Guys: Episode 94 - Book Guys with Alex Goldman

Welcome to guys, a podcast about guys.

I am Brian, and with me is my co-host, Mr.

Audiobooks, Chris James.

Hi, Chris.

Wow, that's a pretty good one.

And I appreciate you bringing back the insult.

That one's like, that one feels like a pretty solid one.

I'm trying to figure out if it actually is.

You know, it's honestly.

This

episode, I'll get the guest on.

We'll get the guest on.

We have Alex.

Oh, wait.

Hey, I just want to say, I think it is an insult.

Like, if you're a real reader, I think to say audio, listening on audiobooks, I think that is an insult.

I think you did insult me.

Well, a little bit.

From Hyper Fixed Podcasts and X Reply All.

Alex Goldman.

Hi, Alex.

Hey, how you doing?

Thanks for having me.

So

I do think that was an insult, too.

I felt insulted as a person

who reads audiobooks.

I don't read them at all.

So I want to say this.

I don't even read at all.

So not brag or anything like that, but I just never, I used to read.

I used to read a lot when I was younger.

Like I used to read a lot of books, like literature and stuff.

But now I find myself,

what?

Okay.

No, but like, no,

I'm making fun of myself.

Like, I really was.

I was like, I had a list of the greatest books of all time or whatever.

And I was like, oh, I'm going to read all of these, A Catcher in the Rye and Grapes of Wrath.

So I've...

I've read a lot of those and didn't understand any of them because I was way too young.

And,

but yeah, I sort of, I guess I, I read court cases now and stuff like that and news and different weird, strange things.

So I'll say this about for like three or four years post-Cweber, there I brought it up this time.

Wow.

For three or four years after that, I was the same way.

I read all these books.

I got to understand the world.

I can't be a dummy.

I can't be a complete idiot walking around.

Plus, I was working at this cable company.

I've talked about this before.

My only goal in life was to seem smarter than the other guys at the cable company.

And were they like traditionally smart?

No, no, they were, they were like blue collar guys.

They don't care about the catcher in her eye at all.

They don't, they don't, you know, you say hold and they're thinking, you know, who's holding my beer while I take a piss type of thing.

They're not thinking holding Caulfield.

So I started reading a lot of those books, didn't understand any of them.

And then the other thing I did that was completely, I think fucked my brain up for a little while was I started reading political books.

And the ones I was reading were lies and the lying liars who tell them by Alfred Franken

read like a lot of Michael Moore books and like those kind of books where like for a few years my brain was just like

we need some you know obviously we need to change the politics in this country it's crazy the way things are then yeah but then you changed and now you're pretty happy with them Yeah, I love politics.

All of them.

Every last one of them.

You vote for one that I dislike.

You vote for both parties, I think you told me.

I do, I do.

It's like I just want the parties to get along.

I don't know why they're arguing so much.

That's that's what that's my whole thing.

Yeah, it's a lot like my philosophy at baseball and hockey.

You know, we like to see the goals, we like to see the home runs.

That's what we like, you know, yes, yes.

We just like someone to win, yes, and that's what I'm looking for.

So, I went to R/slash Books.

Uh,

I want to say this, though, they are not down on audiobooks there at all.

They are up on audiobooks.

Now, here's why.

I think it remember the bird guys episode where guys had that lifetime list?

Yes, of course.

Yeah, all the birds that they've seen.

Yeah.

And want to see.

There's also the birds that they want to see.

There's the list of ones that they have.

They tick them off.

So they get the list and then they, yeah, yeah, that's right.

So a lot of these people have that, and we were just talking about this for books.

And

they're now able to read like twice as many books, basically, because they can read a book.

And then also, when they're not reading, listen to an audio book.

And they're never not

kind of reading.

And that's why they love it.

Is that considered like, that's not considered like doping or kind of like, you know what I mean?

That's not considered to be flying.

I'm trying to think of a different, I guess, the coasters, right?

Like, that's not considered like cheating the system in any way.

This is the thing I wonder and I think about.

And I do want to ask Alex a question also, but

are we seeing this pro-audiobook attitude because we're online?

And the real, true fucking traditional book readers, they aren't even picking up a damn computer.

You know what I mean?

They're doing everything analog, and those are the real traditionalists.

But my question for Alex was, are you a big reader, Alex?

What's your relationship to books?

I think think i was a bigger reader at some points in my life now i feel like as with all things all i do is read for work which is

you know that's the trying to trying to seem smart yeah on the on the radio um i have to at first but even then like i i like for a story i'm working on right now i had to work on a book i had to read a bunch of science stuff and i was like this i can't I'm like, I don't have time, like the, I don't have the, I can't do the emotional labor of understanding this.

Yeah.

So, so I, I, I went to a science friend and I was like, can you come on the, can you read these and then come on the show as the expert who I can ask questions about?

That's so I don't have to put it in my own words.

That's kind of like you're using your type of intelligence there, you know what I mean?

You're like, hey, I don't have the science stuff, but you're like, I'm going to cleverly figure this out.

So that is showing that you are actually quite smart, probably.

Sure, but I mean, I like you, I think that mostly I'm reading, like, I'm reading weird internet stuff, uh, legal filings, stuff like that that ends up coming up for work, and then books if I need to read them for work.

Like, reading for pleasure has definitely diminished.

Yeah, I have some foundational kind of books that like helped me to develop my worldview that I read.

A lot of them fiction.

Oh, this is,

I think probably people listening would love to hear what those books are.

The most important

couple are: there's a book by a sociologist named Pierre Bourdieu called Distinction

that

changed a lot of how I think of the world.

Is that a fiction or non-fiction?

It's non-fiction.

That's a theory book, actually.

And it was just a big deal to me.

It was like a, it was a guy talk talking about politics, but not about politics.

You know what I mean?

He's like talking about art and how art influences politics.

It was this big thing.

It just made me like feel like, oh, okay, like I'm starting to understand.

I would never be able to explain it here because i'm stupid but i loved it then there was a book called things fall apart by chinua achebe

i've read that it's so good it changed everything because it spoiler alert everybody for this book it's about this it's like this whole long story it's not a long story it's only like 200 pages but it's about this like tribe in africa

And like, you read all this guy, the guy, the strongest guy in a tribe's life, and all this stuff he's going through.

And then, you know, and then at the end, he gets killed

and by Europeans, and then Europeans make him one line in a history book, and it just fucking opened up a thing in my mind about history that, like,

it's just one of those things.

And then, like, there's a book called A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut.

Yeah, I mean, I know, I haven't read it, but I know that book.

It's a guy that's about to die that just hates the world and hates all the people in it.

It really was good.

I don't know why.

I'm familiar with the concept of that book, but yeah, I haven't read it.

I've not read it.

It's an essay book.

Are you a big Gavonigat fan?

Me?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've read a lot of his books.

I think I've read most of his books.

Wow.

I read for a while.

There was a period of time where I was like, I'm reading.

And when I went to college, I was an English major for a semester.

So like, I've read like a ton of stuff.

I just don't now.

And like I told you recently, I've just been reading comic books, which makes me feel

so stupid.

When I was in college, Kurt Vonnegut was teaching at Smith.

I was at the University of Massachusetts.

So it was right down the road.

And a friend of mine had a voicemail from him on her phone.

And that was like a big, like, that was incredible cachet to have.

What did it say?

Was it like?

It was just like, it was like, oh, hi, Kate.

I just wanted to follow up on your, on your, it was very much like, I wanted to follow up on the thing that you asked me about about your homework.

If I was trying to

get that printed, get that onto a, or like the, get onto a cassette tape, get the cassette tape autographed.

I mean, that is what?

Why are you shaking your head, right?

Because it feels like you're talking about another certain cassette tape, but then you stop.

You said to get it autographed.

So oh, yeah, what is going on with that cassette tape?

Actually, it's good that you bring it in.

It got posted on the fucking Patreon now.

What, what, oh, you're talking about the one that, oh, see, I was talking about a different one, which was the, the,

of course, you've, you've lost that one, though, I think.

The, um, the, the song homicide note, homicide note.

There is no song homicide note.

But anyway, let's get to book guys.

Uh, let's not talk about by the way, I do have an aunt that doesn't have a TV, has a pipe organ in her house, like was doing compost in like 1989.

She's like all that stuff,

and she is not on the internet

and only reads books.

Her house is full of books.

She was a librarian at Denison University.

See, so like she's the most book person I've ever met.

No internet.

Her kids never had TV and never had internet their whole entire life growing up.

So they would come over to our house.

for the holidays and those kids would just sit in front of the fucking TV.

It didn't matter what was on the TV.

They would just sit and zone in on it.

And I think at the time I should have taken that as some sort of a lesson but i did not do that but they were so it sounds like they were were they like deeply religious or in sort of like do you know what i mean

no

like this how long ago was this it wasn't that long ago it's still going on number one number two it while i was growing up my aunt sue like she had the chance to get legit rich at one point because verizon wanted to put a tower on her property

and she said no i don't want that tower.

I do give her credit for that.

No, honestly.

I would have taken the money, but that's

like, you got to give her credit for standing on her principles.

But she's a, she's, she's like the quintessential, like what you're describing, a person that doesn't have the internet, probably doesn't have a smartphone, and only has books.

Like, I remember going and stayed a week at her house, and she was like,

I was like, now,

was she saying, I don't want this because I think Verizon's a shitty corporation?

Or was it like, was she like,

5G?

I don't want it controlling my brain.

No, you're, the first one's right.

Cause this was years ago.

This was before like all the 5G stuff.

She really was like, I don't think they should be putting towers in rural areas.

So it was for good.

It was for good.

