I think Harris is going to win, but it's going to be a squeaker, and I think it'll get contested.
We may be doing recount after recounts in a couple states, and if Trump lost barely, he very well will try to find a legal mechanism to get this election to the Supreme Court, believing that they'll side with him.
Doug Brinkley.Dude, good to see you.Nice to see you.I think a lot of people know that we've, we've had a long relationship and you've just, I'll just get this out of the way.I mean, you've just been such an amazing friend to me.
So I want to, I want to thank you for that.And I love hanging, you know, you're one of these people where you'll send me a text or something and it pops up. And I'm like, oh God, this is going to be good.What's he up to?
We go down, have breakfast, and you're just an endless storyteller.I just thought of something.Tell me.Have you ever had a tattoo?No.I noticed that.
Look, I, it's a great question.Um, in fact, I don't think anybody's ever asked me that question.I, uh, I have no problem with tattoos.Uh, my son has a couple of tattoos, which are in recent years, obviously tons of friends.
Most of my friends have tattoos.
And not that I would never get a tattoo, but I view, you know, of course now with technology and some of the stuff that's come out, you can get them taken off, but anything that is going to be there forever, I just want to be really sure that I'm cool with it being there forever.
And I've never had a moment in my life where I said, that's it.I want this forever.Cause you don't want to get five, 15, 30 years down the road and say, I wish I wouldn't have done that.
So I just, you know, you, you have a taste for art and logos like that hat logo.You got to know what it is, but it's nice.So I thought I might connect to tattoos, but you're right.You can't, you can switch the hat.
And I've tracked. the tattoo phenomenon.It's not even a phenomenon.
It's just for, you know, really, I think it's really kind of started, you remember 30, 40 years ago, you see somebody with a tattoo and you were like, oh no, we're in a bad, we're in a bad part of town.
And you know, then, then more of you started to see more and more.And now, and I actually collect some artists that started out as tattoo artists.One in particular is Scott Campbell. So Scott, you know, got his start.
He's from Houston originally, and he's a wonderful guy.He's a great athlete, great storyteller.He was a tattoo artist.And then he transformed himself into being a fine artist. And so he, it, it, Mr. Cartoon, right?It's like our crumb.
Remember when he used to do all those?So it's, it's, you see, you know, and I like seeing Ted, it's a great question, but no, and I'm assuming you don't have any.
I don't, but you know, I, I didn't know, I just, first time it ever dawned on me talking to you, but I thought it's just being an athlete of that era.Do you ever hear of a, a Prince, Richard Prince?He was an art appropriation art and all that.Yeah.
I remember seeing his photos of people with tattoos, something like in the 90, early nineties, where he did a series of them and it wakes you up.
It's wild and it's, they're just so, and I'm cool with all of this, like, but it's so part of our culture and so accepted.My 13 year old daughter. Now she's, you know, 13 going on 23.I mean, she's very mature, very outspoken, very confident.
She's already said to me like, hey dad, when, so when can I get my first tattoo?I'm like, what?You're 13.They're already thinking about that.You know, now Luke's sister, Grace is working in Denver.
I mean, I fully expect there's gonna be some trip where we see her and I'm like, Oh, what do we have there?This is new.
They'll hide it from you.Did the piercing, did she pierce her ears yet?Did you get to that point?Well, yeah.
Tattoos come two years later, they'll either do it or not.But they do some cool ones.They do.And as long as it's, it's interesting.So my son, Luke, who has these two tattoos, he got one because he loves anime.
So he got this knife that was somehow part of anime, which I don't know anything about.I'm like, look, if you're into that, like, do that.And then he wanted to get this other tattoo that had also had to do. with something he was passionate about.
And I said, listen, if you wanna do that, let's call Scott.So I called Scott Campbell.And it's very hard to get a Scott Campbell tattoo.And I said, Scott, my son wants another, he wants another tattoo.
And I've just told him like, if you're gonna get one, let's have Scott do it, right?It's an actual piece of art.So yeah, it's, It's a great question.I never say never.
Does Scott have a venue somewhere?
He's in downtown Los Angeles.Right.Yeah.So, yeah.
And you have to get booked in advance.
Oh yeah.It's like a whole thing.Yeah.And it's a unique, his work is, you can see it on Instagram.It's very unique.It's, it's, you know, it's not the dragon head or something.
Novelist Norman Mailer did a thing once, it was making me think of it, graffiti art.Yeah.It can't actually be, quality art graffiti.I mean, before Banksy kind of things, but you know.
That's how Banksy started.Yeah.Yeah.
And that's a whole other type of fine art.So I didn't know about, I'll look at his tattoo work.I didn't know about it.
And the graffiti artists, which in the day they were just kids, you know, tagging buildings and alleyways and whatever.Trash bins didn't matter.I mean, they, and now they're fine.I mean, obviously Banksy is the king.
He's one of the most collectible artists. out there.But there's, I mean, the Barry McGee, Osimios, the twins in Brazil, I had a lot of great Osimios work.I mean, these guys are so highly collectible.
And they started out as kids running around just tagging buildings.
You know, I think people that follow your career, I think that's a side of you people don't know, your art, your interest in the art world.
They know you like music, sport, politics, et cetera, but not art.And I never really talk about that.But I agree with you, because I experience it.And of course, we just moved back to Austin a year ago.You haven't seen the new house.
But I've had people walk into the house and go, holy shit. Like, where did all this come from?You know, OG, Banksy's, Riche's, Francis Bacon's, Kehinde Wiley's.I mean, just people are like, who put all this up?
And I'm like, eh, you know, I've been dabbling, but I've been collecting for 25 years and just on my own.
Would you, what would you, what's the game plan with it just to keep it in the family?Yeah, just to keep it.I mean, you go trolling at night, like looking online, what's up in a gallery.
You know, I used to go to all the fairs.I don't do that anymore.But you can, you can go to galleries, you can go to fairs, you can buy at auction.
if I were to, and I haven't bought in a hot minute, but if I were to jump back in, I would, I would take my, I would take even more time.Right.And identify really young artists.Yeah.And I've always had one rule with art.Right.And that's,
buy what you like.Like you can go to galleries and you can go to museums and you stand there with the, with the curator or the head of the museum and like, you know, they get very, uh, for lack of a better phrase, they get really woo woo with it.
Like, do you see it? Oh, it's speaking to me.I'm like, what are you?I'm like, I'm a I'm a dumb kid from Plano.Like, I don't know.That looks fucking cool.I think I'll buy that.Like, buy what you like.
Don't buy what somebody else says you should or what spoke to them.No.Walk around the corner if it strikes you.
