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J.P. Duffy is joined by Jeff Zaino, vice president of the AAA-ICDR's Commercial Division, to discuss the AAA's upcoming centenary and its enduring reputation as a trusted choice for resolving commercial conflicts across industries. The conversation delves into the AAA's significant milestones and accomplishments, highlighting its commitment to innovation, including its approach to AI and the recent appointment of Bridget McCormack as president and CEO. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Hello and welcome to Arbitral Insights, a podcast series brought to you by our international arbitration practice lawyers here at Reed Smith. I'm Peter Rosher, Global Head of Reed Smith's International Arbitration Practice. I hope you enjoy the industry commentary, insights and anecdotes we share with you in the course of this series, wherever in the world you are. If you have any questions about any of the topics discussed, please do contact our speakers. And with that, let's get started.  J.P.: Welcome back to the next episode of Arbitral Insights, in which we'll discuss the American Arbitration Association with Jeff Zaino, who's the vice president of the AAA's commercial division. I'm J.P. Duffy. I'm an international arbitration partner based in New York that acts as both counsel and arbitrator in international arbitration seated around the world under a variety of governing laws and arbitral rules. I'm qualified in New York, England, and Wales in the DIFC courts in Dubai, where I previously lived and practiced. I routinely represent clients and arbitrations involving a range of issues and frequently sit as an arbitrator in commercial disputes as well. I also have the good fortune to be a member of the AAA's commercial division arbitrator roster, the ICDR panel, and I'm a member of the AAA-ICDR Life Sciences Steering Committee and a member of the ICDR Publications Committee as well. So I get to do a lot with the AAA, which is really a wonderful organization. As I mentioned, with me today is Jeff Zaino, who's the vice president of the commercial division of the AAA in New York. He oversees administration of the large, complex commercial caseload, user outreach, and panel of commercial neutrals in New York. He joined the association in 1990, and Mr. Zaino is dedicated to promoting ADR methods and services. He's also written and published extensively on the topics of electronic reform and ADR, including several podcasts with the ABA, talks on law, and corporate counsel business. And he's appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and Bloomberg to discuss national election reform efforts and the Help America Vote Act. He was deemed a 2018 Alternative Dispute Resolution Champion by the National Law Journal and received awards for his ADR work from the National Academy of Arbitrators, Region 2 and Long Island Labor and Employment Relations Association. In 2022, Jeff received the Alicott Lieber Younger Committee of the Year Award for the New York State Bar Association Commercial and Federal Litigation Section. And in 2023, the Chairman's Award, NYSBA Dispute Resolution Section. So as you can tell, Jeff is a highly experienced, highly lauded arbitration expert, but we're really lucky to have his valuable insights today. So before we begin with some of the substance, let me just give a little bit of background on the AAA and the commercial division so that those that are less familiar have a little bit of information about what we're going to discuss today. The AAA is a non-profit alternative dispute resolution service provider headquartered in New York that administers arbitrations, mediations, and other forms of dispute resolution, such as ombudsperson and dispute avoidance training. It was founded in 1926 to provide an alternative to civil court proceedings, and that makes the AAA one of the oldest arbitral institutions in the world, as well as one of the largest, having administered over 11,553 business-to-business cases in 2023 alone, with a total value of over $19.1 billion. So that should give you a pretty good idea of the scope of what the AAA does. Notably, the AAA has several divisions that offer users substantial subject matter expertise. For instance, the commercial division, which Jeff heads, specializes in business-to-business disputes of all sizes, but has a particular expertise with large complex cases across a variety of industries, including accounting, communications, energy, entertainment, financial services, franchise, hospitality, insurance and reinsurance, life sciences, sports, and technology. There are also separate AAA divisions that focus exclusively on construction issues, consumer disputes, employment matters, government issues, healthcare, and labor disputes. Lastly, as many of our listeners will know, the AAA has a well-known international division, the International Center for Dispute Resolution, or what's colloquially known as the ICDR, that focuses on disputes that have an international component. Before we get into some of our recent developments, Jeff, if you could tell us a bit about what makes the AAA different than other arbitral administrators, I'm sure our audience would love to hear that.  Jeff: Sure. Hey, thanks so much, J.P., for having me today, and thanks for the kind words at the beginning. It's great to be here today. Well, you mentioned it. The AAA is the largest and oldest ADR provider in the world. We have over 700 staff worldwide and 28 offices, including one in Singapore. And we have a huge panel, and you're on that panel. We have 6,000 arbitrators on our panel, and we consider them experts in the industry. And we're really proud of our panel. And like you mentioned, we're hitting our 100th anniversary in 2026. And since then, when I started, I started in the 90s, like you mentioned, 1990. From 1926, when we were founded, to 1990, we did a million cases, one million cases. And then, since then, from 1990 until now, 2024, we hit 8 million, 8 million cases. So it's growing. And I feel that's because of AAA, AAA-ICDR. Again, we've been around for almost 100 years, and we keep on growing. And I feel that we took the A out of ADR. I mean, everyone says alternative dispute resolution, but I really think now it's, and you'll probably agree with me, J.P., that it's dispute resolution. It's something in our toolbox and it's not alternative any longer. And then another thing about us, a huge difference about AAA-ICDR is we're not for profit. That makes us unique in this space. Profit-based companies are a little bit different than what we are. We're not criticizing them, but we're unique in the sense that we work directly for the parties, not for the arbitrators.  J.P.: That's a really interesting stat, Jeff. Let me unpack some of that because I think, first off, if I understood that correctly, you said up until 1990, there were 1 million cases administered. Is that right?  Jeff: That's correct. We did 1 million cases from our founding, 1926, a year after the Federal Arbitration Act in 1925. So we did 1 million when I came on board in 1990. And then from 1990 until now, we've done a total of 8 million. So we doubled that, or tripled it. It's been amazing how the growth that we've seen. And also during a pandemic, we saw a huge growth at AAA-ICDR.  J.P.: And Jeff, one thing that I think you're obviously very involved with the New York State Bar, and I've done quite a bit with the New York State Bar myself over the years. One thing that I noticed, and you just reminded me of this, was an uptick in submission agreements during the pandemic, by which I mean parties taking existing disputes for which there was no arbitration clause, drafting an arbitration clause for it to submit it and move it into arbitration. And I think some of that was a function of the recognition that disputes would founder if the courts were closed and that parties needed things done. Did you see that kind of growth during the pandemic of submission agreements as well?  Jeff: Absolutely. The courts were shut down, like you mentioned, for three to four months worldwide. And the ADR providers, like the AAA-ICDR, did not shut down. And we did have submissions, more submissions than we've ever seen. And usually it's only about, I would say, 2%, 3% of our caseload is submissions, but we saw the court systems. And I had, personally, I had over a billion dollar case, a bankruptcy case that came to us from Texas and it was mediated. We had two mediators, one in Connecticut and one in Texas. We had six parties, 40 people showed up on the Zoom, J.P., it was amazing. And that was a submission to AAA through the court system. The judge talked to the parties and said, listen, we're shut down. This is an important matter. Why don't you go to AAA? And so, yes, we did see submissions during the pandemic. I'm not sure if that's going to continue on. Most of our disputes are features of contract, as you know.  J.P.: Yeah. I mean, that's always going to be the case in arbitration, right? That the vast majority of cases will be subject to a pre-dispute arbitration clause. But I think it's really interesting when you see submission agreements like that, because I think it's a clear recognition that one, arbitration is a really valuable tool. And two, it's a real plus for the AAA and a real nod of confidence that those are submitted to AAA because that's parties taking something they know has to be figured out and saying, all right, AAA is the guy to do. I wanted to pick up, too, on that exponential growth of 8 million cases between 1990 and the present versus 1 million over the first, you know, what is that, 70-something years or 60-plus years?  Jeff: 60-plus years, absolutely, yeah. J.P.: Are there particular industries that you've seen significant growth in since the 1990 period that you were discussing, like between 1990 and the present? Are there particular industries that you are seeing more growth in or that you think there could be more growth in? Just be curious to get your views on that.  Jeff: Sure, sure. And my area of commercial, as you know, because you're on the commercial panel and the ICDR panel, is healthcare. And I know you're a big part of healthcare. Also, financial services. We've seen a huge growth in that in the last five years. We put together an advisory committee for financial services on insurance. And then also, as you probably know, consumer. We saw a big amount of consumer cases during the pandemic and even prior to the pandemic. And that's a big caseload. It's about 30% of our caseload at AAA-ICDR. But again, people criticize that sometimes and say, well, that's not fair to the consumer. They're forced into arbitration. But what I say, J.P., to law students and when I speak at events like this, I say, listen, we don't draft ourselves into contracts. AAA-ICDR does not do that. People draft us into contracts and we just try to make the process, we try to level the playing field. And we do a lot of consumer, but we do a lot of high-end commercial cases, as you know, a lot of international cases and things like that. But the two areas, I would say, a long way to answer to your question, J.P., is I would say healthcare and financial services, insurance, that's where we're seeing a lot of growth and also technology.  J.P.: The consumer aspect is one that is obviously very, very, very hot right now, given things like the mass arbitration rules and things like that. And we will probably touch on that in a bit, but it's a really valuable service to provide. And that's one thing that I think the AAA really does well. As you mentioned, it's a not-for-profit organization. It's not an organization that's out to make money off of consumer disputes. It's really there to help everybody resolve them. So something for everyone to keep in mind.  Jeff: The company bears the cost, not the consumer. And I hope people know that, that we're not out, like you said, we're not out to make a big buck on this. We're just trying to level a playing field and access to justice for these people.  J.P.: Yeah. And that's really what it is. At the end of the day, it's access to justice. And a lot of times the alternative is small claims court, which is not always a great choice. I've sat as an arbitrator in small claims court a few times, and I can tell you it's a great process when it works, but it can be a challenging process as well so  Jeff: Without a doubt.  J.P.: Always something to keep in mind. Yeah. Well, let's talk then about some of the recent developments because there have been quite a few. And as you mentioned, it's coming up on the centennial for the AAA-ICDR. And a lot has happened, obviously, in the 100 years of its existence, almost 100 years of its existence.  Jeff: Sure.  J.P.: And quite a few of those things are pretty monumental. And one of the biggest ones, I guess, is that in February 2023. Bridget McCormack took over as president and CEO of the AAA-ICDR from India Johnson, who was in that role for a lot of years. Bridget was previously the chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, if I'm correct, and was also a professor and associate dean at the prestigious University of Michigan Law School. So she brings a pretty extensive wealth of experience to the AAA. Now that she's been in that role for about a year and a half, how have things been different at the AAA-ICDR under Bridget's leadership?  Jeff: It's been wonderful. I mean, Bridget brings such life to the company right now. I mean, India Johnson was great. She put our house in order, our finances. but Bridget is now doing a wonderful job in getting out there. I'm not sure, J.P., have you met her yet?  J.P.: I have not had the pleasure of meeting her in person, but I'll sort of preview for our listeners that we are in the process of trying to get Bridget into our firm to talk to everyone about what the AAA-ICDR does and give sort of an insider's view for our partners.  Jeff: Oh, wonderful. She's such a dynamic speaker. If you go on YouTube, you'll see she speaks all the time. It's amazing. Whenever I ask her to speak at an event in New York, I feel bad about asking her because I know how busy she is, but she does agree. But I have to find a space in her calendar because if you see on LinkedIn, I know you're on LinkedIn too, J.P., and she is everywhere. It seems like every week she's speaking somewhere, very dynamic, and she embraces AI. And I know we're going to talk about AI a little bit, but also innovation. And she's been doing such a terrific job being the face of the AAA, and we needed that. India, again, did a wonderful job, but Bridget is out there and around the world doing international events, doing events here domestically. And it really, I think, is getting the word out there about ADR and about, well, I should say DR, sorry, dispute resolution, and also access to justice. Being a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan, doing a terrific job. And really, the people in the company are very excited. We have 700 plus employees, and we're excited with our new president. It really has been a great time with her.  J.P.: You know it's funny. The one thing I've universally heard from anyone who works there when I ask about Bridget is everyone says great energy, great leadership, and really, really, really strong presence, which is really wonderful to hear because you seem to be echoing that pretty strongly as well.  Jeff: Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, when she works a room, when she talks at an event, and it's great. We're forward-looking right now, big time. The AAA now is looking, AAA-ICDR, looking towards the future with innovation, with ODR, and we're going to talk about that, and with access to justice, which I love. And she's doing a terrific job.  J.P.: Well, that's great to hear. And I think we are going to talk about odr.com in just a second. But before we do that, I'd just be curious, because they may well be the same thing. But what would you say Bridget's greatest accomplishment is so far?  Jeff: I would say being the face of the AAA and embracing new ideas. For years, we didn't really, we moved kind of slowly. We embraced new ideas, but we moved slowly like a battleship turning around or an aircraft carrier turning around. We moved slowly. We're not doing that any longer. Bridget wants to move on quickly, which is great, and embrace things that are going on. And I think we're ahead of the curve on a lot of things, with acquiring ODR, with our embracing AI, with her ideas about innovation, access to justice. We are, I think, really ahead of the curve with respect to these areas, ahead of law firms, ahead of some of our competitors. And I attribute that to Bridget.  J.P.: That's really great to hear. That's really great to hear. And it's really hard with a large organization to be nimble. Exactly. I know we do that pretty well at Reed Smith, I think, too, but it's a challenge, and it does require great leadership in order to get everybody on board with that. So it's wonderful to hear that's happening at the AAA-ICDR, and you see it.  Jeff: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. And also, we're almost 100-year-old organizations, so you would think that we wouldn't be thinking about these innovation things in the future, but we are, which is terrific. We're an old organization, but not really. We're ready for the future.  J.P.: Well, let's talk about that future a bit because it's clear that there's a strong focus on that. And one of the first things that I noticed is the odr.com resourceful internet solutions acquisition. So for those that don't know anything about that, maybe you could fill the audience in and give us a bit of background about that one and what it's done for the AAA-ICDR.  Jeff: Sure. We just recently, a few months ago, acquired odr.com. It's a company that's been around for approximately 25 years. Online dispute resolution that can be completely customized for your needs for online dispute resolution. And they've been doing a wonderful job for many years. Okay. obviously much smaller than the AAA-ICDR, but they've been working with us. I'm not sure if you know this, J.P., but they've helped us with our no-fault business in New York. They help us set up our system initially years ago. So we've had a relationship with them for probably two decades with ODR. So we recently acquired them and we're working with them. Their most important area is right now is mediation. They have mediate.com and we're looking at  our mediation.org and combining those two. Okay. And we want to expand our mediation business. And again, I mentioned it a couple of times, access to justice. We want high volume cases. Okay. We do obviously high-end cases, high dollar cases, but right now we're seeing with odr.com, we can spread the business, we can grow the business and we can expand our mediation business. And that's what we're trying to do because mediation is growing. As you know, J.P., it's it mediation has grown tremendously over the last couple of decades. But now with ODR online dispute resolution, I mean, it's going to really grow, I think. So that's what that's why we acquired it. And, you know, Colin Rule, I'm not sure, J.P., if you've ever met Colin Rule. The head of ODR.com.  