WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:06.280
The Chilly Effect is sponsored by Walt
Street, Window dot Com and listeners like

2
00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:15.800
you Yeah now, undated, voyce
and check Chelly July twelve. I think

3
00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:20.000
it's the twelfth, July twelve,
twenty three, allegedly, according to that

4
00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:23.120
thing we call a calendar, this
is indeed the show you were looking for,

5
00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:27.160
because you're hearing me say all of
this stuff. Anyway, welcome to

6
00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:30.879
it. It's Wednesday. It's the
wild Card as produced by Nature Boy.

7
00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:35.399
And you know that means we have
no idea what the theme is, what

8
00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:39.000
the guests could be. Uh.
Sometimes I don't even know who the guest

9
00:00:39.119 --> 00:00:42.280
is going to be, although we've
been a little better about that lately.

10
00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:46.359
I get a heads up, but
sometimes I get surprise guests, and sometimes

11
00:00:46.399 --> 00:00:50.600
I get guests that well, frankly
I might not have booked, I might

12
00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:57.479
have overlooked. And it's always interesting
because Dave brings on people that are unique

13
00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:00.079
one way or another. If if
you don't know what I'm talking about,

14
00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:03.959
weight and ec who shows up next
two weeks on here we're gonna have the

15
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:10.159
return of the Cross Cross if I
can get it out, the cross dressing

16
00:01:10.200 --> 00:01:12.560
Trump Supporter will be back on.
If you don't know who that is,

17
00:01:12.599 --> 00:01:17.120
and you haven't been listening to the
Wednesday shows, You're gonna find that real

18
00:01:17.239 --> 00:01:23.480
interesting, late, Lady Maga Usa. But anyway, I would prefer to

19
00:01:23.519 --> 00:01:26.599
talk to people who write books.
I really would people who write books,

20
00:01:26.599 --> 00:01:30.480
people who make documentary films. I
love exploring that stuff because it's my favorite

21
00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:38.000
time to media outside of talk radio. Anyways, RC Hand, Okay,

22
00:01:38.439 --> 00:01:41.840
who am I talking about? An
interesting author? Now, I'm going to

23
00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:44.959
refer to him as Ray during the
discussion, but if you find his books,

24
00:01:45.159 --> 00:01:49.040
RC Hand would be the name you
find him under. And if you

25
00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:53.079
go to just to make sure I
got my notes all straight here, if

26
00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:57.599
you go to Cowboy Productions fifty two
dot com. Okay, I've got a

27
00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:01.560
bookmark, and there's a reason and
for it. It's an interesting story.

28
00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:07.159
This gentleman has a personal story.
He's an author interesting style of writing actually,

29
00:02:07.240 --> 00:02:13.879
which I've only gotten a sliver a
look at. Actually, so this

30
00:02:13.919 --> 00:02:17.199
is one of those situations where I'm
not familiar with their entire canon of the

31
00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:22.919
author's work, But I'm telling you
right now that just his bio and his

32
00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:29.080
introduction on the website are worthy of
your exploration. And why I might be

33
00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:31.719
able to connect it to in a
vague sort of way, part of the

34
00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:36.159
audiobook that I've been putting out for
you guys, in case you haven't caught

35
00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:39.000
it, That is going to go
back into production and we're going to continue

36
00:02:39.039 --> 00:02:45.319
from chapter eleven soon because we're writing
that in real time and editing it for

37
00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:47.439
you guys. If you don't know
about that, check it out at o'chelly

38
00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:52.680
dot com, which also, by
the way, is back too fully functional,

39
00:02:53.599 --> 00:02:57.080
and the podcast will be coming out
through the website once again. But

40
00:02:57.159 --> 00:03:00.639
if you've been hearing us on Apple
or wherever else we've we've gotten through the

41
00:03:00.680 --> 00:03:05.400
regular feeds. We are where most
podcasts are except YouTube. But if you

42
00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:09.080
need video, ROCKFN and oh,
by the bye, this show is also

43
00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:14.840
being recorded for ROCKFN, so you
might be watching me. Sorry about that.

44
00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:17.240
I'll give you something better to look
at, my guest, RC hand,

45
00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:21.639
How are you doing to night start? First of all, I've got

46
00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:25.000
an interesting way to begin this conversation, I hope, But first I want

47
00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.120
to find out how you're doing,
and you know, what's it like for

48
00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:34.080
you on a Wednesday here in human
I'm in human land. I don't know

49
00:03:34.479 --> 00:03:37.960
where you're located exactly, But how
you doing. What's the weather, like,

50
00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:43.240
what's going on? I'm great.
I live in Hinton Beach, California,

51
00:03:43.319 --> 00:03:46.599
and we're right on the beach.
Weather it's seventy or so. It's

52
00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:51.120
beautiful, excellent, excellent. Well, look, I do want to talk

53
00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:53.680
about your books more than the weather, that's for sure. You do have

54
00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:58.680
connections to Atlanta, according to your
website. I guess we'll get into that

55
00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:00.800
at some point, and also where
you grew up and things like that.

56
00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:05.879
Matter of fact, let's go right
for it. I tell stories about spending

57
00:04:05.879 --> 00:04:09.319
a lot of time when I was
a kid, starting at about the age

58
00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:14.159
of six, in a bar.
A lot of people don't know about that.

59
00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:16.800
That's maybe something that's sort of gone
away, But there used to be

60
00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:21.519
a time when parents would bring occasionally, if they had a relationship with their

61
00:04:21.519 --> 00:04:26.360
bartender, they would bring their small
children into the bar and sit us on

62
00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:30.800
a stool in a back corner.
Now, we weren't officially part of anything.

63
00:04:30.839 --> 00:04:33.199
As a matter of fact, we
were supposed to be exactly like children

64
00:04:33.240 --> 00:04:36.199
were, you know, seen,
not heard, and not seen very often

65
00:04:38.199 --> 00:04:43.079
and stay in the back corner while
mom and dad do whatever. And well,

66
00:04:43.160 --> 00:04:45.680
if you guys are familiar with my
story, you know Mom was the

67
00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:48.240
one taking me to the bar.
But anyway, all that or element,

68
00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:53.800
it's an interesting culture and subculture to
be involved in on that side of the

69
00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:57.639
bar. Turns out, according to
your bio, though, you might have

70
00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:01.000
been more like a friend I had
named Chris at one point, who I

71
00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:08.720
found very strange because his parents owned
a bar. They were very very Christian

72
00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:13.000
people, and they owned a bar, and they owned one of the cedious

73
00:05:13.079 --> 00:05:17.720
joints in my town, which I
found interesting. The very Christian people owned

74
00:05:17.720 --> 00:05:21.279
a very rough sort of joint where
listen, I'm gonna be blunt. I

75
00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:25.720
mean, drug dealing was going on, prostitution was going on. The bartender

76
00:05:25.759 --> 00:05:30.240
knew it, but somehow separated that
from his Christian life. And he had

77
00:05:30.279 --> 00:05:33.920
a very nice, shy son named
Chris, and also another one named Michael,

78
00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:39.000
come to think of it, who
were just these really cool kids and

79
00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:43.160
everything. And I got to know
them briefly, but only because they were

80
00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:46.839
on one side of the bar helping
out mom and dad, and I was

81
00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:51.759
on the other just being tucked away
and kept quiet while Mom was doing whatever

82
00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:56.079
she was doing at the bar.
Now that wasn't the place that I hung

83
00:05:56.079 --> 00:05:59.639
out in primarily, but it was
right down the street from it and an

84
00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:03.319
entry place in town. You were
one of those kids on the other side

85
00:06:03.319 --> 00:06:05.920
of that bar who might have been
just you know, part of a family

86
00:06:05.959 --> 00:06:11.079
business or what. How did that? How did that happen? That's correct.

87
00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:15.160
My parents were Mormons, by the
way, so that's a similarity in

88
00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:20.199
your story. My father was a
plaster and he worked on Disneyland out here

89
00:06:20.199 --> 00:06:25.040
in Anaheim, and when that union
job started to slowdown, he went out

90
00:06:25.079 --> 00:06:28.800
looking for jobs to do on his
own, and he went to bid a

91
00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:32.560
plasterin job on a vacant bar and
restaurant and ended up taking up the lease

92
00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:38.800
and we ran it for ten years. Interesting, yet, my father did

93
00:06:38.839 --> 00:06:43.079
work in some of the bars before
he died that I wound up hanging out

94
00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:46.920
in when Mom took me because before
that we had babysitters. But do you

95
00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.439
recall, you know, being around
that when you were young, that there

96
00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:51.839
were you know, kids like me
on the other side of the bar,

97
00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:56.600
or some people think I actually made
that up, like that wasn't a thing,

98
00:06:56.680 --> 00:07:00.480
but I assure you it was.
Did you remember kids me on the

99
00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:02.759
other side, Well, I have
to say that in California, if you

100
00:07:02.839 --> 00:07:09.519
serve food, you're bona fide eating
establishment. They allow children into that building.

101
00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:13.279
So because of that we had children
now, and then that we had

102
00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:16.759
three separate rooms. So the front
of the building was a restaurant, the

103
00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:21.639
second person of the building was a
bar with pool tables and shuffleboard and games,

104
00:07:21.959 --> 00:07:26.360
and the back room was a giant
dance hall that was open on Saturday

105
00:07:26.439 --> 00:07:30.199
nights where we had light entertainment.
Oh nice, a multi leveled, multi

106
00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:34.040
purpose kind of place. So fancier
than the bucket of blood that I was

107
00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:39.759
hanging out in, So definitely likely, not likely, not very fancy.

108
00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:43.560
No, it sounds like it,
okay, Well tell me about that.

109
00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:46.360
Also, quick note for the listeners
in case you don't know it, Mormon's

110
00:07:46.759 --> 00:07:53.759
not the drinking folk, so interesting
that they would have an establishment that serves

111
00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:58.480
alcohol, again separating business from their
own personal beliefs. But go ahead and

112
00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:01.319
tell us about this though, because
it sounds like an interesting place, whether

113
00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:05.199
it's fancy or not. Well,
we were on the edge of civilization at

114
00:08:05.240 --> 00:08:09.040
that time. Anything west of us
was farm fields, tomatoes and beans,

115
00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:16.079
and the police were reticent about coming
into our establishment. It was a ethnic

116
00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:20.240
bar we were in. It located
in a predominantly Hispanic area, and I

117
00:08:20.279 --> 00:08:24.439
grew up. After school every day
I would come in with my brothers.