You know, maybe you get it.You know, what I was just looking at is, she's so legendary, but Georgia Oakey.
Everybody knows her in New Mexico.Yeah.And she worked out of Texas, Canyon, Texas, as a teacher, like in 1916 to 18, doing watercolors of Palo Duro Canyon, all those.That's beautiful.But later in life, she had a Ford sedan up there by Taos.
And we go to the back roads of New Mexico, and was a photographer, and she did a series just roads.Wow.You should look at it.
It's just the line, very minimal, but just pictures of a road, and all in black and white, and like a road with mist, a road with, and I was like, wow, that's a whole dimension of her I didn't know.
It's a whole GIF, yeah.Yeah, her kids are like, this teacher's crazy, she's always taking pictures.Yeah, exactly.Now we're talking about her.I wanna talk about a couple things.Obviously,
It's, uh, you know, what are we, gosh, a little over a month and a half away from, um, from what's just seems to be one of the, has to be at least in my lifetime, certainly craziest political, uh, presidential races.
And so I want to hear, I want to talk about that.And for folks who may maybe don't know, but should know, I mean, you are, as I tell people, cause people, I said, well, Doug is the foremost presidential historian alive.Now, I don't know.
I mean, maybe there's somebody else, but he's the guy he's, this is, this is what he loves is what he's passionate about.But this shit is so weird.So I want to, I want to get into that.And I just, I think.
Lance, we're making a mistake, the United States, of running these elections so long.They go on for like two or three years of just, and it creates almost a fatigue, yet we're addicted to the reality narrative of it.So we lean forward and
And I wish we could be like the European countries, maybe run them a little shorter, you know, six months where we focus, but alas, we don't.It has been a strange time this summer.
I think people in history will bookend it with the debate of Trump and Biden, and Biden being very listless.
Yeah.No matter what side you're on.No matter what side.Very tough to watch.
Never.I know.And in some ways, depending how you feel politically, you either felt sorry for him or embarrassed or you were glad that he was screwing up.
And that set an emotion that seems to me a whole kind of inferno of things, mainly at the exact same time the Democrats are looking for an escape hatch, Kamala Harris, You have Butler, Pennsylvania with Donald Trump being shot.
And yes, it's a nick of the ear, but that building wide open there, and how did somebody get that opportunity?
And then the oddness of Milwaukee, where Trump came in as a unity person, but the only memory we'll really take away from Milwaukee Republic Convention will be the ear, the bandaged ear.
And then his 10 minutes of unity talk, and then back to Trump invective.And then Harris coming out, and to the surprise of myself, the Republicans were caught off guard by her, as if they had no plan.
I think when you- Are we talking about the debate, or just- I'm talking about Harris.As she got picked.I don't think they imagined Biden would give up power.It's not common. that somebody abdicates power.
And the fact that Biden was convinced to do it, why was he convinced?Well, he got COVID.He then was there in Delaware on the beach and reflected for 48 hours.And people like Nancy Pelosi.
There's the talk.I mean, the talk from, you know, of
And she came out of the gate with a kind of strange momentum.She almost seemed magical for a while.Very few errors.Most people would have made them.She seemed to fall right into the role.
I was in Chicago at the convention, and it was a huge party success. But it wasn't like the Republican convention about Donald Trump in Chicago.
You had a smorgasbord of people, Bill Clinton, then Hillary Clinton, then Michelle Obama, and Barack Obama, and Oprah.And it became like that.And so they closed the Biden gap.And since then, it's been a dead heat.
There had only been the one debate, and Harris won.She did well introducing herself to the public. I don't know in a second debate if all the facial gestures she made, which were choreographed flawlessly.
I'm not sure a second round of the same ones might play as well.And Trump miscalculated, misunderstood her prosecutorial power.And she unleashed it.And yet, Trump always knows how to reclaim a media narrative.
Well, back to that original debate with Biden.Most people know where I stand on this.I do try to stay out of it.And if somebody forced me to talk about it, I would say, look, I just wish we had better choices.And I mean that.Wait, this is America?
This is it? all these smart and rich people and passionate people and generous people, like this is it.
So that's my- Two people that would be in their 80s as president.
But here we are.And I will say on that first debate, I mean, I've met Joe Biden many, many times and he was a perfectly nice guy.That was, for as hard as that was to watch,
I thought Donald Trump in that first debate, he came out and I said, oh my God, this guy, because it isn't just standing up there and wanting to be president and being smart, man, you got to train, you got to prep, you have to get grilled, you have to do mock debates.
And I said, wow, this guy. is ready.Like this is a, this is not the normal.I said, we, you know, we have the, you know, the Democrats, whatever, we got a problem.Like this is, this guy's way more polished.Yes.
Then you fast forward. to the second debate.And it was, you're right.She is a prosecutor.What do prosecutors do, right?They are used to getting their story across to a jury, to a group of people, whether it's 12 jurors or 330 Americans.
She had that, and she was trained up, and he was not.And so it was, But nonetheless, what I struggle with, and I'm so curious about, and nobody has a crystal ball other than maybe you, can we ever get back to normal, right?
Is this, and I don't know what normal is, right?I mean, I can remember a lot of presidents, and I remember how mad people were, George Bush, and Bill Clinton, and even Jimmy Carter.
But in Ronald, if you look back at Reagan, you're like, but could you ever get back to a place where I don't know who the candidate is on the Democratic side, but on the Republican side, maybe it's a Mitt Romney-esque person.
I think we'll get back to it.That's good.
I'm glad you say that.I do.But not with this, not anytime soon.I mean, it is bitter out there.
Trump is very decisive and, you know, dividing kind of figure.People either, they're very into what he says, what he's, you got to buy into the act 100% or not.And I think 30% of the American public are diehards for Trump.
Now I know more than that, but that 30%, if he runs a third party four years from now, that 30% will come with him.So he can be a disruptive agent for another cycle, and he will, well, it's gonna be close, and he will contest if he loses.
He'll say the vote wasn't counted in Pennsylvania properly.He'll continue to make a kind of mayhem out of it. In 2000, there was that moment where things could have unspooled with Al Gore.The hanging chads.Hanging chads of Florida.
And eventually, at that moment, I remember when James Baker, Secretary of State, he was representing Bush.And he was shooting his cufflinks in Florida.Power broker coming to Florida, counting chads.
And Warren Christopher, who is a Democratic Secretary of State, was very mild and old school gentlemanly.And it was clear aggression was going to do it and got to the Supreme Court.
And they decided, we forget that in early 2001, a lot of people, Democrats, thought Gore should have been president.He won the popular vote. You know that George W Bush wasn't the real president.