J.P.: I have not had the pleasure.  Jeff: Yeah, he's he's phenomenal. know if anyone that's listening to this podcast, you just Google Colin Rule. He's been in this space for many, many years and he's a phenomenal person. And I'm really excited about this acquisition. And I think we're going to work so well together.  J.P.: Jeff, just for people like me that are a little bit less savvy with how some of these things work technologically and sort of mechanically, is odr.com and mediate.com is a function of that, right? Or a part of that?  Jeff: Yeah, it's a part of it. Yeah. And I believe they have arbitration.com, but now it's going to be merged in with the AAA. And the platform of odr.com is going to be used for our mediation services at AAA for online mediation services.  J.P.: Okay. That's what I was getting at. So this is like a platform where users or parties and the mediator all log in, communicate with each other. Exchange their positions, and do everything that way. So is it correct to say it's sort of a virtual mediation platform?  Jeff: Yeah, without a doubt. And now the timing is perfect, J.P., because we just came off the pandemic about a couple of years ago, and we were seeing, as you probably know, as an arbitrator at AAA, we were doing thousands of virtual hearings arbitration and also mediation, and it worked. It really worked.  J.P.: Yeah. And that's really one of the true benefits that came out of the pandemic, in my view. Prior to the pandemic, I had always done certain aspects of cases virtually. And there was video conferencing was something that you could suggest, but that parties and frankly, arbitrators were not always that willing to embrace. But I think the pandemic really showed everyone that you can do things virtually. Efficiently, cost-effectively, and in a way that you don't need an in-person hearing for, and that it can be really successful. So I'm sure the timing has been right for odr.com and that acquisition. In terms of integrating it, what's the full timeline for getting it fully integrated, if you don't mind my asking?  Jeff: Sure. I mean, right now we're focusing on mediation. Okay. That's going to be our focus for the next several months. And then I think we're going to try to see if we can move this into arbitration also, because we're still seeing a lot of arbitrations, not a lot. I mean, I would say that 30% of our arbitrations are still being done in the virtual world. We're starting to see, and JP you've been at my Midtown office in Midtown Manhattan on 42nd Street, and we're starting to see about 60 to 70% capacity as an in-person for arbitration. But there's still a segment that wants to do it in the virtual world. And this is where odr.com comes into play. And right now it's, but the focus right now is mediation and working with our mediation team at the AAA-ICDR.  J.P.: Got it. Well, you know, it's funny. I have an employment partner who told me the odds of them ever doing an employment mediation below a certain value in person again are slim to none.  Jeff: Interesting.  J.P.: Yeah. And I think you guys have really hit the nail on the head with this.  Jeff: Well, with labor similar to employment, we're seeing almost 80% of labor cases now in New York City, I'm talking, are being done virtual, maybe even a little bit more than that. They got so used to doing it in the virtual world for labor cases, union management. It's interesting to see where we're going with this. But commercial type disputes, the type that you handle, J.P., we're starting to see more people coming back into in-person. However, we're not seeing the days of a witness flying in from Paris for one hour because we have all the technology at the offices, our offices around the country, the voice activated camera. So we don't need to ship in people for one hour. It's a waste of money.  J.P.: Yeah. And that's, you know, that's really the great thing that this technology allows for, which is, you know, I just did a, to mention the hearing space, Jeff, I just did a pretty large week-long hearing earlier in the year at the AAA's offices on 42nd Street. And it was great, but there were, you know, and I do, you know, myself prefer in-person for certain things, but, you know, during that hearing, we had witnesses that were exactly what you're describing, I mean, really only required to confirm a few issues or give, you know, a short cross examination and they were located in pretty diverse regions. Absolutely no reason to incur the time or expense or frankly, just the headache of bringing those people in from around the world for scheduling purposes and everything else.  Jeff: Sure.  J.P.: We did those, you know, we did those witnesses virtually and that is a real, that's a real benefit. You know, you sort of do that hybrid approach and you can save, it's way more efficient, It's way more cost-effective, and it is just easier from a scheduling perspective. So this is a really great development.  Jeff: Yeah, and J.P., have you noticed, I mean, when you were probably at my office on 42nd Street, we have now the big monitors. And I've noticed that arbitrators like yourself and advocates like yourself are using more technology in the rooms. We have these cupboards in our hearing rooms where the binders used to go, the big binders for exhibits and things like that. No longer am I seeing that. Most arbitrators are now using our, we provide iPads, we have the big monitors, and it seems like people are going away from paper, which is great too.  J.P.: Yeah, it's funny. I'm sort of like probably the last of the Mohicans where people really had to do things like mini books. Like when I was a real junior associate, we would have hearing bundles that were in mini book form and they were, you'd have 55 volumes and everything would be in there. I mean, there's sort of those nightmare stories where parties would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just pulling together the paper for a hearing. And that, you know, that to me always seemed a little bit crazy. In this day and age, it is totally unnecessary. I would much prefer to have everything electronically. And that hearing space really allows for that. So really, really great to hear that parties are embracing that because it's such a cost savings and it's an efficiency. You know, it just doesn't need to be the way it was.  Jeff: Sure.  J.P.: Well, let's talk then a bit about some of the AI stuff that you were mentioning, because I think that is really, I have to confess, I don't understand it as well as I should. I think most people, if they were being honest, probably have an inkling of what it does, but don't really know. I'd love to hear what the AAA-ICDR is doing with AI, because it's a really, really, really groundbreaking development.  Jeff: Absolutely. Well, if you Google Bridget McCormack, our president, she speaks on AI quite frequently and it really has embraced it. And how have we embraced that AAA? Well, she encourages the staff to use it. And we have, she's even recommended certain programs that we should use. But with respect to how are we using it with respect to running our business? Well, we have ClauseBuilder and you know about ClauseBuilder. It's a tool that was developed in 2013 where people can go online and develop a clause for arbitration. Now we have ClauseBuilder AI, which as opposed to going through various modules with the original ClauseBuilder, you can just type in, I want an employment clause. I want three arbitrators. I want limited discovery. And the clause builder AI will build that clause for you. That's something we just rolled out. Also for arbitrators, scheduling orders. We have an AI program right now for arbitrators where a scheduling order usually takes an arbitrator, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, J.P., usually about an hour to two hours after you do the preliminary hearing. Well, now AI reduces that time to probably a couple of minutes for an arbitrator. So we rolled that out. And we obviously were having discussions about low dollar cases, high volume cases. Can AI be used? And we're looking into that. We haven't rolled that out yet. It's not going to eliminate you, J.P., but it's something that we're looking at right now. And we are embracing it. I use it for various things. I'll give you an example. I use it for if I'm doing an educational program, I'll type in, you know, I'm doing a program on arbitration and discovery. Can you give me a good title for this program? I've been doing this for years. I've used a lot of different titles for programs, and it's wonderful to use AI for those purposes and for editing things. So I like the fact that our company embraces it. Some companies do not. Some law firms, as you know, J.P., do not embrace AI. And we had that case last year where I think an attorney, it wasn't arbitration, it was litigation, where he cited cases through AI that never existed.  J.P.: Yeah, that's actually happened more than once since then. And it's been kind of amazing to me. Yeah, it's funny. We as a law firm at Reed Smith have definitely embraced AI. We've got a person who's sort of C-suite level that addresses that and that heads that function up. And I know we are trying to bring it in much more for things that are sort of routine, that don't require necessarily true attorney time. And it is a real game changer. I mean, you know, anybody who doesn't get on board with AI is going to get left behind at some point because it is truly, truly the wave of the future, in my view.  Jeff: Oh, absolutely. And the way I look at it, people say, well, it seems scary or whatever. But what about Google Maps and things that we've embraced years ago? I couldn't live, J.P., without Google Maps. So that's technology that it's going to help us. It's not going to take us over or whatever. It's going to help us enhance what we're doing.  J.P.: Yeah, I think the concerns about Skynet are a little bit, you know, Skynet and Terminator are a little bit far-fetched, but it is something that we all need to get on board with. It's a lot like the way that, you know, when I first started practicing the notion of uploading paper documents to be reviewed and then using search terms was really scary for a lot of people, but that, you know, that became commonplace and you couldn't function without it. This will do the same thing to the extent it's not the same. Now, Jeff, what's the overlap, if any, between that you see between some of the AI initiatives and odr.com?  Jeff: We're not really combining those yet, but I think we will. There's discussions about it, but right now we're focusing on mediation with odr.com and we're discussing rolling out AI with various things to help to assist our arbitrators, are mediators, but I think eventually, you know, there'll be a combination, I think, but right now there's not.  J.P.: Got it. Well, we'll stay tuned because I can't imagine those two things are going to stay in separate houses for too long. Well, we could talk all day about what's going on at the AAA-ICDR right now because it's just amazing. I mean, it's really incredibly, incredibly dynamic at the moment. But what I'd like to do is sort of shift ahead to looking ahead to the future. We talked a bit earlier about how the AAA is rapidly approaching its centennial anniversary, And that's kind of a natural reflection point for any organization. If you were to sort of sum things up and say, what accomplishments from its first century of existence that the AAA is most proud of, what do you think you would point to?  Jeff: Well, I would point to two things. First, how amazing the AAA-ICDR was and also other ADR providers. When pandemic hit, within a week, we were up with 700 employees doing thousands and thousands of cases. And I was worried about the arbitrators, not you, J.P., but other arbitrators with the technology. And our 6,000 arbitrators, it was flawless. It was amazing or seamless. It really went well. And that I'm very, very proud of because I had been with the AAA for a long time prior to that. And I was really concerned that the arbitrators weren't going to get it. We weren't going to be able to understand Microsoft Teams, Zoom, all that kind of stuff. So we did a great job during pandemic. We had some of our best years during pandemic with respect to helping society in arbitrating cases. But also some of the things that we've done for state and federal governments, you know, state and federal governments, Storm Sandy, Katrina. Those are the things I'm very proud of. I was a part of the Storm Sandy stuff where we administered 6,000 cases for homeowners and with insurance companies. And we were able to do that very quickly. And we're a not-for-profit. So the federal government and the state governments look at us and will hire us to do those kind of projects. And we can quickly mobilize because of our staff. So those two things really stand out in my career at AAA.  J.P.: That's a really, really interesting thing to point to because that truly embodies the best that the AAA can offer. It's an incredible service that really helped people with real-life issues during really challenging times. So wonderful to hear. What would you see for the next 100 years in the AAA? Like, you know, looking forward, I know it's going to be here for, it's going to be having its two, it's bicentennial at some point. It will absolutely occur. What would you see is, you know, if you were to fast forward yourself a hundred years and still be in the seat, because by then technology will have kept us all alive for the next hundred years, and you're Jeff Zaino 2.0, sitting around in 200 years, where would you see the AAA-ICDR at that point?  Jeff: Well, I'm on part of the committee for the 100-year anniversary. We have a committee already formed two years in advance to get ready for our 100th year anniversary, and we're talking about this stuff. And I think some of the themes that Bridget's talking about, access to justice, I think we're going to be, we saw from 1990 to now 8 million cases, we're going to see far more. We're going to see the public now embracing arbitration. When I was hired by the AAA in the 90s, I didn't even know what AAA stood for. I mean, with the name, American Arbitration Association. I didn't know what arbitration was. We are reaching out to law schools. We're doing collaboration with a lot of law schools in New York and throughout the country, throughout the world. And I think the word's going to get out there that arbitration is the way to go. Our mediation is too. And I'm excited about that. Also, we're going to see far more diversity at AAA and also in the community. And that's something that we really care about at the AAA. Right now, J.P., as you probably know, any list that goes out at the AAA is a minimum of 30% diverse. So we're going to see an increase in that area, but also access to justice for the public.  J.P.: Really, really great. And I think we will all watch with rapt attention to see what happens because it's only good things in the future for the AAA-ICDR, that's for sure. Well, Jeff, I just want to thank you. But before we wrap this up, I'm going to reserve my right to bring you back for another podcast because there's so much more we could talk about. So, but is there anything I missed that we should hit on now that would be great for the audience to hear? I know there's just so much going on.  Jeff: Well, I hope the audience when in 2026, when we have our 100th anniversary, I hope people participate in it because we're going to do things worldwide and we're going to be doing events everywhere. And that year we really are, we have a huge team of people that are working in our 100th year anniversary and not to just necessarily promote AAA-ICDR, but to promote arbitration and mediation. And that's what we're going to be doing in 2026, and I'm very excited about it.  J.P.: You heard it here first, folks. Arbitration is the future. And Jeff said it himself. So we will definitely watch closely. Well, good. And just to give a very quick preview on this one, too, because Jeff, you mentioned it. We are going to, in the future, have your colleagues from the ICDR side of the house come on, and we're going to bring some of the new folks from Singapore and a few other people. So more to come. And it's just incredible to see.  Jeff: We look forward to it. And J.P., I'd love to have another sit down with you. It's been great.  J.P.: Good. We absolutely will. So that then will conclude our discussion at the American Arbitration Association for now. And I want to thank our guest, Jeff Zaino of the AAA Commercial Division for his invaluable insights. And I want to thank you, the audience, for listening today. You should feel free to reach out to Reed Smith about today's podcast with any questions you might have. And you should absolutely as well feel free to reach out to Jeff. I know he's super responsive and he would love to chat with you directly if you have any questions. And we look forward to having you tune in for future episodes of the series, including future updates with Jeff and our podcast with the ICDR as well. So thank you everyone. And we will be back.  Outro: Arbitral Insights is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. For more information about Reed Smith's global international arbitration practice, email arbitralinsights@reedsmith.com. To learn about the Reed Smith Arbitration Pricing Calculator, a first-of-its-kind mobile app that forecasts the cost of arbitration around the world, search Arbitration Pricing Calculator on reedsmith.com or download for free through the Apple and Google Play app stores. You can find our podcast on podcast streaming platforms, reedsmith.com, and our social media accounts at Reed Smith LLP.  Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers.  All rights reserved.  Transcript is auto-generated.

06/03/2024 - it's a wild morning in Cincinnati, Cincy sports recap, a band deals with a rude interruption, Kidd Chris is lucky to be alive, Sara Elyse has a pathetic day at the nail salon, fathers get the snub on their special day, and more! 