118
00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:28.839
I was six at the beginning of
this adventure, and we swept and mopped

119
00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:35.120
and loaded boxes full of beer and
clean bathrooms. And my older brother bought

120
00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:37.279
me a shoeshine box, and by
the time I was that was shining shoes

121
00:08:37.320 --> 00:08:41.960
and he was getting a piece of
the action off of that. And we

122
00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:43.879
had two pool tables, so I
was shooting pool when I was eight nine

123
00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:48.639
years old. And we lived there
until I was about sixteen, maybe fifteen.

124
00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:56.080
And again there were a very few
other groups of people that would venture

125
00:08:56.120 --> 00:09:00.799
into this establishment. It was a
real bar, lots of anagan's going on,

126
00:09:00.879 --> 00:09:03.279
shooting, stabbings and the like,
and I got to sit back and

127
00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:07.159
watch a lot of that. Ah, So it wasn't that much different than

128
00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:11.279
the place I was in. Accept
no dance hall, okay, I get

129
00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.519
it um. And just for the
record, in case people aren't watching the

130
00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:18.879
video, if you're just hearing the
audio podcast, you're you're kind of a

131
00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:20.720
white guy. It looks like to
me, I mean that's my best guess,

132
00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:22.960
and that's what people would say if
they saw you. Right, You're

133
00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:26.759
just you know, you're you're a
run of the mill honky so to speak.

134
00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:31.360
That's a joke. Well under these
under these lights coming through my den

135
00:09:31.559 --> 00:09:37.960
window, I do appear that way, Okay. In real life, I'm

136
00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:41.200
a little more brown, and most
often if I go to a restaurant to

137
00:09:41.240 --> 00:09:43.200
eat Mexican food, I'm spoken to
in Spanish, and I do speak Spanish

138
00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:46.879
fairly well. My father spoke Spanish
better than I because he was in construction.

139
00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:50.679
But yeah, I'm not offended at
all, but people speak to me

140
00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:54.639
in Spanish. Okay, no fair
enough, But but you do look like

141
00:09:54.639 --> 00:09:56.799
a white guy under the lights there
Again, lights can be deceiving. That's

142
00:09:56.879 --> 00:10:01.200
right. At this moment, I
look pretty white. Well at that time.

143
00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:05.159
Did your family sort of blend in
with it because you said it was

144
00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:07.799
primarily a Hispanic sort of or you
know, I guess that's not proper to

145
00:10:07.799 --> 00:10:13.240
say anymore Latino whatever it is you
want to call it. But um,

146
00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:16.559
you know, people that speak Spanish
in one form or another were your primary

147
00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:20.159
customer base and the people coming in
and out. Uh, did you seem

148
00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:24.000
to be part of that according to
or were you separate from that? Oh,

149
00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:28.039
I was right in the milieu there. My father spoke perfect Spanish,

150
00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:33.159
and he had dark hair and very
gregarious person. He played the guitar,

151
00:10:33.320 --> 00:10:35.759
the piano, the violin, and
he would play the guitar in our restaurant

152
00:10:35.840 --> 00:10:39.600
sometimes. And people love my dad. He was very easy to like and

153
00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:43.960
get to know, and he was
a perfect emperasario for this kind of establishment.

154
00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:50.159
Ah, So we were there lots
of different kinds of businesses around.

155
00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:52.519
Like were you in a business district? I mean, because you kind of

156
00:10:52.559 --> 00:10:56.919
said you were on the edge of
civilization. I'm trying to draw out the

157
00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:00.840
full picture before I just let you
run with a story here, because I'm

158
00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:03.360
trying to get the whole setting in
my mind. You know, it's California,

159
00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:07.039
first of all. That's a little
different than a lot of other places.

160
00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:09.639
You got nice weather most of the
year, like we started out talking

161
00:11:09.639 --> 00:11:15.519
about at the beginning of the show. Right, absolutely tell us about that,

162
00:11:15.559 --> 00:11:16.759
though, I mean the rest of
it, like what was it surrounded

163
00:11:16.759 --> 00:11:20.120
by? Were there other things around, other businesses or were you in a

164
00:11:20.879 --> 00:11:24.000
neighborhood? I mean, we were
in a neighborhood. We were in a

165
00:11:24.080 --> 00:11:28.840
Latin Hispanic neighborhood. There was a
dairy a couple of blocks south of US,

166
00:11:30.279 --> 00:11:33.679
and directly across the street from US
was a liquor store in an Arco

167
00:11:33.799 --> 00:11:37.879
gas station, and everything west was
mostly fields. And so yeah, we

168
00:11:37.919 --> 00:11:41.960
had a lot of local people live
in the area that would come through.

169
00:11:41.679 --> 00:11:46.399
And the farmers. We had Japanese
farmers. They would come in and buy

170
00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:50.240
a sake and sit in a corner
and have a quiet little party by themselves.

171
00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:54.440
They couldn't speak English, and they'd
come in and their work attire with

172
00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:58.399
the big rubber boots and have a
grand old time drinking three courts sasaki in

173
00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:03.279
the corner. Well, outside of
learning to wash dishes, mop floors,

174
00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:05.399
and again no offense, that's something
that's got to be constantly done in a

175
00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:09.360
bar and a restaurant. But outside
of doing that, I mean, what

176
00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:15.440
other things do you think that early
experience gave you outside of probably a lot

177
00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:18.279
of good stories that I'm sure you've
written about, Uh, you know,

178
00:12:18.399 --> 00:12:22.279
tell us about that a little bit. Outside of the experiences, what other

179
00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:26.559
skills do you think that gave you
in a life well as a child,

180
00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:31.639
all my friends were adult criminals and
drug addicts and alcoholics, and I had

181
00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:37.679
to fend for myself around adults,
and sometimes these people would be less than

182
00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:41.320
pleasant. Most often they thought of
me as their little child, perhaps our

183
00:12:41.399 --> 00:12:46.360
little brother, and we're very gracious
to me. I want to add that

184
00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:50.799
my father was an alcoholic, and
so we had issues with that quite often

185
00:12:50.879 --> 00:12:54.279
in the in the in the years
and my growing years in my life.

186
00:12:54.639 --> 00:13:01.240
So this was a perfect habitat for
him to behave badly and my mother,

187
00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:05.279
of course had to deal with that
on a daily basis, and he joined

188
00:13:05.279 --> 00:13:09.039
in the fun with everybody else,
and again we were welcome with open arms.

189
00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:11.559
I have to say that I have
a very deep warm spot in my

190
00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:15.720
heart for the Hispanic community because they
treated me so well. At the same

191
00:13:15.759 --> 00:13:20.159
time, those that I was dealing
with were the ones who were the least

192
00:13:20.159 --> 00:13:22.840
well behaved, and so you'd have
to duck now and then for a flying

193
00:13:22.919 --> 00:13:28.480
pool queue or you know. I
was in a room where people were shot

194
00:13:28.559 --> 00:13:31.080
and sliced up with knives and so
on and so forth, so it kept

195
00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:37.879
you on your toes, but it
made me appreciate listening to these stories and

196
00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:43.320
being around adults who were not very
successful in the world around them. They

197
00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:48.840
most of were coming in and going
back to prison or jail and for any

198
00:13:48.879 --> 00:13:54.240
number of reasons. And I took
that information and used it to formulate a

199
00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:58.279
way of living. And I didn't
have to make those same mistakes that those

200
00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:03.919
people may in order to learn from
them. And so I look at that

201
00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:07.600
as a valuable education that kept me
on the straight and narrow, so to

202
00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:11.480
speak. Oh, that's a good
way to summarize the complete education that you

203
00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:15.360
would have gotten. You might have
been dealing with some of the well,

204
00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.360
depending on the location there. Now
again I'm still painting a mental picture here.

205
00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:24.679
You might have had a couple of
ethnic motorcycle gangs out there, you

206
00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:28.279
know at that point, Yeah,
they would have existed out there. Did

207
00:14:28.279 --> 00:14:31.679
did you encounter organized guys as well
as you know, your run of the

208
00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:35.720
mills sort of knock around guys that
were again in and out of prison because

209
00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:39.320
or in and out of county jail
at least and then sometimes go into prison

210
00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:43.399
depending on what level they were at. I mean, were you around those

211
00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:46.120
kind of guys too, or were
just you know, part of the hell

212
00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:50.120
raisers set as well? We had
local gang members, and we had motorcycle

213
00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:54.559
gangs, and we had low riders
that would come in occasionally. My neighborhood

214
00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.399
around that place was full of guys
with their cars lowered and customized and painted

215
00:15:00.440 --> 00:15:07.960
in lovely different ways. And I
was the local. My nickname was Wetto,

216
00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:11.120
which means white boy, and I
would go from house to house in

217
00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:13.559
the morning, having a breakfast and
two or three different houses, and everyone

218
00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:18.399
knew me and welcome me in with
open arms. And I looked back on

219
00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:22.919
those times fondly. So at what
point did you decide to write about that

220
00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:30.399
experience and begin telling this story,
which again has endless possibilities. Different directions

221
00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:33.519
you could go in. You could
sort of tell somebody else's story, or

222
00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:37.360
you could begin with something from the
bar if you wanted to. I mean,

223
00:15:37.399 --> 00:15:39.799
there's lots of different ways to go
in different ways. You could have

224
00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:45.600
learned about this and decided to again
make a capsule out of the story and

225
00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:50.039
present it to others. When did
you decide to do that? I started

226
00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:52.639
writing in grammar school. I wrote
my first book I was in sixth grade.

227
00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:56.879
It was about Little league baseball.
And in high school I wrote short

228
00:15:56.960 --> 00:16:03.000
stories and poetry and I worked with
my father for all of my life until

229
00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:07.519
he retired at twenty eight. I
did ten years internship with him in our

230
00:16:07.559 --> 00:16:12.200
plastering business, and I worked in
thousands of people's homes all over. One

231
00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:15.360
morning, I might be in the
forest neighborhood in town. In the next

232
00:16:15.639 --> 00:16:19.080
hour, I'd be in the wealthiest
neighborhood. So I saw all spectrums of

233
00:16:19.080 --> 00:16:25.519
life working with my father, and
my characters in my books are very I

234
00:16:25.559 --> 00:16:29.919
think, highly developed, and I
have to be very careful that not all

235
00:16:29.960 --> 00:16:36.320
of them are stereotypical drunks and nerdy
Wells. But I find myself creating someone

236
00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:38.559
and creating an environment, and pretty
soon I'm back in a bar somewhere.