Well, boom 9-11 happened and he had like a 90% approval rating towards W Bush those first weeks when we all put American flags in our lawn and and you know, and in and so the I don't want it to be a disaster that pulls us together.
We don't want it some no event. So, the question will become a new generation will have to come up.We'll have to have new talent that upper pivots, center right, center left, but doesn't go with the social media extreme.
But Vance isn't exactly long in the tooth.I mean, he's- He surprises me.But he's part of the younger generation.You could have more of that.That's a good point.Good point.That's what I'm saying.
the sort of thresholds so far apart that people just say, well, I guess that's what, even if it's not what they believe, because by the way, we know a lot of this shit they don't believe.I don't know.
But they got to play the game and they got to act the act.And they just say, you know, I got to be extreme.Like that, I mean, there's not a lot of things that makes me want to.Let's hope it doesn't.I agree. Today's show brought to you by KetoneIQ.
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But you know, Vance, when he wrote Hillbilly Elegy and Ron Howard did a movie and he's a Yale law constitutional guy, but then he started making little money and he, Peter O'Toole gave him, you know, millions to run for Senate in Ohio.
And he took that internet tech money, you know, and then he turned his back on all those people and recognized I better go full Trump, because you can't have one bit of difference with Trump.And so, he just does whatever.
And I think Vance was a product of the Trump boys, Eric and Donald Jr.They befriended him.They saw him as part of their pack. He ran well with, hung out with them well.It may turn out to be a fundamental mistake of Trump.
I mean, they had Doug Borglum, a billionaire in North Dakota, who's more mild-mannered, but made a lot of money with Microsoft, just popular governor.
He may have been a more effective VP, or Tim Scott may have helped bring in some African-American vote, although I'm not convinced. or Rubio would have been a huge thing.
But in hindsight, I think the faith thought, well, he said, he'll do what we want.And he's proven to do that when you're doubling down on dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.And Tim, I did not see the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, coming.
I saw why he was on a shortlist.I saw him on MSNBC, like, wow, what a great hit he just did.
I thought, you know, that they might go straight for Josh Shapiro and play for Pennsylvania because so many electoral votes there and Shapiro's popular and just go right for that golden prize.
But alas, Waltz is given a lift, kind of a Midwest populist, the teacher, the coach, till this point. And we'll see how Vance and Tim Waltz do on their debate.
They will have a debate.Yeah.I think it's debatable whether or not there will be another Trump.I'm not sure there will be.
I don't think, yeah.It doesn't seem to be in the interest of either in some ways.Certainly, I don't see how Trump wants to go against the prosecutor.
It's funny.I get a lot of, you know, I have friends from across both sides.And, you know, those, that my Republican friends will say, well, yeah, she won't even do interviews.And she's not out there.
She's not talking about her policies and her plans and et cetera, et cetera.And all the while, these are all just facts, right?She's going up in the polls.
And so I say to my friends, I said, well, gosh, I mean, if you're in charge over there, you're like, let's just keep doing what we're doing.Exactly.I understand that this side over here is like, well, she won't do interviews.She won't tell us.
Meanwhile, the numbers are going up.Well, if you're the coach or the coordinator or whoever you want to, whatever you want to call them, well, you just say, I think we just keep doing what we're doing.
That's working.That's their strategy.The danger is, Lance, Woodrow Wilson used to say in politics, caution is a sign of extreme selfishness if you're overcautious.
the danger of Harris if she plays that too much and doesn't have breakout moments between now and then.Or she learned too many of the Biden people learned Biden could be a COVID president in Delaware.
You know, we used to call him the front porch presidents.William A. Kinley ran for president and never left Canton, Ohio. She's, I think, splitting the difference pretty well.
She's frenetically campaigning, giving her speeches, giving her rallies, but avoiding that one-on-one press moment.She doesn't want to make one mistake that can be, you know, swung back at her.
So if she loses, the caution that she's showing, which seems smart now, would be questioned in history.
And what do you make, because there was so much, written and reported and opined on after the second debate, the actual Trump and Harris debate about the moderators.
I'm curious because I watched and I saw the performances and I obviously listened to the questions. But so much was, obviously from Fox News and other folks on the right, that this was rigged.They gave her leading questions.
What was your honest, objective view of their questions?
I thought that Trump always demonizes the media.That's because when Walter Cronkite left CBS in 1981, Journalism had a 70% approval rating.Today, it's like 14% approval.So Trump covers himself in advance.
He was saying it's the corrupt fake news CNN, but I'll do the debate corrupt ABC.He has a lawsuit going on against George Stephanopoulos Trump at ABC.So if he failed, he would have a scapegoat and he took it.
I thought the moderators were pretty good.They gave Trump five minutes more time.They probably could have followed up on Harris one or two times more than they did.
But Trump unleashes so many falsehoods, one after the other after the other, that they felt obliged to call him out on some, because Jake Tapper and Dana Bash didn't.
serves Trump's to benefit.What I think that first debate, the mic, you're right though, Trump came in and the way the microphones work, muting, he was containable.
She really prepped because she believed, I wouldn't have believed that the crowd size would have still gotten under his skin.
Obama unleashed a killer line at the Democrat convention about crowd size when he moved his hands, you know, it's in a manhood way.But that Trump wasn't ready for her to hit him with that.And he kept doubling down.I have bigger crowds.
So that moment he was acting very foolish.I thought he may have been It showed me an under-preparedness, as if he arrived really going on gut.
Well, I mean, how about the fact that, and look, I'm not trying to pick apart Donald Trump's debate performance, but anybody could see this, didn't matter who you're voting for.The fact that you didn't consider or know or constantly think of,
the image on the television, it's always a split screen.There are times they focus on the person who's talking, but most of the time it's a split screen.So that means when you're just standing there. Well, everybody's looking at you too.
Like they're looking at her talk or you talking.And then what are you going to do with that time?Well, if you turned the volume off and you watched, you're like, wow, this is not good.
And she, on the other hand, clearly had been coached up where it's like, look, when he's talking, keep in mind, you're also on the television screen. And she, you know, she had some, you know, some smirks, but, but it wasn't just like this.Yeah.
Didn't just stare.I mean, just because you're not talking, doesn't mean you can lay down.
You know, the, one of the problems the right has done is they've demonized Kamala Harrison.They started believing their own BS that she was, she was a weak, Worst VP.She has a lot of charisma and she does a lot of it.Her smile is Obama-esque.
She can enter a room and it can light up.And then her priceless facial gestures.And you're right, back in 19... One thing, Lance, everybody thinks we've always had presidential debates. We have not.Lincoln-Douglas was about the Illinois Senate.