Jeff Morris, VP of Product & Solutions Marketing at Couchbase, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss Couchbase's new columnar data store functionality, specific use cases for columnar data stores, and why AI gets better when it communicates with a cleaner pool of data. Jeff shares how more responsive databases could allow businesses like Dominos and United Airlines to create hyper-personalized experiences for their customers by utilizing more responsive databases. Jeff dives into the linked future of AI and data, and Corey learns about Couchbase's plans for the re:Invent conference. If you're attending re:Invent, you can visit Couchbase at booth 1095.About JeffJeff Morris is VP Product & Solutions Marketing at Couchbase (NASDAQ: BASE), a cloud database platform company that 30% of the Fortune 100 depend on.Links Referenced:Couchbase: https://www.couchbase.com/TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. This promoted guest episode of Screaming in the Cloud is brought to us by our friends at Couchbase. Also brought to us by Couchbase is today's victim, for lack of a better term. Jeff Morris is their VP of Product and Solutions Marketing. Jeff, thank you for joining me.Jeff: Thanks for having me, Corey, even though I guess I paid for it.Corey: Exactly. It's always great to say thank you when people give you things. I learned this from a very early age, and the only people who didn't were rude children and turned into worse adults.Jeff: Exactly.Corey: So, you are effectively announcing something new today, and I always get worried when a database company says that because sometimes it's a license that is going to upset people, sometimes it's dyed so deep in the wool of generative AI that, “Oh, we're now supporting vectors or whatnot.” Well, most of us don't know what that means.Jeff: Right.Corey: Fortunately, I don't believe that's what you're doing today. What have you got for us?Jeff: So, you're right. It's—well, what I'm doing is, we're announcing new stuff inside of Couchbase and helping Couchbase expand its market footprint, but we're not really moving away from our sweet spot, either, right? We like building—or being the database platform underneath applications. So, push us on the operational side of the operational versus analytic, kind of, database divide. But we are announcing a columnar data store inside of the Couchbase platform so that we can build bigger, better, stronger analytic functionality to feed the applications that we're supporting with our customers.Corey: Now, I feel like I should ask a question around what a columnar data store is because my first encounter with the term was when I had a very early client for AWS bill optimization when I was doing this independently, and I was asking them the… polite question of, “Why do you have 283 billion objects in a single S3 bucket? That is atypical and kind of terrifying.” And their answer was, “Oh, we built our own columnar data store on top of S3. This might not have been the best approach.” It's like, “I'm going to stop you there. With no further information, I can almost guarantee you that it was not.” But what is a columnar data store?Jeff: Well, let's start with the, everybody loves more data and everybody loves to count more things, right, but a columnar data store allows you to expedite the kind of question that you ask of the data itself by not having to look at every single row of the data while you go through it. You can say, if you know you're only looking for data that's inside of California, you just look at the column value of find me everything in California and then I'll pick all of those records to analyze. So, it gives you a faster way to go through the data while you're trying to gather it up and perform aggregations against it.Corey: It seems like it's one of those, “Well, that doesn't sound hard,” type of things, when you're thinking about it the way that I do, in terms of a database being more or less a medium to large size Excel spreadsheet. But I have it on good faith from all the customer environments. I've worked with that no, no, there are data stores that span even larger than that, which is, you know, one of those sad realities of the world. And everything at scale begins to be a heck of a lot harder. I've seen some of the value that this stuff offers and I can definitely understand a few different workloads in which case that's going to be super handy. What are you targeting specifically? Or is this one of those areas where you're going to learn from your customers?Jeff: Well, we've had analytic functionality inside the platform. It just, at the size and scale customers actually wanted to roam through the data, we weren't supporting that that much. So, we'll expand that particular footprint, it'll give us better integration capabilities with external systems, or better access to things in your bucket. But the use case problem is, I think, going to be driven by what new modern application requirements are going to be. You're going to need, we call it hyper-personalization because we tend to cater to B2C-style applications, things with a lot of account profiles built into them.So, you look at account profile, and you're like, “Oh, well Jeff likes blue, so sell him blue stuff.” And that's a great current level personalization, but with a new analytic engine against this, you can maybe start aggregating all the inventory information that you might have of all the blue stuff that you want to sell me and do that in real-time, so I'm getting better recommendations, better offers as I'm shopping on your site or looking at my phone and, you know, looking for the next thing I want to buy.Corey: I'm sure there's massive amounts of work that goes into these hyper-personalization stories. The problem is that the only time they really rise to our notice is when they fail hilariously. Like, you just bought a TV, would you like to buy another? Now statistically, you are likelier to buy a second TV right after you buy one, but for someone who just, “Well, I'm replacing my living room TV after ten years,” it feels ridiculous. Or when you buy a whole bunch of nails and they don't suggest, “Would you like to also perhaps buy a hammer?”It's one of those areas where it just seems like a human putting thought into this could make some sense. But I've seen some of the stuff that can come out of systems like this and it can be incredible. I also personally tend to bias towards use cases that are less, here's how to convince you to buy more things and start aiming in a bunch of other different directions where it starts meeting emerging use cases or changing situations rapidly, more rapidly than a human can in some cases. The world has, for better or worse, gotten an awful lot faster over the last few decades.Jeff: Yeah. And think of it in terms of how responsive can I be at any given moment. And so, let's pick on one of the more recent interesting failures that has popped up. I'm a Giants fan, San Francisco Giants fan, so I'll pick on the Dodgers. The Dodgers during the baseball playoffs, Clayton Kershaw—three-time MVP, Cy Young Award winner, great, great pitcher—had a first-inning meltdown of colossal magnitude: gave up 11 runs in the first inning to the Diamondbacks.Well, my customer Domino's Pizza could end up—well, let's shift the focus of our marketing. We—you know, the Dodgers are the best team in baseball this year in the National League—let's focus our attention there, but with that meltdown, let's pivot to Arizona and focus on our market in Phoenix. And they could do that within minutes or seconds, even, with the kinds of capabilities that we're coming up with here so that they can make better offers to that new environment and also do the decision intelligence behind it. Like, do I have enough dough to make a bigger offer in that big market? Do I have enough drivers or do I have to go and spin out and get one of the other food delivery folks—UberEats, or something like that—to jump on board with me and partner up on this kind of system?It's that responsiveness in real, real-time, right, that's always been kind of the conundrum between applications and analytics. You get an analytic insight, but it takes you an hour or a day to incorporate that into what the application is doing. This is intended to make all of that stuff go faster. And of course, when we start to talk about things in AI, right, AI is going to expect real-time responsiveness as best you can make it.Corey: I figure we have to talk about AI. That is a technology that has absolutely sprung to the absolute peak of the hype curve over the past year. OpenAI released Chat-Gippity, either late last year or early this year and suddenly every company seems to be falling all over itself to rebrand itself as an AI company, where, “We've been working on this for decades,” they say, right before they announce something that very clearly was crash-developed in six months. And every company is trying to drape themselves in the mantle of AI. And I don't want to sound like I'm a doubter here. I'm like most fans; I see an awful lot of value here. But I am curious to get your take on what do you think is real and what do you think is not in the current hype environment.Jeff: So yeah, I love that. I think there's a number of things that are, you know, are real is, it's not going away. It is going to continue to evolve and get better and better and better. One of my analyst friends came up with the notion that the exercise of generative AI, it's imprecise, so it gives you similarity things, and that's actually an improvement, in many cases, over the precision of a database. Databases, a transaction either works or it doesn't. It has failover or it doesn't, when—Corey: It's ideally deterministic when you ask it a question—Jeff: Yes.Corey: —the same question a second time, assuming it's not time-bound—Jeff: Gives you the right answer.Corey: Yeah, the sa—or at least the same answer.Jeff: The same answer. And your gen AI may not. So, that's a part of the oddity of the hype. But then it also helps me kind of feed our storyline of if you're going to try and make Gen AI closer and more accurate, you need a clean pool of data that you're dealing with, even though you've got probably—your previous design was such that you would use a relational database for transactions, a document database for your user profiles, you'd probably attach your website to a caching database because you needed speed and a lot of concurrency. Well, now you got three different databases there that you're operating.And if you're feeding data from each of those databases back to AI, one of them might be wrong or one of them might confuse the AI, yet how are you going to know? The complexity level is going to become, like, exponential. So, our premise is, because we're a multi-modal database that incorporates in-memory speed and documents and search and transactions and the like, if you start with a cleaner pool of data, you'll have less complexity that you're offering to your AI system and therefore you can steer it into becoming more accurate in its response. And then, of course, all the data that we're dealing with is on mobile, right? Data is created there for, let's say, your account profile, and then it's also consumed there because that's what people are using as their application interface of choice.So, you also want to have mobile interactivity and synchronization and local storage, kind of, capabilities built in there. So, those are kind of, you know, a couple of the principles that we're looking at of, you know, JSON is going to be a great format for it regardless of what happens; complexity is kind of the enemy of AI, so you don't want to go there; and mobility is going to be an absolute requirement. And then related to this particular announcement, large-scale aggregation is going to be a requirement to help feed the application. There's always going to be some other bigger calculation that you're going to want to do relatively in real time and feed it back to your users or the AI system that's helping them out.Corey: I think that that is a much more nuanced use case than a lot of the stuff that's grabbing customer attentions where you effectively have the Chat-Gippity story of it being an incredible parrot. Where I have run into trouble with the generative story has been people putting the thing that the robot that's magic and from the future has come up with off the cuff and just hurling that out into the universe under their own name without any human review, and that's fine sometimes sure, but it does get it hilariously wrong at some points. And the idea of sending something out under my name that has not been at least reviewed by me if not actually authored by me, is abhorrent. I mean, I review even the transactional, “Yes, you have successfully subscribed,” or, “Sorry to see you go,” email confirmations on stuff because there's an implicit, “Hugs and puppies, love Corey,” at the end of everything that goes out under my name.Jeff: Right.Corey: But I've gotten a barrage of terrible sales emails and companies that are trying to put the cart before the horse where either the, “Support rep,” quote-unquote, that I'm speaking to in the chat is an AI system or else needs immediate medical attention because there's something going on that needs assistance.Jeff: Yeah, they just don't understand.Corey: Right. And most big enterprise stories that I've heard so far that have come to light have been around the form of, “We get to fire most of our customer service staff,” an outcome that basically no one sensible wants. That is less compelling than a lot of the individualized consumer use cases. I love asking it, “Here's a blog post I wrote. Give me ten title options.” And I'll usually take one of them—one of them is usually not half bad and then I can modify it slightly.Jeff: And you'll change four words in it. Yeah.Corey: Yeah, exactly. That's a bit of a different use case.Jeff: It's been an interesting—even as we've all become familiar—or at least junior prompt engineers, right—is, your information is only going to be as good as you feed the AI system—the return is only going to be as good—so you're going to want to refine that kind of conversation. Now, we're not trying to end up replacing the content that gets produced or the writing of all kinds of pros, other than we do have a code generator that works inside of our environment called Capella iQ that talks to ChatGPT, but we try and put guardrails on that too, right, as always make sure that it's talking in terms of the context of Couchbase rather than, “Where's Taylor Swift this week,” which I don't want it to answer because I don't want to spend GPT money to answer that question for you.Corey: And it might not know the right answer, but it might very well spit out something that sounds plausible.Jeff: Exactly. But I think the kinds of applications that we're steering ourselves toward can be helped along by the Gen AI systems, but I don't expect all my customers are going to be writing automatic blog post generation kinds of applications. I think what we're ultimately trying to do is facilitate interactions in a way that we haven't dreamt of yet, right? One of them might be if I've opted into to loyalty programs, like my United account and my American Express account—Corey: That feels very targeted at my lifestyle as well, so please, continue.Jeff: Exactly, right? And so, what I really want the system to do is for Amex to reward me when I hit 1k status on United while I'm on the flight and you know, have the flight attendant come up and be like, “Hey, you did it. Either, here's a free upgrade from American Express”—that would be hyper-personalization because you booked your plane ticket with it, but they also happen to know or they cross-consumed information that I've opted into.Corey: I've seen them congratulate people for hitting a million miles flown mid-flight, but that's clearly something that they've been tracking and happens a heck of a lot less frequently. This is how you start scaling that experience.Jeff: Yes. But that happened because American Airlines was always watching because that was an American Airlines ad ages ago, right, but the same principle holds true. But I think there's going to be a lot more of these: how much information am I actually allowing to be shared amongst the, call it loyalty programs, but the data sources that I've opted into. And my God, there's hundreds of them that I've personally opted into, whether I like it or not because everybody needs my email address, kind of like what you were describing earlier.Corey: A point that I have that I think agrees largely with your point is that few things to me are more frustrating than what I'm signing up, for example, oh, I don't know, an AWS even—gee, I can't imagine there's anything like that going on this week—and I have to fill out an entire form that always asked me the same questions: how big my company is, whether we have multiple workloads on, what industry we're in. And no matter what I put into that, first, it never remembers me for the next time, which is frustrating in its own right, but two, no matter what I put in to fill that thing out, the email I get does not change as a result. At one point, I said, all right—I'm picking randomly—“I am a venture capitalist based in Sweden,” and I got nothing that is differentiated from the other normal stuff I get tied