237
00:16:38.919 --> 00:16:45.320
I have stories about detectives and boxers
and any number of things that are a

238
00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:49.080
little bit on the senior side of
life, among a couple other books that

239
00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:53.320
are a historical fiction. So I
write a wide range of things. But

240
00:16:53.440 --> 00:17:00.080
those characters that I met influenced me
eventually, and I do have a beginning

241
00:17:00.120 --> 00:17:04.000
to an autobiography of my life.
I cross passed with some famous performers,

242
00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:08.079
so I contain a turner came through
our place early in their career, Jimmy

243
00:17:08.200 --> 00:17:12.559
Rogers. We had Contin Floss,
who was the highest paid performer in the

244
00:17:12.599 --> 00:17:15.759
world back in those days. He
made eighty or one hundred movies. In

245
00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:21.720
Mexico, he did a burlesque floor
show with singing and dancing and so forth.

246
00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:26.640
Looked like a Mexican version of Charlie
Chaplin. So we had all different

247
00:17:26.920 --> 00:17:30.960
We had Mariachi's coming in from Mexico. My dad used to go to Tijuana

248
00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:33.200
to hire them and bring them back
across the border, and he used to

249
00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:37.759
tease me about me not having papers
and perhaps not being able to get back

250
00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:41.720
across the border. Well, look, you ended up being exposed to a

251
00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:48.920
variety of characters that allow you all
sorts of texture where you could fictionalize almost

252
00:17:48.960 --> 00:17:52.720
anything. You know, because of
all these different walks of life, you

253
00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:57.039
were exposed to different elements, different
types of people, different neighborhoods. You

254
00:17:57.079 --> 00:18:00.559
know, a lot of stuff that
is part of the invisible side of America.

255
00:18:00.680 --> 00:18:04.079
You know, the stuff they don't
always show us on TV, the

256
00:18:04.079 --> 00:18:08.160
stuff that they don't always think is
the best, you know, a fodder

257
00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:12.200
for short stories and whatnot. I
mean, right now, we're dealing with

258
00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:15.200
a trend where they've gone back to
the cowboys, you know what I mean.

259
00:18:15.240 --> 00:18:19.079
In modern media and things like that, that's a constant go back.

260
00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:22.640
But a lot of this stuff that
went on, I think during the twentieth

261
00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:27.359
century is not supposed to be talked
about in polite company. But you could

262
00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:32.759
mix up characters and create composites with
a lot of great references here, just

263
00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:37.400
based on your early and then later
on life experiences. It seems like it

264
00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:41.319
was custom made for you to have
lots of references to be able to create

265
00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:48.240
literary characters and interesting people, whether
they were based on real people entirely or

266
00:18:48.279 --> 00:18:53.480
again they were a mishmash, a
composite. Very interesting. One last little

267
00:18:53.559 --> 00:18:56.960
question here before I let you run, and I'd love to hear just one

268
00:18:57.079 --> 00:19:02.599
story that you know, just a
short story if you don't mind that that

269
00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:06.359
gives us an indication of what you're
what you're writing is like, Um,

270
00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:11.039
you mentioned your father was also a
musician, uh, and I find it

271
00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:15.359
hilarious that he was a Mormon alcoholic. I'm sorry. I know that that's

272
00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:18.119
probably not funny to a lot of
people, but to me it always was

273
00:19:18.599 --> 00:19:22.759
because I always found it interesting that, uh, you know, in a

274
00:19:22.799 --> 00:19:26.319
bar, you could find somebody who
was a proud, screaming alcoholic, you

275
00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:30.200
know, who didn't care and that
was their thing and they got their drink

276
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.200
on. And then you had others
that would kind of, you know,

277
00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:37.079
be be hidden, closeted, so
to speak, um, and you could

278
00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:41.839
find them in the same place.
Sometimes really interesting people that if they ran

279
00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:45.759
into each other in the grocery store, either one of them might not even

280
00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:48.880
want to acknowledge the other one's existence. But in the bar they come together.

281
00:19:52.119 --> 00:19:55.720
Yeah, because there's a common ground
and it's the booze. And uh,

282
00:19:55.720 --> 00:19:57.160
you know again, I'm not trying
to mock people's problems. I know,

283
00:19:57.559 --> 00:20:00.799
booze destroys people's lives and things like
that, so I'm not I'm not

284
00:20:00.839 --> 00:20:03.680
trying to be a jerk about it. But I do find it ironic that

285
00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:07.720
the Mormon is an alcoholic. I
saw stuff like that too, and have

286
00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:11.720
Mormon family members as well. But
I always find that interesting when there's this

287
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:18.079
huge amount of hypocrisy, which is
something that I saw a lot when I

288
00:20:18.119 --> 00:20:21.680
was on the other side of the
bar. And my place wasn't a restaurant,

289
00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:23.240
even though they served a little bit
of food. It was one of

290
00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:26.480
those kind of places, you know, where they got the small kitchen,

291
00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:30.720
make a couple of sandwiches, that
kind of thing. But anyway back to

292
00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:37.960
it, though, you really had
a guaranteed, like a whole education laid

293
00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:42.160
in front of you about the human
condition really so that you could build complex

294
00:20:42.279 --> 00:20:48.319
characters. You could relate lots of
stories. I wonder if there's one short

295
00:20:48.319 --> 00:20:51.640
one that you could give us that
would that would indicate to us what a

296
00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:53.960
lot of that was like, that
would give us a snapshot, so to

297
00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:57.400
speak of that number one. Number
two, you mentioned that your dad had

298
00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:03.319
been into music. Did you ever
perform or learn to play an instrument or

299
00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:07.920
sing or anything like that as well, because that's yet another subculture. Uh,

300
00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:11.640
you know a construction person, that's
a subculture. A you know,

301
00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:15.319
a bar, you know the bar
scene. That kind of thing is another

302
00:21:15.319 --> 00:21:19.200
stuff. It's like you have all
these subcultures that you had access to.

303
00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:23.200
D Did you ever get into the
music land if you will? Because your

304
00:21:23.279 --> 00:21:27.240
dad based on working with the mariachi's, having talents on his own, having

305
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:32.359
a bar, there's a ballroom there. There's all sorts of possibilities where you

306
00:21:32.359 --> 00:21:36.079
could have been. I don't know, swept more into entertainment as opposed to

307
00:21:36.119 --> 00:21:40.160
a construction, you know, for
lack of a better term. So could

308
00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:42.400
you give me an idea about that
and then give me a story in short

309
00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:48.680
form? Obviously that gives us an
idea what that snapshot is like. That

310
00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:52.480
shows us, you know, where
you could find a diverse um source if

311
00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:59.680
you will, or diverse sources for
characters and storytelling. So yeah, two

312
00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:03.720
question, were you ever into music
at all? And did that go anywhere?

313
00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:07.839
And two could you give us a
composite where it gives us a snapshot

314
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:11.160
of how you have access to all
these different people and what that might have

315
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:15.920
fed you know, given give us
an idea about that. Good. Well,

316
00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:19.079
all of my siblings and I I
had two older brothers and a younger

317
00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:22.680
sister, were all six years apart. We all took music lessons. I

318
00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:27.319
played the tenor saxophone, my sister
played the violin and flute, and my

319
00:22:27.359 --> 00:22:33.039
brother played the violin. We I
did not go into it in a deeper

320
00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:37.440
sense than either did my siblings,
but we all have that skill, and

321
00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:45.240
mine probably lesser of the three of
us. I had two brothers who these

322
00:22:45.240 --> 00:22:48.079
are customers and associates. That came
into our bar. Two brothers. One

323
00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:52.599
was Leko, who was a fellow
about six foot tall, about three hundred

324
00:22:52.599 --> 00:22:57.319
and fifty pounds, and he had
a barbershop in his house and that's where

325
00:22:57.319 --> 00:23:00.480
I would go to get my haircut. And he had little It wasn't in

326
00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:03.240
his house per se, but he
had a shed built on the side with

327
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:07.960
the three or four sheet supply we
basically and his wife was as big as

328
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:11.559
your baby finger. And he was
just this enormous fellow. And he would

329
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:17.400
trim your hair with a piece of
broken glass around your ear. He used

330
00:23:17.720 --> 00:23:21.079
a piece of glass, or at
least he held that up to me and

331
00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:23.480
made me believe that that's what he
used to trim the hair around my ears.

332
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:29.480
And his brother's name was Pepe,
and he weighed about one hundred pounds

333
00:23:29.480 --> 00:23:33.759
of wet and he was a cat
burglar. He was a three time loser.

334
00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:37.559
Was he specialized in stealing automobiles and
breaking into your house while you were

335
00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:41.599
sleeping, and going through your clothing
and your drawers for looking for valuables.

336
00:23:42.279 --> 00:23:47.400
Whenever we locked my mom locked the
keys to our car in our car,

337
00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:49.640
we would call Pepe and he would
come and he picked the lock to our

338
00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:53.759
car and let us back in.
So those are a couple of glimpses of

339
00:23:53.839 --> 00:23:57.599
people that I grew up with,
and they were wonderful guys. I had

340
00:23:57.640 --> 00:24:02.400
another friend who had had the tip
of his ear on the top of his

341
00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:06.440
ear bit off in a barroom brawl, and they sowed that piece of ear

342
00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:10.279
into his chest to keep the tissue
alive, and he never went back to

343
00:24:10.319 --> 00:24:14.519
have it reattached. So he had
one ear that looked like tinkerbell, little

344
00:24:14.519 --> 00:24:18.519
pointed ear like spot perhaps. And
and I would say these gentlemen every day

345
00:24:18.519 --> 00:24:23.160
because they were constant. Their only
source apparently of entertainment, and their only

346
00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:30.119
hobby was coming in and drinking beer
all day long. Nice. Nice,

347
00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:45.000
And they would obviously be surrounded arms. All right, I don't know are

348
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.799
you hearing? Okay, sorry about
that. I don't know technology, you

349
00:24:49.799 --> 00:24:53.960
know. Anyways, it's interesting to
me when you when you hear about there's

350
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.079
two characters in the same family there, right, that are definitely interesting.

351
00:24:59.119 --> 00:25:03.039
One guy's got the interesting star.
That's definitely a conversation starter. The other

352
00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:07.799
guy, you know, kind of
a character playing around with you about cutting

353
00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:11.839
your hair with glass. That's that's
pretty funny. Now, what's fascinating to

354
00:25:11.880 --> 00:25:22.680
me is those two guys could be
con I'm sorry, I've lost you.

355
00:25:22.279 --> 00:25:27.279
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not
sure why. I know I'm broadcasting.

356
00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:32.039
So what I was saying is that
they could run into all sorts of different

357
00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:36.400
people at the bar, right,
so, you know, tell me about

358
00:25:36.400 --> 00:25:38.799
the different interactions, like if they
interacted with somebody who came from out of

359
00:25:38.839 --> 00:25:42.960
town who is not familiar with the
area. How did they deal with strangers?

360
00:25:44.279 --> 00:25:47.759
Were they sociable? Did they keep
to themselves? Tell me about that.

