Scribe

I'm going to be an excellent old man. I've known that since I was like, since I was 5. I knew I was going to dig retirement from the moment that I like learned about retirement. I was like, oh, that's going to be good.

What's up, Johnny?

It's going pretty good. I'm going pretty good. Things are staying mild here weather-wise, but we have a billion things to do because it's summer, you know, break. I love that they call it summer break. I sounded like Trump there for a second. I love that they call it summer break. Most people don't realize you don't really get a break. Summer. Yeah. Yeah. That's should be called spring. Get busier.

I just thought of that. So, uh, yeah, we're just shuffling kids to camps. I'm, I'm getting ready to leave for Florida for 5 days with my kids' youth group, which was a decision I made with middle schoolers. So yeah, we're gonna do that, leave it on Friday. Yeah, doing pretty good.

And the World Cup starts tomorrow. Oh yeah, definitely. I'm gonna bring like one of those big like Yeti tumbler things with the screw-on lids. It's just gonna be full of cold brew.

And that's like a chug jug in Fortnite.

Yeah, sure.

so how are you doing? So I didn't, I didn't, I didn't—

That's crazy.

Are you sure you want to pay me?

That's awesome.

That's cool.

My kids are at soccer and Henry has some soccer camps like right now. He doesn't have much for the rest of the summer, but Lila's at art camps like all day. There's a cool art studio here in town and it's like 9 to 4. They're doing— this week is clay, next week is painting, the week after that is like illustration or something like that.

Did them last year. Really? Yeah. Loves it.

Do something.

Exactly. It's your ritual. Yeah, no, I know that well. That's, that's our, we have a similar ritual in this house.

Mine's like the color of salmon. Yeah. Henry's are blue.

Congratulations.

Hope so. Yeah, absolutely. We'll miss them. We'll be glad to have them back.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's the, I mean, we went, we got married in 2010 and we went on our honeymoon, but it was like 35 degrees in Florida, so we didn't do much. Um, we just kind of like watched movies all day, which was fun. And then went back to school.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, will there be a Europe? Yeah. Well, congratulations, Andy and Erica. Really happy for you two.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a weird thought.

Yeah, I just like— I remember just like it was, like it was yesterday. I remember being just totally overwhelmed by having a 6-year-old at church one time, and this woman walked up and she's like, how old is he? This old woman, I was like, "He's 6," and I was like scrambling behind him. She's like, "Oh, well, enjoy it." I rolled my eyes because that's what, you know, what people say. But then she said, "He's already spent a third of his time with you." I was like, "Damn it." Like, "You wicked woman." That's gonna just be on my mind every day for the next rest of my life or whatever, you know, like, so I think about that literally like daily almost. I mean, just like definitely weekly, seeing that often.

I'm like, oh yeah. When you, so this brings up a point that happened when Henry turned, or my Henry turned 13. I realized the day of his birthday, like the day before when he was 12 years and 363 days old or 4 days old or whatever, like one, one day short. And I met somebody and they'd be like, oh, I have a teenager. I'd be like, whoa. Okay. Wow. This person's got a teenager. It's just one day. It just, something clicks where something's different. It just doesn't feel real until it happens. So now it's like, it's wild. It was like overnight, all of a sudden it's like, oh, oh yeah. Okay. That does happen eventually, doesn't it? It always felt so far away. Now.

Mm-hmm.

Is it 101 or is it 201 or is it 2.1 or 1.2?

Who knows? HB2, we can call it whatever we want. Yeah.

Sure.