Yeah, she's a wild one.

But anyway, I went to our books.

This is so weird.

This person, Comprehensive Fund 47, says, have you ever taken a library book on vacation with you?

I went back and forth about it before I went on a trip last month.

i didn't want to lose it or risk damaging it but i was in the middle of the book and didn't want to have to wait so long before continuing it i grabbed the book at the last minute and i'm glad i did i wound up reading some of it several evenings and it made a nice memory nothing bad happened to the book and on the contrary it came in handy i pressed a leaf in it and brought it home as a souvenir wow has anyone else taken a walk on the wild side and brought a library book on vacation with you So this is a little tongue-in-cheek, I think, maybe.

You know what I mean?

At the end, like take a walk on the wild side.

They sort of recognize that this is, but yeah, that it really threw me for a loop there.

What a huge that it came in handy, where it actually was able to press a leaf that you could bring back, where it's like suddenly had a function other than just being a book.

But yeah, very cool.

Very cool.

Very cool.

Would you bring a book on vacation?

I mean, what's the worst that can happen?

I damage it and I got to pay for the fucking book.

Who cares?

What's the book going to cost?

30 bucks?

And that's an argument that's going to happen here.

I lost lost a library book.

I lost a library book or not lost one.

I just didn't return it ever.

That's me.

That's me.

I never lost them.

I never, well, I did eventually lose it.

I got rid of it, but I remember it was the whatever the like John Belushi biography or

wired.

Yeah, it was wired.

So I remember it when I was like getting into comedy.

I was like, oh, I'm going to get this book.

And yeah, I just never, I just remember seeing it years later, years later.

And I was like, oh, like just opened up a drawer and i was like oh i was supposed to return that what happens when that am i they just have to buy a new one yeah they just buy a new one but i'll say this i i i shouldn't be allowed to borrow things and that's why i'm glad we live in the age that we do because i shouldn't be allowed to take a book home or when you rented movies Yeah, I fucking would rent a movie, never take it back, and never go back to the place and just have to go to a different place.

I agree.

You shouldn't be.

You should not.

I shouldn't be allowed to borrow things at all.

I shouldn't be allowed to borrow library books because I'll look at them over and over again and be like, that's late.

And then in my mind, I'll go,

well, I'll look like a real idiot if I return it now.

You know?

So what kind of movie collection did you have if you were never returning them?

I had Layer Cake.

Very few movies.

The one I remember the most is Layer Cake.

Layer Cake.

That was like some sort of like gangster movie or something?

Yeah, and I never watched it either, but I owned it for for like a decade and I got it from I think the library and just never returned it and never won.

I've still never seen Layer Cake in my life.

Cat Jen says, It's never occurred to me that this might be a bad idea.

I do it all the time.

And then a cursed fish wife says, Because it's not a bad idea.

Most people will maybe lose one book over their lifetime and pay a $10 fine.

What a phenomenally weird post.

OP needs to borrow a book on risk management.

Whoa,

Yeah, relax.

I love this type of fighting too.

It's like everybody, none of them are like really aggressive at all.

Do you know what I mean?

So it's all like this sort of like half aggression and they're all still kind of polite when they're being mean to each other.

Yeah, this is, I hope there's some more of that.

What a wonderful episode to have between fantasy football guys and hardcore guys.

Yeah, this one's a little bit more.

I mean, he's going to whip anybody's ass here.

This person is correct that it is a phenomenally strange pose because I just thought about this as well.

Is like,

what it

don't you have to like

you could lose it if you're like just like well

not on vacation just say

so this person's saying you shouldn't leave your house with it at all because you could i think that's what she's thinking yeah i see so it's just like my parents were like that my parents wouldn't ever let me take they wouldn't let me take library books to school really oh yeah my parents wouldn't even let me leave them on the floor of my bedroom.

They'd freak the fuck out.

It was, it was like, there was a huge thing about respect for the institution of the book of the library.

It was like, yeah,

I was not, I did not, I did not learn that.

I was not taught that, and I had no respect for the library at all.

But I do now.

I will say I do now.

Like, as I grow up, I like the library and I think it has a lot of good functions.

It was that, of course, that librarian on Twitter, Elon Musk's Twitter, the librarian who, do you guys remember the guy who was like really, really positive?

And he, yeah, he did.

So basically, I forget, somebody's going to know exactly who I'm talking about, the name, but yeah, he posted something and somebody tried to be like, look at this fucking idiot.

Like, look at this guy.

He's so excited about libraries, like trying to dunk on him.

And then everybody was like, oh, this guy's great.

And he became this sort of like viral sensation of just like talking about how great the library is.

Yeah.

So

I want to meet the guys who are like, look at this fucking dork.

He's excited about library.

Yeah.

Those are my guys.

I remember it.

I remember it.

No, Brian.

Well, you're saying you would agree with them?

They were like some, they were like, I mean, they're the guys I would be fast.

They're the ones that I want to talk to.

Like,

I mean,

it's because the guy's always excited.

Well, it's because the guy is kind of, you know what I mean?

He kind of has a bizarre way of speaking a little bit.

He's like very soft-spoken.

Like, I really love the library.

So it's like they were trying to mock him for like like the way he was or whatever.

But everybody was like, no, we love this guy and we love the library.

This guy goes, a $10 fine?

That's such a weird number.

Books are expensive and most libraries will charge you the cost of the book if it's damaged.

And by the way, libraries often have to pay more for the books than others.

They don't get secondhand books.

They typically get hardbacks when available or even special library bindings.

Parentheses, often books that aren't available and hardback at retail.

And many will pay for the distributor to process the books, such as putting the protective shields in place.

So now we're there's some heavy costs.

You're saying that there's a oh, ten dollars.

I think not.

We're talking extra heavy pressing, you know, special communication with the publisher.

This could you could be looking at thousands of dollars if you damage a library book.

Actually, the next post here, twice, twice years apart, I had to replace two books because they were in my backpack and they got soaked due to heavy rain.

I was charged $30 and $40.

I'm very careful with books, but these two downpour were heavy and everything got soaked.

So you're looking at a $30, $40 situation, you know?

Yeah, I mean, that's if you're lucky.

That's if you're lucky.

I mean, it depends on what the book is.

It could be a special print hardcover library only model with a special library imprint, you know, casing on it.

And I think those will go $150 easy, you know?

Have you considered this?

You do know you pay for libraries, right?

Unless you don't pay taxes.

The funding comes from city and county taxes, state taxes, and special revenues.

Your comment sounds like the library is burdened with buying books that you ultimately pay for.

It's a smoking deal.

Yeah, I'm afraid to say sorry, library, but we pay your fucking salary

and I'll fucking lose as many books as I want because I fucking paid for them to begin with anyways.

Yeah, you know what?

Fuck them.

I'll take Wired from John Belushi Wired.

It's my fucking right as a taxpayer.

I paid for the book.

Yeah, I want to say this before we start, because people, before we even,

because we're going to do some reviews, but of bookstores, and I didn't want to do libraries because the reviews for libraries are so unbelievably bleak that

they're pretty rough.

I mean, also.

Everyone I know who works in a library is like, yeah, basically my job is to tell dudes to put their dicks away most of the time.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that, but there's also a lot of guys that are like, this library seems to have a lot of

leftist literature and they're like talking about you know what i mean the kind of books they're talking the books that aren't even like even political and they're just like mad about

like yeah there is that if it's a large comprehensive library it'll probably have a lot of leftist literature and a lot of conservative literature as well like it'll have well the problem with that chris is that a lot of them don't know what conservative literature is

nobody ever has

I got you.

This guy goes, I'm over here talking about how libraries buy books from distributors and you think I don't know how they're funded?

I'm a public librarian.

Libraries have to buy books, and when you damage them, you're not going to pay $10.

You're probably going to go pay the cost of the book.

That's the point of my comment because I see what I see happen is library customers come in and get upset at how much it costs to replace the books.

And it's because they don't understand.

So this guy, this guy really, I want to say this next guy, I am against him.

And I think what he does is wrong.

He goes, my partner was astonished to learn that I take library books with me on my stand-up paddleboard.

Oh, hang on.

Hang on.

Hang on.

I got to think about this one a little bit.

I don't know why are you?

Oh, because he goes on the paddleboard.

He stand up paddleboards and he's holding it in one hand, I assume, and with the paddling with the other.

But I'm trying to, I'm trying to understand why he would be, I don't think he's reading while

he says, so I could take a break, lie down, and read while on the lake.

Okay, that's confusing.

So, no, that's not what I thought he was going to say.

I thought he was going to be stand-up up, paddleboarding to like a remote area that you can only get to by, you know what I mean?

There's no road and you're going to sit in this nice area and read for the day.

But no, he's actually laying in the water on his back.

Like, what is that?

That's wrong.

I'm just like, look, I'm not the police or anything like that, but this guy is in the, yeah, well, I used to be a cop, but I got out because of all the bad, you know, but this guy's in the wrong completely.

If I was his library, I wouldn't let him have books anymore.

Well, if i read this and i was able to verify it was him yeah i would definitely revoke his library card maybe his man card as well you know while i'm at it i worked at a video store in

so i'm 45 so i worked there when i was like 18 in 1999 and um local like a like a not a chain yeah it was it was not a chain um we were the only place in town that had porn

and um

brian just all of a sudden was like reading something on his computer like not paying attention and And then you said that and he was like, whoa, what?

Sorry.

I got a friend that would be interested in coming in there and grabbing as many movies as he can.

We know a guy who would have been interested in potentially talking to you about business-related stuff as well.

Because Brian's friend, when he was growing up, Porno Sean, was trying to start his own independent porno Sean.

