that might be boring for somebody else.
00:35:58
Speaker
But you find you find a way to thrive within it. I was on some kind of Facebook string or some social media string. It was a writer's group. And somebody said, what's your favorite moment as a writer? And all these people were like, you know, talk about this. And then, oh, it's a day of publication. It's a day when I get my pulse.
00:36:16
Speaker
And i i so my answer was, i love it when I'm on my first cup of coffee in the morning and i'm looking at the screen. And I'm rereading the last 150 words that I wrote the day before and saying, oh, yeah, that was good, but yeah this is better.
00:36:32
Speaker
And building as a writer, you know, looking back and rereading and editing your first draft and rebuilding and knowing what to cut and adding stuff. It's to me, it's just it's wonderful. It's a laboratory and I don't need anybody else.
00:36:47
Speaker
And I'm oftentimes happy with the product.
Mentorship and Economic Realities of Writing
00:36:51
Speaker
And I'm a clown that makes balloons that, you know, kids don't like, you know, but I like to make those balloons because, you know, I can do, I do it pretty well.
00:36:59
Speaker
And to me, they're, they look like real animals. to It's your point of being able to tinker around in the in the lab of being a writer. in ah when when you When you're finding if you're stuck in a particular story or a chapter, just things aren't aren't cracking the way you're hoping they would crack, and do you attribute that ah to a reporting or a research problem or is it a writing problem?
00:37:27
Speaker
That's a good question. I think it's a little both depending on on where, what what the the issue at hand is. I remember working on, I was writing the beginning of this book.
00:37:40
Speaker
And as you know, starting a book and getting the momentum is is is is difficult. ah And knowing where we're going. And I was pacing my office and in Vegas.
00:37:54
Speaker
And it was like, I was just talking to one of my younger friends who was a reporter. And just, God, it's like, And as somebody said, you know, writing a book is swimming in deeper waters. think was Glenn, Glenn Stout, my editor, friend of both of ours, who said said that and it was deeper waters. And what that means is that, you know, you're out there in the bay or... you know swimming and and and you think about it down there is there are big depths underneath you and you might feel like you're floundering.
00:38:23
Speaker
And I was complaining to a friend of mine and he just caught pause for a moment and said, you needed a good editor. I didn't have an editor at the time. And so what I did was I did some research and I contacted Glenn.
00:38:36
Speaker
And with my experience, um when I ran into like a roadblock, I could go to the Glenn confessional and say, here's where I'm, There's no better relationship in the world.
00:38:49
Speaker
A man and wife is great. Man and woman is um awesome. But a writer who talk is talking with an editor who knows the work and knows your talents and is invested as you are, it's cold.
00:39:01
Speaker
And, you know, you talk to Glenn or people like that and they would they would say, well, you know, here's how here's how you do this. And here's what I would do. And, you know, you know, when the advice strikes, I was just before our interview, i was talking to friend with a photographer, talking on the phone with a photographer friend of mine.
00:39:20
Speaker
I have this book idea that I want to do And i I won't go into too much detail about it, but it's, it you know, to me, I'm jazzed by it. Glenn likes the idea. And it's the idea of like, OK, who else is doing this?
00:39:34
Speaker
Is somebody writing this book right now? And you've got to find out if it is. How do you pitch this? and And my photographer friend said, why don't you just write a magazine story for a major magazine, pitch it that way. And that way you can do the work and then you can get into and it. And was brilliant. I was like, yeah, that was the buoy I would swing for. It was deep waters, like this big project. And I hadn't even found a publisher yet.
00:39:56
Speaker
And but if I break it down into finding, a you know, just writing a magazine story that I could publish and then continue to work, um you know, you read the New Yorker. or made a lot of magazines, you know, all these great stories, just say, wow, look at the in-depth, in-depth reporting, those those are books in the making.