361
00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:52.440
I think that, like you said
before, that bar becomes an open

362
00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:56.559
house for everyone to come in.
And as long as you behave yourself,

363
00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:02.279
you already have a common interest.
And if you keep your hands to yourselves

364
00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:07.119
and don't become obnoxious, you can
sit there as long as you'd like.

365
00:26:07.599 --> 00:26:11.440
We actually had a fellow who would
come in and talk to the owner of

366
00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:14.480
the building. He would sit at
the end of the bar. He was

367
00:26:14.480 --> 00:26:17.759
the local whino, and he would
talk to the owner of the building,

368
00:26:17.799 --> 00:26:22.119
who had died about fifteen years before. So he was hallucinating that he was

369
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:26.920
talking to a life person, perhaps
when he'd been dead for many many years,

370
00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:30.720
and we would let him stay until
he began getting obnoxious towards our waitresses

371
00:26:32.039 --> 00:26:34.839
and making gestures and so forth,
and my brothers would pick him up,

372
00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:40.880
and they had tossed him physically through
we had saloon door tight doors. They

373
00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:45.039
would through those saloon doors and count
the times that he balanced as he hit

374
00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:48.720
the concrete outside. But he always
came back. This was his second home,

375
00:26:48.759 --> 00:26:53.079
I suppose. Ah, Okay,
So I got a couple other questions.

376
00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:56.039
You know, first of all,
fascinating that you write your first book

377
00:26:56.079 --> 00:27:03.720
when you're a kid, But you
know, when you decided to put out

378
00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:06.960
your did that get released in everything? I mean it was published right away?

379
00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:10.519
Or was it just no that that
never did. It's a gut loss

380
00:27:10.559 --> 00:27:12.279
to history somewhere. I have no
idea. We moved around quite a bit

381
00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:18.720
so much. Sure, Okay,
So then tell me about the first BOOKCAT

382
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:22.920
published. Then, since we can't
reference that first book directly, you know,

383
00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:26.640
we can't show anybody else at what
was the first BOOKCAT published? I

384
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:30.559
have a book on Amazon called The
Adventures of the Smith Family. It's an

385
00:27:30.599 --> 00:27:36.079
eighteenth century English adventure romance novel about
a young boy who comes from a poor

386
00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:40.359
family with nothing, and with a
little bit of skill and a little bit

387
00:27:40.359 --> 00:27:42.720
of luck, is able to leave
his village and move to a bigger town

388
00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:48.319
and create an empire and become wealthy. It's the first book of two books.

389
00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:52.480
The second book is called Sailing Away, and there they take place during

390
00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:59.160
the American Revolution in England, and
the second book is a sailing adventure from

391
00:27:59.240 --> 00:28:03.000
London to the a training and down
the coast of Africa to South Africa and

392
00:28:03.079 --> 00:28:08.400
perhaps back to London if all goes
well. Interesting. So that's part of

393
00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:12.000
your historical fiction you were talking about, like where it's got, you know,

394
00:28:12.119 --> 00:28:15.599
gives you an idea of the time
period and a lot of other things.

395
00:28:17.319 --> 00:28:21.759
How much how much real world is
in that? Well? I do

396
00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:25.799
historical research. I when I do
write something, I try to make it

397
00:28:25.880 --> 00:28:30.359
as truthful and the correct as possible. That story is really the story of

398
00:28:30.359 --> 00:28:33.799
my life, coming from a family
with nothing and using the tools that you

399
00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:38.799
have at hand to venture out into
the world and become successful. And of

400
00:28:38.799 --> 00:28:45.240
course if you have the determination,
you can accomplish anything. It hasn't a

401
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:48.000
lot to do with your brain power. It's how hard you're willing to work

402
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:52.319
and how determined you are to succeed
in my case, I see, the

403
00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:56.480
failure is not an option. Excellent. Well, you know another thing that

404
00:28:56.519 --> 00:29:00.759
comes to my mind as you mentioned
that there were pool tables in the back

405
00:29:00.799 --> 00:29:03.839
of the place. Now, let's
just be straight and blunt about it.

406
00:29:03.839 --> 00:29:07.039
Were you a hustler or were you
just enjoying the game and played a little

407
00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:11.920
I mean, quite frankly, I
wounded up making a little money hustling and

408
00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:17.559
wound up getting the attention of the
local Italian businessmen after somebody tried to whack

409
00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:19.720
me out with a pool que actually, which is one of my favorite stories

410
00:29:19.720 --> 00:29:25.559
to tell from my life, and
it got me a little bit of respect.

411
00:29:25.960 --> 00:29:30.079
You know, at the age of
eight, okay, we have we're

412
00:29:30.079 --> 00:29:36.000
living in a parallel universe. My
skills were highly developed, and I never

413
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:37.599
played for money if anyone, but
I wish I had a nickel for every

414
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:45.160
quarter I put in that pool table
ire somewhere, because I spent a lot

415
00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:48.920
of time leaning over those tables.
I'm not granted algebraic, except I'm good

416
00:29:48.920 --> 00:29:52.200
at geometry, which you use that
geometry on the pool table. I've got

417
00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:56.039
that down pretty well. Oh yeah, excellent. I mean, look,

418
00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:59.480
I never even focused on the fancy
shots or anything. I just you know,

419
00:29:59.519 --> 00:30:03.799
focused on the fundamentals and did the
best I could. And quite frankly,

420
00:30:03.799 --> 00:30:07.480
it was a matter of survival.
I could earn enough money to eat,

421
00:30:07.640 --> 00:30:10.640
okay, if I did that,
because Mom didn't have a lot of

422
00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:14.480
money. She was at the bar. But that's another story, you know.

423
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:17.160
So I had to come up with
my own chips and stuff. I

424
00:30:17.160 --> 00:30:19.519
mean, they gave me the soda
for free, thankfully, but everything else

425
00:30:19.559 --> 00:30:22.279
I had to earn for the day. I also find it funny about the

426
00:30:22.279 --> 00:30:26.480
shoeshine thing, because I'm very sure
you had packs of matches in your shoeshine

427
00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:30.440
box so you could light people's cigarettes. That was a big thing. Another

428
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:34.000
thing people questioned when I told the
story about it that I used to actually

429
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:40.720
get occasionally pieces of change just for
lighting a cigarette or having a single cigarette

430
00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:42.880
on me, even though I was
a little kid. Somebody didn't want to

431
00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:47.480
get up from the bar, I
could sell them that cigarette for a premium

432
00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:49.319
at that time. Well that's how
they get him, That's how they get

433
00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:52.039
him in jail. So they're used
to that. Yeah. And that was

434
00:30:52.079 --> 00:30:56.039
the other thing is that they were
very accustomed to it. Even though a

435
00:30:56.119 --> 00:30:59.799
quarter was a lot of more money
than it is today. A quarter for

436
00:30:59.839 --> 00:31:02.359
a cigarette was fine if you didn't
want to get up from that bar and

437
00:31:02.359 --> 00:31:04.599
you really needed a cigarette, so
I'd have matches to light it. You

438
00:31:04.680 --> 00:31:08.039
get a cigarette, I'd lighted for
you. The ladies would always blush,

439
00:31:08.039 --> 00:31:14.240
Oh what a little gentleman. And
I got tips, you know, So

440
00:31:14.599 --> 00:31:17.279
any which way you can, you
got to hustle up money. So you

441
00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:21.119
never use pool to hustle money.
Huh No. But I did shine a

442
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:22.720
lot of shoes, and I have
to tell you that one of the secrets

443
00:31:22.759 --> 00:31:27.440
my brother showed me was five day
deodorant pads. You shine your shoes and

444
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:30.359
you run a five day deodorant pad
over him, and it really brings out

445
00:31:30.359 --> 00:31:33.119
the gloss. And then you take
a match and kind of melt at wax.

446
00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:37.240
You hold the shoe upside down and
it does a really nice job.

447
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:40.400
I have to say, I feel
really sorry for all the shoeshine man,

448
00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:42.839
because no one wears shoes to shine
anymore. Everybody wears tennis shoes. The

449
00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:48.000
shine man as a man of the
past. Yeah, there's no such thing

450
00:31:48.039 --> 00:31:52.960
as the shoe shine boy anymore.
You know because again, like you said,

451
00:31:52.160 --> 00:31:56.359
who wears shiny shoes. I'll tell
you another thing I used to get

452
00:31:56.359 --> 00:31:59.759
and I used to make quarters.
That was the thing is a lot of

453
00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:02.400
orders in the nineteen seventies. Was
was plenty. I put a few of

454
00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:06.240
those together and I got a meal. You know. It wasn't too bad,

455
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:10.839
you know. So waitresses would come
in right and I don't know how

456
00:32:10.839 --> 00:32:14.400
it started to happen, but I
ended up giving foot rubs to some of

457
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:19.640
the waitresses sitting on the little rail. You know, the little rail there's

458
00:32:19.640 --> 00:32:22.519
like a foot If you're not familiar
with going to a bar, folks,

459
00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:23.960
I know a lot of people don't
go to bars anymore because you know,

460
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:28.400
COVID and whatnot. But believe me, there used to be these little rails

461
00:32:28.440 --> 00:32:31.799
around the bars that were where people
rested their feet a lot. And these

462
00:32:31.799 --> 00:32:36.519
waitresses would come in after twelve hours, and yeah, I wound up giving

463
00:32:36.519 --> 00:32:39.599
foot rubs for twenty five or fifty
cents, and it was plenty of money,

464
00:32:39.640 --> 00:32:43.920
and it made them happy, and
they were really hurting because they had

465
00:32:43.960 --> 00:32:46.440
been, you know, on their
feet for twelve sixteen hours. Sometimes that's

466
00:32:46.759 --> 00:32:50.119
not a bad way to make a
Carter, I might be willing to do

467
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:52.440
that at this time. Yeah,
hey, hey, nothing wrong, nothing

468
00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:58.119
wrong with it for a bunch of
different reasons, but just sitting and you

469
00:32:58.160 --> 00:33:01.160
want to talk about conversations waitresses.
See, now you were in a place

470
00:33:01.160 --> 00:33:05.799
that might actually had waitresses that worked
there. The place I was at,

471
00:33:05.839 --> 00:33:09.240
the waitresses came into drink because you
just needed a bartender, and really they

472
00:33:09.240 --> 00:33:13.400
should have had some bouncers, but
they never hired those people. It would

473
00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:15.880
be one or two or three bartenders
depending on how busy the place was.