He was like Sean.

Yeah, Porno Shaw Shaw Show.

You got to start a porno shawn.

Well, we started calling him Porno Sean, I think, due to that.

And I actually, it's a funny thing.

I took credit for for calling him porno Sean.

It was actually somebody else who got pretty mad about it on the Patreon saying that, hey, I was actually the one who named him that.

But who knows?

You know, history is so hard to.

Yeah, you can't possibly know.

But, but we used to, we had it, there were, there was a Blimpy Subs like two shops down from ours, and there was a couple that would come in and get porn all the time.

And we had to eventually start

like denying them coming into the store because

it was, this is so weird.

One night we, I was like working, it was like 7 p.m.

It was like storming out.

And the man of the couple came in with his porn stack of porn cassettes to return.

And he had a huge gash down the center of his forehead.

And there's blood all over him and the movies.

And he just kind of threw them on the counter and walked out.

And then we had to clean his blood off of our pornos.

put them back.

And we were like, I'm sorry, man.

We can't.

You can't bleed on the pornos.

You can't bleed on the pornose.

That's like one of the main.

Like, I'm not even, I didn't work at a video store.

I understand that.

You can't bleed on the poor nose and then bring them back.

Like, if you're bleeding on the poor nose, clean them off first and bring them back without blood on them.

I'll tell you what's funny about that.

Do you remember Chris, the tattoo guy?

Yeah.

That went to the tattoo parlor and said he fell off his bike.

Yeah.

And the fucking tattoo parlor owner was like, get your fucking nasty blood outie.

Yeah, totally.

That does remind me of that.

He tried to show him a picture on an app, and the guy's like, What the fuck is an app?

Yeah, he was so mad.

The tattoo guys were so mad.

It sounds like you guys would have had the right, though, to say it to this person.

Was there any indication why there was a gash on his head?

Did he say it?

There was no explanation.

He didn't say anything.

He kind of, it seemed like a scene in a movie, like he stumbled in, tossed them on the counter, and walked out.

And it was like, it was like so bizarre that every, you know, we worked at, it was Ann Arbor, Michigan.

It was a tiny little town.

we we just every we just everybody sort of came in to be like what the fuck is going on we were all just like hanging out so everybody came in to be like what do we do about the porno guys from down the street yeah and we had to well I mean Ann Arbor is a weird fucking place though for sure like I uh every time I love it up there my daughter was gonna go to school up there and uh there's a lot of fucking weirdos up there it's true uh

in the space that that uh video store used to be is now a head shop and lingerie shop called Bongs and Thongs.

Wow.

That's very cool.

Brian,

you could do whatever, all your stuff there, all your shopping.

Okay.

This guy on R slash Cass Classic Literature says hot take

of Mice and Men isn't that good.

I love that.

I've read of Mice and Men.

Because I get that it's a, quote, classic and product of its time, but seriously, like only three things happen in the quote story.

Oh, this is great.

This is great talking about it like a film.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, it's fucking

character development.

Like, there's no, literally, nothing happens in this.

Boy, even gets shot.

Like, why is boyhood even a fucking film?

Like, nothing happens.

It's just a life of a kid growing up.

Counting how many things happened is even, where he's like, three things happen in a whole goddamn movie.

What are the three things he's referring to?

Obviously, him crushing the...

That's, you know, the crushing the mouse.

That's definitely a thing that he's referring to.

Well, he also crushed, he also kills a woman.

I mean, that's

two.

Yes, of course, that's got to be the second, but what's the third thing that happens?

Well, he'll talk a little bit about that later.

This first person goes, quote, I didn't like this thing, therefore it has no value, is the least compelling, most arbitrary reasoning someone could give.

So he's in trouble now.

Oh, fuck.

So he didn't give enough reasons for it being bad.

He just, well, he said, he said said, only three things happen.

Yeah, he said only three things happen

in the story.

And then he did say, if you enjoy it, good for you.

I'm glad you have something that brings you joy.

But I honestly believe it shouldn't be held in such high regard as it is.

Well, I mean, that's, yeah, okay.

That's all very, you don't, you didn't think it was good.

Other people did.

That's, that's

in trouble, brother.

He's in trouble now.

He, he then replies and goes, I never said it had no value.

I'm just pointing out that it's super overrated.

And then our guy comes back.

Now he's pissed.

He goes, what do you mean overrated?

It's either worth remembering or it isn't.

If you don't like that one, then feel free to read any of Steinbeck's other works.

But he's more than demonstrated his skill as a writer and justified why his body of work is worthy of being held in high regard.

You haven't provided any objective reason why it deserves remembrance or doesn't.

You just offered the autobiographical detail that you didn't like it, which isn't a compelling argument or even an argument at all.

But he's not making, I don't think he's making an argument, is he really?

He's just saying, like, oh, I guess he's arguing that it's over.

Brother, if you say hot take, you're, if you say hot take, you've got to defend yourself.

He said it's not, it's, but he's basically just saying, I didn't like

of Maison Men.

I felt like it was boring, I think, is what he's saying, you know, basically.

I'm now imagining a guy getting hounded off the internet by like a bunch of John Steinbeck stands who come for him in the same way that like

grape

grapes of go read grapes of wrath and then come back and tell me his body of, like, why, why did he bring in?

He's just talking about of Maison Man.

Why is that person even bringing in his full body of work?

That's

coming back.

OP comes back and goes, being remembered and being overrated aren't mutually exclusive.

I never said he's not talented.

I haven't read any of his other works, so I wouldn't have any solid ground in that claim if I did.

It just annoys me when people act like this book is an unequivocal masterpiece that has zero flaws.

Now, that's where I go against the OP

because nobody's, nobody, he's making up somebody to be mad at.

It's wonderful.

I do it all the time.

I'm probably going to do that after we record and make somebody up to get mad at, but that's what he's doing, right?

Yeah, there's no, there's absolutely, there's probably, I guess there's some people who say that, but yeah, not in, not in this thread, definitely.

But the way they argue is so beautiful.

This guy goes, you still haven't given any metric by which to judge what is or isn't good beyond subjectivity.

I distinctly remember half of the people reading it in high school hated it.

So who are these people that are making the straw man claim that it isn't a masterpiece with no flaws?

I don't even know of any person who ever would say it is his masterpiece, let alone a masterpiece.

At the very least, it stood the test of time and is still read today by an audience beyond those forced to read it to earn a passing grade.

which is still more of a rubric with which to compare and contrast than you have offered.

offered.

I'm just going to say this.

Listen, I'm not a reader.

As I said, I, you know, I don't, I'm, I struggle to even, I can't really even read anymore, to be honest.

It's a skill you lose if you don't do it.

But

like, I think one of the reasons why of Mice and Men is popular as well is that it is considered a classic and it's like 95 pages long.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think that it's super.

So that's why a guy like this is like, I haven't read any of his other books because the majority, I know Grapes of Wrath is quite long.

And I don't know, you know, I'm not, I don't know the rest of his works, but I imagine there's not as many, you know, super.

So that's why he's read that one.

Here's another guy.

I read it as well.

You know, it's so short.

Yeah.

Here's another guy that goes, why'd you say this?

What made you get online and say this?

You might as well have gotten on any subreddit and said, I have no clue what I'm talking about.

Argue with me.

You'ren't the first person to disparage a work of art for your own inability to understand it, nor will you be the last.

But that crowd is seldom good company edit.

Also, this is the wrong subreddit, buddy.

Try R slash books, or better yet, R slash books circle jerk.

So

long reddit.

So basically, and this is a really, this is cool because I love, they're like, you didn't understand it.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that's a key thing.

It's like, I don't know anything about your understanding of it.

We haven't discussed it.

You haven't really, but I'm just going to say right now, if you didn't like it, you didn't get it.

I love these type of people.

now comes op

one of the best arguments in a long time he goes this

this is why i made this post

just because people considered a book to be quote art unquote just because something teaches an important lesson or paints a picture of the past doesn't mean it's inherently good and continuing to call it quote art has a ripple effect and can have detrimental repercussions just look at a song of ice and fire martin almost single-handedly led the fantasy genre into an edgy grimdark era.

Luckily, we managed to avoid that so far, but it was close there.

So, if you call

shit happens, if you call something art,

then other things become art.

And then that becomes a whole huge problem because then bad art is something that's the problem.

What is it?

Well, you just don't want people calling George R.R.

Martin art.

Why not?

Because then other people will make things that are like the things he's made.

Yes, Alex.

Is that what?

Oh, because then they'll think it's hard and then they'll make it.

But then if other people are enjoying it, it is dumbing us down, though, as a society, I suppose.

Is that part of the problem, too?

Yeah, yeah.

And this guy goes, but you have no clue what you're talking about.

You're going on to talk about fantasy books and George R.R.

Martin while denigrating what, despite your personal inability to see it as such, is widely regarded as a literary landmark, as if this is not a skill issue that belongs exclusively to you.

You might as well go scream in the streets in a tinfoil hat.

It would have the same overall feeling.

You don't have to like it, but to argue its status as a work of art is blatantly insane.

Steinbeck, as well as Dostoevsky and Hemingway, have to deal with so many of the most infantile criticisms and brain-dead analyses due to the fact that they are the first names one hears when they don't know anything at all and want to quote experiments with the classics.

You're out of your element.

Stick to fantasy books.

Enjoy them.

Do not trouble yourself with things like art and the taxing mental processes that attend them you're out of your element is very much yeah you are very much out of your element stick to the fantasy stuff

this guy's like a real obviously you know a dickhead and everything but he does make one point there i think that is sort of true is that those authors they do get a lot of this like sort of nonsense criticism or whatever because they are the people it's like i'm gonna the literature i'm gonna get into like you know i'm gonna read of mice and men and i'm gonna read hemingway or whatever.