00:40:13
Speaker
That's why those stories have the depth they do, because the writer's going beyond the magazine story. writes He's researching a book to write. you If you run into a into a jam with something, if you turn the computer off, and there's nothing like fresh eyes if it's a writing problem, reporting problem's is another thing. you ah you You have to take a look at it and, you know, get good advice, but, you know,
00:40:36
Speaker
um you know, it's, you just, you can't, you know, you can't, it's like getting stuck in the mud. You can't get out of the car and walk home. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta to figure it out. When you're thinking of a magazine story, possibly as a launching pad ah to something longer, something book length, it's kind of like, I think Hemingway used to never start a novel. He would start a short story and a short story would, would tell him if it was going to be a novel or not. And I think that's probably wise to do the magazine route too, because, know,
00:41:06
Speaker
There's an economic component as well. And have you, in your experience, have you found that if going that magazine route too, it's like, okay, here's a way to to make a chunk of change. And it's just, it's a part of, ah because ah the book writing process is really kind of a net loss and essentially becomes like a really nice business card. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, it's certainly at my level, it's net loss. I mean, you know, when people, I tell people I don't make money off the books that I write,
00:41:32
Speaker
you know, they're really surprised, like why you do it. and And, you know, and I, because as we've talked about, I mean, it's something I like to do, but I don't ah have those expectations. I mean, an editor once said at the LA Times that, you know, and I was writing a magazine piece and even before you pitch the magazine story,
00:41:51
Speaker
you have to do enough research to find out whether you know what's there was writing a story about there was a out in the navajo reservation in arizona in new mexico i was writing about a woman who was ah um he was she was a patrol woman patrol officer and you know the novel reservation is about the size of like virginia and they have a very short staff and she was out on the res at night often by herself and the nearest backup is like 100 miles away And I knew what I wanted to get inside her head and going to calls with her, but I wasn't sure i needed to sell it to somebody. And so I had to go there and, and and you know, before I even had anything, no no contract. It wasn't like,
00:42:38
Speaker
you know okay you know like right writers who are successful and they they they write you know book you know book appeals and they get that they're they're you know the people who don't know much about writing they all you get that that advance and it's not that way you have to put your own you have to put your own money you have to pay for your own hotels you have to drive out you have you have to see what's there you don't if you're looking at it's like when you're in a cab If you're looking at the, and now this is an old analogy because nobody takes cabs anymore, but if you're looking at the meter, it's an awful long ride.
00:43:09
Speaker
And if you're watching the meter, how much money you're spending on something, you're kind of in the wrong, you know, in the wrong business. If you can afford to do, you know, afford to do it. If you're young and you're and you're living on your riding, can't afford it. That's, that's tougher. but but you do have the money i don't i don't mind investing in projects before I see the prospect of any return. Because I know that and really at the end there's not going to be much return other than just the fun of doing it.
00:43:36
Speaker
And when you're on a book project, or do you are you able to subsidize it with like doing other freelance projects ah more or less? Well, I will say in my situation that my wife is a very shrewd investor.
00:43:55
Speaker
And so she, when I first started working as a freelance writer after leaving the LA Times, and um And the paycheck, i bet that narcotic that would come in every two weeks in the LA Times, she would she would see it hit the bank account.
00:44:11
Speaker
And then i would I was freelancing, so i would we were living apart. we I would do the conjugal visit every two weeks coming to San Francisco. For the most part, I lived you know lived alone in Vegas, and I'd call her up and say, honey, I got a new client. And her first question, what do they pay?
00:44:27
Speaker
And I didn't care, right? It wasn't. So now i finally, she not kind of knows that that it doesn't it doesn't really matter. She knows I write the book. She never asked me about you know, what what the remuneration is going to be financially.
00:44:43
Speaker
She kind of knows that that it's just what her husband does, you know? And and he's got, you know, i' I'm sort of like that that uncle of yours who, you know, has that, he's got this garage and and he works on cars or he does make sawhorses and, you know, wooden, you know, horses.
00:45:03
Speaker
He just goes out there and all the time out there, man, that guy is just loving life. And, ah you know, and that's, you know, that's what it is. It's like being being a sadist says I'm a happy man. and And I think being a more successful writer, you know, more successful book selling author would make me a less happy man.
Finding Joy in Writing
00:45:21
Speaker
And I know that that might sound counterintuitive, but. kind ofs kind of the way I look at it, because I don't really like the sales part. I don't like dealing with agents. I don't like being told I'm not good enough or people don't even answer your answer your calls or having to, you know, you know, just being, being the, the, the bear in the circus and getting whipped.
00:45:42
Speaker
um i I like being, you know, doing what I do. And unfortunately you have to, You have to sell it. And I don't want to sound too negative about that. I mean, people will say, you know, what would be your perfect analogy? And I said, you know, there's ah my a my perfect situation would be like working for a newspaper in a small town of 5000 circulation.
00:46:04
Speaker
And I'm ah I'm a columnist and I write my columns and there's not many people. 5000. That's it. That's who goes. But everybody in that town reads my my column. I know that it's a 100 percent saturation.
00:46:16
Speaker
And if i if I got a small publisher who published my books and they say, hey, Gliona, we really like that one. What do you got? What do you got for us next? I'm thinking about doing this. it's that It's that, you know, going out, finding projects and you know researching them, writing them, getting inside people's heads and and and and being able to write about them in a way where they say they like it, that it was accurate.