474
00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:21.279
And that was it. But anyway, getting away from that just for a

475
00:33:21.319 --> 00:33:24.480
moment. So you have this historical
fiction. When did you have you written

476
00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:30.720
about your childhood, like in a
full long form book or has it only

477
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:34.960
been in short stories because I'm not
I'm not sure how much you put into

478
00:33:35.559 --> 00:33:40.319
that is directly relatable to your childhood. I have several stories on my website

479
00:33:40.799 --> 00:33:46.039
that are directly related to my childhood
experiences, and I tell two stories on

480
00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:51.599
stage that are on Facebook that you
can the videos are on there that you

481
00:33:51.599 --> 00:33:53.319
can watch, and those are all
stories from my childhood. I have four

482
00:33:53.359 --> 00:34:00.039
of those on my Facebook page,
but there's several on my website that you

483
00:34:00.039 --> 00:34:04.680
can look at, and I will
compile those into my autobiography at some point.

484
00:34:05.920 --> 00:34:07.760
I have the book I just finished. You mentioned Westerns. I just

485
00:34:07.800 --> 00:34:13.760
finished a book on early California about
a haunted house, and I think it's

486
00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:15.760
my best book so for. It's
not available yet. It's in editing right

487
00:34:15.800 --> 00:34:20.599
now, and I've started. I
have twelve chapters for a book on World

488
00:34:20.599 --> 00:34:23.960
War two, which is a precursor
to my spy novel that is called Grandpa

489
00:34:24.079 --> 00:34:29.519
Ernie's Secrets, which takes place in
Italy during the Iraq War. And it's

490
00:34:29.559 --> 00:34:32.559
a group of people. It's a
family history of people who all belonged in

491
00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:40.199
the CIA over three three generations.
Okay, that's an interesting tale. I'd

492
00:34:40.239 --> 00:34:44.800
love to see how that turns out, you know, because they I'm very

493
00:34:44.840 --> 00:34:47.119
interested in the CIA and such.
But let me get back to some of

494
00:34:47.119 --> 00:34:52.239
the other curiosities that are rolling around
in my brain as I speak to you.

495
00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:55.639
You know, another thought I had
is, frankly, here here's a

496
00:34:55.719 --> 00:34:59.639
book idea I had, and I'm
gonna throw it at you because I'm not

497
00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:02.440
going to write it. Okay.
I started to work on it and decided,

498
00:35:02.679 --> 00:35:07.280
no, good, you can have
this if you want it. Every

499
00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:12.840
bar, okay, every gin mill. I forget how I titled it the

500
00:35:12.880 --> 00:35:15.960
first time, but it was really
a snappy sounding title. Every gin mill

501
00:35:16.400 --> 00:35:20.639
is haunted. Now Why do I
say that? Because it seemed to me

502
00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:23.360
like every place when I went and
I traveled as a musician later in life,

503
00:35:23.679 --> 00:35:27.480
so I went to a lot of
bars, different places New York,

504
00:35:27.480 --> 00:35:31.639
New Jersey, Pennsylvania up to Canada. It seemed to me like every drinking

505
00:35:31.760 --> 00:35:37.920
establishment has a supernatural story. Now
I don't know if that's just my experience

506
00:35:37.960 --> 00:35:42.199
and that's some places I was attracted
to, but it seemed to me like

507
00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:45.639
and also over the years, as
I've talked to people about their favorite bars,

508
00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:47.880
the places they went to listen to
live music, whatever it is.

509
00:35:49.039 --> 00:35:52.039
If they had a situation where there
was a bar that they liked to frequent,

510
00:35:52.679 --> 00:35:57.360
apparently there's always a legendary story.
If it's been there for a little

511
00:35:57.360 --> 00:35:59.880
while. You know, it can't
be something that just opened last week.

512
00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:01.800
But if it's been there for a
little while, if it's been there for

513
00:36:01.840 --> 00:36:08.360
a couple of years, every joint
has a ghost. Every bar or every

514
00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:12.800
gym mill is haunted. I don't
remember how I titled it, But it

515
00:36:12.920 --> 00:36:16.360
just seemed to me like a series
of short stories could be told about actual

516
00:36:16.440 --> 00:36:22.360
stuff, legends one way or another, or honestly goodness stuff where you got

517
00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:24.639
bartenders to tell you this place is
haunted, there's a guy that died,

518
00:36:24.719 --> 00:36:29.400
and that he comes here still to
drink. We think whatever. Whatever,

519
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.519
So tell me now that I'm nuts
and that you never encountered that. Now

520
00:36:34.519 --> 00:36:37.559
you're right on target. Our building. Our building was built in the nineteen

521
00:36:37.639 --> 00:36:45.199
twenties. It had been a bar
for many, many years. And besides

522
00:36:45.239 --> 00:36:49.119
the whine I was talking to the
dead owner, we had in our in

523
00:36:49.159 --> 00:36:52.320
our large dance hall. In the
back as you entered it from the bar

524
00:36:52.679 --> 00:36:58.079
to the right was a raised platform
about an eight foot high stairwell, and

525
00:36:58.199 --> 00:37:02.280
the back of that for him,
there was a shadow box created with a

526
00:37:02.280 --> 00:37:07.559
shepherd and a flock of sheep,
and it was three dimensional with several layers

527
00:37:07.559 --> 00:37:10.159
of animals. And I would walk
in there it would scare the bejeebers out

528
00:37:10.159 --> 00:37:15.239
of me every time. And the
ceiling this place was probably as big as

529
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.000
three or four tennis courts, so
it's pretty good size place. It woul

530
00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:21.760
whole three hundred and fifty people.
We'd sell fifty cases of beer on a

531
00:37:21.800 --> 00:37:24.960
Saturday night. And this is the
dancehall area just to dancehall are just a

532
00:37:25.079 --> 00:37:30.239
dancehall had a separate bar and a
bandstand. And my dad stapled the whole

533
00:37:30.320 --> 00:37:36.280
ceiling of this place with tinfoil and
painted it with psychedelic glow in the dark

534
00:37:36.440 --> 00:37:39.519
paint the nice so you had lots
of stuff for the lights to bounce off.

535
00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:44.760
That was It was probably a really
good economical way, although maybe it

536
00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:46.320
was a little dangerous. I mean, I'm thinking back to one of the

537
00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:50.920
fires not too long ago where they
had weird stuff on the ceiling that got

538
00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:53.239
lit up through pyro. Well,
this was all made This was all made

539
00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:57.320
from tinfoil, so it wouldn't burn, no good thing, good thing.

540
00:37:57.360 --> 00:38:00.440
But when they came in, the
breeze blew through that tinfoil would rattle up

541
00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:06.000
on that ceiling and our dogs would
not go in that room. So there's

542
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:07.639
something that happened in that room.
And every time I went into it,

543
00:38:07.679 --> 00:38:12.480
I was scared to death. And
also people would go in there. They

544
00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:15.119
could, they had access to it
during the week because the restrooms were there,

545
00:38:15.480 --> 00:38:19.119
and they would go back in there
and go to the dark corners and

546
00:38:19.119 --> 00:38:22.920
shoot heroin and so now and then
you'd wander in there to do some sleeping

547
00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:27.000
or clean a bathroom and you see
some guy wrapped up with a rubber band

548
00:38:27.039 --> 00:38:34.760
on his arms shooting heroin. So
that was always a little creepy while you

549
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:40.000
were there. I'm sorry I passed
away while you were there in that place,

550
00:38:42.280 --> 00:38:45.199
not that I know of. We
we had a shooting and other things,

551
00:38:45.239 --> 00:38:49.559
but I don't think anybody anybody passed
away there. This was probably the

552
00:38:49.639 --> 00:38:52.400
poor. Okay. Well, and
there's one other question that could tie into

553
00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:55.679
the legend thing. I'm not done
with that. You know, you mentioned

554
00:38:55.679 --> 00:38:59.960
it was open in the twenties.
Now, is there any prohibition stories attack

555
00:39:00.199 --> 00:39:02.440
to the place? Was it at
one time to speak easier or anything like

556
00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:07.440
that. I wouldn't doubt it.
I don't know of any stories in particular.

557
00:39:07.159 --> 00:39:12.760
Again, because of its Hispanic background, it wouldn't be a part of

558
00:39:12.760 --> 00:39:16.679
the mainstream stories of the area.
And it was also out on the edge

559
00:39:16.679 --> 00:39:22.079
of town. The police wouldn't even
venture into this place. It was the

560
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:24.360
last place on the planet they wanted
to come into because of its reputation,

561
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:30.400
and any person who was passing by
and stopped in for a drink was in

562
00:39:30.440 --> 00:39:34.159
for a very rude awakening. If
they came in and sat down. It

563
00:39:34.199 --> 00:39:37.280
was not what you would It looked
quite different from the outside than what it

564
00:39:37.360 --> 00:39:39.880
was inside once you got inside.
Oh yeah, but you know, no

565
00:39:39.920 --> 00:39:43.679
matter what neighborhood it's in, it
could have been part of you know,

566
00:39:43.719 --> 00:39:46.639
bootlegging and stuff. And because you
were in construction, I figured maybe you

567
00:39:46.679 --> 00:39:52.679
would have encountered weird things like hollow
walls and stuff about the history. Yeah,

568
00:39:52.719 --> 00:39:57.760
okay, so you are correct about
that. We discovered an outside entrance

569
00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:01.639
into the attic space and everyone in
the neighborhood knew about it, but we

570
00:40:01.679 --> 00:40:06.320
didn't. And we used to stack
We used to stack our empty beer cartons

571
00:40:06.360 --> 00:40:09.280
out there, and the neighborhood kids
would climb up those beer cartons, and

572
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:13.760
I mean kids, I mean gang
members. They would go into the attic,

573
00:40:14.039 --> 00:40:20.159
drop down and get free beer.
And we had a few incidences of

574
00:40:21.039 --> 00:40:23.719
vandalism and so forth, and it
didn't It took us years to find out

575
00:40:23.719 --> 00:40:29.360
where they were getting in at My
dad actually put flour on the floor to

576
00:40:29.400 --> 00:40:35.119
try and catch the footprints because he
thought the place was haunted and We never

577
00:40:35.159 --> 00:40:38.159
got footprints where he put the flower
because they were dropping down in behind in

578
00:40:38.199 --> 00:40:43.559
the cloak room that we didn't realize
how to access from the attic into the

579
00:40:43.599 --> 00:40:49.159
back cloak room, which we didn't
use. Nice. Nice, There's an

580
00:40:49.199 --> 00:40:52.199
element you could add to any story
right there. I mean, you could

581
00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:57.199
create a fictional crime situation and have
the problem of they couldn't find the entrance

582
00:40:57.199 --> 00:41:00.599
because they're looking for ghosts. That
that's very interesting. One of those old

583
00:41:00.599 --> 00:41:04.880
ghost hunter tricks where they put powder
on the floor to see in baby powder

584
00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:08.320
or flower or whatever to see if
anything makes contact even though nobody's supposed to

585
00:41:08.360 --> 00:41:13.119
be there. I don't know how
often that's successful, but I know it's

586
00:41:13.119 --> 00:41:17.360
a common thing done though. That's
that's really interesting. So, Okay,

587
00:41:17.400 --> 00:41:22.280
we maybe have a history, but
I'm telling you, everywhere I go there

588
00:41:22.400 --> 00:41:29.280
was always some sort of legend tied
to any long standing saloon or tavern or

589
00:41:29.320 --> 00:41:31.400
you know, just straight up bar. It always seemed to have a legend

590
00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:35.960
attached to it where somebody was haunting
it. I mean, you could take

591
00:41:36.039 --> 00:41:38.400
that story just as you related it, right, You got the guy who's

592
00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:42.400
talking to the dead guy there.
Well, you know what, maybe he's

593
00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:45.000
not delusional. The guy's really there. You could write the story that way.