And then you have people who are just like, well, this isn't very good, you know?

They're dead, though.

So I don't care that they get shit.

I mean, you get shit on me all you want when I'm dead.

Yeah,

he goes, do not trouble.

I love the end of this.

You don't have to, but you should probably at some point in your life learn to keep your mouth shut in matters you're woefully underqualified to speak about, lest you risk sounding like a total idiot.

So less is really good.

Lest you risk this.

Yeah, this guy has taken this guy took a turn, took a wrong turn at Chive Boulevard.

He's got the real, he's got the real sort of like that classic sort of speak that we really hate around here, you know, where it is just like every single word is carefully sort of picked out in order to make you seem smart, sort of, you know what I mean?

Like that sort of just over talking.

This guy, the OP goes, ah, I see you're, you're a only cla- classical realistic things or art kind of person.

I'm not going to try to prove myself to you about my history with reading.

Such a funny thing to say.

Hey, hey, I don't need to tell you how much I've read.

Yeah, listen, you don't know what I've read.

You don't know a thing about me.

I love the idea of having to like prove your reading bona fides to a bunch of weirdos on Reddit.

It's also so weird to see it happening in a books subreddit where, like,

I'm not dumb enough because I've done enough of these episodes to know that every kind of guy argues.

And they get catty with each other and they get nasty with each other.

But

this sounds to me like

you could swap out the names of those books for MCU movies.

It would sound exactly the same.

Guitars,

Beatle songs.

Like every time we've gone, but it is a little bit more shocking when it happens with a type of guy that you think in your mind, when you think of a book guy, and when I think of a book guy, I think of like a nice dork.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't think of a mean person.

I don't think of somebody that would say, like,

lest you risk sounding like a total idiot.

Oh, I would.

I disagree.

I would.

I would think that, like, because I think that there's like some pretension in it.

You know what I mean?

The idea of being a book guy and all these like the great unwashed who they just watch their movies and their stupid TV shows and stuff.

And I think there is a little bit of looking down on people.

So I don't know.

I feel like it's not surprising to me that somebody coming in and kind of saying, like, hey, I tried reading of Mice and Men and it wasn't very good or whatever, would get met with like a lot of being like talking down to or whatever.

I think a lot of these people also maybe went to college for like

English.

And like, I only did one semester in English, but one thing that like it taught me that one semester of English taught me was that like nothing's necessarily like

it's hard to explain, like, nothing's necessarily bad.

Like, there's a critique to be had of any kind of book that you read.

So, like, I have, I can read a book that's dense and like hard to understand.

I don't want to, and I never will, but like, you can do it and use it to figure out other ways of thinking or whatever.

And, like, I think that a guy coming in and saying, I read this book and it's overrated,

it will like set off alarms on a lot of English majors, sort of thing.

This guy goes, I, and so he goes,

I don't have to tell you about my history with reading because I don't have to, but you sure do talk a lot of shit about my skills of interpretation.

Meanwhile, you seem to be lacking in that department yourself.

Oh, shit, that's a huge insult in the book community.

You seem to be lacking in interpretation skills.

Oh, that's like the worst thing you can say to a book guy if they can't interpret.

You have to interpret so much shit when you're reading because you can't even physically see it.

You know what I mean?

Listen to this.

Listen to the comeback.

The comeback's great.

Damn.

Now you got on a tinfoil hat and you're into your underwear LMAO.

Oh, shit.

You're going a little bit crazier now.

Yeah.

You're wrong, but I can see you've made a lifelong commitment to being as such.

I'm more so.

Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on.

That's a good line right there.

Well, you're wrong, but I can see that you

read it again.

You've made a lifelong commitment to being as such.

Oh, that is, I'm going to use that one.

Well, you're obviously wrong, but I can see you've made a lifelong commitment to being as such.

So, oh, that is so fucking annoying.

Holy shit.

Well, here he goes.

I more so see the world in terms of books for children, books for adults who refuse to develop an adult mind, and books for adults.

This fundamental.

Did they say books for adults twice?

No, books for adults

who refuse to develop an adult mind.

That's one.

one

I think that would be like your Harry Potter books and stuff and your George R.

R.

Martin and shit.

Yeah.

He goes, this fundamentally boils down to a lack of information understanding on your end, coupled with an insatiable need to keep speaking.

Why is it so hard for you to believe this is a problem with the book instead of you?

That over decades, everyone has conspired around these books to make you feel inferior and that they're all lying about the value of them, which is more likely.

You're entitled to your opinions, but others

are equally entitled to mock them when you insist on being mocked.

So there he goes.

And our OP replies and goes,

they're still, how long do they go on with this?

There's only two more, but he goes, I got you.

You're a pretentious douche.

Noted.

How can I

comfortably disregard everything you say?

Thank you.

And then I'll go.

So you sound pretentious as well, by the way.

Yeah, yeah.

Then the guy goes, true to form.

Folk like you always use that defense.

You're pretentious.

a word I only have a tentative grasp on.

That's so good because it's just like, oh, oh, that old chestnut that I hear six to seven times a week.

That I have not, I can't even really truly understand what someone could possibly be positing when they say such a thing, you know?

Because you have an informed opinion on art and form and you're able to wield language to speak on it.

So obviously everything you say is bullshit, sticks fingers and ears.

La la la.

I don't have have to listen to you.

I'm an adult and as good as anyone else.

No matter what I do, LMFAO, good luck out there, chief.

Pretentious.

This is like the nastiest argument that I, that this is one of the nastiest arguments on the show?

Yeah, I would agree.

This is the mean.

This is getting like really fucking mean.

And they're, and someone said shit.

That's, but that's like the biggest swear.

Like, they don't really swear a lot, you know?

I love the last paragraph of this chris pretentious evermore seems just to be a slur that insecure folks used against the intelligent folks to discredit anyone who doesn't just applaud them for being mediocre no no it's the thing that you are right now

it's the thing that that sentence is that is it i feel like calling that calling that a slur it does disservice to the word slur it does it does it really does calling calling pretentious a slur is very good, I think.

I went to look at Goodreads.

I looked at some review of Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Oh, Dracula.

So we all know this one, even us, you know, Luddites.

We've heard of this guy, the bloodsucker, right?

I didn't, he was a book guy.

He did, but he was from the books.

Okay.

Okay.

So the first guy goes,

one star.

After reading Dracula, I realized that just because something is considered a classic doesn't mean it can't be shit.

For the most part, I didn't really know what was going on.

That's good.

I fully was lost the entire time.

It was not a good experience.

I didn't even know what some of the words meant.

The characters talk like Yoda from Star Wars sometimes.

And then he in parentheses goes, Yes, I'm aware the original publication was 1897 and it's written in old English of sorts, but still, but still.

but still, could they have had a little bit of foresight?

You know what I mean?

And like understood how language would change and evolve.

Also, I have to say, as a person who's read Dracula, it fucking bangs.

It's so good.

I would imagine it's probably good just based on the fact that it is still sort of going strong today.

You know, they're making movies based off of it.

They're like, you know what I mean?

It's like, it has stood the test of time as a story, definitely.

so yeah I would imagine the source material is pretty good on it well this guy is wants them to say Riz I think like why doesn't Dracula say Riz at all yeah I noticed that

Dracula was getting sucked off and did not say Haktua spit on that thing

nobody in this entire book says skibbity toilet and look I understand that's a new thing but they could have I mean just updated a little bit I mean you and and this is yeah like they've made updated versions of it you know what i mean you can read the one where they talk more less like not in old english if you wanted to well the next guy and then his next paragraph goes yes it has its moments i even had a quote or two that i put up on my blog because i thought hey that's a really awesome quote but overall it was shit

So this guy totally not understanding what's going on, totally confused, and just like, every now and then, he's just like, whoa, that's a fucking cool line.

And he like puts it on his blog.

I mean, there is a, there is an argument to be made.

Maybe not an argument, but there is an argument to be made that there is an episode called quote guys,

which is guys that post quotes and don't understand them at all, but they sound like something

that is part of their that that is like in their life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like that relates.

It relates to something, but they don't really know the true meaning of the thing that they're, that they're quoting.

Yeah.

Because it's totally out of of context, right?

So, like, they see a thing that says something that they think means one thing, but it's not in context, so they don't even know what it originally meant.

Alex,

Alex, I just want to ask you, so you read, you've read this book.

Did you

were you able to understand what was going on in it?

I was.

I know that there's like there's like literary illusions going on.

I didn't understand any of that.

Let me ask you if you agree with Theo's review.

He gave it one star and he goes, When does he open open the hotel?

What?

Do you agree with that?

I don't know.

That's the only line in his review.

I have to guess that he's talking about the children's movie

Hotel Transylvania.

Hotel Transylvania.

So he's making a bit of a joke, I think.

He's probably goofing around.

Is that that might be Theo Vaughn?

He's a comedian.

So he might be going.

Called me Queber.

Could be Theo who invented the name Queber.

Yes.

Robbie says, Dracula being the origin of vampire stories.

Vampoor.

Hey, Alex, this is a very important aspect of the show.

We have to pause now because he said vampores, and

we just need to let everybody have that sink in so they can start making their memes, making their posts, making their signs that they're going to bring to the AEW wrestling shows so Brian could see it.

That's vampor, everyone.

Vampor.

That's a flub.

It's known as a flub, Alex.