00:46:41
Speaker
ah That's great. well Well, John, there's a ah ah question I always love asking towards the end of these conversations, and it's always about just a cool recommendation of sorts that you would share with the listeners, something that's exciting you and bringing you a little bit of joy in it. A lot of lot of writers, they recommend books, but it doesn't have to be books. It can just be just be anything that you find exciting. So I just extend that to you.
00:47:04
Speaker
Well, yeah, thank you. I think that's a great question. And I think ah there's there's something, you know, of your audience, you know, whether the thing you're becoming a writer a writer or an artist or river guide or, you know, whatever, whatever their pursuits are.
00:47:18
Speaker
I think I just got back from China and and, you know, my wife is from Beijing and. And just being being in Beijing and being in, you know, near being I was near Tibet. I wasn't in Tibet.
00:47:29
Speaker
And traveling, there's no better buzz than travel. Travel makes you see the world at home in a different way. And it opens your eyes. But just because you are um not traveling abroad or outside, you can travel in your own backyard. It's almost like people taking...
00:47:49
Speaker
What are you doing on your vacation, Bill? Now I'm going to kind of play tours to, you know here in San Francisco. And I think that what you do every day is play tours. I think a friend of mine put it this way. He said, just get out every day and meet people.
00:48:05
Speaker
And you'll find, you know, that experience of whether it's the mechanic or, you know, you're going into, you're going to a bar you haven't ever been into. That in correlation with reading.
00:48:18
Speaker
I mean, you must read if you're a writer, um just to imitate, just to go places. And I think it's very kind of, in ah in a way, it's subconscious the way the narrative flow of another writer's mind.
00:48:36
Speaker
Either you'll assume things that you like or you'll you you do not. But the the places you'll go, you know, by reading. And I read all nonfiction.
00:48:47
Speaker
I don't read fiction. I read. I'm reading now a book about, the you know. Stanley Livingston and, you know, and, you know, Dr. Livingston, I presume, you know, that the the the journalists who went after the missing scientist, you know, and i i love being in Africa. I love it's 150 years ago and I can't wait to when the when my day is ready, where I'm ready to dive into that book again.
00:49:13
Speaker
i I will close by saying this. I mean, i think illustrates this point, perhaps the show versus the tell. I was in my office one day in San Francisco and I was working my Work A Day World life as a covering San Francisco for the LA Times.
00:49:27
Speaker
And I was eating my lunch at my desk and the secretary came and said, there's a guy at the door and he he wants to speak to a reporter. And then, you know, okay. What's he want? Well, he's British and he's riding his bicycle around the world.
00:49:41
Speaker
He's in San Francisco and he's kind of peddling a story when he comes in. So Richard Gregg came in and he sat down and ah loved Richard. I mean, he was just like he was coming to North America and he was on you know his way, he'd been across to Asia, he'd been here and there.
00:49:54
Speaker
And was like, oh my God, I'm so jealous of ah being at his freedom. So I picked up the phone, and I go, honey, can I bring home a perfect stranger to let stay with us for a few days? You know? Of course, you know, she said, OK, so Richard stayed with me for like two weeks in our house of San Francisco.
00:50:09
Speaker
And he started coming with me on my stories. And so we when he was there, I did a story about the San Quentin baseball team. and And it was the the team that plays all home games because it was all made up of like murderers, row guided killing in teams like Babe Ruth baseball teams would go to the prison and play them.
00:50:28
Speaker
And he came with and we did we did a story about a robot called Slats that was made the University of you know California, Berkeley. And Richard loved my life. he thought i had He thought I had the perfect life. And I thought he had the perfect life.
00:50:44
Speaker
And we both had the perfect life. we Because our spirit was going out there and being adventurous, whether you do it at home or do it on the road. So I just think, you know, that my lesson to people is like... Fortify your mind with with ah with with reading and fortify your soul every day. but It's a fascinating world out there.
00:51:03
Speaker
you know i'd much rather read ah ah book that I know it really happened than something. And there are great novels you know out there. i just i i i i read I read for work and I read for adventure. And that that's where that's where my interests lie.
00:51:20
Speaker
Well, that's wonderful. Yeah. And that this that that very sentiment is really baked into No Friday Night Lights and how you just really detail and sit with ah sit with this town, the underdogs who who who remain under. And it's ah a yeah it's a wonderful piece of immersive journalism. And and this conversation was wonderful, too, to get ah your insights into and to how you go about the work and finding those gliona stories. so So, yeah. It was really fun. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
00:51:56
Speaker
Okay. Well, thanks to John for the patience. My God, it's been like a million years since we recorded and got this together. Thanks to you, kind listener. Also, consider the the Archer City workshops about the feature writing, the reconstructed narrative.