594
00:41:45.199 --> 00:41:47.400
Maybe it's got something to do with
I mean, right there, there's

595
00:41:47.400 --> 00:41:51.920
story elements right in front of you. Then you could assemble you the listener,

596
00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:54.079
not you, RC. You're a
better storyteller than me, obviously,

597
00:41:54.440 --> 00:41:58.920
but I mean, I'm just saying, right there, you've got automatic pieces

598
00:41:58.920 --> 00:42:04.800
that you could assemble into something really
fascinating just telling this little story. So

599
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:07.599
all right, um, next question
and last one that I want to get

600
00:42:07.639 --> 00:42:12.760
into before you tell us about a
few places where people can find your work

601
00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:17.679
and purchase it support what you're doing. Oh also, I gotta remember your

602
00:42:17.719 --> 00:42:22.400
Facebook page. Is it just RC
hand on Facebook? That's correct? And

603
00:42:22.440 --> 00:42:27.320
I'm on Instagram also, Okay,
so Facebook Instagram. You probably haven't gotten

604
00:42:27.320 --> 00:42:30.760
around a thread yet. That's a
new thing through Instagram. But either way,

605
00:42:30.840 --> 00:42:34.920
Facebook, Instagram, Do you have
a Twitter? Also? Not yet

606
00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.840
nor at no problem, listen,
I hate social media. I hate trying

607
00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:43.199
to work it out. I've got
a few, I got accounts I forgot

608
00:42:43.199 --> 00:42:46.920
I even have. But either way, you can find ourc hand on Facebook

609
00:42:47.039 --> 00:42:51.920
and also on Instagram. Will give
you links in the show notes along with

610
00:42:52.119 --> 00:42:54.960
a link to his website, which
I mentioned earlier, and you can find

611
00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:00.000
his books on Amazon. If you're
a lazy and don't mind going through you

612
00:43:00.039 --> 00:43:04.960
can find them on Amazon. But
if not, go over to Cowboy Productions

613
00:43:05.039 --> 00:43:09.800
fifty two dot com. That's all
one word together, okay, Cowboy Productions

614
00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:15.239
fifty two dot com, and you
can explore and also see a couple of

615
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:21.039
stories in short about some of the
things that we've talked about. But get

616
00:43:21.039 --> 00:43:24.360
in touch with our shand explorers work. There's a photo gallery over there,

617
00:43:24.679 --> 00:43:28.960
there's a blog, a few other
things. I will give you the link

618
00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:30.559
to that in the show notes as
well. If I get a minute,

619
00:43:30.599 --> 00:43:34.440
I'll drop it in the live chat
room at Ocelli dot com. But if

620
00:43:34.440 --> 00:43:37.239
you don't see it there, look
at the show notes on them. Wherever

621
00:43:37.280 --> 00:43:40.960
you're getting this podcast from, whether
it's on rockfin where you see the video

622
00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:45.760
and such, or it is anywhere
else, we always give you notes.

623
00:43:45.159 --> 00:43:52.599
So Cowboy Productions fifty two dot com. That's his website. But again,

624
00:43:52.679 --> 00:44:00.960
continuing the conversation without you know,
interrupting with a plug again, when was

625
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:06.000
the first time that you wrote about
the experiences that I've been focused on here

626
00:44:06.320 --> 00:44:09.719
the early childhood stuff. And again, there's probably a few parallel universe things

627
00:44:09.719 --> 00:44:14.639
here. I'm rubbing feet, you're
shining shoes. You can make a parallel

628
00:44:14.679 --> 00:44:16.280
there. I'm on one side of
the bar, you were on the other.

629
00:44:17.880 --> 00:44:21.760
At some point, though, you
end up going a little bit full

630
00:44:21.760 --> 00:44:23.079
spectrum, you know what I mean. You end up telling more than one

631
00:44:23.239 --> 00:44:28.800
story. In a story, you
have to introduce characters and things like that.

632
00:44:29.159 --> 00:44:34.400
At what point did you first write
about those early experiences that I do

633
00:44:34.519 --> 00:44:37.559
find fascinating And I'm glad to hear
that I'm not, you know, just

634
00:44:37.159 --> 00:44:42.159
totally insane and living in an alternate
reality, because a lot of people have

635
00:44:42.280 --> 00:44:45.199
told me, well, this kind
of stuff doesn't happen that you talked about

636
00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:49.000
here. You know, I knocked
out a guy with a pool queue.

637
00:44:49.039 --> 00:44:52.480
That's how I got the attention to
the local Italian businessman. I knocked a

638
00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:54.519
guy down with a pool queue because
he was coming after me, because he

639
00:44:54.599 --> 00:44:59.320
was angry, he lost two three
dollars. He was ready to crack.

640
00:44:59.360 --> 00:45:01.960
My eight year old head opened for
that. And a guy who I wound

641
00:45:02.039 --> 00:45:07.880
up, a guy who I wound
up calling uncle Joey Okay, came and

642
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:12.679
gave me a fifty dollars bills the
first time I ever saw it for being

643
00:45:12.719 --> 00:45:16.440
a man and not backing down.
There's a story in short right there?

644
00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:20.800
But when is it? They?
And I didn't decide to tell stories like

645
00:45:20.840 --> 00:45:25.360
this until last year or two years
ago something like that on the podcast.

646
00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:29.639
And that was long after I told
many other stories about many other things.

647
00:45:30.119 --> 00:45:34.079
I didn't think my life was even
interesting. I thought that it's no big

648
00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:37.760
deal. It's just that's where I
was and it was commonplace. And now

649
00:45:37.800 --> 00:45:40.800
I get people telling me it didn't
really happen because things like that don't actually

650
00:45:40.880 --> 00:45:45.199
happen. That's New Jersey. New
Jersey doesn't allow for Yeah, okay,

651
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:50.199
because it's illegal, it doesn't happen, right alrighty then sure? Anyway,

652
00:45:51.480 --> 00:45:53.840
when did you decide to write about
that and have it? Has it ever?

653
00:45:53.920 --> 00:45:59.320
You said you have short stories on
the website, But have you utilized

654
00:45:59.320 --> 00:46:04.199
it for anything else or have you
memorialized it somewhere else? Or are we

655
00:46:04.360 --> 00:46:07.400
waiting for the autobiography to get at
all that those stories. A lot of

656
00:46:07.400 --> 00:46:12.239
those stories are on my website,
and I have a book of short stories

657
00:46:12.280 --> 00:46:16.480
on there called Sunrise Sunset. It's
also on audible. But it's not a

658
00:46:16.559 --> 00:46:22.159
book necessarily about my life, but
there are some interesting characters there. And

659
00:46:22.199 --> 00:46:25.320
again these characters are composites of people
that I have met. I have another

660
00:46:25.360 --> 00:46:29.559
book of short stories I'm working on
that I just need to compile that will

661
00:46:29.599 --> 00:46:35.679
be more closely related to my life
as a young person. But I retired

662
00:46:35.719 --> 00:46:40.320
twelve years ago and I had a
seizure and I went on a medication that

663
00:46:42.159 --> 00:46:47.199
affects your imagination. And I started
writing continuously from that time twelve years ago,

664
00:46:47.320 --> 00:46:52.000
and I've written a nine or ten
novels since then. And I decided

665
00:46:52.039 --> 00:46:55.400
that in order to help perpetuate my
book sales, I should do a little

666
00:46:55.440 --> 00:47:00.159
on stage storytelling, and so I
began doing that, and that's where I've

667
00:47:00.159 --> 00:47:04.840
told these stories here in locally near
my area. And I had my wife

668
00:47:04.920 --> 00:47:08.159
videoed those and put them on my
Facebook page. Oh that's great. And

669
00:47:08.320 --> 00:47:12.480
many other titles by the way,
by RC and just so you know,

670
00:47:12.960 --> 00:47:15.280
uh, the Adventures of the Smith
Family, we reference that, Sailing Away,

671
00:47:15.320 --> 00:47:21.239
We referenced that Grandpa Ernie's Secrets.
I don't know what's all in there

672
00:47:22.599 --> 00:47:27.960
novel, that's your spine novel,
okay um, And there there's many others,

673
00:47:28.039 --> 00:47:30.800
dreams of Costa Rica. I'm just
going down the list. By the

674
00:47:30.800 --> 00:47:34.840
way, on his website, which
you should go over to Cowboy Productions fifty

675
00:47:34.880 --> 00:47:37.320
two five two That is dot com. All those words are together, no

676
00:47:37.440 --> 00:47:44.159
dots in between, just Cowboy Productions
fifty two dot com. Uh kazoos son

677
00:47:44.280 --> 00:47:50.840
of Oshida Kamasaki. Uh wow,
there's a mouthful judge day yeah about it.

678
00:47:50.920 --> 00:47:57.280
That's about a a Asian feudal Asian
uh land that is going through revolution.