The first presidential debate ever, Nixon versus Kennedy.It's people who watched on television, the four debates, thought that Kennedy did well.They were watching his body language, watching his calmness.
And Nixon seemed sweaty, and beady, and what you were saying, at the wrong moment, looking odd.People that listen on radio thought that Nixon had won. And so it is at all these televised debates.It's a visual medium.
And it's not just about what you're saying when it's your turn.It's how you're acting and looking.And she pulled both off.
That's like, I mean, it's one of the best, maybe the best debate performance in US history was Kamala Harris and Trump because she didn't put a lot of mistakes on the table.
on her mannerisms and also on her substance, although there are a lot of talking points.And the moderators did not do the follow-ups with her on some things that would have trapped her.
Right.Well, there's this kind of, for me, I keep thinking about cable news.I mean, because what you said at the top, you said you think these election cycles are just too long, right?
I mean, the NFL season is, I don't know, five months or six months, and you get a little break. Complete break, but they are long right and but with the ad and you talked about Walter Cronkite, right?
Well when when in the approval rating was 70 and now it's 14% But what's happened since then right?You've had we don't have three channels to choose from are you good?We're not ABC NBC and CBS.You've now got cable news and they want this thing.
They want nothing more and than to keep this shit running constantly.And then let's mix in a little, you know, natural disaster, a plane crash, a shooting or something that keeps it, they want it to keep playing out.
But there's two things that on the cable news thing that I've just observed.The guy I like most, and I shouldn't say I really, I shouldn't say I don't like cable news, because I watch it.
Now, I try to watch it all, and I do this on purpose with my family.I'll watch some CNN, but if we're watching 10 minutes of CNN, well, we're going to switch right over and we're going to watch 10 minutes of Fox.We're not just watching one.
I think that's a shitty way for your kids to absorb this stuff, even if they're not paying attention. They're getting some of it.But my favorite guy on cable news is John King.Oh, me too.He is amazing.
So John King, and he just seems, he really, he seems neutral to me, I could be wrong, but I love him with all of his maps and, you know, if she wins this county and he wins this state, and then he's got all the numbers and the electoral college.
But he said before the debate, he said, if Donald Trump brings up people, Haitian immigrants, eating people's pets in some small town in Ohio, he has lost.And I thought, well, surely.There's just no way.I mean, there's no way he does that.
Well, he did, but King sitting there just says, listen, this is what I think.If he, by chance, has the nerve to bring this up, it's over. And he did.
The last thing I'll say about cable news, because we're talking about these debates, and this drives me crazy.We watched the first debate, Trump and Biden.And I mean, it was just so sad to watch.I don't care what side you're on.
When that debate ended and they cut to CNN, I had it on CNN for that debate. The panel sitting up there, right?And it was probably, I think it was Anderson Cooper, Axelrod.I think Axelrod's great.You probably had a King, you had a John King there.
You had some Republican analysts.Across the, the Republicans said, I'm sorry, the Democrats said, this is a disaster.We couldn't believe what we just saw.This is, this is, we cannot imagine that it could ever be this bad.
Now, this last debate, right, Trump and Harris.Well, it was, it was flip-flopped.Then I watched the panel on Fox.You go to that panel, I said, well, He did amazing.We think he clearly won.She got some licks in.But I'm like, were we all watching?
I mean, you have to call it the way you see it.
You know, I did Morning Joe, MSNBC, the morning after that first debate, Biden-Trump. To your point, I just said it's over for Biden.I actually said he needs to step down and it has to be, it's going to be Kamala Harris.
Because I knew enough of presidential history, they're not going to be able to do this open convention where eight people are in Chicago.Yeah, Gavin Newsom.
Yeah, not going to happen.
Shapiro.It's either Biden or her. He just blew it, and they're going to have to elevate Kamala Harris.
Well, there were a lot of reasons for that, too.There was money that had been raised, was earmarked.They'd have to send it back, hope to get it sent back to them.
For all those reasons.But the bottom line is, he's done, Biden, in my mind.There's no way he's going to recover from that. John King, who incidentally is not only great on television, a wonderful guy, and a great sports fan.
He goes to all the NBA games.He's on four seats.He's a sports freak.I did not know he said that about the AI.I missed it.But it's prescient of him.The thought that Trump thinks he's going to sell
the dogs and cats in Springfield as a way to bring attention that it's not just the border with Mexico, that's the problem, but people are flying in and they're coming in and demonizing Haitians like that, which he called shithole country Haiti before and the like.
It just, I don't know what he was thinking.There was probably, he likes to defend Bobby Kennedy Jr.because there was an accusation of the, you know, the dead bear eating a dog.And yeah.
And, and then, um, he was defending JD Vance who was, did the cat ladies somehow in Trump's mind, his showbiz mind, he thought that that was a winning zap.
Yeah. And I just thought I thought King called it.I mean, I was yeah, he must have been watching going.Oh my God, I called that.
Well, yeah, I would not have thought that Trump would have done gone that route.But his philosophy is that, you know, trying to keep a kind of white America and make sure towns aren't being replaced by people of color from places like Haiti.
Yeah.Look, I mean, I, I, I, I can see all sides of it.I mean, I think, um, there's also a part of me, I mean, look, nobody wants fentanyl streaming into our country.Nobody wants rapists and murderers coming into the country.
But at the same time, we've had immigration for a long, long time.And, but, but is, should it just be just open the border and let it happen?No.I mean, but there has to be, that's my, I don't have the answer. Immigration is not going away.
It's just how you responsibly.
And I wouldn't give Biden, Harris, and certainly high marks on the way they dealt with the border.It's not been good.
But I think Trump channels, like when we do look at presidents like Dwight Eisenhower, successful two-termer, most of us think his lowest moment, Ike, was Operation Wetback.Trump elevates it as Eisenhower's great moment.
Not the building of the interstate highway system, not creating of NASA, not sending National Guard into Little Rock to tell civil rights, but block the border, send them back, Operation Wetback of Ike.Same with FDR.
I've heard Trump say, look, I'm a conservative, I'm not an FDR guy, but he's a leader because he put Japanese in internment camps. That's pure Trump.He's taking what some people think is the lowest moment at FDR and elevating it.
Somewhere in Trump, there's a some, you come to the conclusion that whatever his, it's not just, he wants an America that had a power structure that's different than it is today.It was white men running the country.And that's rapidly changing.
The demographics are changing. And I grew up in Ohio, Lance.And look, Ohio got screwed in the 90s, because NAFTA came in.It was both Clinton and Bush.
Ross Perot, in 1992, got 19% of the vote on saying the sucking sound of your jobs are going to Mexico, blaming. What I wouldn't have predicted as a younger historian is I thought that they would blame corporations more.