Um, so I have been listening to a guy named Blaze Foley. That can't be as— who I didn't— well, no, it's not. No, it is. It is not. That is his stage name, but I think he like actually changed it too. But I, I was aware of him loosely, but because of a John Prine song that ended up, I've learned was written by Blaze Foley. He has this amazing song called Clay Pigeons, which I highly recommend to everyone. And I learned at some point that it was a song by Blaze Foley and maybe listened to a couple tracks and he's kind of like a '60s, '70s folk singer kind of thing, but has that kind of country blues sound to him. Anyways, but I had like learned about him a while ago and then was watching one of my favorite celebrity interviews, like people to hear interviewed. And if it pops up on, you know, YouTube, I'm going to watch it. Ethan Hawke. I could listen to him. I could listen to him talk about anything, you know. And there was one interview and he was talking about how he made a movie about Blaze Foley. Like it was in, you know, that guy on YouTube who, and they do it Of course it's on all platforms, but he talks to like musicians and celebrities on the street and like asks them about music and they put headphones on. Have you seen these? Okay. They're really, I forget what they're called off the top of my head. I'll have to find it. But he plays a Blaze Foley song. He's like, ah, I made a movie about him. And I was like, I need to watch that movie. And that just sent me down this whole rabbit hole, like learning about Blaze Foley. And he is fantastic. And he's got this live album called Live From, I think it's called Live From the Outhouse, which is a venue in Texas, I guess. But it's like a totally unedited live show. So like you just hear him rambling like between songs and he's like, was that good enough for the recording? And he's like talking like, it's just, they just left it in and it's, it's wonderful. It's so good. And then I've been reading a new book that just came out maybe a couple months ago or a month ago. It's called Won't Back Down and it is, it's called Won't Back Down: Heartland Rock and the Fight for America. So it's kind of about the like explosion of blue collar pop superstars like Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp. But then like the best part of the book is it's like all these like second tier ones as far as popularity-wise that you just haven't heard about. And so they mention, oh, well, this album was one that would've been on all these people's radar and they would've known about this, and this guy was really good, but he, you know, died in a car wreck when he was 26. And, or, you know, like, so you're learning about all these like little connections to like a lot of the music that I like. I mean, especially I've talked about Tom Petty a million times, but there's a lot of artists that are in it and it's named after one of his songs, obviously, Won't Back Down. But it's a really good book. It's a really good, like, I like, I like music. I like hit books that tackle like a period in time through music or through film and stuff like that. So it's, it's talking a lot about just the, uh, The Reagan '80s and kind of like what all these guys, how they like interacted with all that and the No Nukes concerts and yeah, it's a good read. I highly recommend it.

I mean, I was little, but I remember when it was, but yeah, I highly recommend it. So if you like this kind of music, it's also just a great way to like find a bunch of other stuff to listen to. And then as far as watching, uh, Henry and I are watching Andor and gosh, that show is so incredible. So fantastic. I'd watched most of the first season. I'd never watched the second season, and Henry hadn't watched any of it. And so we started from the beginning and I, I just, that's like, it's gotta be the Andor into Rogue One has to be at the pinnacle of all the Star Wars stuff.

I love it. And on a different note, King of the Hill. I started watching King of the Hill from start to finish for the first time. I watched it reruns after school every day for, I don't know, 6 years or something. So I probably saw most. I definitely have watched 12, 13, 14 episodes so far, something like that. And I would say I remember 10 of them just from, just from watching it. But it's so good. And I love Hank's like sneaky wisdom that pops into, pops in like in it moments. Like there's one, I can't remember exactly what Bobby says, but Bobby's like, if They're talking about baseball strategy and he pulled Bobby, pulled out like a technicality and he's like, but technically if he hits me, then I'll get to go to first base, which is kind of like pre-Moneyball baseball. It's something which is now like what everybody does. But he says something along those lines of like, well, technically won't this happen? And then Hank says, cut it out, boy. There's no time for playing lawyer ball or something like that. I was like, oh God, I'm gonna remember that forever now. Like, that's so funny.

Yeah, I love the— I just watched the episode where they like, they take him out to do like the watanahi or whatever, like the— oh my God, that's so funny. And they kill the whooping crane because they think it's a snipe and they're That, and Bobby thinks he's a shaman by the end of it. I was like, this show is perfect. It's so good. Cause he just, he thought he healed the whooping crane. It's like, no, he was just, you know, knocked out cold. Uh, so good.

He was. Yeah, I remember that. I hadn't, I'm not obviously not there yet, but I did watch the Willie Nelson episode. It was one of these first like 12 where he, he like hits him in the face with a golf ball. And then Willie, Willie Nelson like sits down in Hank and Dale's cart and just like falls asleep on the steering wheel and drives their cart away. That's like, yeah, anyways, great show. I'm so happy and glad that I, I had a friend come over and we had a, a fire and he recommended, he's like, you know what, I just finished watching King of the Hill. I was like, damn, it's time. I gotta do it.

Boomhauer. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, uh, is that, could we make like a new version of Enneagram or something? That's like the four personalities and for men. And it's like, you're either like, I'm 25% Hank. I'm 50% Dale.

Yeah.