And people, there's a group called the flub heads that are getting a lot stronger and honestly like it's kind of scary i feel like they're becoming more like a militia now than a group but anyways yeah they get really excited when he makes a flub like that dracula being the origin of vampire stories is it i believe it is must be groundbreaking it has left a huge mark and is an influence and inspiration to lots of movies and literature literature in our world today

so i my expect expectations were up there in the clouds and this didn't even fly.

First reason, in bold, this book isn't scary.

This episode is cracking me up.

I don't usually laugh this hard at this stuff.

This is

it's the book's not scary.

I don't know, like,

I can't get scared from a book.

I don't know who's writing this, but like, I don't know.

I don't think you should expect to be scared by a book anything a movie shouldn't be judged on whether it's scary there's never we talked about this on the horror guys episode when a guy's like it it reads as you saying like i ain't scared of that i'm not even scared of dracula i'm whip dracula's at it doesn't even like yeah like he's like he's not even that big and strong

A book being scary shouldn't necessarily be a standard in judging whether it should be good or not.

But this is Dracula, not some Edward Twilight shit.

I was supposed to be terrified.

A lot of movies I've watched, which were inspired by Dracula, were much more scarier than this one.

This guy really wanted to be scared.

I wouldn't watch, you know, like when Frankenstein came out, it scared people so bad they were like losing their minds.

And

I would not watch Frankenstein.

with the expectation that I was going to be in any way scared.

I know.

Reading an old book of a story that you've known about since you were like five.

What are you going to scare you?

Is it surprised by the story of Dracula?

Have you ever watched any cartoon?

It's like been done in every cartoon.

You just know anymore.

Yeah.

It's one of those things that you just know as a person.

It's like you, you learn it when you're a kid.

You're going to read the book.

One, it's going to have maybe some language that you don't understand, which makes sense because it was made at a different time.

but you can't, how would you get surprised by Dracula?

What would fucking some?

Oh shit, this guy drinks blood.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't know what would scare you or surprise you at all in this book.

We have a new, there is a new

exciting version of this coming out, right?

On Christmas,

Nostratu, Robert Eggers made.

Did you not watch that?

It's too scary.

But it actually does look scary.

Willem Defoe is in it it, and like the trailer, it looks like it is scary, and definitely, obviously, with a movie, it's I think it's easier, in my opinion, because you can do like lighting and that type of stuff.

You can mood, you can set mood better.

And my brain, I can't set a mood at all.

He goes, a lot of the movies I've watched, which were inspired by Dracula, were much more scarier than this one, even books.

This was so tame, written in epistolary form.

So, this guy actually kind of feels like some weird version of a guy that does understand literature but also is dumb and thought he was supposed to get scared by

he might have just looked up the words too that's fair i don't know though there is more telling than showing and that definitely ruined the thrill and the horror for me i don't even get the title why is this even called dracula when he barely appeared in the novel oh

he's like well the thing is though he's a big name so it's like they're gonna have him be on top line but it's like

yeah, they'll do that sometimes.

Like some of those small movies, they'll get like one star, have him film for one day, and then put him on the top line.

That's probably what or like after, you know, Jennifer Anniston becomes famous, they're going to put her performance in Leprechaun as the top billing.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And one might say that everything in the book is happening because of Dracula.

Which I mean.

Yeah, which makes him a huge character in the book.

He's in the whole book.

Everything everybody's doing is relation to Dracula.

Oh, you don't see him, though.

I want to see him.

I want to see him.

And there's no pictures of him in the book either.

Well, that's the next thing he says.

His presence is so underwhelming.

We only get to see his form at the start and at the end.

In others, he's just disguised as a bat or as mist.

Instead of the villain himself, the novel revolves more on the lives of his victims and how one death may affect the others emotionally and mentally.

Also, how that would resolve into most of the characters are annoying.

Mina is a dipshit.

And instead of them taking Dracula down,

I was actually rooting more for Dracula killing them.

Okay,

I'm not, I don't remember it too well, but I think that might be kind of a fucked-up

opinion to have.

It's a weird attitude.

He goes, the pacing is extremely slow.

No, you're not.

Wait, wait, you're telling me that 1897.

You're telling me that the time in 1897 when

do they have automobiles?

You're telling me that the pacing was a little bit slower, potentially, than nowadays when everybody watches 15-second videos and does a fucking million different things at once.

He goes, we get into the lives of these characters and we get to see what they would do in their lives 24-7.

There was a bit of investigation at the middle, but besides that, I wanted to see more suspenseful moments, especially at the end in their final showdown.

I didn't get any of that, and I found the ending to be very anticlimactic.

He wanted a police procedural,

Like he wanted more investigation into Dracula.

He wanted a fight scene.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's what he's saying.

He wanted like an elaborate,

like, like you would see at the end of an action movie or even a horror movie now, where, like, at the end, like that movie, Abigail, she's kind of a Dracula, right?

In the movie.

And at the end, there's this huge showdown where there's like fighting and shit is all happening.

I didn't like that movie, but whatever.

There's all this fighting, and like shit is happening during the movie.

I think he thinks that's how these things are supposed to end.

I think

what he wants to see is

a book in which characters are getting picked off one by one, and we sort of know what's going on, but not entirely.

And then at the end, there's a big reveal with a massive fight.

Yeah, and then there's that quippy, quippy final line, which is like, which is like, I hope you, you want dinner?

I hope you like steak.

And then

I think you're right, but I also think he wants Dracula to be in like 90% of the scene.

Like, I think he wants there to be some people looking for Dracula.

Like, maybe there's 20.

I'm writing this book for him.

There's like 25 guys in the book, and you read like one sentence about each one, and then Dracula comes up and kills them.

And then at the end, there's one big, powerful guy versus Dracula, and it's a big fight.

Yeah, and Dracula's got fast five.

Dracula's got like a little, tiny little henchman who's like, hey, Drac, are we going to get these guys or what?

You know?

he goes, Dracula is a huge disappointment.

Being such a notable and well-known classic, I expected more from this, but I really didn't get what I want.

This novel shows characters and how they would feel and react once they lose their loved ones, but all the horror and the grittiness I expected from this is not present at all.

That is the horror, the horror is losing people.

Yeah, it's bought out.

See, that's crazy.

You're right, but but like

a horror movie or horror thing now does involve a lot of times like 12 guys getting killed before they get to the end.

Well, you know what I mean?

That's not true because then there's also the horror movies where it's just like it's about it's an allegory for trauma.

That seems to be the number one type of horror movie now where it's just like some shit about trauma and it's like, there's like some forces or whatever, you know?

So I don't know.

I'm kind of with, I kind of, I kind of like my stuff to have that a little bit of killing.

And I'm a slasher guy so i i of dracula have they done a dracula slasher i mean

yes i would say that the best one i can think of and it's not a great movie but it's fine it came out like a couple years ago the voyage of the demeter or whatever it's called the one where they're on a boat that's a a chapter in the original dracula it's written as like a journal entry of this guy being like i was on this boat and then we went in this coffin and it was full of dirt and there was a but and then the guy got up and killed everybody and i we didn't know what was going on and they just made that chapter into a book.

But that's exactly what I did.

A book and then a movie?

Or sorry, they made that chapter into a movie.

Sorry.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

I didn't watch that, but maybe I will.

I remember seeing the trailers for it and never got out to it, though.

This guy, this is on our books, and the person says, I hate people who talk in libraries.

Chompers?

Chompers, yeah.

He goes, I think this is a good place to post my little composition of how annoying it is when people talk in libraries.

I love reading.

I could do it for hours at a time.

However, I have ADHD, so any little distraction tends to break my concentration.

When the distraction happens to be visual, it isn't so bad, but when it's audible, I can't focus because my inner voice that's trying to read can't be heard through whatever the outer sound is, and that's annoying because most of the time it's someone talking, and the worst part is they're mostly talking on the phone.

Why would you come to a library to talk on the phone?

That's not what a library is for.

Talking on the phone is for outside the library.

It's quite rude and it makes me sad.

Also, we do have quite quiet reading rooms, but they're right next to each other and do not soundproof.

However, people mostly use them to watch videos without any headphones, which leaks through the neighboring room and therefore works for reading and peace.

My dream library would be where you would be fined for talking unless an emergency or whatever it is will be perfectly silent.

I could read for hours without having to move every so often.

Now, listen.

I kind of agree with this person.

I do kind of agree that you should probably be quiet at the library i mean i think people every time i'm at the library

people are quiet at the library i don't it's it is a quiet place i've found you know like the vancouver public library at least you know downtown that's what i read in the reviews uh atx writer replies and he goes hate is too strong of a word there's too much hate in the world today true

wow Yeah, I never thought of it like that, but yeah, no, you're right.

It's kind of beautiful.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

This guy's a poet, probably.

He goes, and when did it become okay to eat in a library?

I don't want to hear someone wrestling with a chip bag while I'm trying to study or read.

Now, see, that's where it gets wild to me.

I mean, I know that there are people that have like sensitivity to like

you always hear about people that hate being at the movie theater because at the beginning of the movie, people are opening their shit up and it bugs them.

But I mean, people do eat.

Like, this is just part of being alive.

And the chip bag is going to rustle.

If anything, you should blame the chip companies if you ask me big fire bag mesophonia it's called mesophonia i forget

do you guys remember do you guys remember when sun chips were like we found we made this compostable bag you can just throw it in your compost it's great for the environment and then people were like this damn bag's too loud so they switched back to the non-compostable bags I don't remember that.

Yeah.

These goddamn bags are so loud, we hate them.

It's like, okay.

This guy goes, reminds me of when i was a law student people would literally get chewed out over sneezing or coughing in the library then he gets a reply and goes how can one be literally chewed out to be chewed out oh figurative language careful you don't know who you're talking to here motherfucker you're you ain't in some

bullshit forum this is a real this is a forum full of literates all right yes Let's go take a look at a bookshop in my city that's like, right, it's almost kind of a a famous world.