And like, well, why did Ford build their factory in China?Why did?But in the end, in the Midwest, they don't blame the companies.They blame other factors.And because the companies were giving them checks,
And the federal government's making them pay taxes.And the labor movement kind of petered out.You know, labor was a big deal in the 60s.You don't hear much about it.Biden stoked it a little bit.He went to the picket line.
But I mean, back in the 60s and 70s, big labor was so powerful.Now it's less and less.And people like Elon Musk and others are liking states that don't have labor unions.Find places where the union movement is in a hindrance.
Or robots.Or robots.I've not been to the facility here in Austin, but apparently there's not a lot of humans.
A lot of humans, a lot of robots.And I was reading recently about trucking industry going to be robotic trucking.
Yeah.Well, I think, yeah, of course.I mean, in the future, look, we have Waymo taxis here in Austin now.And I spend a lot of time in San Francisco.You see them everywhere.There is no human driving that car. I mean, come on, let's be real.
At some point, we're all gonna get on, you know, American Airlines flight 372 to Newark or whatever, and there will not be a human flying that airplane.To my point, I was just picking trucking.
Yeah, but it's the same thing.
Which by the way, I don't, I wanted to get there, but I don't have a problem with that.If you said this thing's gonna make the perfect decisions, now, I don't have a problem with that.
And then the only problem is, And I don't either, but it's a deculturalization.Like the end of the truck stop.
Maybe we're just nostalgic, you know, like at the end of that culture of the road and those places, but the culture in airports is simply shopping mall culture at any rate with fast food restaurants.
So I don't feel there's the cultural loss in commercial air, but something about, you know, the mythology of the music, you know, Little Feet Willin' and, you know. The Convoy radio, the country truck.
If you had to- I think Harris is going to win, but it's going to be a squeaker.And I think it'll get contested.I worry that it could- we may be doing recount after recounts in a couple states.
If Trump lost barely, he very well will try to find a legal mechanism to get this elected to the Supreme Court, believing that they'll side with him the way they did in 2000 with George W. Bush, meaning the makeup of the court. favors Trump.
And so that's his plan B. He'll again say he didn't really lose, it's rigged, do the lawsuits, figure out if one can make it something out of a lot of vote counting. I think, though, I worry about the poll stations.
I worry making sure our poll workers are safe.There's a lot of uptick in terrorism going on.I mean, people are just trying to kill Netanyahu and not just Trump.I mean, there's these you're feeling this era of assassins in the in the in the bushes.
Last week, Donald Trump, you know, teeing off on number seven, you know, a guy in the
And again, how does somebody there apparently 12 hours hanging around?I don't know.But never discount how government can be semi-dysfunctional.I think we create secret service and CIA agents as these infallible warriors.
And they're humans that are goofing up a lot.But I do, I'm for increased, secret service protection if you're going outdoor venues, golf courses, you're doing these big fairgrounds and all.
You know, William McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo by an anarchist who took, had a, pretended he had a broken arm and had a cast and had the gun in it.
And he did a receiving line and looked like a poor guy's broken arm, you know, and he got up to McKinley, close as you and I are, and popped him, shot him like that.
And not only did McKinley die and Theodore Roosevelt get sworn in, but then the big fight, Lance, was the big new thing was Buffalo was doing electric chairs. as in Thomas Edison had an electric chair and Westinghouse had an electric chair.
So they were vying for who would get to kill the assassin with the new marble of an electric chair.And then cutting it back to art,
When the Rosenbergs got executed in a chair for being spies, Andy Warhol in the 60s did a death and disaster series of the electric chair that the Rosenbergs were executed in, showing the strap and all that, but then did it in neon green and hot pink, crazy colors.
And why?Because he said, we just deal with murders car wrecks in America, we deal with death and disaster as an entertainment."Pretty frightening statement that Warhol was saying.
So, you know, whenever there's something violent, something, you know, an Al Capone moment, we all lean in and see what's going on in America.And probably the good news, the good news is hard to get out there.A lot of great people everywhere.
Hard to get it out there.Yeah.
Well, again, it's this cycle of cable news, I'm convinced, Once we got away from the big three, you know, it's, look, and it's, it's to be expected.It is competitive, right?Oh my God, there's not three of us anymore.There's now 30 of us.
Well, we gotta, we have to, we have to get people to pay.It doesn't matter what, like that stuff.
I have to live with, I've been dead wrong.I thought January 6th was going to disqualify Trump.I thought when you heard Mitch McConnell and every Republican turning on him, I thought that's the end.
He had that 30% that weren't going away.So they were already starting with it.Nobody else had that base that they could start with.
And then the justice department, Merrick Garland, went slow.Like he was so worried about showing he's not on a witch hunt to get Trump.How much, how many court cases can, you know, the spin and then- I think those have actually helped.The what has?
The cases, you know.Yes.It turned him into, it turned Trump into an outlaw.He's our only outlaw president.And you know, there's President's Club and there's the outlaw, but we worship.We need Hunter Thompson back.
Hunter Thompson, but we like, you know, Billy the Kid and Jesse James.
And Dillinger.Meaning, you go to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, or Tombstone, Arizona, and you look at memorabilia in a gift shop, they're celebrating the outlaw culture as much as law enforcement.
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Shifting to that, because I see you on cable news all the time talking about this kind of stuff, which we just ran through. I love documentaries, and anybody that listens to this show regularly knows.
I mean, if it comes out, it could be sports, it could be history, it could be politics, it could be crime.Like, I love these, you know, some crime ones.And so I land on this Wyatt Earp documentary on Netflix, just came out.
Wyatt Earp, what is it called?It's called Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War.And I thought, well, six episodes?Yeah, I travel all the time.Shit. download.So I'm watching this whole thing and lo and behold, there you are.Of course.
But this fucking story, you know, nobody, I had no idea.And I, I pay attention to this stuff, like the amount of influence and power.I mean, everybody thinks about the shootout at the OK Corral.They know the name that I call bow.
That must've been a bunch of cowboys just shooting each other. Well, yeah.But how Wyatt Earp came to be there, the influence of Wells Fargo, the influence of JP Morgan, nobody knew that story.And not only those two, but the royal family.
Right, and of course, America was much smaller then, and silver and gold were so much more powerful, and they didn't have railroads.
And we're trying to pay off Civil War debt, and they were doing it by the government in Arizona, you know, convincing Europeans that Arizona wasn't lawless, and that we could, you could.
Well, the royal family is asking, J.P.Morgan is actually, and if y'all haven't seen it, you have to watch this.And it's cool, because it's, as I describe it, it's a cinematic documentary.So this gets played out on the screen.