Like it's, it's 60% off right now.

That's what, mm-hmm. Okay. Well, yeah, you should, you should check it out.

And is he playing from like an iPad or something? Or what's the other— I mean, I know it's on like all the main— or you just mean from— where do you play multiplayer?

You just can't do it on one, you're saying, like on one Switch?

Or was I just not paying attention at all?

It's really cool. That's cool.

Yeah.

Write books like that. And like, maybe, maybe you think Bill Bryson could be the patron saint of not having idiot—

Mm-hmm.

Okay. So maybe it's, he could have it or not, but I'm just like, as somebody who writes like the history of everything, I'm like, yeah, no, like he's, he's got so much stuff.

Yeah. Like in just like all the connections, like, like making all those connections and through lines and stuff. It's pretty amazing.

Cool.

And Henry, uh, my Henry is learning guitar as well. He's like at the very beginning of like getting— I mean, I've tried obviously for, I don't know, his entire life. I've always made guitars available. I'll just say that. But he's like actually asking about it and I've This is my hot take or like unpopular opinion, or I don't know, what's the term for if something is like everybody says they hate this thing or they always make fun of like how popular this is. That's because it's actually awesome. But the song Freebird is perfect. It is so good. And I love that. I love that song. It's like the guitar solos are insane. He asks to listen to it in the car like all the time. He's like, so can I, you wanna try to learn that together? I was like, He started playing like 3 weeks ago. Like, I mean, I would love to, but he's— and I was like, you mean like he'll play like the chords? He could probably do that. He's like, no, like you told me the solo has 2 guitars in it. They're playing at the same time. I was like, I don't think I could play both of those solo parts. Like, so I think like we'll work up to it, you know?

That's right. That's right. That's— I mean, I, I, I started playing cuz my brother played and he was like, I don't know. 17, 18 when I started learning, so I was like 10. Passed him up by like 13 because it's just— I was at the right age to just like— I wasn't distracted by anything else. So we should get our Henrys to start a band.

We should build her a 3/4 bass. I could build it.

Poor kid.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a. Mini, mini version.

It's cute. Yeah. Yeah. We have a mini Strat. It's in the other room.

Okay.

I would say with, uh, all your 3 kids, then you could be like, all right, you all got an instrument and Rosie's actually going to get gigs. Yeah, fuck, I better learn some bass. Everybody needs a bass player. Everybody needs a bass player. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. I had totally forgotten about this, but we had texted about it. New Field Notes, which I've, I was just carrying one today. It's not in my pocket right now, but I'm using one of these right now. But in the, uh, these are in the style. This isn't, these aren't officially National Parks, right? These are just Explore America. So there's, uh, they're called the Explore America Monumental Memo Books. So it's, they all feature some kind of large monument in the country. So there's, what is it? The, uh, Golden Gate Bridge, there's the Redwood Forest, there's— what's this one?

Which is, which is wild. Yeah, yeah. It's like kind of at a glance they look really similar and then kind of the closer you look, you see the different styles. But, uh, they're beautiful because I love those National Parks editions. Yeah. I still have several of those left that I still like still working through. So this is the kind of thing that I feel like is there, and it seems like they know this. That's like their bread and butter.

Like what's, what makes them their like sort of consistent money, cuz they just look so good. Like anybody, like I, you know, we could walk by 'em in a store and see 'em and be like, oh, those are cool, I want some. But also somebody who has no idea what they're, what they are is, could just be like, man, that art's cool. Like, oh, I've been there. You know, that kind of reaction.

So yeah, I really love the Series B ones. The one that has the Appalachian Trail. Yeah. Um, the trail, it's like the Triple Crown of hiking. Like that one's, that set's really awesome.

One day. That would be awesome. I have friends who've done it, several friends who've done it. I don't know how that works for humans to be like, we're gonna take off 8 months and go do this thing. But it's awesome. So cool.

Man, that reminds me of, I mean, if you're into that, there's a book that I read a while ago. Oh, is it, is this it? Grandma Gatewood. I think this is the book. Or no, there's a book about her, but Grandma Gatewood, she was the first woman to solo hike the entire Appalachian Trail. But she like, I mean, if you look at like the materials she used, I mean, she took like nothing with her. I think at the beginning she was just like wearing her normal shoes. She just like started going, you know? But there's a great book about her that I need to, I'll look up the title and, and, and share it. But it was a friend that I was teaching with gave me the book and I read most of it and then meant to buy my own copy and finish it before I give it back.