It's like a tourist stop when you come to town.

There's this German village book loft and it's been around for a long time, forever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's just full of books.

Like my daughter goes there just to kind of hang out and walk around.

It's like one of those places that's just like, if you like books, does it have kind of a cafe in it, sort of a thing?

No, it doesn't.

It's just all books.

It's just an insane amount of books.

I've actually never been in there.

Used books, used books, new books.

I don't know if it's used or new, but Paul

reviewed it.

He gave it damn one star.

And he said,

Paul.

He said, felt pretty oppressive when I was there on the 5th of March, 2022.

The mask rule was a bit much.

It made for a very unpleasant and unwelcoming visit.

I used to love this location as a hotspot to go whenever I visited.

So he won't be, they lost his traffic?

They lost his traffic.

He was oppressed.

He was oppressed, but this was 2022.

Oh, I see.

He was early 2022.

He had to put his COVID mask on, which was oppressive.

And it was, I remember having to wear the mask.

And, God, that was so hard.

It was so hard.

I hate it when a guy says, put a goddamn mask on.

I'm like, why?

You know?

Yeah, yeah.

When I'm sick,

when I'm, sometimes I'll get, I'll be very sick still.

It might be COVID or it might be something else, you know, but God, I'll go out in public and I won't be oppressed.

I will not be oppressed.

I will go out and I will.

We shall overcome.

I sing we shall overcome when somebody tells me to put on a damn mask, you know?

I mean, I am happy.

How do people react to that, Brian?

They love it.

They're like, dude, this guy is fucking on it.

You know, this must be a real leftist is often what they'll say to me.

They're like, this guy is more about action than he is talking.

S.

Outland gives it one star.

I did a review last night.

I'll talk about it at the end.

I didn't actually write one, though.

I just gave him five five stars and moved on.

I do want to talk about this before we get out of here because of what happened on the Nintendo Guys episode.

S.

Outlined says, one star Obama book right at the entrance.

So many anti-Trump titles, but couldn't find any conservative political books in the bestseller section or political.

Definitely some imbalanced inventory.

Seriously disappointed.

I mean, that's not.

I love the idea that your bookstore has to have the same amount of conservative books as liberal books

yeah the classic liberal bookstore i mean yeah so that's not surprising but who also knows is that maybe obama's book came out or something like that but yeah i mean who that's that's not surprising that there's going to be some bookstores that are going to be like i prefer a political party and i don't like the other one.

I'll say this.

I think book guys and librarians are fully within their rights to hate Trump and conservatives because they're the ones constantly getting attacked.

You know what I mean?

Like the librarians.

I mean,

the shit that's happening to librarians is fucking crazy.

Why would they?

Why would a librarian like Trump?

They're like constant.

These guys are constantly trying to get them fired.

This guy, Landon, says one star, politically charged bookstore.

So, Brian, do you know you've been there?

Is it, I mean, it just I mean, it's

listen, it is in

it is in German Village, which is in downtown Columbus area.

German Village, classically in the 80s and 90s, was one of the like gayest neighborhoods in the country.

Like it was known as like that.

And it's not a conservative.

It's very much not conservative in that part of the city.

You know what I mean?

Like when you're inside the city, it's very, and when you're in the city of Columbus, it's very liberal.

And when you're in like a German village, it's even more kind of liberal.

So like, I don't know why they would carry books that would offend the people that actually shop there every day.

You know what I mean?

And I don't know why.

And not even just not even offend them, but just they're running a business.

So it's like we want to, we want to sell products that our customers want to buy.

You know, that's

this works.

Again, they don't know what conservative literature is.

That's my belief is that there probably is almost an equal amount in a way, but they don't understand what is conservative.

Like, they don't think Atlas Shrugged is a conservative book.

You know what I mean?

They just think it's a book.

that's non-political.

So there's all these books that they probably perceive as non-political that have very conservative messages would be my guess.

This next guy goes, very cramped.

Navigating stairs was, quote, interesting.

Very little Christian fiction, but way too much witchcraft-oriented books and stories.

Not worth the time.

So people are in there doing magic.

Very little Christian fiction.

Oh,

hey, you want some Christian fiction?

Check out the Holy Bible.

Oh,

roasted.

I'm sorry, but I just don't believe in it.

I just don't believe in it.

Ricky Gervais.

Are you being Russell Brandt before he got sexy?

Ricky Gervais.

Ricky Gervais.

Yeah, no, if I was being Russell Brandt, I would say, I absolutely believe in it i believe in all of it what um uh the only i i'm trying to think of christian fiction that i can think of and all i can think of is left behind

those books aren't some of those ya books

what left behind well no aren't some of those ya books like kind of christian oriented like the ones that got really popular

you you guys you guys don't i mean there's there is an entire

like right there's football

like like publishing oh it's a just published christian you know fiction stuff like it is like a such a huge money maker that yeah like stuff we would never know about you know like it's not public it's not popular in the in the normal real world yeah but then the other the other thing i'm thinking of is um

what's it called the lion the witch in the wardrobe which i'm sure is in this bookstore yeah that's a christian thing there's like a lot of christian things narny narny that's narnia is the lion we yeah uh joseph or ja uh joseph says we were standing in line to check out and waiting patiently for the employees to return once he did return for some reason he allowed another customer to check out in front of us hmm must have been liberal ah yeah that's what they'll do that sometimes it's sometimes you'll just let the liberal people check out first yeah when i'm i can just tell i sometimes i'll be like what are your politics when they walk in so i can remember it when they you know what i mean we got So we have liberals over here, conservatives.

I'll put them in two lines is the way I'll do it.

But I'll only work the liberal line until I'm done.

And then I'll take a break.

Then I'll take a break, then I'll help.

I went to the bottom.

Then I'll take a break and I'll hope that the, you know, the, that the government will give me a handout for it anyways.

You know, there's a Vancouver bookstore called Pulp Fiction Books.

Well, I know this.

I know Pulp Fiction very famous as well.

It is famous.

It's a movie.

There's a very famous, I used to live right close to the Pulp Fiction on Main main street which which uh location there's there is main street 2422 main street so main street this is right close to where i live right at main and broadway in vancouver a very very sort of cool um

i don't know about that

yeah it's sort of known as like a cool there's a lot of hipster coffee shops around there and stuff like that there's truly there's a lot of like really you know good sort of artsy type stuff around there the owner seems like a huge problem it's it's called the the neighborhood is called mount pleasant that's the name of the neighborhood then they're not living up to it the owner's really nice by the way too i don't know about that dylan says uh one star this is new

read the negative reviews before going to this store and then go support the dozen or so other amazing privately owned bookstores in vancouver that don't have an owner who has accrued dozens of one star reviews about his deplorable behavior toward customers I went to the Main Street location to sell some psychology slash philosophy books.

The owner was rude and arrogant from the immediate onset of our interaction for absolutely no reason.

I called him out on this and he kicked me out of the store.

I must have seriously rattled him.

I love that line.

That is a good line in a review.

I must have seriously rattled.

Got his ass.

Yeah, I fucking, that guy didn't know how to deal with a guy that would like me, you know.

He goes, I must have called him out for being rude.

Yeah.

Can you imagine, like, in real life, being a guy that thinks you real life call people out?

Like, when you're at a place and the guy's being rude, like, I've done it so rarely because first of all, you can't win that.

You can't win that argument.

He owns the goddamn fucking bookstore.

Like that's his store.

Just calm down.

But anyway, he goes, I called him out on this and he kicked me out of the store.

I must have seriously rattled him because he followed me outside to the street, berating me about my book selection and generally just ranting.

I like that.

Honestly,

I think it's kind of badass to be like, get the fuck out of my store.

I don't care if I'm rude.

And also, the books you picked out are really stupid.

I love it.

I fucking love that.

I have always been a proponent of guy that works at the bookstore or the music store and is a prick to people because of their taste.

Like, I love that.

I think it's

something I did at the video store when I was in the show.

Of course.

I would have too.

I could never get a job like that, but

I used to really want to work at a movie theater.

And I can guarantee if I had gotten a job at a movie theater, it would be nothing but disdain for people that were seeing movies that, like, you know what I mean?

Like, they come up and get the tickets.

You're like, oh, okay, I guess.

I mean, whatever.

Yeah, yeah, fucking loser.

It's very funny to do that.

Record store guys are best known for it, but even then, they're like, I like that because it is like.

That movie High Fidelity, when the guy comes in and asks for like Stevie Wonder and he just gets berated.

I always found that scene so fucking funny.

That is a,

I know, I know this guy in the way that he is.

Like, I've interacted with him numerous times.

And I,

the people, I was reading other reviews, people seem to be mad about him basically saying, ah, those aren't good, but I don't want those books.

They're coming into trade books, and it's embarrassing.

You come in, same as anything.

You come in with like used clothes, like for, you know, to resell or whatever.

Like, and they're like, we don't want these, you know, and it's embarrassing and it makes you feel bad.

and you're probably gonna be like yeah he was rude even if he wasn't i think he kind of is a little bit like that though he's prickly you're dealing with a guy that owns a bookstore but he's nice i'm telling you he's nice he is

there was a guy very very nice there's a photo of him in that review i know i know it's funny there's a guy at uh uh that used to work there's a place called the north market it's right down the street from my house it's like a uh uh

you know it's one of those markets where there's like a bunch of different booths and like different people do different things.

And there was a cheese guy.

He was just known as this mean guy.

You go online, you read about this cheese guy all the fucking time.