So Wyatt Earp is being, and Doc Holliday, they're being played by actors.And they'll show a scene or a couple of scenes, and then they'll cut to guys like you, right?And they'll sort of tell the story of the background of what happened.
And then they'll go back to telling the story cinematically.It was very well done.
Oh, man, I appreciate it.You know, it is.And I do think it's it splits a lot of differences.It creates entertainment value.It's educational.It brings the best of Hollywood, but it also allows the real history to come through.
And, you know, everybody knows the name Wyatt Earp and Doc Connick, but nobody really knows the whole story.And, you know, I never thought of this before, but do you remember, Lance, a movie when we would have been young, Warren Beatty Reds?
Do you remember that?Yeah, yeah.I mean, I couldn't.He did a thing on, he played a journalist of World War I, John Reed, Warren Beatty, but he took real people like Studs Terkel or people that were alive and put them in, mixed in with the regular.
And I remember, I thought that might catch on, like if we're doing a, you know, and it never really did, but I think Netflix now, this Wyatt Earp is going to be a model because you get Ed Harris and he's, you know, tremendous.
And then you can keep the budget under control where it doesn't blow up on you.
Yeah, these are not, I mean, they were, the acting was great, but not anybody.
But the reviews have been like Wall Street Journal and on and on.I mean, people are loving it.And I think they'll do a lot more of those Netflix.
just worked on one on Winston Churchill for 12, it's going to be 12 hours on Churchill, Netflix is doing.
And so it's- He's been in a bunch of stuff lately.I mean, obviously the Queen show they had, he's in there a lot, but there was another one I saw.People love Churchill.
A lot of people should.But you know, Churchill was a great writer.And he wrote volume after volume of the history of the Second World War.He won a Nobel Prize for literature, Winston Churchill.He wrote that well.
And so he was able to spin his own story where FDR.Smart.Smart. FDR died.He didn't have a memoir.There's no FDR memoir.He died in April 12, 1945.No memoir.So Churchill's lore continues.
And in the United States, he's been adopted by conservatives that just worship Churchill more than any American president.You know, the people that like Reagan a lot like Churchill a lot. multifaceted guy, Churchill.
So, I think that that's probably a plus in our life.People are, if you can get, look, it's a visual age.So, people are podcast and visual.That's where it's at.
And so, if you're getting eyeballs at Netflix and keeping them glued, it's at least a good place to
Well, and it's just, and it's just, you know, I've, I've, it wasn't hilarious, but I was like, man, I'm clueless.Like Wells Fargo, you know, that's our bank.
Like if I need a little cash, I go down to the Wells Fargo and go to the ATM and, and that's, that's our bank.And they've survived.And, and, but if you look at the logo of Wells Fargo and most people, I know I never looked at the logo.
Well, there's a horse and buggy on there. they won all, you know.And they were, they were transporting the silver and the gold.Like that was, that's how this thing, folks, that's how it started.This isn't where your ATM is.
I mean, it is now, but back then.
You don't go too wrong in history.If you focus on transportation, oddly, I mean, you know, like when Thomas Jefferson was president, he kept talking about the national road that'll go from the East to the West.
And then each generation, you know, by 1920s, we did federal highways that are numbered that we all live on now, like Route 66.It becomes storied.
And then in the 50s, we did the Eisenhower Interstates, which is the largest public works project in world history. But in these intervening years before the automobile, there's things like the steamboat and railroad, even the 1870s bicycle.
Bicycle.Well, I was going to say, I mean, as history goes, it was right around the turn of the 20th century.Roads, we had roads.We had dirt roads.Then we had horses and horse and buggy.
They were fine with dirt roads, maybe even some cobbles in the city centers. And then the bicycle became such a mode of transportation.
People don't know this, but the League of American Wheelmen is who petitioned the Congress to start paving the roads because the dirt roads didn't work for the bicycle.
So then they were like, well, shit, all these people on bikes, that's how they're getting around.We're going to have to start paving.So if that doesn't happen, well, then the car doesn't work that great either.
You know, have you ever thought about writing a book on the history of the bicycle?
No, I haven't thought about that.A short book.
If you write it, I'll do it.It might be, yeah.Also, when I talk about Steamboat, it's connected to, you're talking about Wells Fargo with the silver and all that.So, if you were a farmer in Ohio,
you would grow your crops and you get to Ohio River and you'd go down the Ohio and then down the Mississippi to New Orleans.And you'd sell your produce for Dixie notes, where Dixie land comes from.It was a currency of New Orleans.
So, you'd say, I'm going to Dixieland, payday.But once you sold it, you'd hit the brothels, you'd hit the bars, you'd hit whatever, and then you'd have to get a keelboat, which were very athletic.
Think of linebackers in the NFL with poles along the banks, like Mississippi, going upriver, up polling, just to Natchez, Mississippi. And then you would hike from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, the Natchez Trace.And it was a robber's highway.
That's what the term really in America, the highwaymen would rob you, because you were loaded with your money from your harvest, so people would hide in the woods.
Yeah, highway robbery.Well, truly.And it became a bit, you know, Lewis and Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition committed suicide on the Natchez Trace. It was an amazing artery.
Well, in the West, they're getting all that silver, let's say Arizona silver mine, somebody, they're transporting it.Well, you know, you have to have security, the best horsemen, best weapons, and all of that to protect.
I mean, these were, it's, you know, the cowboy, they call it the, you know, what's the title?Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War.Well, that just, that sounds like Wyatt Earp versus a cowboy.Well, it was,
there was a gang and they were called, you know, the Cowboys, right?We would never think of that now, but that was a gang, right?That was their job.They would not just rob these carts with, or buggies with silver and gold, they'd rob cows.
They would, they just went around and robbed shit.And they, but their gang was called the Cowboys.Ike Clanton and his brother and the whole crew, But it was influencing all of this.And J.P.
Morgan has this grand plan to buy up all of the, going back to transportation, his plan is to buy all of the railroads in the U.S.And he's getting there, trying to get backing from the King of England.
And the King of England hears that, wait a minute, what's going, I'm hearing about this, the King of England.What is going on in Tombstone, Arizona?Your country seems like it's a mess. I mean, the fact that that was the conversation.Yeah.
And they were very interested.It's not in that Netflix on Wyatt Earp, but the British got very into the Wild West because Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Cody would come there with his show with Annie Oakley shooting ornaments.
And so the royal family were like, what? fedded all of these ruffians.And they would, you know, and Buffalo Bill would capture Indian's native leaders, like the Apache Geronimo.You know, ladies and gentlemen, Geronimo.