Very cool story.

That's cool. Yeah, it's called Grandma Gatewood's Walk. Cool. Is the name of the book. I'll put it in the show notes.

Whoa, that's a big link. Yeah, so I have that. And then also I have another thing. Well, I'm just gonna leave it. So I came across, and I was just telling before we started recording, I was telling Johnny that I'm getting into electronics, like modifying and like working with kind of old school electronics. And I'm not saying I'm working on building supercomputers. It's actually kind of the opposite. Like I'm like tube amps and modifying guitar pedals by just like switching out little parts and learning like what. The different resistors and capacitors do. And I had just come across— Shane, to pull it back up— but I came across a video that reminded me of the fact that graphite is conductive. Yeah, which I hadn't thought about. And so I'll put this— I'll try to link in the show notes— but there's this amazing video that I watched where they use some of these electrical components, mainly like a switch, and then use some wiring, and they actually used the ferrule of the pencil and they put it on top of a AA battery. This is an experiment we're going to do this summer. And they use two wires. And so you wire the ferrule up and wrap it around the graphite, and then you wire the switch to both the bottom of the battery and back to the top of the graphite. So you have a positive and a negative symbol or signal, if I'm making sense. So it's like they use— there's a video, in the video they use this short little stubby pencil. To do this. And so basically getting both sides of the battery, positive and negative, wired up to the tip. And then what it's able to do, which I'll see if I can show you this when it happens, but it just like immediately heats up and you can actually like, just using the graphite and this battery, you can actually like, it's like a lighter. Uh, you can hold it up to a wick and it lights. And you know, this would cost like 75 cents to make, just be like a fun experiment. They didn't even solder, they just like tied up the wires and they used like hot glue to hold it to the bottom. But I was reminded of that. I just wanted to bring that up 'cause it's like, I'm gonna try that this summer. 'Cause Henry, Henry's all excited about working with electronics with me 'cause I've got an amplifier I'm gonna work on and some pedals. And yeah, he's into, he, he's into electronic pieces. He used to collect when he was little, like if something would break, like a remote control car, or something, he would like break open the controller and like keep the little PCB board, like the PC board that's inside that has like all the different components and stuff. Just, he liked looking at 'em. He would just kind of like sort of, he kept like a little box of 'em and he would just, he's like, I wanna make something out of this. I was like, okay, be careful, I guess. Just like stay away from the batteries. Um, I don't wanna burn the house down. But yeah, I was pretty excited about that. And it was pencil related and tinkering electronics related, which tinkering is my natural state. I'm going to be an excellent old man. I've known that since I was like, since I was 5, I knew I was going to dig retirement from the moment that I like learned about retirement. I was like, oh, that's, that's going to be good. When people talk about being bored in retirement. Yeah. When people talk about being bored in retirement, I'm like, are you kidding me? Actually yesterday, Lila said like, if you could, if you had a choice between, I don't even remember the choice, but it was like this or like have, oh, it was, would you rather have spaghetti for every meal every day for the rest of your life, but you don't have to work or have a job? And I was like, without even like a moment's hesitation, I was just like, spaghetti, come on, like give me the spaghetti, like I'll do it right now. She's like, you don't like working? I'm like, not exactly that. It's, I can always come up with something to do. I was like, I, I can keep, I got enough going on in this dome up here that I can keep myself busy and have a great time and, and feel fulfilled. I don't have to have the, the other side of it.

So it's like, this is a win-win. It's like, I don't, I don't have to think. Yeah. I don't have to think about the unnecessary stuff. Give me one outfit and one meal. And just send me on my way for the rest of my life and I'd be happy.

Your Jerry Garcia phase.

That's what he did.

Yeah. He wore nothing but black t-shirts. Yeah. I'm pretty close to that. I wear pretty much the same. I, I found a pair of shorts I like and I bought like 9 pairs, and so it's like, just wear like Same shorts, same kind of t-shirts, couple hoodies. I don't, I gotta be able to get dressed in the dark and half asleep and not look insane. So, and it works.

I guess there's, we talked about a little bit. Do they have more stuff?

Those are cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Is it the Cedar Pointe one is what you're asking for?

I'm like, yeah, that's pretty sweet.