Oh, this guy's a fucking asshole.

I can't believe he did this.

And I started going more regularly.

And one time I asked him, hey, what's the best cheese for a baked potato?

And for the whole rest of the time he worked there, he loved me.

He was nice to me every single time.

So like, I think sometimes you just have to engage these guys and talk to them about the, because they love a thing so much.

This guy loves books so fucking much in a way that you can't even,

in a way that you, the only other thing I could think of that you would love that much is, is Legos, you know, like this guy, you love Legos so fucking much, you know.

This guy goes,

Even when I walked away, he actually followed me to my car and whilst still ranting on, began to record me.

What on earth for?

I'm not the wiser.

And so I took the attached photograph of him quite a lovely portrait if you ask me i can't imagine how much revenue this guy misses out on acting in such a way cheerio then that part i didn't yeah he doesn't lose i think it's very successful and over overwhelmingly positive reviews too yeah yeah yeah no now i will say that these this place has 4.3 stars 500 reviews blair says uh it was bad enough but perhaps not surprising giving reports of similar abuse that the owner of the store was rude and curtly dismissed the books i'd brought in to trade This is his modus operandi and has been for at least a decade.

What was new was his refusal to sell me the book I'd come into town to buy.

What?

King, I love this guy.

He's my favorite guy.

I feel like these people are,

I've just never had a negative interaction with them.

These guys are a pain in the ass.

Why he's following them, that person outside, that person was like saying some fucked up shit to him or something.

You know what I mean?

Like, something was happening.

There's a line coming up in this review that will reveal what happened with this one, too.

Okay, because he goes, What was new was his refusal to sell me the book I'd come into town to buy because I'd asked him if he'd accept a slight discount to the price marked in pencil.

You just don't do that.

That's what

he did.

So he didn't refuse to sell you the book.

He would have sold it to you at the price that he wanted for it.

You just wanted to pay less.

less you just don't do that i don't i don't know where this person thought they were but well it is it's a used bookstore and i will say

i will say that like but whatever i agree you probably shouldn't do it but even if you do if you say hey could i have it for a little bit less and he said no no that's the price then you have to say okay and if you want it then you buy it he goes uh he went on to berate me for doing so and then i offered to pay the full price and he said this book is no longer for sale we're done now that is funny that's funny.

That is so good.

That's funny.

That is so good.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, this guy is 100%

a pain in the ass.

And then he goes, even as I apologize for daring to offer a lower price, he got extremely personal regarding my character and said I needed to reflect on my poor attitude.

In the end, he would not sell me the book and I left empty-handed.

I would warn anyone contemplating entering this store to be prepared for abuse, whether buying or selling a book.

This guy was a pain And yet, again,

we don't talk each other down anymore.

It's just not a thing that's done.

You don't walk into it.

I understand the impulse to want to do it, but like I just, every time I've ever been with somebody who's like, I'll pay this, I just feel so uncomfortable and I have to turn around.

Yeah, it makes me embarrassed.

Yeah.

I used to work at a bookstore in college.

I would like do the guy's sidewalk sales and he was hard of hearing.

And when people came in and he just didn't like the look of them, he'd just turn his hearing aids down.

And when they tried to talk to him, he'd be like, huh?

Huh?

And he just pointed his, he'd pointed his hearing aids.

I just, I, I had a, my friends across the street that I grew up with, they hated going shopping for anything because their dad would go in the store.

Like he would go to the mall and go to stores and say, can you give me a price break if I buy three pairs of these pants?

And like, they were just like.

Holy shit.

And they could never do it because they can't fucking do it.

The people that are in that place.

right?

They have no ability to make

they can't do it, but he would just do it every time, anywhere they went.

Yeah,

going to like a real just a store, like a retail store, and trying to get discounts.

That's old school shit.

That doesn't

get a discount on a TV at HH Greg.

It's like, come on, dude.

They're not going to do it.

They will never do it.

You know, my 97-year-old grandma is Jewish grandma is very much like,

she will, she will walk into any place and be like, no, what can I get for free?

She'll like say that, or if, or if, like, she has to send a meal back, she'll, she will say to, she'll like beckon the, the server closer and be like,

we'll have our drinks on the house.

She just says it like it's a foregone conclusion.

Yeah, that used to be a thing that people just did.

They acted that way, you know?

And it's weird.

I think that might be part of my

like, I pay more for everything because I'm constantly nervous about that kind of an interaction interaction happening and it not working out for me.

Like, I don't think I can handle somebody saying no.

So I'm just like, listen, you know, give me the most expensive thing you got.

I'll fucking buy the thing.

I'll pay the money.

I'll walk out of here.

And everybody's happy in the end.

But

salesman's happy and I'm happy.

You know, it doesn't make sense.

You should do research before you buy stuff and you shouldn't buy the most expensive thing.

I would never.

And also, you should consider the fact that, like, you know, you can't always get the most most expensive thing.

You're not like.

There's a lot of people.

You don't have as much money as a lot of people.

Oh, I'm not getting a car.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'm just like, I'm going to get my iPhone 15.

That's the one I want.

I might get a new one soon, actually.

Finally, don't get it.

Dude, is there anything wrong with your phone?

The battery dies slightly faster.

Get a new battery.

Pay it for a new battery and then keep using your phone.

This is a thing we need to do as society.

Stop fucking getting all this new shit every time.

Hold on to your phone and use it as long as it's still working please well let's don't use ai and don't use ai don't use ai please i only use it for certain things just reject it please i only use it for like conversation starters and zingers oh

i have chat gpt i just typed give me some zingers for this new show i'm doing you know and it's like

all of his jokes he's been doing on guys have been chat gpt

let's do one last thing here that i found great.

I'm going to share a picture with you guys.

I'll make it this picture for the episode.

Okay.

This guy and this is guys.

My wife told me to get rid of my book collection since it's just a pile.

Now,

this picture is insane.

Yeah, it's

a pile.

And it is just

All it is is paid.

It's mostly paperbacks.

It's all paperbacks and it looks, it looks like a really disorganized used bookstore, you know?

Like it just, they're all kind of,

yeah,

it looks like it could fall over at any moment, too.

Like they're not stacked up evenly, kind of.

Like it, yeah, it's a real mess.

You could never find a book you wanted to read in there.

Oh, yes.

It's like Jenga.

It would be like Jenga trying to get a book out of the middle or whatever.

Yeah.

Not only that, but it's not, you're not seeing the spines.

You're just seeing the bottoms of them.

So if you were to take a book out.

That's a really good point, Alex, that we should mention is that, yes, a lot of them are turned the other way, and you're not really seeing what you want to see.

No, you can't.

You can't see anything that's going on.

He should get rid of these books.

Well, not necessarily.

You could organize them, get a bookshelf.

You know what I mean?

And yeah.

Bookshelf.

Bookshelves are for Legos.

This guy goes, Mike Mac.

They would be called Lego shelves if they were for shelves.

Yeah, it's the new modern use for them now because there's e-books.

You know what?

I can't even come up with something to argue.

I can't even come up with anything.

Yep, we love Legos here.

Well, you can't come up with anything to argue because it's not even worth arguing.

He's just such a doofus that it's just like, whatever, let him say whatever.

And I just let me say this.

And I'm not trying to keep you guys forever.

I just want to say this.

I want to thank.

I do have to go because, no, I haven't mentioned it yet, but I will mention it now because it doesn't matter because the episode will come out so much later.

So people won't be able to wish me a happy birthday.

Right now, right right as we speak, it's my 40th birthday.

I have

happy birthday.

Thank you so much.

We love you.

And we, we, okay, so the first guy goes, she's not opposed to the books.

She's opposed to the heap.

Make it presentable.

It's unfair to force your clutter on others.

Unless this is your own space and no one has to look at it.

And in that case, do I, I, do you, I guess.

Yeah, that, that's, that, that, that I feel like is the best advice to just say, hey, clean it up.

And she, and maybe she won't.

Cause a bookcase, a nice bookcase with books, all it looks really quite nice, like for like decoration-wise, you know, it can make your home look nicer, actually.

Next person goes, Apparently, you can get pest

infestations and piles of books like this.

So, even if it's just his own space, he needs to fix this.

Pests will spread.

Well, that's what they're saying.

Yeah, this next guy goes, Yeah, even if you live alone, you owe your books more respect than that.

Even living by yourself, existing like a dirty rat in a hole is not cool.

Okay, so now they're like,

and just to be clear, I want to say, like, we only, it's only one little space.

We don't know that he's living like a rat.

I mean,

I think that it looks like it's a closet.

It doesn't look like it's not like it's an entire room closet.

Yeah, it's not like he doesn't, he doesn't seem like a hoarder necessarily, you know, he's just a book guy who's sort of disorganized with his books.

So this guy goes, this went from a pile of books to a dirty rat hole very quickly.

Next guy goes, The books do look like they're kept by a dirty rat.

Sorry.

Whoa, Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?

What?

That's a bit much.

Kept by a dirty rat?

This guy seems like a real son of a bitch, if you ask me.

He seems like a real dirty rat.

Why are they calling him a dirty rat?

Dirty rat.

Yeah.

He goes, sorry, I just really love books, and it makes me mad to see them treated like that.

I do have a rule in my house that books are not allowed to be stepped on because kids will just like throw it on the ground and then walk right over it.

And I'm just like, come on, have a little bit more respect but beyond that books are tough yeah yeah they can handle some around especially a hardcover but this guy again has no hardcover

this dirty rat only has five skins

only uh has the he goes uh

uh he goes uh not this guy goes today i'm top 10 things that only happen once on a blue moon talking about the infestation so Oh, so that's the OP saying like, oh, this guy's just helping the OP.