to my account because I use a special email address for those things, sometimes just to see what happens. And no, if you're going to make me jump through the hoops to give you the data, at least use it to make my experience better. It feels like I'm asking for the moon here, but I shouldn't be.Jeff: Yes. [we need 00:16:19] to make your experience better and say, you know, “Here's four companies in Malmo that you ought to be talking to. And they happen to be here at the AWS event and you can go find them because their booth is here, here, and here.” That kind of immediate responsiveness could be facilitated, and to our point, ought to be facilitated. It's exactly like that kind of thing is, use the data in real-time.I was talking to somebody else today that was discussing that most data, right, becomes stale and unvaluable, like, 50% of the data, its value goes to zero after about a day. And some of it is stale after about an hour. So, if you can end up closing that responsiveness gap that we were describing—and this is kind of what this columnar service inside of Capella is going to be like—is react in real-time with real-time calculation and real-time look-up and real-time—find out how you might apply that new piece of information right now and then give it back to the consumer or the user right now.Corey: So, Couchbase takes a few different forms. I should probably, at least for those who are not steeped in the world of exotic forms of database, I always like making these conversations more accessible to folks who are not necessarily up to speed. Personally, I tend to misuse anything as a database, if I can hold it just the wrong way.Jeff: The wrong way. I've caught that about you.Corey: Yeah, it's—everything is a database if you hold it wrong. But you folks have a few different options: you have a self-managed commercial offering; you're an open-source project, so I can go ahead and run it on my own infrastructure however I want; and you have Capella, which is Couchbase as a service. And all of those are useful and have their points, and I'm sure I'm missing at least one or two along the way. But do you find that the columnar use case is going to disproportionately benefit folks using Capella in ways that the self-hosted version would not be as useful for, or is this functionality already available in other expressions of Couchbase?Jeff: It's not already available in other expressions, although there is analytic functionality in the self-managed version of Couchbase. But it's, as I've mentioned I think earlier, it's just not as scalable or as really real-time as far as we're thinking. So, it's going to—yes, it's going to benefit the database as a service deployments of Couchbase available on your favorite three clouds, and still interoperable with environments that you might self-manage and self-host. So, there could be even use cases where our development team or your development team builds in AWS using the cloud-oriented features, but is still ultimately deploying and hosting and managing a self-managed environment. You could still do all of that. So, there's still a great interplay and interoperability amongst our different deployment options.But the fun part, I think, about this is not only is it going to help the Capella user, there's a lot of other things inside Couchbase that help address the developers' penchant for trading zero-cost for degrees of complexity that you're willing to accept because you want everything to be free and open-source. And Couchbase is my fifth open-source company in my background, so I'm well, well versed in the nuances of what open-source developers are seeking. But what makes Couchbase—you know, its origin story really cool too, though, is it's the peanut butter and chocolate marriage of memcached and the people behind that and membase and CouchDB from [Couch One 00:19:54]. So, I can't think of that many—maybe Red Hat—project and companies that formed up by merging two complementary open-source projects. So, we took the scale and—Corey: You have OpenTelemetry, I think, that did that once, but that—you see occasional mergers, but it's very far from common.Jeff: But it's very, very infrequent. But what that made the Couchbase people end up doing is make a platform that will scale, make a data design that you can auto partition anywhere, anytime, and then build independently scalable services on top of that, one for SQL++, the query language. Anyone who knows SQL will be able to write something in Couchbase immediately. And I've got this AI Automator, iQ, that makes it even easier; you just say, “Write me a SQL++ query that does this,” and it'll do that. But then we added full-text search, we added eventing so you can stream data, we added the analytics capability originally and now we're enhancing it, and use JSON as our kind of universal data format so that we can trade data with applications really easily.So, it's a cool design to start with, and then in the cloud, we're steering towards things like making your entry point and using our database as a service—Capella—really, really, really inexpensive so that you get that same robustness of functionality, as well as the easy cost of entry that today's developers want. And it's my analyst friends that keep telling me the cloud is where the markets going to go, so we're steering ourselves towards that hockey puck location.Corey: I frequently remark that the role of the DBA might not be vanishing, but it's definitely changing, especially since the last time I counted, if you hold them and use as directed, AWS has something on the order of 14 distinct managed database offerings. Some are general purpose, some are purpose-built, and if this trend keeps up, in a decade, the DBA role is going to be determining which of its 40 databases is going to be the right fit for a given workload. That seems to be the counter-approach to a general-purpose database that works across the board. Clearly you folks have opinions on this. Where do you land?Jeff: Oh, so absolutely. There's the product that is a suite of capabilities—or that are individual capabilities—and then there's ones that are, in my case, kind of multi-model and do lots of things at once. I think historically, you'll recognize—because this is—let's pick on your phone—the same holds true for, you know, your phone used to be a watch, used to be a Palm Pilot, used to be a StarTAC telephone, and your calendar application, your day planner all at the same time. Well, it's not anymore. Technology converges upon itself; it's kind of a historical truism.And the database technologies are going to end up doing that—or continue to do that, even right now. So, that notion that—it's a ten-year-old notion of use a purpose-built database for that particular workload. Maybe sometimes in extreme cases that is the appropriate thing, but in more cases than not right now, if you need transactions when you need them, that's fine, I can do that. You don't necessarily need Aurora or RDS or Postgres to do that. But when you need search and geolocation, I support that too, so you don't need Elastic. And then when you need caching and everything, you don't need ElastiCache; it's all built-in.So, that multi-model notion of operate on the same pool of data, it's a lot less complex for your developers, they can code faster and better and more cleanly, debugging is significantly easier. As I mentioned, SQL++ is our language. It's basically SQL syntax for JSON. We're a reference implementation of this language, along with—[AsteriskDB 00:23:42] is one of them, and actually, the original author of that language also wrote DynamoDB's PartiQL.So, it's a common language that you wouldn't necessarily imagine, but the ease of entry in all of this, I think, is still going to be a driving goal for people. The old people like me and you are running around worrying about, am I going to get a particular, really specific feature out of the full-text search environment, or the other one that I pick on now is, “Am I going to need a vector database, too?” And the answer to me is no, right? There's going—you know, the database vendors like ourselves—and like Mongo has announced and a whole bunch of other NoSQL vendors—we're going to support that. It's going to be just another mode, and you get better bang for your buck when you've got more modes than a single one at a time.Corey: The consensus opinion that's emerging is very much across the board that vector is a feature, not a database type.Jeff: Not a category, yeah. Me too. And yeah, we're well on board with that notion, as well. And then like I said earlier, the JSON as a vehicle to give you all of that versatility is great, right? You can have vector information inside a JSON document, you can have time series information in the document, you could have graph node locations and ID numbers in a JSON array, so you don't need index-free adjacency or some of the other cleverness that some of my former employers have done. It really is all converging upon itself and hopefully everybody starts to realize that you can clean up and simplify your architectures as you look ahead, so that you do—if you're going to build AI-powered applications—feed it clean data, right? You're going to be better off.Corey: So, this episode is being recorded in advance, thankfully, but it's going to release the first day of re:Invent. What are you folks doing at the show, for those who are either there and for some reason, listening to a podcast rather than going to getting marketed to by a variety of different pitches that all mention AI or might even be watching from home and trying to figure out what to make of it?Jeff: Right. So, of course we have a booth, and my notes don't have in front of me what our booth number is, but you'll see it on the signs in the airport. So, we'll have a presence there, we'll have an executive briefing room available, so we can schedule time with anyone who wants to come talk to us. We'll be showing not only the capabilities that we're offering here, we'll show off Capella iQ, our coding assistant, okay—so yeah, we're on the AI hype band—but we'll also be showing things like our mobile sync capability where my phone and your phone can synchronize data amongst themselves without having to actually have a live connection to the internet. So, long as we're on the same network locally within the Venetian's network, we have an app that we have people download from the Apple Store and then it's a color synchronization app or picture synchronization app.So, you tap it, and it changes on my screen and I tap it and it changes on your screen, and we'll have, I don't know, as many people who are around standing there, synchronizing, what, maybe 50 phones at a time. It's actually a pretty slick demonstration of why you might want a database that's not only in the cloud but operates around the cloud, operates mobile-ly, operates—you know, can connect and disconnect to your networks. It's a pretty neat scenario. So, we'll be showing a bunch of cool technical stuff as well as talking about the things that we're discussing right now.Corey: I will say you're putting an awful lot of faith in conductivity working at re:Invent, be it WiFi or the cellular network. I know that both of those have bitten me in various ways over the years. But I wish you the best on it. I think it's going to be an interesting show based upon everything I've heard in the run-up to it. I'm just glad it's here.Jeff: Now, this is the cool part about what I'm talking about, though. The cool part about what I'm talking about is we can set up our own wireless network in our booth, and we still—you'd have to go to the app store to get this application, but once there, I can have you switch over to my local network and play around on it and I can sync the stuff right there and have confidence that in my local network that's in my booth, the system's working. I think that's going to be ultimately our design there because oh my gosh, yes, I have a hundred stories about connectivity and someone blowing a demo because they're yanking on a cable behind the pulpit, right?Corey: I always build in a—and assuming there's no connectivity, how can I fake my demos, just because it's—I've only had to do it once, but you wind up planning in advance when you start doing a talk to a large enough or influential enough audience where you want things to go right.Jeff: There's a delightful acceptance right now of recorded videos and demonstrations that people sort of accept that way because of exactly all this. And I'm sure we'll be showing that in our booth there too.Corey: Given the non-deterministic nature of generative AI, I'm sort of surprised whenever someone hasn't mocked the demo in advance, just because yeah, gives the right answer in the rehearsal, but every once in a while, it gets completely unglued.Jeff: Yes, and we see it pretty regularly. So, the emergence of clever and good prompt engineering is going to be a big skill for people. And hopefully, you know, everybody's going to figure out how to pass it along to their peers.Corey: Excellent. We'll put links to all this in the show notes, and I look forward to seeing how well this works out for you. Best of luck at the show and thanks for speaking with me. I appreciate it.Jeff: Yeah, Corey. We appreciate the support, and I think the show is going to be very strong for us as well. And thanks for having me here.Corey: Always a pleasure. Jeff Morris, VP of Product and Solutions Marketing at Couchbase. This episode has been brought to us by our friends at Couchbase. And I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment, but if you want to remain happy, I wouldn't ask that podcast platform what database they're using. No one likes the answer to those things.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

This episode, with Jeff Oh, VP of Sales at DMI, is part of a series of interviews I called "Customer Conversations", where I explore the buying process of revenue leaders. Jeff explains the meticulous decision-making process they employ when selecting software vendors to integrate into their tech stack. He also emphasizes the significance of knowing the long-term strategy of your prospects when trying to win their business. Time stamp below: DMI's Value Proposition [00:00:18] Jeff explains DMI's two-sided value proposition of digital and project excellence, and the company's global team of consultants. DMI's Tech Stack [00:02:01] Jeff discusses DMI's tech stack, including Salesforce, SalesLoft, HubSpot, Bombora, and Guru, and the recent rip and replace of their old Microsoft Dynamics system. Choosing Vendors [00:07:40] Jeff talks about DMI's decision criteria for choosing vendors, including relationships, vendor reviews, and pricing, and the importance of not letting architecture decide strategy. Long-term strategy [00:10:18] Jeff O discusses the importance of building a long-term strategy for a company's growth and aligning solutions with that path. Sales approach for startups [00:16:58] Jeff O shares two successful methods for startups to approach sales: having a razor-sharp spin and challenger approach, or finding gaps in existing products and building into them. Product leaching [00:17:59] Jeff O explains how startups can find success by offering a module or solution that can sit next to a big solution and demonstrate its effectiveness. Product Leaching [00:19:05] Jeff O explains the concept of product leaching, a strategy to gain credibility within a product set by building a product that performs well against existing KPIs. Buying Process [00:21:14] Jeff O discusses the buying process for sales tools, including the use of email blasting and name aggregation, and how he reached out to his network to work things out. Effective Email Strategies [00:23:49] Jeff O shares his insights on how to stand out in the inbox, including the importance of subject lines, personalization, and humor in emails. First Call [00:27:38] Jeff O talks about the importance of making a call to engage with potential clients and how it helps him assess their subject matter expertise. Making the Case [00:30:01] Jeff O explains the process of making a case to the committee of economic buyers and how they align it with their strategic vision. Decision Criteria [00:34:47] Jeff O advises account executives to wait until they are one of the finalists before asking about the decision criteria and not to be too assumptive. Navigating the Decision Process [00:35:47] Jeff O discusses the importance of understanding the decision process and criteria, and how to navigate it effectively. Subject Line Optimization [00:38:22] Jeff O recommends using subject line optimization tools to improve open rates and avoid spam filters. Learning about New Technology [00:42:00] Jeff O shares that he learns about new technology through podcasts and YouTube, and finds them to be valuable resources. Email response rates and intent [00:43:33] The speakers discuss how email response rates drop with spam and how intent matters when reaching out to potential buyers. Personalization and measuring intent [00:44:26] The speakers talk about how they use personalization and long-term education campaigns to measure intent and engagement. Wolverine and reaching out to Jeff O [00:46:16] Jeff O talks about how the wolverine is the perfect animal to represent new business buyers and gives out his phone number for people to reach out to him.