And, you know, it was very sad, you know, that some of the so-called famous warriors now being on this grand show.And, you know, maybe, Lance, in the end, that whole Wild West narrative of our country may be the great mythology of our country.
It may be bigger than, you know, the building of New York immigrant story, which is gigantic.But boy, the Western lore never ends.
And you're just reminded when you watch Cause look, it's, it's easy to sit here in 2024 and say, ah, you know, my kids are always on their phones.AI is going to take over the world.Politics are fucking crazy.I guess it's a mess.Can we just go back?
But then you watch something like this and we're at 1881, Doc Holliday has tuberculosis.He's about to, they tell him he has to, he ends up in Tombstone, Arizona because they tell him to move to a drier climate. Yep.
Like any of these little, like things that we can fix in five minutes now or five seconds.I mean, you were smoked, right?
You lived to be- And the fact that Wyatt Earp lived into the cinema age.
He did.He went on to work in Hollywood.
Went on to work in Hollywood, the real Wyatt Earp.And like Tom Mix was a pallbearer at his funeral.And
You know, it was, it's a fascinating moment because you, you did get photography, you know, so people could take what, you know, it's like one photo or two of people.
So if you go to Deadwood, you know, South Dakota or Tombstone, you know, the, the old postcard racks of the faces of these people, the, the lore lives on.And incidentally, those kinds of books sell well.
The best writer of that genre of capturing the real West history was the novelist, Larry McMurtry from Texas.Oh sure, from Austin. Famost.Larry was good.He really knew.
He used to, Lance, I worked at Rare Book Use Books, and when I was in graduate school at Georgetown, and Larry had a bookstore called Booked Up, and he would buy, and I'd go in it, but at night, I'd be night manager, and he'd come in with the dog and just buy stacks of books, Larry McMurtry.
And he had just done the Leaving Cheyenne, which Paul Newman made into HUD, And then he wrote The Last Picture Show, a great classic.And Sybil Shepard, do you remember her?Of course.
One morning, I came by Larry's because I made a little bit of money on his bookstore, just bundling and it was shipping out like a little bit.He came down with her. Wow, man.
And I was going to like punk bars in DC, like the 930 Club or all the would-be poets.
Was 930 Club around then?
Yeah, Discord Records in the 930 Club, Fugazi and Black Flag, all those people would come.But that night scene, you know, would-be poets screaming their angst.
And then I was like, here's Larry and his like, you know, torn, just disheveled with, you know, He was very interesting guy, Larry McMurtry.His son, James McMurtry, is a good songwriter.Huge.I wish people understood what a great songwriter he is.
He doesn't get the credit, but he's one of our best.
Yeah, and we've lost that.I mean, let's just be, I mean, if we were talking before the show, just, you know, about which, you know, who's living here in Austin on the music side, right?You know, obviously, one of the richest histories anywhere.
And there's not many.A lot of the locals, I mean, that's why I was so surprised that 930 Club is still around in DC.I mean, that'd be like us thinking, talking about Liberty Lunch in Austin, or La Zona Rosa, or even the original Anthems, Threadgills.
Now those folks are in Lockhart.They're in Bastrop. They're in Wimberley, they're out in maybe Marble Falls, you know, or somewhere else, Kansas City.There's a lot of talk about folks, you know, sort of digging the Kansas City vibe.
But yeah, he's, yeah, he got, you know.
Willie Nelson survives.And how did you, did you, you knew, know Willie.Very well.How did that come about?
Boy, how did that come about?I think I first met Willie, he was doing, it would have been late 90s, he, you know, cause he was a runner for many, many years.And there's a bunch of, you can see the pictures online, it was him and his new balance.
Jogging with that kind of outfit.Yeah, he would jog.With the sweatband he would have on, yeah.And he did a 5K or 10K, I don't remember which, and asked me to come down.And I just had my son, Luke, who you know, And I pushed him in the baby jogger.
And Lyle Lovett was on the start line.And so we got to know each other then.And then just over the years, I've just stayed in touch.I'll go out and play golf with him out at his little course where he lives.And you're right, man.
And still performs well in his 90s.And he's a testament to good karma for, you know, because he used to, even when everybody associates him with the marijuana and all that.
But, you know, after every show, he would sign autographs on the bus and let people photograph. So, police liked him in the environment, his good Samaritanism.So, when the IRS- Farmaid.Farmaid.The IRS came and took his ranch, dear royal of the world.
They all bought his old house.All that Willie's given to Texas culture and you guys are treating him shabbily.
Think about that, folks, right?You run into trouble with the IRS, and you can't pay the tab.They make you sell it.Remember he did the IRS tapes?Yeah.He made the IRS tapes.He would sell it on local television.
But your friends come along and buy your ranch and your house and your car. And I'm sure he's thinking, well, that's very nice of you.Well, let's come up with a payment plan.I'll get this back.
And they just turned right around and said, no, here's the keys back.And let's just move on.
It's a beautiful Texas story that that group did that.They said, you're not putting Willie away.
Going back to the white herb thing real quick, and then I'm going to let you go.But what story and you know this stuff, right?
Is what is out there that, cause like the Wyatt Earp thing I thought was crazy, just all of the touch points and shit I didn't know.What's out there that hasn't been told that in your mind, you're like, how has nobody ever told this story?
This is so crazy. so special, so needs to be told.Is there anything?Yeah, there are a lot.
I'm sure.But I don't think people, like here in Austin, you have Cesar Chavez Boulevard and many things named after Cesar.
I don't think people really understand Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, meaning the United Farm Workers of the 60s, because these were not people coming over from Mexico.These were born in America.
He was born in Yuma, Arizona, Cesar Chavez, and simply wanted to make sure we had bathrooms, make sure we weren't spreading pesticides, make sure that we weren't being treated as farm animals, that we're human beings.
And that he would, at one slant, talk to Paul Chavez, his son, a wonderful guy in California.And Paul said, oh, my dad used to listen to big band music all the time, like Benny Goodman or whatever, Glenn Miller.
But at one point, I was with him, he said, I got all those tapes.He had cassettes up the zoo.This is the 60s, so the kids were into Jefferson Airplane or whatever.
I looked at them and it was micro, you know, Miles Davis Savoy this night, Charlie Parker this night.
Here's Cesar Chavez out in the farm fields going all over listening to the most modern jazz music humanly possible and then taking the crucifix out in the field knowing the altar would bring in the workers.
It's quite a pageant that took place in California in that era. because you have to know, you know, you really have to know Spanish, I think, and understand that Odyssey.19th century, you know,
Probably the, well, I think more people need to know about, believe it or not, their names are ubiquitous.What did happen at Concord, Massachusetts?Meaning, not just the battles of Lexington and Concord, but how a little town
developed Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott of Little Women, and Henry David Thoreau, Walden.Many things today were born out of this little think tank town of Concord, Massachusetts.