And then the next person goes, not really.

There's a good chance of bugs and mold, both of which will ruin your books.

If you care about your books and you want them to stay in usable condition, you should treat them kindly.

And the next guy goes, the issue is you can't see what's going on in the spaces behind the books.

So things can creep in.

And Rabbit says, for all they know, rats chewed an entire tunnel through those books.

So now we're at the point where there is a rat tunnel in these books.

Yeah, the guy keeping them is a dirty rat.

And now he's fucking pretty comfortable surrounded by a bunch of his fucking family members who have all dug tunnels through his books.

Yeah, it's gross.

You know, silverfish love these types of piles, and you can say goodbye to your books once they're on it.

Oh, there's silver.

We have silverfish around here, like in Vancouver, it is a thing, so we'll see them every now and then.

But they like books.

I didn't know that.

I thought they were more into movies.

I'm just kidding around, guys.

This next guy takes OP size and he goes, why is it okay to enforce your order on someone, but not okay to be cluttered?

We got a cluttered rights activist, cluttered rights, yeah.

We're fighting for cluttered rights, Chris.

Dirty rat rights, yeah.

It's about enforcing, it's not about enforcing order, it's about common courtesy and respecting the living space of others by not subjecting them to your heaps of stuff.

As I said, if you're in five place, be as cluttered as you like.

And then he comes back and goes, right.

But why should the desire of one fold to the desire of the other?

One person person wants an ordered space and the other prefers a cluttered space.

Why is no one interested and why is no one interested more important than the other?

So he's saying, how's it, how's being ordered

better than not being ordered?

It's a philosophical sort of discussion now at this point and really getting into the importance.

I'm starting to think some of these people,

they're just kind of going online and hoping to have some sort of argument to feel something or whatever, perhaps, because this doesn't really, it doesn't, it's just a pile of, it's just books.

Now they're saying, like, the importance of one person's thing should not outweigh the, you know what I mean?

Like, they're getting really serious about a really unserious thing.

This guy goes, when I see books neatly stored on shelves, I think, ah, yes, a fellow bibliophile.

When I see OP's pile, I think of episodes of hoarders where the person also collects used toilet papers and old soup.

Jesus Christ.

That's

very extreme for the pile of books that I see.

It didn't look like, again, you guys will see it if you look at the photo.

It doesn't look that bad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he goes, oh, come on.

This other person goes, oh, come on.

Doesn't have much storage space.

Could be moving, et cetera.

Should get shelves, but they don't devalue the books.

And then the next guy comes back and goes, it truly does, as they will fall apart like this.

You don't need shelves to stack them nicely in a fashion where you can read the spine.

So,

and

this next part's very funny.

I'm just going to let you know, this person goes, donate them.

Take them to a one-leave one box near you.

Next guy goes, seriously.

And then OP comes back and he goes, I tried this week, but it didn't go well.

The library slash church nearby actually gave me more books while I was going to donate.

Oh, God.

So this guy has, this guy, what's happened is this guy has suffered some sort of curse a number of years ago in relation to a book.

And now he's sort of cursed to accumulate these piles of books and he cannot get rid of them.

I went to donate books and came back with more is so good.

Yeah, that's so good.

Like, because imagine his wife is like, All right, get rid of these books, and he fucking comes back and he's got twice as many.

And he's like, I don't know what to tell you, honey.

I'm sorry, you're gonna have to take them.

I'm gonna tell you that right now.

The guy goes, It's just a pile.

Get some shelves, you degenerate,

um,

degenerate.

You think of the guys that we've talked about on this show, degenerate, dirty little rat.

For God's stack.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then finally, Lee's says, get some shelves, you fucking animal.

So, geez.

People are really hard on that.

I don't, I think that he should probably organize his books, but I don't think he deserves all that.

I don't think he's a dirty rat, in my opinion.

Fucking rat.

It sounds like some of them want him dead.

And I think he deserves, does not deserve to die.

I went to a thing last night by the way just before we get out of here it was it was called a game show battle right okay it's kind of like an escape room sort of thing where you go in and you're on a game show

yeah you know what i'm saying yeah i know what you mean yeah i won't and it felt yeah we've heard this song and dance before alex and he's he's he's claimed victory on another thing and it was a lot of people did analysis on it and stuff and they were like man just nobody did any analysis immediately accused me of cheating.

Certain things didn't.

We didn't accuse anybody.

We said, here's the facts, you decide.

And it just something wasn't right about it.

Everyone decided something wasn't right about it.

And now, Alex, my life is difficult because right now I won trivia and they're taking that away from me.

And then also, they said my wallet looks like a PlayStation 4.

I did see a picture of the wallet.

It's pretty the wallet.

What do you think, Alex?

Do you think it looks like a PlayStation 4?

Be honest.

Be honest.

It did have like a lot of vestigial plastic pieces that I didn't quite make sense.

It pops out.

The cards pop out.

It pops out.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

And it has an air tag.

It's not weird.

It's a fine wallet.

And I'm like, so

I have to say that when I did see people ragging on it, I was like, well, I have one of those AirTag wallets because I constantly lose my fucking wallet.

Yeah.

But I bet you yours looks normal and you probably bought a better one.

But we don't need to get into it.

I'm sure you bought a much better one than him.

There's no way that you spend $30

on a mechanism.

How many dollars?

How much?

Only, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, he did not spend a good amount of money on something that has mechanisms on it.

It's a really bad decision.

But, Brian, what's this thing you claimed you won?

It was like you play Family Feud and the Wheel of How many people play,

but it was two teams, and I was on the winning team.

And who was on the other team?

My fucking wife, and daughter, and sister, and my daughter's boyfriend.

Oh, he was, he's he's hanging around.

All right.

Got him.

Ashton's our boy, man.

We love Ashton.

We like him.

And

who was on your team?

My brother, his wife, and their daughter.

Holy shit.

I didn't want to be on the same team with the people I live with.

I mean, listen, this because I wanted to destroy them.

I believe that you won this because this is a thing.

You're competing against your own family.

I wanted to destroy the people I live with.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks so much much for coming on, Alex.

Anything to plug, perhaps, a podcast that is, perhaps we mention off the top that is new and is fantastic and everybody should go listen to?

Yeah, yeah.

I just started a new show called Hyperfixed.

People write in with their problems and I solve those problems.

And it sort of becomes like,

you know, documentary style podcasts, you know this American life-y style kind of before they got so serious

can I I have a friend who has a number of problems and could I talk to you off the podcast

I'll talk the cool guy and just like I could maybe write in something and you could do some stuff to try to help him out no clue what to I would love to hear who this guy is you don't ever talk about him on the show

well you know you don't know what you don't know that he doesn't talk about him he hasn't given any information yet yeah

he doesn't show a very normal guy,

according to Brace Belden of Truanon.

And also, according to Brace Belden of Truinon, who I think is on the next episode, I believe.

He's on next week, yeah.

He's on next week.

But he also, I was listening to Truinon, and he mentioned that

you are like an actual swinger in the lifestyle.

Okay, that's crazy.

I'm going to tell you why.

There are probably like a few hundred to a thousand people who stopped listening to Street Fight and haven't found guys that now fully believe I'm a swinger.

Like that, I went through some kind of a spiral after Street Fight ended.

We're now almost famous in with it.

That's one of my favorite things that Brace did that and did it not as a joke.

He just

sort of made people think that you really are a swinger.

I know.

They do really, because somebody sent me a screenshot of some subreddit that said, when did Brian become a swinger?

Well, he needs to talk about some sub, I'm sure it was your subreddit.

I don't know that.

It was your subreddit that they were asking.

Because we, listen, we don't go.

I get stuff sent from that subreddit.

I got something sent there from the Instagram

on the Instagram about how much money is made and stuff like that.

So if you want, I could go check and I can go weigh in and let people know that what I know about whether or not you're a swinger.

Everybody know about whether or not he's a swinger.

Well, I just know that I believe that he is.

Oh, I'm not.

Well, you've met my wife, which that's another nightmare that's going on.

You know, swingers can be and often are married.

It's not

they are always married, they're always married.

Yeah, that's why

you can meet someone's wife, and it doesn't have anything to do with whether they swing or watch.

I'm just joking.

The reason Brian said that, and it was actually a really smart maneuver, is because he knows I don't, I would never say something like that about his wife because she's so sweet and nice.

And so now I do have to, I don't think Brian's a swinger.

That's my nightmare now.

Katie would have to be a swinger, and I don't believe she is.

That's my nightmare now, by the way, is now all the guys that think I'm I'm weird and make fun of me have met my wife.

Every single one of them.

Mike, Jesse from your Kickstarter sucks, Chris, Stephan, John, like they've all met my wife now, and they just take her side automatically, like she's flawless or something.

It's not that she's flawless, it's just when you meet both of them and you see them interacting, you know, you just, it really hammers home what a sweet, sweet, and wonderful lady she is and what a great person she is and how

tough things must be sometimes.

It's easy living with me.

All right, we'll see you all next week with Hardgore Guys with Brace Belden.

Again, we made an $8 tier on the Patreon.

There is no,

we're not taking anything away from the $5 tier.

You're still going to get the video on Monday of the stream and all that crap.

But if you want an extra episode a month of one of my series, you know, you get your holy boys.

I'm sorry.

This month is Brace and Brian.

And you want the show on video, the bonus show on video, you can get it.

And believe me, this first video is fucking incredible.

It is.

That's a good one.

We did two.

We get deaned up.

We get Greg Deaned up.

We did two full hours on the

it's already dropped.

So when this is, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we'll see you next week.

Goodbye.

Bye.

Bye.