679
00:47:57.760 --> 00:48:04.800
It's an adventure, exciting love story
with some twists and turns Asian culture

680
00:48:04.840 --> 00:48:07.760
in there. What would be the
you know, you didn't wind up wind

681
00:48:07.840 --> 00:48:13.119
up writing about conquistadors. I can
see yet, you weren't writing about the

682
00:48:13.480 --> 00:48:19.840
Mexican Revolution or the fight for the
Republic of Texas. Interesting. You choose

683
00:48:19.880 --> 00:48:22.880
to go and do Asian culture there? Why is that? Well? I've

684
00:48:22.920 --> 00:48:28.800
traveled to eighty three countries, including
North Korea, and I find the Asian

685
00:48:28.840 --> 00:48:34.360
cultures very interesting and very very different. So I have friends that are Japanese

686
00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:38.119
that came over as exchange students,
and that helped us become more interested in

687
00:48:38.119 --> 00:48:44.199
their culture. I watched Japanese television
and I got involved in learning more about

688
00:48:44.239 --> 00:48:47.639
that, and I somehow came up
with this idea for this story. And

689
00:48:47.760 --> 00:48:52.480
I think it's it's an interesting left
story with a little bit of intrigue and

690
00:48:53.199 --> 00:48:59.519
spycraft also, so a bit of
an affinity and an affection for Asian culture

691
00:48:59.559 --> 00:49:04.719
in gen role sort of led you
to create this. And did you have

692
00:49:04.760 --> 00:49:07.920
to do a bit of research on
some of the historical parts of that would

693
00:49:07.920 --> 00:49:12.719
be referenced here or not? Really, that's what's nice about fiction. It's

694
00:49:12.719 --> 00:49:15.599
not quite as hard to do.
My book that I'm working on now about

695
00:49:15.599 --> 00:49:19.079
World War Two, I have twelve
chapters, and now I have to get

696
00:49:19.119 --> 00:49:22.800
my people into Europe and into certain
battles. That's mixed with life with the

697
00:49:22.960 --> 00:49:27.760
real characters and my fictional characters.
That's going to require some more research.

698
00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:30.880
I've read three novels or three books
on the CIA recently, so I'm building

699
00:49:30.880 --> 00:49:36.960
my knowledge based on the CIA,
which is an interesting institution. And so

700
00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:40.480
I enjoy doing the research. And
I learned something. Every time I write

701
00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:44.159
a book, I learned a lot
of interesting history, no matter what the

702
00:49:44.159 --> 00:49:49.000
book is about. Yeah, well, look it's difficult, but it might

703
00:49:49.039 --> 00:49:52.639
be worth it too. If you
get yourself someone that you can have a

704
00:49:52.639 --> 00:49:58.119
couple of conversations with who you know, they say they're formerly with the CIA.

705
00:49:58.320 --> 00:50:04.519
I don't believe in the early no
one's ever formally with the CIA,

706
00:50:04.840 --> 00:50:08.000
right, But I've interacted with those
people because of my research on the Kennedy

707
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:12.639
assassination, and you know, sometimes
I want to know how to read their

708
00:50:12.679 --> 00:50:15.360
documents a little bit better, you
know what I mean? So I do

709
00:50:15.480 --> 00:50:19.440
go to the source and ask a
guy who I know worked in the agency,

710
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:22.440
you know, what is this actually? Like? I do stuff like

711
00:50:22.480 --> 00:50:27.719
that. You might, you might
do that sometime. I wouldn't always advise

712
00:50:27.760 --> 00:50:30.559
it for everybody, but you seem
like the kind of guy who could pull

713
00:50:30.599 --> 00:50:35.199
it off anyway. Sunrise Sunset,
which you mentioned earlier, that's a bunch

714
00:50:35.239 --> 00:50:37.840
of short stories. Judgment Day though, you know what, I didn't read

715
00:50:37.840 --> 00:50:43.000
the descriptor on that, and somehow
I didn't see that title. Judgment Day

716
00:50:43.119 --> 00:50:46.159
is that part of something or what
is that? It's about a detective in

717
00:50:46.199 --> 00:50:52.039
Santa Monica that goes undercover and loses
his real identity and takes over the character

718
00:50:52.119 --> 00:50:59.320
of this persona he's portraying. He
infiltrates a motorcycle gang and gets involved in

719
00:50:59.400 --> 00:51:04.199
the drugs ails and murders and has
to keep in touch with the authorities and

720
00:51:04.239 --> 00:51:07.920
send information to them and preparing a
case for trial. I have a degree,

721
00:51:07.960 --> 00:51:10.079
and I have a two year degree
in the administration of criminal justice,

722
00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:14.199
and I thought at one time I
was going to be an attorney. So

723
00:51:14.239 --> 00:51:17.559
I do have a fascination for detective
novels, which Atlanta is a detective novel

724
00:51:17.639 --> 00:51:22.880
also, So I find that I
find those characters interesting. And again,

725
00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:24.599
what do we have. We have
a group of people who make bad decisions

726
00:51:24.639 --> 00:51:30.679
and hurt other people and hopefully get
brought to task for it. Well,

727
00:51:30.679 --> 00:51:35.599
that's interesting because it sounds to me
like you're tackling more than one I don't

728
00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:38.519
know what they call this exactly,
it's not a genre, but it sounds

729
00:51:38.519 --> 00:51:43.599
to me like some of your stuff
is psychological, some of it is situational.

730
00:51:44.880 --> 00:51:49.280
You got quite quite an eclectic sort
of way of going about things.

731
00:51:49.760 --> 00:51:52.280
Absolutely, Yeah, you're not pigeonholed
here. And I didn't even get into

732
00:51:52.280 --> 00:51:57.119
your education where you went, you
know, outside of your grammar school age,

733
00:51:57.119 --> 00:51:59.199
you know, did you go to
college, etc. Didn't even go

734
00:51:59.239 --> 00:52:02.440
on to all that because I'd rather
hear about your life experiences, you know,

735
00:52:02.480 --> 00:52:06.800
and you spend time, uh,
you know, in construction and those

736
00:52:06.800 --> 00:52:10.159
sorts of trades. That's one thing. The early childhood experiences are another.

737
00:52:12.320 --> 00:52:15.440
Relationships. I mean, that's the
only thing missing from your mixed bag here,

738
00:52:15.480 --> 00:52:20.320
probably unless probably it is there and
I just don't know it. You

739
00:52:20.320 --> 00:52:24.280
don't have anything that's you know,
really hard focused on, like a very

740
00:52:24.320 --> 00:52:30.199
sort of narrow relationship kind of innes
you know, a situation where you establish

741
00:52:30.199 --> 00:52:35.880
a relationship and you follow a small
group of people, whether that be two

742
00:52:36.039 --> 00:52:37.599
or well, no, you do
have the family. They're going through a

743
00:52:37.679 --> 00:52:40.960
situation, don't you. Well,
I guess that's a relationship kind of thing.

744
00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:44.480
Go ahead. But all my books
are like that. All my books

745
00:52:44.519 --> 00:52:50.599
have familiar relationships, love interests and
friendships. I mostly am a character driven

746
00:52:50.639 --> 00:52:54.039
author. It's not there's action,
but I think the development of the characters

747
00:52:54.239 --> 00:52:59.880
is more interesting for me and I
because of my background. I I put

748
00:53:00.039 --> 00:53:02.480
a lot of input into those people
and try and make them as real as

749
00:53:02.480 --> 00:53:07.880
possible, excellently. And look,
it's a very interesting you know. Again,

750
00:53:08.039 --> 00:53:10.440
I don't even talk to a lot
of authors. You write fiction to

751
00:53:10.519 --> 00:53:15.960
be honest with you, I am
much more interested in historical preservation and U

752
00:53:16.119 --> 00:53:20.840
you know, revisionism, uh,
stuff like that. Let's get into truth.

753
00:53:21.079 --> 00:53:24.199
What do we know that wasn't classified
or is classified today? Things like

754
00:53:24.239 --> 00:53:28.079
that is usually what I focus on. But let me ask let me ask

755
00:53:28.119 --> 00:53:31.079
you a question. Yeah, you
know who who are Russell Proudy? L

756
00:53:31.159 --> 00:53:37.119
Russell Proudy. Was you're talking about
Fletcher? Yeah? L L. Fletcher

757
00:53:37.119 --> 00:53:39.679
Proudy Yeah. Yeah, So we're
on the same page on the Kennedy assassination.

758
00:53:39.679 --> 00:53:44.199
I've done a lot of research on
that and this book that I'm writing

759
00:53:44.360 --> 00:53:52.320
now, it's called Prelude to Rome. It's the precursor to Granpa Ernie's Secrets.

760
00:53:52.679 --> 00:53:57.599
It's following the path of his of
Ernie's father, who is an assassin,

761
00:53:58.360 --> 00:54:00.760
and he comes out of World War
Two and he's going to be involved

762
00:54:00.800 --> 00:54:07.760
in several different political assassinations around the
planet. Ah, little little teaser there

763
00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:12.360
is that. That's okay, okay, that sounds good. Now, a

764
00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:15.880
little bit of a blend of fiction
and non fiction there. Well, isn't

765
00:54:15.920 --> 00:54:21.559
that how the world operates? That
was? Yeah? That was My next

766
00:54:21.639 --> 00:54:24.920
question is actually, what is the
difference at this point right, because nothing

767
00:54:25.400 --> 00:54:30.519
ever is entirely revealed, even the
most you know, direct, Hey,

768
00:54:30.519 --> 00:54:34.320
we're being honest for being up front. The second somebody says that, all

769
00:54:34.360 --> 00:54:37.519
I can think of is that old
adage about I think you do protest a

770
00:54:37.519 --> 00:54:42.159
bit too much when you're making a
point. You know, when somebody's yelling

771
00:54:42.199 --> 00:54:45.320
you I'm telling the truth. I'm
telling the truth and you didn't ask them

772
00:54:45.320 --> 00:54:47.480
if they were telling the truth,
kind of leads me to believe they're in

773
00:54:47.519 --> 00:54:53.400
an automatic defensive position because they're full
of crap, you know. So that's

774
00:54:53.440 --> 00:54:58.639
one of those things. If they
keep shoving the story at you even though

775
00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:02.199
you didn't ask for it, they're
probably covering something up. And yes,

776
00:55:02.360 --> 00:55:07.119
so that is exactly the way the
world works. Or do I sound like

777
00:55:07.159 --> 00:55:10.159
I'm talking crazy to you or what? Well, you may sound crazy to

778
00:55:10.239 --> 00:55:15.000
some people. AH appreciate that,
And he's like, look, I don't

779
00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:16.800
want to make judgments here because I've
only talked to you for a little while.

780
00:55:16.840 --> 00:55:20.840
It could be you're a complete nut, but yeah, I got you,

781
00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:24.039
and that's good. Reserve judgment at
all times. Now, you can't

782
00:55:24.119 --> 00:55:28.960
judge books by their cover. The
covers of these books, I don't really,

783
00:55:29.320 --> 00:55:30.519
you know, whatever it is,
it is, I want people to

784
00:55:30.559 --> 00:55:36.559
go see RC hand again. You
can find them on Amazon and his website,

785
00:55:36.599 --> 00:55:42.480
okay, Cowboy Productions fifty two dot
com. Right, altogether, there'll

786
00:55:42.519 --> 00:55:45.400
be links in with the show notes, so you guys who want to you

787
00:55:45.440 --> 00:55:49.639
can follow up. So I'll give
you the website, I'll give you a

788
00:55:49.679 --> 00:55:52.239
couple of Amazon links. I'll see
if I can find your Facebook page.