This is preview of Jeff Oh's episode, part of the 'Customer Conversation' premium subscription. In this episode, Jeff Oh, the VP of Sales at DMI, a global leader in digital innovation and transformation, discusses DMI's tech stack and the decision criteria they used to choose these vendors over others. Jeff emphasizes the importance of having a long-term strategy when choosing a software solution.  https://glow.fm/thegoatsofgrowth-customerconversations/

About JeffJeff Smith has been in the technology industry for over 20 years, oscillating between management and individual contributor. Jeff currently serves as the Director of Production Operations for Basis Technologies (formerly Centro), an advertising software company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Before that he served as the Manager of Site Reliability Engineering at Grubhub.Jeff is passionate about DevOps transformations in organizations large and small, with a particular interest in the psychological aspects of problems in companies. He lives in Chicago with his wife Stephanie and their two kids Ella and Xander.Jeff is also the author of Operations Anti-Patterns, DevOps Solutions with Manning publishing. (https://www.manning.com/books/operations-anti-patterns-devops-solutions) Links Referenced: Basis Technologies: https://basis.net/ Operations Anti-Patterns: https://attainabledevops.com/book Personal Site: https://attainabledevops.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffery-smith-devops/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarkAndNerdy Medium: https://medium.com/@jefferysmith duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Fortinet. Fortinet's partnership with AWS is a better-together combination that ensures your workloads on AWS are protected by best-in-class security solutions powered by comprehensive threat intelligence and more than 20 years of cybersecurity experience. Integrations with key AWS services simplify security management, ensure full visibility across environments, and provide broad protection across your workloads and applications. Visit them at AWS re:Inforce to see the latest trends in cybersecurity on July 25-26 at the Boston Convention Center. Just go over to the Fortinet booth and tell them Corey Quinn sent you and watch for the flinch. My thanks again to my friends at Fortinet.Corey: Let's face it, on-call firefighting at 2am is stressful! So there's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that you probably can't prevent incidents from happening, but the good news is that incident.io makes incidents less stressful and a lot more valuable. incident.io is a Slack-native incident management platform that allows you to automate incident processes, focus on fixing the issues and learn from incident insights to improve site reliability and fix your vulnerabilities. Try incident.io, recover faster and sleep more.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. One of the fun things about doing this show for long enough is that you eventually get to catch up with people and follow up on previous conversations that you've had. Many years ago—which sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but is increasingly actually true—Jeff Smith was on the show talking about a book that was about to release. Well, time has passed and things have changed. And Jeff Smith is back once again. He's the Director of Product Operations at Basis Technologies, and the author of DevOps Anti-Patterns? Or what was the actual title of the book it was—Jeff: Operations Anti-Patterns.Corey: I got hung up in the anti-patterns part because it's amazing. I love the title.Jeff: Yeah, Operations Anti-Patterns, DevOps Solutions.Corey: Got you. Usually in my experience, alway been operations anti-patterns, and here I am to make them worse, probably by doing something like using DNS as a database or some godforsaken thing. But you were talking about the book aspirationally a few years ago, and now it's published and it has been sent out to the world. And it went well enough that they translated it to Japanese, I believe, and it has seen significant uptick. What was your experience of it? How did it go?Jeff: You know, it was a great experience. This is definitely the first book that I've written. And the Manning process was extremely smooth. You know, they sort of hold your hand through the entire process. But even after launch, just getting feedback from readers and hearing how it resonated with folks was extremely powerful.I was surprised to find out that they turned it into an audiobook as well. So, everyone reaches out and says, “Did you read the audiobook? I was going to buy it, but I wasn't sure.” I was like, “No, unfortunately, I don't read it.” But you know, still cool to have it out there.Corey: My theory has been for a while now that no one wants to actually write a book; they want to have written a book. Now that you're on the other side, how accurate is that? Are you in a position of, “Wow, sure glad that's done?” Or are you, “That was fun. Let's do it again because I like being sad all the time.” I mean, you do work Kubernetes for God's sake. I mean, there's a bit of masochism inherent to all of us in this space.Jeff: Yeah. Kubernetes makes me cry a little bit more than the writing process. But it's one of the things when you look back on it, you're like, “Wow, that was fun,” but not in the heat of the moment, right? So, I totally agree with the sentiment that people want to have written a book but not actually gone through the process. And that's evident by the fact that how many people try to start a book on their own without a publisher behind them, and they end up writing it for 15 years. The process is pretty grueling. The feedback is intense at first, but you start to get into a groove and you—I could see, you know, in a little while wanting to write another book. So, I can see the appeal.Corey: And the last time you were on the show, I didn't really bother to go in a particular topical direction because, what's the point? It didn't really seem like it was a top-of-mind issue to really bring up because what's it matter; it's a small percentage of the workforce. Now I feel like talking about remote work is suddenly taking on a bit of a different sheen than it was before the dark times arrived. Where do you land on the broad spectrum of opinions around the idea of remote work, given that you have specialized in anti-patterns, and well, as sarcastic as I am, I tend to look at almost every place I've ever worked is expressing different anti-patterns from time to time. So, where do you land on the topic?Jeff: So, it's funny, I started as a staunch office supporter, right? I like being in the office. I like collaborating in person; I thought we were way more productive. Since the pandemic, all of us are forced into remote work, I've hired almost half of my team now as remote. And I am somewhat of a convert, but I'm not on the bandwagon of remote work is just as good or is better as in person work.I've firmly landed in the camp of remote work is good. It's got its shortcomings, but it's worth the trade off. And I think acknowledging what those trade-offs are important to keeping the team afloat. We just recently had a conversation with the team where we were discussing, like, you know, there's definitely been a drop in productivity over the past six months to a year. And in that conversation, a lot of the things that came up were things that are different remote that were better in person, right, Slack etiquette—which is something, you know, I could talk a little bit about as well—but, you know, Slack etiquette in terms of getting feedback quickly, just the sort of camaraderie and the lack of building that camaraderie with new team members as they come on board and not having those rituals to replace the in-person rituals. But through all that, oddly enough, no one suggested going back into the office. [laugh].Corey: For some strange reason, yeah. I need to be careful what I say here, I want to disclaim the position that I'm in. There is a power imbalance and nothing I say is going to be able to necessarily address that because I own the company and if my team members are listening to this, they're going to read a lot into what I say that I might not necessarily intend. But The Duckbill Group, since its founding, has been a fully distributed company. My business partner lives in a different state than I do so there's never been the crappy version of remote, which is, well, we're all going to be in the same city, except for Theodore. Theodore is going to be timezones away and then wonder why he doesn't get to participate in some of the conversations where the real decisions get made.Like that's crappy. I don't like that striated approach to things. We don't have many people who are co-located in any real sense, nor have we for the majority of the company's life. But there are times when I am able to work on a project in a room with one of my colleagues, and things go a lot more smoothly. As much as we want to pretend that video is the same, it quite simply isn't.It is a somewhat poor substitute for the very high bandwidth of a face-to-face interaction. And yes, I understand this is also a somewhat neurotypical perspective, let's be clear with that as well, and it's not for everyone. But I think that for the base case, a lot of the remote work advocates are not being fully, I guess, honest with themselves about some of the shortcomings remote has. That is where I've mostly landed on this. Does that generally land with where you are?Jeff: Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at. I completely agree. And when we take work out of the equation, I think the shortcomings lay themselves bare, right? Like I was having a conversation with a friend and we were like, well, if you had a major breakup, right, I would never be like, “Oh, man. Grab a beer and hop on Zoom,” right? [laugh]. “Let's talk it out.”No, you're like, hey, let's get in person and let's talk, right? We can do all of that conversation over Zoom, but the magic of being in person and having that personal connection, you know, can't be replaced. So, you know, if it's not going to work, commiserating over beers, right? I can't imagine it's going to work, diagramming some complex workflows and trying to come to an answer or a solution on that. So again, not to say that, you know, remote work is not valuable, it's just different.And I think organizations are really going to have to figure out, like, okay, if I want to entice people back into the office, what are the things that I need to do to make this realistic? We've opened the floodgates on remote hiring, right, so now it's like, okay, everyone's janky office setup needs to get fixed, right? So, I can't have a scenario where it's like, “Oh, just point your laptop at the whiteboard, right?” [laugh]. Like that can't exist, we have to have office spaces that are first-class citizens for our remote counterparts as well.Corey: Right because otherwise, the alternative is, “Great, I expect you to take the home that you pay for and turn it into an area fit for office use. Of course, we're not going to compensate you for that, despite the fact that, let's be realistic, rent is often larger than the AWS bill.” Which I know, gasp, I'm as shocked as anyone affected by that, but it's true. “But oh, you want to work from home? Great. That just means you can work more hours.”I am not of the school of thought where I consider time in the office to be an indicator of anything meaningful. I care if the work gets done and at small-scale, this works. Let me also be clear, we're an 11-person company. A lot of what I'm talking about simply will not scale to companies that are orders of magnitude larger than this. And from where I sit, that's okay. It doesn't need to.Jeff: Right. And I think a lot of the things that you talk about will scale, right? Because in most scenarios, you're not scaling it organizationally so much as you are with a handful of teams, right? Because when I think about all the different teams I interact with, I never really interact with the organization as a whole, I interact with my little neighborhood in the organization. So, it is definitely something that scales.But again, when it comes to companies, like, enticing people back into the office, now that I'm talking about working from home five days a week, I've invested in my home setup. I've got the monitor I want, I've got the chair that I want, I've got the mouse and keyboard that I want. So, you're going to bring me back to the office so I can have some standard Dell keyboard and mouse with some janky, you know—maybe—21-inch monitor or something like that, right? Like, you really have to decide, like, okay, we're going to make the office a destination, we're going to make it where people want to go there where it's not just even about the collaboration aspect, but people can still work and be effective.And on top of that, I think how we look at what the office delivers is going to change, right? Because now when I go to the office now, I do very little work. It's connections, right? It's like, you know, “Oh, I haven't seen you in forever. Let's catch up.” And a lot of that stuff is valuable. You know, there's these hallway conversations that exist that just weren't happening previously because how do I accidentally bump into you on Slack? [laugh]. Right, it has to be much more it of a—Corey: Right. It takes some contrivance to wind up making that happen. I remember back in the days of working in offices, I remember here in San Francisco where we had unlimited sick time and unlimited PTO, I would often fake a sick day, but just stay home and get work done. Because I knew if I was in the office, I'd be constantly subjected to drive-bys the entire time of just drive-by requests, people stopping by to ask, “Oh, can you just help me with this one thing,” that completely derails my train of thought. Then at the end of the day, they'd tell me, “You seem distractible and you didn't get a lot of work done.”It's, “Well, no kidding. Of course not. Are you surprised?” And one of the nice things about starting your own company—because there are a lot of downsides, let me be very clear—one of the nice things is you get to decide how you want to work. And that was a study in, first, amazement, and then frustration.It was, “All right, I just landed a big customer. I'm off to the races and going to take this seriously for a good six to twelve months. Great sky's the limit, I'm going to do up my home office.” And then you see how little money it takes to have a nice chair, a good standing desk, a monitor that makes sense and you remember fighting tooth-and-nail for nothing that even approached this quality at companies and they acted like it was going to cost them 20-grand. And here, it's two grand at most, when I decorated this place the first time.And it was… “What the hell?” Like, it feels like the scales fall away from your eyes, and you start seeing things that you didn't realize were a thing. Now I worry that five years in, there's no way in the world I'm ever fit to be an employee again, so this is probably the last job I'll ever have. Just because I've basically made myself completely unemployable across six different axes.Jeff: [laugh]. And I think one of the things when it comes to, like, furniture, keyboard, stuff like that, I feel like part of it was just, like, this sort of enforced conformity, right, that the office provided us the ability to do. We can make sure everyone's got the same monitor, the same keyboard that way, when it breaks, we can replace it easily. In a lot of organizations that I've been in, you know, that sort of like, you know, even if it was the same amount or ordering a custom keyboard was a big exception process, right? Like, “Oh, we've got to do a whole thing.” And it's just like, “Well, it doesn't have to be that complicated.”And like you said, it doesn't cost much to allow someone to get the tools that they want and prefer and they're going to be more productive with. But to your point really quickly about work in the office, until the pandemic, I personally didn't recognize how difficult it actually was to get work done in the office. I don't think I appreciated it. And now that I'm remote, I'm like, wow, it is so much easier for me to close this door, put my headphones on, mute Slack and go heads down. You know, the only drive-by I've got is my wife wondering if I want to go for a walk, and that's usually a text message that I can ignore and come back to later.Corey: The thing that just continues to be strange for me and breaks in some of the weirdest ways has just been the growing awareness of how much of office life is unnecessary and ridiculous. When you're in the office every day, you have to find a way to make it work and be productive and you have this passive-aggressive story of this open office, it's for collaboration purposes. Yeah, I can definitively say that is not true. I had a boss who once told me that there was such benefits to working in an open plan office that if magically it were less expensive to give people individual offices, he would spare the extra expense for open plan. That was the day I learned he would lie to me while looking me in the eye. Because of course you wouldn't.And it's for collaboration. Yeah, it means two loud people—often me—are collaborating and everyone else wears noise-canceling headphones trying desperately to get work done, coming in early, hours before everyone else to get things done before people show up and distracted me. What the hell kind of day-to-day work environment is that?Jeff: What's interesting about that, though, is those same distractions are the things that get cited as being missed from the perspective of the person doing the distracting. So, everyone universally hates that sort of drive-by distractions, but everyone sort of universally misses the ability to say like, “Hey, can I just pull on your ear for a second and get your feedback on this?” Or, “Can we just walk through this really quickly?” That's the thing that people miss, and I don't think that they ever connect it to the idea that if you're not the interruptee, you're the interruptor, [laugh] and what that might do to someone else's productivity. So, you would think something like Slack would help with that, but in reality, what ends up happening is if you don't have proper Slack etiquette, there's a lot of signals that go out that get misconstrued, misinterpreted, internalized, and then it ends up impacting morale.Corey: And that's the most painful part of a lot of that too. Is that yeah, I want to go ahead and spend some time doing some nonsense—as one does; imagine that—and I know that if I'm going to go into an office or meet up with my colleagues, okay, that afternoon or that day, yeah, I'm planning that I'm probably not going to get a whole lot of deep coding done. Okay, great. But when that becomes 40 hours a week, well, that's a challenge. I feel like being full remote doesn't work out, but also being in the office 40 hours a week also feels a little sadistic, more than almost anything else.I don't know what the future looks like and I am privileged enough that I don't have to because we have been full remote the entire time. But what we don't spend on office space we spend on plane tickets back and forth so people can have meetings. In the before times, we were very good about that. Now it's, we're hesitant to do it just because it's we don't want people traveling before the feel that it's safe to do so. We've also learned, for example, when dealing with our clients, that we can get an awful lot done without being on site with them and be extraordinarily effective.It was always weird have traveled to some faraway city to meet with the client, and then you're on a Zoom call from their office with the rest of the team. It's… I could have done this from my living room.Jeff: Yeah. I find those sorts of hybrid meetings are often worse than if we were all just remote, right? It's just so