You go there today, and their history trails all, you know, capture the drama.
Well, Henley was trying to, Henley did a lot for it.Henley does.
Walden Woods, and.He's a warrior on that stuff.Yeah. Henley is a Texan who saved Massachusetts's Walden Pond.And he works hard on Lake Caddo Lake on the Louisiana border.
He's a real on-the-ground land, water, wetlands conservationist, not a climate activist.He just, here's a place worth saving.I admire what he does a lot.He's a bulldog.
Have you been to the sphere?You know, they're doing that.I haven't yet, but I'm going to see the- I haven't been in there, but I guess- Are you going to go to that one?Well, they're starting their residency there.
And by all accounts, I mean, this thing is just, just total mind fuckery.Like it's that amazing.It's supposed to be.I don't know how I didn't go to- I was going to see the dead when you were there.Yeah, I'm not a big dead guy.I love John Mayer.
I love, you know what I love about John Mayer?I love his resiliency.This guy doesn't give a shit. This guy's uber talented.He was an easy target.He's just kept his head down.I think photography's helped him.
He brings a camera up sometimes.When you're traveling a lot, you have something to keep you.But the one part about Jerry Garcia that many parts, by the way, he only had four fingers. Wow.
He had lost a finger in an accident as a kid, so he was playing that guitar four-fingered, you know.And he's the kind of guy that could actually, you know, David Grissman, a bluegrass guy, they could almost make instruments.
I mean, he was classically trained on everything.He could do anything, Garcia. The thought that John Mayer could come in and fill those shoes seemed to me not possible.And it isn't Jerry Garcia.Nothing ever is.
But man, he does so well keeping the crowd, the energy.
I've heard.It's worth it.I was going to go see them.But I would like to go see.I saw the Eagles in Austin when they were here. on that tour.And it was, there wasn't one person left disappointed.And their strategy is to play all the hits.
We should make a plan to go.I mean, neither of us have been to the Spear, which makes us just like the biggest losers.It does.Because we love music as much as anybody. And that's apparently a can't miss.Game changing.Yeah.So we should make that plan.
And I'm back here now and you're here and, and you know.
Are you, are you able to, where do you ride now?Is it too, is the traffic affect you?
Yeah. But look, there's a lot of, I get that question a lot.I don't ride very much.I still love to ride.I tell you, I went, and this is all true.I mean, I went and rode yesterday morning all alone.I still love riding.
I love riding alone more than anything. I'll ride with other people.I'll do group rides.I'll ride with a buddy.But nothing makes me happier than leaving my house all alone, knowing where I'm going, and just being alone.And it doesn't have to be.
In the old days, it was six hours.I loved that, too.Now it's two hours.But boy, I'm all alone.I'm out there.The kind of shit that goes through my mind, the things I think about, I plan, I reflect, You know, maybe sometimes listen to music.I suffer.
I love suffering.Look, the writing in Austin isn't what it was when I moved here in 1989, but Austin's different.And all, you know, I don't buy into this thing, well, Austin's changed and keep on, listen. we all chose to move to a really cool place.
Right.And I chose to move back to a really cool place.So if you don't want anybody to come in and you want it to stay weird, well then go live in some shithole.I agree.
And then nobody will come.And the food is so much better.
There's a lot of things better.And there's a lot of good food.But what I was gonna say was, There's, you know, technology has been good, right?Mapping is great.I do a lot of stuff on a platform called Strava.
Strava has a great feature called the heat map.So the heat map actually tells you just by there's a hundred million active users on this platform.So it sees a hundred million. It sees where people are going.
So if they're finding little sneaky side routes that, look, they are going where cars are not going.So I study the heat map.And when I travel, I really study the heat map.I'm like, OK, this is where people are going.
I can input that route into my computer and go out for a ride.It tells me turn by turn.So I feel safe.I'm not too worried about cars.I still love it.Do I do it as, I do a lot of other stuff.I mean, I'm in the gym a lot more now.I'll swim.
There's nothing that you could, I guess you're describing a kind of mindfulness, they call it on.Is, does any of your others workouts equal riding like that, or that becoming full or whatever?
Look, Because what I described to you, the way I feel when I'm out riding, that's therapy.Yeah.Straight up.That's church.Yeah.There's nothing, and I grew up doing all these sports, long distance runs, long open water swims, nothing.
Not even close to what I get, that peace, and it's really progress on the bike.So it's an excellent question, but no, nothing.
Have you ever run over an animal on your bicycle?
Well, yeah, small ones, not anything.Like a squirrel?Squirrels and, you know, yeah, nothing big.I mean, if you hit anything bigger than a squirrel, that's going to start to be a, could be a problem.
You know, we can end with this.The one problem that the, why the bison that used to be 16 million, we think, in North America got dwindled down to like 2,000.
Because the bison were everybody's enemy, meaning the railroad companies hated the idea of a train at night running into it.They weigh a ton.You run into a herd of bison.So they would shoot the bison to keep them away from the railroad tracks.
But the period of the telegraph going out west, The buffalo rubbed their back on the poles to scratch the itches of the flies and bugs, and they would topple it.So the telegraph started killing them off.Wow.
And then the US Army in the Indian Wars, as we call it, they were taking the subsistence food away from the enemy, from the natives.So they would have people just slaughter them.
So it went something $60 million down to $1,500, all in the name of westward expansion.Wow. Oh, wow.
That's history, right?Yep.Yeah.And nobody knows it better than you.My friend, thank you for doing this.Excellent.
It's great fun.It is.I'll be your fill-in guy when there's an emergency.
This studio just sits right here.You live basically five minutes from here.Next week, Dave, you're listening back here.Next week, Doug's going to be like, yeah, I've been thinking about this. I'm going to start a podcast.You guys mind if I?
Yeah, really.I will.I'll be like.Believe me, people would.Gladwell.Gladwell's is huge.Oh, that's a big, yeah.
Well, you're, you're killing it with this.So you're doing great, man.Listen, here's, and we will end with this cause this is everybody that's listening was all part of this.The world gave me a chance. Right?We've been buddies for decades.
The world, you were there at the highest of highs.You were there at the lowest of lows.The world gave me a chance.And so that's the only reason.I mean, I tried different things, and I'm half smart.
But it doesn't happen if the world doesn't say, OK, we'll give you one more shot.
Hope you're feeling the love that's coming your way.
Absolutely.It is.Absolutely.Yeah.
All right, man.Thank you.