That reminds me of a, another John Prine song. Where he, uh, where he talks about like what to do with his body when he dies. It's like, give my arms to, or it's like, give my arms to Venus and give my nose. He's just making all these jokes. And then he talks about his socks and he says, and put my socks in a cedar box. Just get 'em outta here. It's like a coffin, coffin for his socks. Everything else gets distributed.

I've been using, been using mine.

I had that exact— this is the, uh, New York Public Library one that I got on our trip. And look how like, I mean, it's so beat up already. And this was like 5 months ago, but my hands just like destroy brass. But it looks, looks awesome.

Yeah.

Looks awesome. That's awesome. Yeah.

I'm here for it.

So, what a shame though.

Yeah. I mean, it's like, I'm not Mr. Patriotism. I mean, I, I know what I'm grateful for and I know what I appreciate and I know what I would push back on and. Be frustrated by or whatever, but I think that's kind of like what it means to be from this country. It's like having, having your opinion, so you should, but it's like when things from the top down are so, it's just like a, you know, in Spaceballs where they, where, where he brings the giant vacuum to suck the oxygen out of the planet. I feel like we have one of those like above the country right now where it's like at the top, it's just kind of sucking all the air out of the room. Yeah. It's like, what is— I forget what his name was, that character's name was, the guy in charge, but Mel Brooks's character or one of his characters. But yeah, that's kind of what I feel like. So it's like, I kind of want to be excited about it, but also I, yeah, I kind of forget sometimes cuz it's just like, I'm so, it's like self-preservation mode or something.

I just, I watched Ford versus Ferrari for the first time finally recently. Like so good. A month ago. It's so good. I watched that and Formula or F1 like back-to-back nights. I was like, It was an incredible night.

Yeah. But we went to, if you ever, if you guys ever go to Gatlinburg, there is an exotic car museum, museum, I guess you call it. It's basically a group of dumb rich, like just not dumb. They're probably intelligent people. They are stupid levels of rich is what I'm trying to say, who own like a combined 20 of these like supercars and stuff. And they put like 12 at a time in there so you can go in and like look inside of 'em. And there's one you can sit in. Uh, it's pretty incredible. And they had a, an old, or like a, or a really nice Ford GT, whatever you call it.

It's like white, white with the blue stripes down the middle. And I just stared at that for like 15 minutes in there. Like, this is the best part. And there's like, what about the Lamborghini? Screw the Lamborghini. This, this is awesome.

Be on the news.

We'll see. My generous interpretation, I'm just wondering if it's like some of these companies are like, which is Sad that that would be the corner that they would cut, but like with all like the tariff supply chain stuff that like those kinds of editions are the ones that get like those sorts of like seasonal special editions are kind of shrinking back. I mean, obviously not with people like Field Notes. Yeah, that's a good point. But like it could be, especially with like companies that aren't making everything in-house, you know?

So I don't know, maybe it's just like, I like that explanation. Well, we'll take it tentatively, I guess, but it still stinks, you know? Yeah.

Like, okay.

It's awesome. Whoa.

So, okay. We have one of the traditional ones somewhere. They have the best donut truck in the area, make these glazed donuts that are like the size of your face. And then they run a great like general store, but that's like most of the, that's like all I know about 'em around here.

These donuts, you will hate yourself for sure. I mean, that's something people carrying a dozen in a box and it looks like they're like, have like a, you know, like the boxes that like wedding dresses come in. I mean, kind of looks like that.

They do. Oh my gosh, you just watch them glaze them and there's like a whole like metal— one person's job is to like check the metal tub underneath it for the drip-off, like once it gets too full. I mean, it's like this deep, you know. They take it away, they put another one, they see what the back was or something. Yeah.

Gonna— well, yeah, well, we're eagerly awaiting the return of Andy.

Just having fun here. We're just having fun. And, uh, yeah, I'm gonna go watch some, some World Cup soccer and use that to survive Florida. Be in Panama City for, for 5 days. Watching World Cup on my phone. It's, I don't even like to think about it, but I got a lot of these thin sweatshirts, like the t-shirt, like Under Armour sweatshirts to hopefully help me survive.

So is it like the wicker one?

no, because I have one of those that I like use when I mow. So I'm like that guy with like the big, like the beach hat or whatever. But okay. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm in. Old man talk right here. What kind of sun hat you using? Yeah.

Thanks everybody.