much easier because now it's like, all right, three of us are going to crowd around one person's laptop, and then all of the things that we want to do to take advantage of being in person are excluding the people that are remote, so you got to do this careful dance. The way we've been sort of tackling it so far—and we're still experimenting—is we're not requiring anyone to come back into the office, but some people find it useful to go to the office as a change of scenery, to sort of, like break things up from their typical routine, and they like the break and the change. But it's something that they do sort of ad hoc.So, we've got a small group that meets, like, every Thursday, just as a day to sort of go into the office and switch things up. I think the idea of saying everyone has to come into the office two or three days a week is probably broken when there's no purpose behind it. So, my wife technically should go into the office twice a week, but her entire team is in Europe. [laugh]. So, what point does that make other than I am a body in a chair? So, I think companies are going to have to get flexible with this sort of hybrid environment.But then it makes you wonder, like, is it worth the office space and how many people are actually taking advantage of it when it's not mandated? We find that our office time centers around some event, right? And that event might be someone in town that's typically remote. That might be a particular project that we're working on where we want to get ideas and collaborate and have a workshop. But the idea of just, like, you know, we're going to systematically require people to be in the office x many days, I don't see that in our future.Corey: No, and I hope you're right. But it also feels like a lot of folks are also doing some weird things around the idea of remote such as, “Oh, we're full remote but we're going to pay you based upon where you happen to be sitting geographically.” And we find that the way that we've done this—and again, I'm not saying there's a right answer for everyone—but we wind up paying what the value of the work is for us. In many cases, that means that we would be hard-pressed to hire someone in the Bay Area, for example. On the other hand, it means that when we hire people who are in places with relatively low cost of living, they feel like they've just hit the lottery, on some level.And yeah, some of them, I guess it does sort of cause a weird imbalance if you're a large Amazon-scale company where you want to start not disrupting local economies. We're not hiring that many people, I promise. So, there's this idea of figuring out how that works out. And then where does the headquarters live? And well, what state laws do we wind up following on what we're doing? Just seems odd.Jeff: Yeah. So, you know, one thing I wanted to comment on that you'd mentioned earlier, too, was the weird things that people are doing, and organizations are doing with this, sort of, remote work thing, especially the geographic base pay. And you know, a lot of it is, how can we manipulate the situation to better us in a way that sounds good on paper, right? So, it sounds perfectly reasonable. Like, oh, you live in New York, I'm going to pay you in New York rates, right?But, like, you live in Des Moines, so I'm going to pay you Des Moines rates. And on the surface, when you just go you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, but then you think about it, you're like, “Wait, why does that matter?” Right? And then, like, how do I, as a manager, you know, level that across my employees, right? It's like, “Oh, so and so is getting paid 30 grand less. Oh, but they live in a cheaper area, right?” I don't know what your personal situation is, and how much that actually resonates or matters.Corey: Does the value that they provide to your company materially change based upon where they happen to be sitting that week?Jeff: Right, exactly. But it's a good story that you can tell, it sounds fair at first examination. But then when you start to scratch the surface, you're like, “Wait a second, this is BS.” So, that's one thing.Corey: It's like tipping on some level. If you can't afford the tip, you can't afford to eat out. Same story here. If you can't afford to compensate people the value that they're worth, you can't afford to employ people. And figure that out before you wind up disappointing people and possibly becoming today's Twitter main character.Jeff: Right. And then the state law thing is interesting. You know, when you see states like California adopting laws similar to, like, GDPR. And it's like, do you have to start planning for the most stringent possibility across every hire just to be safe and to avoid having to have this sort of patchwork of rules and policies based on where someone lives? You might say like, “Okay, Delaware has the most stringent employer law, so we're going to apply Delaware's laws across the board.” So, it'll be interesting to see how that sort of plays out in the long run. Luckily, that's not a problem I have to solve, but it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out.Corey: It is something we had to solve. We have an HR consultancy that helps out with a lot of these things, but the short answer is that we make sure that we obey with local laws, but the way that we operate is as if everyone were a San Francisco employee because that is—so far—the locale that, one, I live here, but also of every jurisdiction we've looked at in the United States, it tends to have the most advantageous to the employee restrictions and requirements. Like one thing we do is kind of ridiculous—and we have to do for me and one other person, but almost no one else, but we do it for everyone—is we have to provide stipends every month for electricity, for cellphone usage, for internet. They have to be broken out for each one of those categories, so we do 20 bucks a month for each of those. It adds up to 100 bucks, as I recall, and we call it good. And employees say, “Okay. Do we just send you receipts? Please don't.”I don't want to look at your cell phone bill. It's not my business. I don't want to know. We're doing this to comply with the law. I mean, if it were up to me, it would be this is ridiculous. Can we just give everyone $100 a month raise and call it good? Nope. The forms must be obeyed. So, all right.We do the same thing with PTO accrual. If you've acquired time off and you leave the company, we pay it out. Not every state requires that. But paying for cell phone access and internet access as well, is something Amazon is currently facing a class action about because they didn't do that for a number of their California employees. And even talking to Amazonians, like, “Well, they did, but you had to jump through a bunch of hoops.”We have the apparatus administratively to handle that in a way that employees don't. Why on earth would we make them do it unless we didn't want to pay them? Oh, I think I figured out this sneaky, sneaky plan. I'm not here to build a business by exploiting people. If that's the only way to succeed, and the business doesn't deserve to exist. That's my hot take of the day on that topic.Jeff: No, I totally agree. And what's interesting is these insidious costs that sneak up that employees tend to discount, like, one thing I always talk about with my team is all that time you're thinking about a problem at work, right, like when you're in the shower, when you're at dinner, when you're talking it over with your spouse, right? That's work. That's work. And it's work that you're doing on your time.But we don't account for it that way because we're not typing; we're not writing code. But, like, think about how much more effective as people, as employees, we would be if we had time dedicated to just sit and think, right? If I could just sit and think about a problem without needing to type but just critically think about it. But then it's like, well, what does that look like in the office, right? If I'm just sitting there in my chair like this, it doesn't look like I'm doing anything.But that's so important to be able to, like, break down and digest some of the complex problems that we're dealing with. And we just sort of write it off, right? So, I'm like, you know, you got to think about how that bleeds into your personal time and take that into account. So yeah, maybe you leave three hours early today, but I guarantee you, you're going to spend three hours throughout the week thinking about work. It's the same thing with these cellphone costs that you're talking about, right? “Oh, I've got a cell phone anyways; I've got internet anyways.” But still, that's something that you're contributing to the business that they're not on the hook for, so it seems fair that you get compensated for that.Corey: I just think about that stuff all the time from that perspective, and now that I you know, own the place, it's one of those which pocket of mine does it come out of? But I hold myself to a far higher standard about that stuff than I do the staff, where it's, for example, I could theoretically justify paying my internet bill here because we have business-class internet and an insane WiFi system because of all of the ridiculous video production I do. Now. It's like, like, if anyone else on the team was doing this, yes, I will insist we pay it, but for me, it just it feels a little close to the edge. So, it's one of those areas where I'm very conservative around things like that.The thing that also continues to just vex me, on some level, is this idea that time in a seat is somehow considered work. I'll never forget one of the last jobs I had before I started this place. My boss walked past me and saw that I was on Reddit. And, “Is that really the best use of your time right now?” May I use the bathroom when I'm done with this, sir?Yeah, of course it is. It sounds ridiculous, but one of the most valuable things I can do for The Duckbill Group now is go on the internet and start shit posting on Twitter, which sounds ridiculous, but it's also true. There's a brand awareness story there, on some level. And that's just wild to me. It's weird, we start treating people like adults, they start behaving that way. And if you start micromanaging them, they live up or down to the expectations you tend to hold. I'm a big believer in if I have to micromanage someone, I should just do the job myself.Jeff: Yeah. The Reddit story makes me think of, like, how few organizations have systematic ways of getting vital information. So, the first thing I think about is, like, security and security vulnerabilities, right? So, how does Basis Technologies, as an organization, know about these things? Right now, it's like, well, my team knows because we're plugged into Reddit and Twitter, right, but if we were gone Basis, right, may not necessarily get that information.So, that's something we're trying to correct, but it just sort of highlights the importance of freedom for these employees, right? Because yeah, I'm on Reddit, but I'm on /r/sysadmin. I'm on /r/AWS, right, I'm on /r/Atlassian. Now I'm finding out about this zero-day vulnerability and it's like, “Oh, guys, we got to act. I just heard about this thing.” And people are like, “Oh, where did this come from?” And it's like it came from my network, right? And my network—Corey: Mm-hm.Jeff: Is on Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit. So, the idea that someone browsing the internet on any site, really, is somehow not a productive use of their time, you better be ready to itemize exactly what that means and what that looks like. “Oh, you can do this on Reddit but you can't do that on Reddit.”Corey: I have no boss now, I have no oversight, but somehow I still show up with a work ethic and get things done.Jeff: Right. [laugh].Corey: Wow, I guess I didn't need someone over my shoulder the whole time. Who knew?Jeff: Right. That's all that matters, right? And if you do it in 30 hours or 40 hours, that doesn't really matter to me, you know? You want to do it at night because you're more productive there, right, like, let's figure out a way to make that happen. And remote work is actually empowering us ways to really retain people that wasn't possible before I had an employee that was like, you know, I really want to travel. I'm like, “Dude, go to Europe. Work from Europe. Just do it. Work from Europe,” right? We've got senior leaders on the C-suite that are doing it. One of the chief—Corey: I'm told they have the internet, even there. Imagine that?Jeff: Yeah. [laugh]. So, our chief program officer, she was in Greece for four weeks. And it worked. It worked great. They had a process. You know, she would spent one week on and then one week off on vacation. But you know, she was able to have this incredible, long experience, and still deliver. And it's like, you know, we can use that as a model to say, like—Corey: And somehow the work got done. Wow, she must be amazing. No, that's the baseline expectation that people can be self-managing in that respect.Jeff: Right.Corey: They aren't toddlers.Jeff: So, if she can do that, I'm sure you can figure out how to code in China or wherever you want to visit. So, it's a great way to stay ahead of some of these companies that have a bit more lethargic policies around that stuff, where it's like, you know, all right, I'm not getting that insane salary, but guess what, I'm going to spend three weeks in New Zealand hanging out and not using any time off or anything like that, and you know, being able to enjoy life. I wish this pandemic had happened pre-kids because—Corey: Yeah. [laugh].Jeff: —you know, we would really take advantage of this.Corey: You and me both. It would have very different experience.Jeff: Yeah. [laugh]. Absolutely, right? But with kids in school, and all that stuff, we've been tethered down. But man, I you know, I want to encourage the young people or the single people on my team to just, like, hey, really, really embrace this time and take advantage of it.Corey: I come bearing ill tidings. Developers are responsible for more than ever these days. Not just the code that they write, but also the containers and the cloud infrastructure that their apps run on. Because serverless means it's still somebody's problem. And a big part of that responsibility is app security from code to cloud. And that's where our friend Snyk comes in. Snyk is a frictionless security platform that meets developers where they are - Finding and fixing vulnerabilities right from the CLI, IDEs, Repos, and Pipelines. Snyk integrates seamlessly with AWS offerings like code pipeline, EKS, ECR, and more! As well as things you're actually likely to be using. Deploy on AWS, secure with Snyk. Learn more at Snyk.co/scream That's S-N-Y-K.co/screamCorey: One last topic I want to get into before we call it an episode is, I admit, I read an awful lot of books, it's a guilty pleasure. And it's easy to fall into the trap, especially when you know the author, of assuming that snapshot of their state of mind at a very fixed point in time is somehow who they are, like a fly frozen in amber, and it's never true. So, my question for you is, quite simply, what have you learned since your book came out?Jeff: Oh, man, great question. So, when I was writing the book, I was really nervous about if my audience was as big as I thought it was, the people that I was targeting with the book.Corey: Okay, that keeps me up at night, too. I have no argument there.Jeff: Yeah. You know what I mean?Corey: Please, continue.Jeff: I'm surrounded, you know, by—Corey: Is anyone actually listening to this? Yeah.Jeff: Right. [laugh]. So, after the book got finished and it got published, I would get tons of feedback from people that so thoroughly enjoyed the book, they would say things like, you know, “It feels like you were in our office like a fly on the wall.” And that was exciting, one, because I felt like these were experiences that sort of resonated, but, two, it sort of proved this thesis that sometimes you don't have to do something revolutionary to be a positive contribution to other people, right? So, like, when I lay out the tips and things that I do in the book, it's nothing earth-shattering that I expect Google to adopt. Like, oh, my God, this is the most unique view ever.But being able to talk to an audience in a way that resonates with them, that connects with them, that shows that I understand their problem and have been there, it was really humbling and enlightening to just see that there are people out there that they're not on the bleeding edge, but they just need someone to talk to them in a language that they understand and resonate with. So, I think the biggest thing that I learned was this idea that your voice is important, your voice matters, and how you tell your story may be the difference between someone understanding a concept and someone not understanding a concept. So, there's always an audience for you out there as you're writing, whether it be your blog post, the videos that you produce, the podcasts that you make, somewhere there's someone that needs to hear what you have to say, and the unique way that you can say it. So, that was extremely powerful.Corey: Part of the challenge that I found is when I start talking to other people, back in the before times, trying to push them into conference talks and these days, write blog posts, the biggest objection I get sometimes is, “Well, I don't have anything worth saying.” That is provably not true. One of my favorite parts about writing Last Week in AWS is as I troll the internet looking for topics about AWS that I find interesting, I keep coming across people who are very involved in one area or another of this ecosystem and have stories they want to tell. And I love, “Hey, would you like to write a guest post for Last Week in AWS?” It's always invite only and every single one of them has been paid because people die of exposure and I'm not about that exploitation lifestyle.A couple have said, “Oh, I can't accept payment for a variety of reasons.” Great. Pick a charity that you would like it to go to instead because we do not accept volunteer work, we are a for-profit entity. That is the way it works here. And that has been just one of the absolute favorite parts about what I do just because you get to sort of discover new voices.And what I find really neat is that for a lot of these folks, this is their start to writing and telling the story, but they don't stop there, they start telling their story in other areas, too. It leads to interesting career opportunities for them, it leads to interesting exposure that they wouldn't have necessarily had—again, not that they're getting paid in exposure, but the fact that they are able to be exposed to different methodologies, different ways of thinking—I love that. It's one of my favorite parts about doing what I do. And it seems to scale a hell of a lot better than me sitting down with someone for two hours to help them build a CFP that they wind up not getting accepted or whatnot.Jeff: Right. It's a great opportunity that you provide folks, too, because of, like, an instant audience, I think that's one of the things that has made Medium so successful as, like, a blogging platform is, you know, everyone wants to go out and build their own WordPress site and launch it, but then it like, you write your blog post and it's crickets. So, the ability for you to, you know, use your platform to also expose those voices is great and extremely powerful. But you're right, once they do it, it lights a fire in a way that is admirable to watch. I have a person that I'm mentoring and that was my biggest piece of advice I can give. It was like, you know, write. Just write.It's the one thing that you can do without anyone else. And you can reinforce your own knowledge of a thing. If you just say, you know, I'm going to teach this thing that I just learned, just the writing process helps you solidify, like, okay, I know this stuff. I'm demonstrating that I know it and then four years from now, when you're applying for a job, someone's