789
00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:55.599
I hate Facebook, by the way. I'm on there. I don't even

790
00:55:55.639 --> 00:55:59.880
know if I'm your friend. I'm
not sure. Maybe i am. It's

791
00:56:00.119 --> 00:56:04.960
because I don't like it. It's
yeah, I gave up on that some

792
00:56:05.119 --> 00:56:07.559
years ago. You know, when
it was simpler and real people wanted to

793
00:56:07.599 --> 00:56:12.480
talk to me from my life,
I was happy. But nowadays, you

794
00:56:12.519 --> 00:56:15.639
know, God knows, people get
me mixed up with somebody else. I

795
00:56:15.679 --> 00:56:17.400
get a lot of add I get
a lot of ads for hookers and stuff

796
00:56:17.440 --> 00:56:21.760
like that, so it kind of
lost its appeal. Yeah, I mean.

797
00:56:21.760 --> 00:56:23.719
And that's the other thing is that
every single social media, at some

798
00:56:23.800 --> 00:56:29.519
point there is the virtual hooker set
one way or another. Hey baby,

799
00:56:29.599 --> 00:56:30.599
I love you, I love your
face. By the way, I have

800
00:56:30.639 --> 00:56:36.239
a webcam show. Now that's your
online virtual hooker. Then you have others

801
00:56:36.239 --> 00:56:38.199
that didn't want to scam you and
fall in love with you on the computer

802
00:56:38.679 --> 00:56:44.000
because they think that you know,
you're just They send a thousand of those

803
00:56:44.039 --> 00:56:46.280
to a guy doesn't even have to
be a real girl, doesn't have to

804
00:56:46.280 --> 00:56:51.480
be a real person even but either
way, they're trying to scam yet with

805
00:56:51.559 --> 00:56:54.320
this and that, and hey,
I got some naked pictures and really they

806
00:56:54.320 --> 00:56:59.239
got it from some porno actress.
They play those games. Even your stipe

807
00:56:59.239 --> 00:57:04.000
account. If you ever use Skype
occasionally, you'll find people that contact you.

808
00:57:04.360 --> 00:57:07.079
Oh hello, sweetie, I saw
you on the Skype directory. I

809
00:57:07.119 --> 00:57:12.320
am recently. They're all recently out
of university. They're all twenty five years

810
00:57:12.320 --> 00:57:16.000
old, they're all lonely, and
they want to talk to you archie.

811
00:57:16.199 --> 00:57:20.199
Yeah, a seventy one year old
guy who's been married for forty years.

812
00:57:20.400 --> 00:57:22.480
I don't of course, of course, but if you look like you have

813
00:57:22.519 --> 00:57:24.960
a lot of money, didn't they
really want to talk to you? And

814
00:57:25.039 --> 00:57:29.679
after all, it could be as
innocent as a webcam show that they'll invite

815
00:57:29.679 --> 00:57:34.159
you to because you're special. Now, yeah, well, look, sometimes

816
00:57:34.159 --> 00:57:37.199
you got to monetize what you have
to work with and all the time.

817
00:57:37.639 --> 00:57:42.639
And I'm not judging people. I'm
just saying it's annoying for me. We're

818
00:57:42.679 --> 00:57:45.480
all delta hand. We're all delta
hand. We've got to play at the

819
00:57:45.519 --> 00:57:51.440
best we can. Absolutely and interesting
stuff your life experiences from the beginning and

820
00:57:51.480 --> 00:57:53.800
then ever on. I didn't even
get into you know, your adult life,

821
00:57:54.599 --> 00:57:58.840
your travels. You mentioned you went
to many different countries. We didn't

822
00:57:58.840 --> 00:58:00.960
go there. There's a ton of
stuff I could ask you about. But

823
00:58:01.400 --> 00:58:05.880
you know what, I've already taken
up enough of your time today pretty much.

824
00:58:06.239 --> 00:58:10.280
So I know that I'm all over
the place and I'm rude and interrupting

825
00:58:10.320 --> 00:58:15.159
you and things, But I really
appreciate you having this conversation with me,

826
00:58:15.760 --> 00:58:19.719
and I wonder if there's anything that
you'd like to sort of, you know,

827
00:58:19.760 --> 00:58:22.000
give to people on the way out
the door, outside of obviously,

828
00:58:22.039 --> 00:58:25.800
go buy your books, go look
at your stuff online. Check out these

829
00:58:25.840 --> 00:58:30.719
live performances. I have to go
check those out because I didn't want to

830
00:58:30.760 --> 00:58:35.760
contaminate my thoughts about what it is
we were going to talk about by seeing

831
00:58:35.760 --> 00:58:38.360
your presentations. But I was aware
that there are videos. I'm gonna go

832
00:58:38.440 --> 00:58:44.559
check those out after the show probably
tonight when I'm doing some work. But

833
00:58:44.920 --> 00:58:49.079
you know what, interesting guy,
you got a million stories to tell.

834
00:58:49.639 --> 00:58:54.360
There's probably a million more stories in
every naked city. But the city is

835
00:58:54.400 --> 00:58:58.719
really in your mind. It's not
really where you live. Guys, and

836
00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:02.719
this guy went to so many different
cities, so many different ways, and

837
00:59:02.800 --> 00:59:07.760
walk through so many lives. It's
probably endless the amount of resources you have

838
00:59:07.880 --> 00:59:15.440
to populate multiple universes of literary creation. So ourc hand okay, And that

839
00:59:15.519 --> 00:59:20.199
is the way that you find them
online. Ray, You know, I

840
00:59:20.239 --> 00:59:23.039
really appreciate this that you take in
this time. But let me just shut

841
00:59:23.159 --> 00:59:28.400
up and give you a parting sentiment
here. Anything you want to drop or

842
00:59:28.440 --> 00:59:32.159
point people to or warn them about, go right ahead. First of all,

843
00:59:32.199 --> 00:59:35.639
I like to say I enjoyed being
on your show. I'd be more

844
00:59:35.679 --> 00:59:37.840
than happy to come back and talk
about travel or any other thing you want

845
00:59:37.840 --> 00:59:43.239
to talk about. The Kennedy assassination. I want everybody out there remember that

846
00:59:43.679 --> 00:59:46.360
we should treat each other like we
want to be treated. That every culture

847
00:59:46.760 --> 00:59:51.320
has valuable things you can learn from
and take a trip. If you can

848
00:59:51.320 --> 00:59:57.400
afford, Let's go someplace and learn
something. That'd be nice to everybody you

849
00:59:57.559 --> 01:00:01.960
come across. Right, So you
are the kind of guy who believes like

850
01:00:02.119 --> 01:00:07.280
I do, that random acts of
kindness are an essential part of what we

851
01:00:07.360 --> 01:00:13.199
should be doing in this world.
And judging people because of some preconceived notion

852
01:00:13.679 --> 01:00:15.719
about where they came from, who
their people are, what the color of

853
01:00:15.719 --> 01:00:21.039
their skin is, etc. Is
a complete waste of time. Not because

854
01:00:21.079 --> 01:00:24.559
you should be kind to them,
but you're actually being cruel to yourself if

855
01:00:24.599 --> 01:00:30.440
you function that way and you judge
and discount people. Right, you can

856
01:00:30.519 --> 01:00:35.639
learn something from everybody. That's been
my experience. There you have it.

857
01:00:35.760 --> 01:00:40.039
You can learn something from just about
anyone you know. Telly effect is done.

858
01:00:40.039 --> 01:00:45.239
My guest tonight, RC Hand,
author of multiple books, links in

859
01:00:45.280 --> 01:00:49.840
the show notes. I hope you
follow up and go to Cowboy Productions fifty

860
01:00:49.840 --> 01:00:52.800
two dot com again link in the
notes. But if you're just listening to

861
01:00:52.800 --> 01:00:55.480
me and can remember it, go
there, do it. Check out his

862
01:00:55.559 --> 01:01:01.119
work. Fascinating guy, fascinating books, a lot of interesting stuff, dynamic

863
01:01:01.239 --> 01:01:07.079
and collect it and there you go. Rc Hand my guests on the Ocelli

864
01:01:07.159 --> 01:01:09.119
effect. And remember this, no
matter who you are, where you are,

865
01:01:09.159 --> 01:01:14.159
when you are, I'm merely o'ceelly, all of you are. Indeed

866
01:01:14.159 --> 01:01:23.000
the effect you support Chuck o'chilli at
Chili dot com. There's no money in

867
01:01:23.079 --> 01:01:27.519
it. So yeah, that is
that's the problem. That's the biggest problem,

868
01:01:27.559 --> 01:01:29.679
I think. And you know,
some people would say that, look,

869
01:01:29.679 --> 01:01:32.679
you're in an age when you can
be independently supported, but quite frankly,

870
01:01:34.079 --> 01:01:37.199
I'm on that business model too,
And look, I'm not going to

871
01:01:37.280 --> 01:01:42.840
complain, but but I'm gonna complain, okay, because people want to support

872
01:01:42.840 --> 01:01:45.440
you, they love you to death. But honestly, if you're listening,

873
01:01:45.440 --> 01:01:50.559
and this is a very unsettling question, support to damn show, and I

874
01:01:50.599 --> 01:01:52.880
want you to do different because,
um, you know, uh, the

875
01:01:52.960 --> 01:01:58.519
Achilli Apports one of a few places
where Greg Palace can get is the stuff

876
01:01:58.559 --> 01:02:01.239
out I mean, you'll still see
my violence and Something's outlets. But nevertheless,

877
01:02:01.480 --> 01:02:07.519
um it nice to be a regular
on CNN and on MSTNC, but

878
01:02:07.400 --> 01:02:22.280
no more revelation through conversation. Oh, Chili dot com, Wall Street Street

879
01:02:22.280 --> 01:02:31.960
Window dot com, Gold Silver,
the stock market, Wall Street Window dot

880
01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:37.079
Com. Perhaps you're invested deeply,
perhaps you're not in deep enough. Maybe

881
01:02:37.079 --> 01:02:44.400
you're thinking about getting started Wall Street
Windows dot Com dot com. Michael Swanson,

882
01:02:44.480 --> 01:02:49.199
the brilliant author of the War State, understood these trends professionally for many

883
01:02:49.280 --> 01:02:53.079
years, and now he gives you
the benefit of his knowledge. Wall Street

884
01:02:53.079 --> 01:03:00.360
Street, indow dot com, Go
there now, go there, now there

885
01:03:00.440 --> 01:03:02.559
now Oh Chili dot com