00:52:11
Speaker
Few spots left. I'm telling you, learning from those three might be some of the best money you ever spent. Just saying. I believe it was the parting shot for episode 460 with Megan Marshall. I don't know. Honestly, I lose touch, lose track of what I say on the podcast, lose track
Social Media and Ethical Promotion
00:52:31
Speaker
of the episodes. I used to have an encyclopedic knowledge, but there's just too many now.
00:52:35
Speaker
But it was something and it had something to do with potentially deleting my meta properties, Facebook and Instagram. I have a Facebook profile, but mainly it's only for reporting. I don't hang out there.
00:52:47
Speaker
But I am addicted to Instagram whenever it's at my fingertips. ah Anyway, the deletion, it might still be on the table, but this is an argument here for keeping them. And let me explain with an anecdote.
00:53:01
Speaker
Several years ago, I was at Saratoga Racecourse, and a friend, along with his religious parents, visited his a horse racing venue, gambling being a big no-no to Texas-raised Southern Baptists.
00:53:15
Speaker
My pal's mother wouldn't gamble, but... She gave me money to bet for her, because in her head, this absolved her of the act, outsourcing the sin to the unredeemable, ya boy.
00:53:31
Speaker
I say this because social media is something I disdain, but have accepted the necessary evilness of it all, though I harbor fantasies of the mass deletions of our accounts and watch as the tech oligarchs, empires, crumble at the collective c click of a mouse.
00:53:49
Speaker
There's something to be said that self-promoting our articles or books isn't worth the trade-off that puts even more millions and billions into the pockets and net worth of these terrible men. And I often ask you,
00:54:03
Speaker
to share the show or otherwise promote my stuff. I can say that the work I do is putting putting the shit out there and then I put it on you to share it.
00:54:15
Speaker
If we're being honest, how often does anybody really share anything when asked? I know I rarely do. I try to be better about that. I try and do my part, but I often consume cool things and end right there. Now, I don't have to live on social media, nor should you, but it would be unfair of me to ask you to get your hands dirty on social media so I don't have to.
00:54:40
Speaker
Social media once removed. That makes me no different than my friend's mother asking me to place a few bets on horses for her. Now, my wife, partner, whatever, and I were lamenting how much we habitually reach for our phones, even if it's just for games.
00:54:56
Speaker
But there's always the seduction and compulsion of constant email checking and doom scrolling. And I said to her in this moment of frustration and rare moment of clarity, this thing in our hands, man, it's just a toolbox.
00:55:14
Speaker
It's there to serve our needs, depending on the tool. All too often, we allow it. yeah the The toolbox becomes the master, and we become its toolbox for attention, for data, for numbing.
00:55:26
Speaker
In a nutshell, that's my argument for keeping things. I know I find out about events through Instagram that I otherwise wouldn't know about. I still spend most of my time feeding my website, ah blog posts, or anti-social media feed, putting a lot of attention and care into the pod stack, the podcast, the newsletter.
00:55:45
Speaker
Those things matter. Really steeping myself in my podcast transcripts and making good permission assets that are nourishing and inspiring. One hopes, or one can't hope. And sure, many of us hate the idea of promoting and self-promoting.
00:55:58
Speaker
It always feels icky. That's almost a universal feeling. But if we step out of our own heads for just a second, we didn't do any of this shit alone. There are editors, designers, agents, publicists, marketing people, book packagers, booksellers, researchers, spouses, editors,
00:56:16
Speaker
and friends who are very much invested in the journey. you know Not just you. You think NFL quarterbacks like getting up to face the media after every game. They are obligated to, I think per the CBA, collective bargaining agreement, but a usually has the highest paid player and basically middle management.
00:56:35
Speaker
ah By and large, they're someone who represents the entire team. In a way, as the author, Yeah, your name's on the cover, but you are a proxy for the entire line of production.
00:56:46
Speaker
To fail to do your part, or our part, of the promotion sells everyone short. Also, regarding social media, it may feel like you're spamming the world, but based on the nefarious algorithms, I don't know, fewer people than we think are actually seeing our shit we post anyway.
00:57:03
Speaker
All of this is to say that failing to pro promote your slash our own work, I'll just use our, out of some self-righteous virtue, may appeal to some hipster ethic, certainly one that appeals to me on some level, on some base level, but it's also selfish and undermines the team of people who helped realize the dream.
00:57:24
Speaker
It's a good reminder that we don't have to delete all our shit to rage against the algorithm, keep them there as placeholders. There are degrees of raging from complete abstention to pure intentionality.
00:57:38
Speaker
Also, it's a bit of a dick move to let others do your dirty work. I got enough strikes against me. I don't need that one too. So stay wild, see in efforts. And if you can't do, wouldn't you like that on a t-shirt? Interview.