like, “Oh, I found your blog post and I see that you actually do know how to set up a Kubernetes cluster,” or whatever. It's just extremely great and it—Corey: It's always fun. You're googling for how to do something and you find something you wrote five years ago.Jeff: Right, yeah. [laugh]. And it's like code where you're like, “Oh, man, I would do that so much differently now.”Corey: Since we last spoke, one of the things I've been doing is I have been on the hook to write between a one to two-thousand-word blog post every week, and I've done that like clockwork, for about a year-and-a-half now. And I was no slouch at storytelling before I started doing that. I've given a few hundred conference talks in the before times. And I do obviously long Twitter threads in the past and I write reports a lot. But forcing me to go through that process every week and then sit with an editor and go ahead and get it improved, has made me a far better writer, it's made me a better storyteller, I am far better at articulating my point of view.It is absolutely just unlocking a host of benefits that I would have thought I was, oh, I passed all this. I'm already good at these things. And I was, but I'm better now. I think that writing is one of those things that people need to do a lot more of.Jeff: Absolutely. And it's funny that you mentioned that because I just recently, back in April, started to do the same thing I said, I'm going to write a blog post every week, right? I'm going to get three or four in the can, so that if life comes up and I miss a beat, right, I'm not actually missing the production schedule, so I have a steady—and you're right. Even after writing a book, I'm still learning stuff through the writing process, articulating my point of view.It's just something that carries over, and it carries over into the workforce, too. Like, if you've ever read a bad piece of documentation, right, that comes from—Corey: No.Jeff: Right? [laugh]. That comes from an inability to write. Like, you know, you end up asking these questions like who's the audience for this? What is ‘it' in this sentence? [laugh].Corey: Part of it too, is that people writing these things are so close to the problem themselves that the fact that, “Well, I'm not an expert in this.” That's why you should write about it. Talk about your experience. You're afraid everyone's going to say, “Oh, you're a fool. You didn't understand how this works.”Yeah, my lived experiences instead—and admittedly, I have the winds of privilege of my back on this—but it's also yeah, I didn't understand that either. It turns out that you're never the only person who has trouble with a concept. And by calling it out, you're normalizing it and doing a tremendous service for others in your shoes.Jeff: Especially when you're not an expert because I wrote some documentation about the SSL process and it didn't occur to me that these people don't use the AWS command line, right? Like, you know, in our organization, we sort of mask that from them through a bunch of in-house automation. Now we're starting to expose it to them and simple things like oh, you need to preface the AWS command with a profile name. So, then when we're going through the setup, we're like, “Oh. What if they already have an existing profile, right?” Like, we don't want to clobber that.SSo, it just changed the way you write the documentation. But like, that's not something that initially came to mind for me. It wasn't until someone went through the docs, and they're like, “Uh, this is blowing up in a weird way.” And I was like, “Oh, right. You know, like, I need to also teach you about profile management.”Corey: Also, everyone has a slightly different workflow for the way they interact with AWS accounts, and their shell prompts, and the way they set up local dev environments.Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. So, not being an expert on a thing is key because you're coming to it with virgin eyes, right, and you're able to look at it from a fresh perspective.Corey: So, much documentation out there is always coming from the perspective of someone who is intimately familiar with the problem space. Some of the more interesting episodes that I have, from a challenge perspective, are people who are deep technologists in a particular area and they love they fallen in love with the thing that they are building. Great. Can you explain it to the rest of us mere mortals so that we can actually we can share your excitement on this? And it's very hard to get them to come down to a level where it's coherent to folks who haven't spent years thinking deeply about that particular problem space.Jeff: Man, the number one culprit for that is, like, the AWS blogs where they have, like, a how-to article. You follow that thing and you're like, “None of this is working.” [laugh]. Right? And then you realize, oh, they made an assumption that I knew this, but I didn't right?So, it's like, you know, I didn't realize this was supposed to be, like, a handwritten JSON document just jammed into the value field. Because I didn't know that, I'm not pulling those values out as JSON. I'm expecting that just to be, like, a straight string value. And that has happened more and more times on the AWS blog than I can count. [laugh].Corey: Oh, yeah, very often. And then there's other problems, too. “Oh, yeah. Set up your IAM permissions properly.” That's left as an exercise for the reader. And then you wonder why everything's full of stars. Okay.Jeff: Right. Yep, exactly, exactly.Corey: Ugh. It's so great to catch up with you and see what you've been working on. If people want to learn more, where's the best place to find you?Jeff: So, the best place is probably my website, attainabledevops.com. That's a place where you can find me on all the other places. I don't really update that site much, but you can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, from that jumping off point, links to the book are there if anyone's interested in that. Perfect stocking stuffers. Mom would love it, grandma would love it, so definitely, definitely buy multiple copies of that.Corey: Yeah, it's going to be one of my two-year-old's learning to read books, it'd be great.Jeff: Yeah, it's perfect. You know, you just throw it in the crib and walk away, right? They're asleep at no time. Like I said, I've also been taking to, you know, blogging on Medium, so you can catch me there, the links will be there on Attainable DevOps as well.Corey: Excellent. And that link will of course, be in the show notes. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I really do appreciate it. And it's great to talk to you again.Jeff: It was great to catch up.Corey: Really was. Jeff Smith, Director of Product Operations at Basis Technologies. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice or smash the like and subscribe buttons on the YouTubes, whereas if you've hated this podcast, do the exact same thing—five-star review, smash the buttons—but also leave an angry, incoherent comment that you're then going to have edited and every week you're going to come back and write another incoherent comment that you get edited. And in the fullness of time, you'll get much better at writing angry, incoherent comments.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Sean: We have a question from Michelle, how can one overcome shiny object syndrome in learning something that's beyond your current role? Oh, good question. That's a good question. Jeff: In learning, how can one overcome the shiny object syndrome in learning something that is beyond your current role? I'm not too familiar, Sean, with the shiny object syndrome. Sean: It's like "Ooh, I want to learn that" even if it's not too relevant to what they're doing. Jeff: Oh, yeah. And I think this is a lot of the candidates even direct reports I had in the past have experienced having this one. Even here in Zagana to a certain extent, you would want to try this out, probably this one is good for me, and so on. And you mentioned, that coaching really helps them with this one. The coaching sessions - this is what I would also advocate for leaders in the organization to have is the coaching skills, you have to have that kind of interaction or engagement with your employees where you would as thought-provoking questions that would raise awareness, that would challenge their thoughts so that it would always align to what they want to achieve in life, rather than what you mentioned, the shiny object. "Oh, this is this looks nice. This looks like it's something that's interesting." And then all of a sudden you've spent one whole year accomplishing nothing. I think the coaching part would help your employees figure out for themselves, not you telling them that this is something that aligns with what they want to be in the future, and that would help them avoid this kind of scenario as well. Sean: You know I'm sure you're going to lose it someday when you're growing older, you're going to lose that. So we all are going to lose that, right? We come to a certain age where we just want to get comfortable in our ways. That's why there's a saying that goes, "you can't teach an old dog, new tricks." Jeff: I refuse to refuse to believe that, Sean. And I got to be an old dog. Sean: We all know you're not that old, you know, shiny object syndrome. It's more because you haven't found your burning 'why' in life? Because if you find that burning 'why' and what I mean by burning 'why'. It's you find out the reason why you're born, you find out the reason why you're put on this earth. It's because of that one burning purpose when you find that out. And it could be like two or three things right? Like, for me, it's running my business for the glory of God. And it's also making sure that I give to others, and I give to God, and I give to the church. It's also making sure that along the way I share God's kingdom with other people, such as what I'm doing now. The reason why I'm able to do this podcast is that I have a business that can actually pay for the show and the editors and everything, right? So those are a lot of burning 'whys' for me. And so that's why it could be more than one thing, but if you find it, then all those shiny objects suddenly fade away, right? Because, you know, these are the things that are super important for me. Or it could be one. This is the thing. This is the thing and I've found it. It's my burning 'why' I'm going to focus on this. Suddenly they all lose their shininess or their luster, and you're not going to be after them anymore. You're only going to be after anything that's related to your burning 'why.' - - - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

A Florida Native and graduate of University of South Florida, Jeff Wills is an accomplished Tampa Bay Area agent who brings a strategic yet personable approach to the home buying and home selling process. Drawing from years of experience as an agent in the Tampa market, he has built a solid reputation for himself as an industry leader with a solid track record that specializes in attention to detail in commercial and residential transactions. Investors are buying homes in Tampa at a record rate. Between July and September 2021, one in four homes that sold had an investor as the buyer. According to a report from the Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Bay ranks as the 7th hottest metro area for investors nationwide. Today, Jeff talks about the Tampa Bay market: neighborhoods, price to rent ratios, economic drivers, geographic considerations, and more insights that investors will want to know before making moves there. Episode Links: https://sefair-inv.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and joining me today is Jeff Wills, our certified agent out in Tampa Bay, Florida and Jeff's gonna be talking to us today about all the things we as investors need to know and should be aware of, if we're investing in that market. So let's get into it.   Really quickly, before we get into the episode today, I want to encourage everyone to go check out roofstockacademy.com. Roofstock Academy is our one stop shop for real estate education, independent of whether you're just getting started or a seasoned investor looking to scale up or get involved in a different asset class. We've got lectures, we've got coaching, we've got one on one slack access forum and a plethora of other financial benefits, as well as money back on your marketplace fee credits. If you're transacting on Roofstock. So come check us out at rootstockacademy.com look forward to seeing you in there. Jeff wills thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with me today, man really appreciate you coming on.   Jeff: Absolutely, man. Love to do it and thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. So   Michael: Yeah, of course. So we're just gonna like jump right into it and we're talking today about Tampa Bay, Florida. I want you to give all of our listeners why Tampa why now.   Jeff: So why Tampa why now honestly, I've been hearing that a lot. However, it has been very, very popular as of late. A lot of the big things that people are hearing, actually, just yesterday, Goldman Sachs bought 305 units in downtown Tampa for 168 million, setting another record price per unit and a crazy valuation for cap rates right now and so there's just there's a lot of synergy. The biggest thing behind it has been Water Street water streets about halfway through its 10 year growth plan. They've got phase one out of the way, phase two starting, and that has really brought a lot of life and vibrance to Tampa that was kind of growing and burgeoning there prior to COVID prior to all the popularity we have now, but I think it's really hit its peak and honestly, it's probably got a good you know, 10-20 30.50 years stride to soon looking like Miami, although personally I hope not. I'd like there to be a little bit less people and, and keep the enjoyment that we have here and honestly, you know, Tampa is a big town, it's a big population. But it really does have an extremely small town feel with the micro communities inside the neighborhoods inside the certain you know, sectors and where we are on the map and near the water and so I think Tampa has a lot to offer, both from an investment standpoint, from a long term hold appreciation standpoint, and especially, especially a rent gross. I don't know what that's gonna look like now, just because you know, kind of has hit a very, very high mark. However, we're not seeing any vacancies. We're not seeing, you know, any kind of rent concessions. I was just talking to a very big property manager yesterday for a different reason. But they were saying, yeah, we're barely giving written concessions. We're hitting full market rent. Everything's at 95% occupancy or above and there's no signs of stopping. So I love it, I I've always thought Tampa was a hidden gem before COVID and before things got crazy, but you know, kind of very lucky to be here now and enjoying every minute of it.   Michael: Right on, Jeff, that is that's super interesting. So I'm wondering, what was that cap rate that they got for the Goldman Sachs purchase, do you recall?   Jeff: Honestly, I don't have that in front of me, I can almost guarantee it was probably sub four. Even after tax adjustment, it's crazy. I actually lived in that building. When it first opened, I got a I snuck in with some written concessions and realtor bonuses and stuff like that. So I kind of skated in a bit but I mean, it went through a lot of challenges. I mean, management was horrible. Two years, they had the same management then fired that one and then fired another one and they've had problems left, right and center what that building just knowing because I've got friends that live there and stuff still and it's still selling for that price given I mean there's a bar across the street that has so much drama tied to it. It's insane, that the publicity from that sale has anything to do and so backing up from that Goldman Sachs has long been rumored to be taking a very, very big piece of the pie in the Waterstreet office space and so while that hasn't been announced Goldman Sachs buying that building to me just sounds like corporate housing instead of them having to go and give all their employees stimulus, oh, we'll give you a 5000 monthly allowance. They'll say hey here, we've got a block of rooms, pick one enjoy yourself. It's paid for and I think that might be how they're skating that market rent because some of the stuff and water St. Tampa is going up. Actually, I just talked to my friend yesterday 966 square feet with a big balcony 5000 a month and it's it was exactly what I did you have 550 a square foot. Yeah, um, it's, it's insane and I mean, once you set that, once you set that standard, I mean, they do. I mean, okay, the Heron is the best multifamily building I've ever seen. But I mean, setting that precedent, all people have to do is just be nearby and just enjoy the overflows, people who can live there and by the way, they have zero vacancy, and they have a weightless for that unit. That's coming up down hole, it's crazy.   Michael: Holy smokes. So Jeff, you clearly an expert on the area, give people a little bit background, who you are, where is it that you come from and what is it you do in real estate today?   Jeff: Absolutely, so I grew up about an hour north of Tampa and a county called Pasco, a very small town and to me growing up, Tampa was a big city, a really big city, I had been there three, four times the aquarium a couple of times, and I just every time staring at the top of the skyscrapers and that was just the biggest thing to me and growing up, went to college, didn't really know what I was doing there. When for finance, I was like, yeah, let me kind of figure stuff out. My dad one day was like, hey, why don't you just, you know, pop into real estate, see what's going on? I'm like, yeah, sounds fun, should be pretty flexible. I like people, like, give it a go. Seven years later, here I am and it's just been, you know, from top to bottom, you get to help people with something that's extremely difficult, extremely stressful, and very nuanced and I mean, you know, from deal to deal, there's always something different. There's always a different backstory a different why and even growing up prior to all that I've always kind of felt that I was a good listener. You know, I, of course, I have my own, you know, opinions and desires and stuff. But I was always able to kind of peel back, what is somebody looking for? What does somebody want to do? You know, what they're, they're telling me one thing, but what do they actually mean and I've always, you know, of course, ask them, hey, you know, you're saying this, but what do you want this, and it's just been very enjoyable and, you know, the client feedback is the same, I've got a ton of referrals, a ton of repeat customers, and it's just, it's very, very enjoyable for me to be able to, you know, simmer it down to its the parts that they can control and make sense of, and then I just handle all the other legal mumbo jumbo stuff on the back end and it's just been very, very enjoyable.   The first three years, I was very retail focused, you know, end user not very investor friendly, and kind of got bored with that and I was like, you know, I, I've always enjoyed numbers always been pretty good at numbers, like, why can't I get to the investor side of things and that's when I joined my current brokerage see fair investments and from there, it just kind of skyrocketed. Our offices set up extremely streamlined and efficient, to the point where in the past 13 months, just me and my broker together have done about 137 million in business, and 98% of that was investors and we're just, we're just masterfully efficient, fine-tuned and, you know, we know how to strike valuations from, you know, Jacksonville down to Fort Myers, it's, you know, it's a few things we know how the appraisers operate, we know what a tenant is going to do to it as far as evaluation what people are paying, because we've got 30 under contract that we can look at and say, oh, you know, hey, a cap rate is this based on this or like, we just have a ton of insight and ability to help our investors and you know, even just last week, you know, we have, you know, I guess it's kind of our, our secret sauce, but it's very simple. Every Friday, all of our clients get an update, regardless of status did nothing happen, hey, nothing happened today, you know, that just wanted to let you know, have a great day and yet again, I had another client last week said, hey, you know, honestly, we haven't even spoke on the phone. Once. It's been all email. I just wanted to say thank you. You were exemplary and you know, he even brought up the Friday things like every Friday, I had an update, I didn't need an update. I didn't you know, I didn't ever had a question about what you were doing, how the property was going and so while those compliments don't always come, I mean, it's always 9 to 10 with that, we haven't had very many upset people at all and they always bring us their next listing or, hey, I'm trying to buy in here and buying has been very challenging right now. So a lot of the investors are on hold being patient, seeing what rates are doing. But all in all, it's been really, really great, especially on the sales side, and we're just, you know, happy to help people while we can while the market is doing great.   Michael: Right on. Well, it sounds like if you ever transition careers whenever you're done to be ready to be done with real estate, you'd be a great therapist. good listener.   Jeff: Oh my gosh, I joke about that all the time. I tell people sometimes like, man, I've done so much marriage counseling, I'm good to go. We need to like do one deal. You'll know you'll get one and I'm saying, oh, that's pretty, it's, it's a lot, but it's just very easy. You know, I mean, the end of the day, people want a couple of things. They want to be comforted, they want to be, you know, they want to know that you're honest, and they want someone reliable and if you can fit those buckets, while being a joy to talk to and to interact with, I think that's really all I needed to do.   Michael: Love it, love it, love it. Well, Jeff, let's dig into the kind of meat and potatoes of the Tampa market a little bit and give listeners some insights into other than this Goldman Sachs transaction, which set new record highs and the buying being a little bit difficult. Let's educate people about the Tampa market. So who are some of the major employers in the market and are you seeing people moving to the area or maybe moving out of Tampa?   Jeff: Definitely a massive influx, I'm not sure the exact daily rates, but I know Florida, pre COVID was about 1200 people per day. After COVID, we're at about 2400 to 2600 people per day from out of state moving to Florida and while that's not always Tampa, that really is the only place that has had affordable housing, affordable rents, especially compared to Miami. Compared to Orlando, Orlando is a relatively higher price than us just because it was more pocketed it was hard to find an actual community over there. While there are a handful. It's very spread out and sprawling, and Tampa is extremely concentrated. Some of the larger employers in Tampa are, I wouldn't say there's one or two, the majority are a lot of health care providers, hospitals, doctors, stuff of that nature, a very big presence with attorneys and then honestly Tampa is becoming a very, very big tech hub. Reliaquest is a very big cybersecurity firm, they signed in Waterstreet for the top of their class, a class A office tower and so it's been rumored I've seen a couple articles that Tampa is the next Austin as far as a tech hub and you know, we're tax friendly. We don't have any state income tax, we have homestead, there's a lot of things that were already here and then now as other states like California are being, you know, more tax even more stricter on a lot of things. It's just it's increased that flow and I don't think that stops for a long, long time. Because Florida has so much land, we have so much room for stuff and while you know, even though you might not be right in the heart of Tampa, a 3540 minute drive is no big deal and you are close to a million different things inside that span. So just you know all of those things and then one underlying factor too, that I like to tell that nearly no one knows that I mentioned is pre COVID. I haven't checked these numbers after the Port of Tampa. Probably Never heard of it does 3 billion in revenue every year, if not more and so that has been a very silent provider. Actually, one of the biggest companies in Tampa is mosaic. They own right over 400,000 acres, and they're a fertilizer company. So they are huge in Tampa, as you know, from ground all the way up to politics and everything else. So they are very big employer and advocate for the port and everything else that's going on there.   Michael: Right on and Jeff, you give folks a sense of like, what is a traditional typical three, two, single family home cost and what would the rent look like and maybe you can give people an idea of some of the different neighborhoods in which they could be considering?   Jeff: The median home price now is right around 335,000 today, and we have about less than two months of inventory, scroll back to 2019, we had about six and a half months of inventory. So we've reduced that by about 300% and days on market, three to five days max, if it's even close to move in ready and that that median price. I mean, I'm looking at the chart now it's almost it's very, very close to 350,000 as of today, and it's just it's very, very challenging, but some of the better neighborhoods. So if you're in Tampa, South Tampa is really where you want to be, but those price points are honestly million dollar homes for a three two and so those rents and cap rates just won't sweat. They won't crack the code for what we're looking for and what honestly any investors should be looking for. So that's not really where we want to be. But I would say that Brandon is a great area. It's just outside of Tampa. It's about 30 minutes east, very sprawling tons of land, tons of nature, tons of trees and that area is a great neighborhood. Same very roughly same median price per square foot, you'll probably be able to get rents around anywhere from 1900 to 2200 for that size home depending on the condition and that's honestly a pretty savory return. Of course, you're now seeing foreign 450 be the norm there too but the rents are following. You know, I mean rents for those are 26 to 2800, all day long and sometimes that makes the cap rate, it maybe the cap rates a little more compressed and the overall return, but the cash flow is higher, and you know, the appreciation is going to be there.   Another and it's really hard to find a great cap rate neighborhood right now, because it's just, it's getting nipped up so much. If you go west of Tampa, north to the west Chase Oldsmar area, that's a great little area to that has very, very, very, very quickly start to price up as everybody's moved there, to where they couldn't afford South Tampa to where they couldn't afford north of Kennedy and West Tampa and so that's an excellent little pocket there great schools, great golf courses, you've got all ages that enjoy that area, which is, in my mind, for somebody that's looking for a renter, always, that's a good market to be in and then if you go north of Tampa, you've got Carolwood up there and greater Northdale. So all that area, there is also a great pocket of Tampa, the price points are going to be pretty high on average as well. But you can still find that starter entry level home and if you can get it at a good cap rate buy it, the every growth that I've seen is coming north of Tampa, in waves and this cheval Lutz area all the way over to Keystone in an East Lake. This actually has the highest concentration of wealth in the Hillsborough County so it's actually not in South Tampa. It's not in downtown, it's not on Davis Islands, which is a phenomenal honestly the best part of Tampa but a home there's you know, 4 million for 1500 square feet so those prices are crazy, but this area is excellent very equestrian, tons of lakes, tons of lake homes, tons of golf courses, nature trails preserves, an excellent up and coming area to be in and then one last area I'd like to highlight is the Ybor City and Seminole Heights area.   So this area is directly north of downtown Tampa and if anybody on here is familiar with St. Pete and fourth Ave, fourth Ave, stretches out of downtown St. Pete and goes north and that stretch is probably a 10 mile stretch of the most golden real estate I've ever seen retail shopping centers, storage homes, but that's been there for 20-30 years and then north and east where you see that Columbia restaurant is Ybor City, historic Ybor ton of culture there a ton of background ton of history, an excellent place to be but it is very, very pocketed and very hard to find land there, but would be an absolute killer. The next best spot is going to be Tampa heights and Seminole heights. If we see the Hillsborough River here, that's kind of the cutoff point for Seminole heights and then everything south of the Hillsborough River to about 15 Street is both terminal, Tampa heights and Seminole heights. Those areas are fantastic. People love to be there. There's a whole bunch of you know, farmers markets and pop up shops and just cool boutique II stuff that is not you know, another McDonald's and Taco Bell that people are bored with. So this that's another great neighborhood, and that also sprawls out into a sea wells wood, and then West Ham over here by the airport.   Michael: That's a super great overview. Jeff, thank you so much.   Jeff: Absolutely.   Michael: I'm so curious if you can give people an idea of how property taxes work, because I think that can often be and I'm sure as you see, one of the biggest maker breaks of a real estate deal. So give folks a walkthrough in the Greater Tampa area. Of course, it varies county by county, but how should they be thinking about property taxes?   Jeff: Excellent questions. So obviously, we all know taxes based on a millage rate, every county, like you said is different county by county. But based on that, I mean, there's really not much else we can do to kind of guesstimate and or further understand it besides going to the Property Appraiser website. But plugging in the property and estimating the taxes. A good rule of thumb with that though, is that I found is anywhere between 85 and 90% of the purchase price, and then take the millage rate, then we can kind of skip the step of you know going in there and directly estimating it but that is that will get you within 99% accuracy of the taxes when they become reassessed after closing and so again, that's 8085 to 90% of the purchase price. So if it's 400 it's gonna be about you know, 375 380 and then take the millage and then that'll be your that'll be your new annual tax roll. And that is very, very, very, very important to take into account because I've seen a lot of investors in the past, go into a property and just pull the current taxes without any idea that they're gonna go. If that person's owned the home for 30 years tax you're going to have Got 1000 a month on a $400,000 home after you close, they're going to be closer to about, you know, five to 6000. So that that alone can easily skew a deal. So you always want to make sure that the taxes are, you know, properly at least estimated going in and then double checked while you're going through the process.   Michael: Jeff, you said 1000 a month for that 30 year old 30 year old hold, but I think he made 1000 a year, right?   Jeff: Correct. Yeah, absolutely, 1000 a year for sure.   Michael: Okay, okay. So is there like a good rule of thumb, if someone doesn't know the millage rate like 1% of the sale price, or one and a half percent of the sale price,   Jeff: I would I would inch to one and a half percent of the sales price because I'm seeing more and more than a $400,000 home is any anywhere between 5500 to 7500, depending on their tax district and while it is county by county, there are some overlays in some certain neighborhoods and CBDs that we'll have some effect on that. So I would I would definitely lean to one and a half percent and then if you want to be real conservative, just go 2% and then it'll always be below that.   Michael: Okay, right on. Now, anyone who's ever listened to the news ever, or who follows any kind of climate or weather has heard about that Florida has hurricanes. Talk to us a little bit about some of the weather and climate, things that are unique to Tampa that someone from California might not be aware of.   Jeff: Right, well, I will say anything that you've seen from not being in one, it's always way crazier, that are way less crazy than what they say it is obviously…   Michael: People hanging on the palm trees, you know, getting strung out.   Jeff: Oh, yeah. All, all extremely oversaturated. In my opinion, the biggest thing with Tampa Bay is flooding. And that really only happens in South Tampa and waterfront properties. So honestly, I would say any investor in Florida should really avoid waterfront properties because of hurricane insurance and flood insurance. They're just too high and they're gonna kill your returns not on not including any liability insurance you have. For the tenant that's there, I would say waterfront would work excellent in a short term rental, because that's kind of a hotel experience. But a long term tenant really is not going to do great there. I would certainly avoid it. Overall, if you're in the mainland and not in the low lying area, hurricanes aren't gonna do just about anything to you. As long as the home is up to code and you have a you know, Hurricane Preparedness step do you have the metal covers for the windows and just, you know, it's simple Google search will show you how to get hurricane ready, but it's really, it's really way more than they hype it up to be.   Michael: Okay, awesome and that's a really good point that you bring up. If the house is up to code, you expect it to withstand a hurricane or not became a drone? How should people be thinking about older housing stock or does Tampa even have older housing stock, like in California, we've got a lot of 1950s built ranch style homes. That's just a lot of the bulk of the inventory, what are you seeing there in Tampa?   Jeff: Exactly the same, the bulk of the inventory is probably going to fall in the 1970 range, a ton of homes and that 1950 to 1980 and then honestly, in Ybor you'll see a whole bunch of homes in 1912, 1915, where the area is very, very old, and has a ton of homes with crawl spaces. So what you want to avoid is homes on a crawlspace. If it doesn't have a slab Foundation, honestly, just avoid it. Can you get around it? Can you figure it out, can you have a foundation inspection? Absolutely but those are all things they're going to tack on to the cost and your whole period. If you're a five year holder, maybe it's not a big deal. But if you're at 1015 20, you are going to be dealing with foundation issues, at least at some point and it is not cheap. So that is one thing I would avoid with the age of the inventory and then one other special thing that kind of gets talked about a lot in Florida is sinkholes and so sinkholes are extremely common. They're not as bad as again, as you see on the news 99% of the time. But what happened back in, I would say 95 205 a couple people had a sinkhole that was relatively bad, you know, the home was falling in and unsafe living conditions and then insurance companies and engineers that were working with them came into the entire neighborhood and said, oh, you've got settlement cracks. This looks like a sinkhole and so you'll see 85% of homes maybe even higher than that that have had a sinkhole remediation done with no significant repairs or need for that at all and once the sinkhole home has been remediated with either a chemical grounding a underpinning or a another. They actually insert concrete under the home once you do either of those three things. Your risk for a sinkhole after that is slim to none because once you solidify all the Lime Rock and silt that's under the home you're done, there's nothing to worry about, just check for warranties, and make sure that engineering report gets to your insurance provider and I believe there's still only two insurance providers in the state of Florida, that will insure a single home. So it's going to be a little bit more expensive as well. So just keep that in mind.   Michael: Okay, good to know and, Jeff, I just want to go back to the foundation, you said that to avoid slabs or avoid crawl spaces?   Jeff: Avoid crawl spaces. I mean, you don't have to avoid them at all costs. But if the house looks a little wonky, even on the photos, just go on to the next one. I've seen 95% of every home that I've been that has a crawlspace has some sort of issue, you can drop a marble in the kitchen, and it ends up in the living room every time. It's just Florida. I mean, Florida with sinkholes, and still homes horrible mixture and there's not a ton of those. But you'll see him a lot in Ybor City a lot around some of the older areas of Tampa, but just stick to the easy stuff, you know, slab on frame or slab on block and you'll 9 times out of 10 you'll be good to go.   Michael: Okay, right on and from a kind of hurricane perspective, what are your thoughts and what should people be looking out for in terms of roofs?   Jeff: You want as long of a life expectancy on the roof as possible, um, shingle roofs are great, every roof made in the past, I think from 2010, or maybe even earlier, since we had that one bad hurricane that came through all of the code is updated. The majority of the roofs have roof strapping that straps the trusses down to the block and that helps tremendously during hurricanes and just about every home has that and when you get an inspection, you do your wind mitigation and that is a very, very, very big piece of the pie to save you money on insurance, especially if you're considering hurricane coverage. So I would say maybe one out of every 100 to 200 clients gets hurricane protection. But it's available and honestly, you really just want to make sure that it has up to code roofing and those standards and it'll be just fine.   Michael: Right on and kind of in the same vein as insurance. What are you seeing or do you have a good kind of ballpark estimate for clients and listeners about what insurance costs are in Florida?   Jeff: Absolutely, to keep it simple, like we did with the taxes, I would probably say that's very close to the 1% rule and probably even a little bit below that, a $400,000 home. I've seen quotes anywhere from 2800 to 3800. So if you use the 1%, it's going to be less but you know, as long as you're not in a flood zone and don't you know don't have any hazard or wind additional add ones, then that should be a perfect, perfect metric to keep track on.   Michael: Right on. Jeff, this has been super awesome, man. Any final thoughts, things tips tricks that folks should be aware of as they're investigating the Tampa market?   Jeff: Absolutely don't wait, don't sleep if you want something, get it now get it while it's hot, because it's only going up. I think we've been undervalued for a very long time. I think we're at market value now. But I think the you know, honestly, the 10 to 30 year window and long range gross of Tampa I think is going to pay massive dividends for whoever can get in there.   Michael: Right on and I guess my last question you, are you seeing stuff go over asking or are you still seeing things come under list price or how are you seeing that?   Jeff: The market right now is very weird. Only because I've been used to just stuff flying for 18 months now. With the rates kind of adjusting the way that they have been everything has slowed to a tolerable level instead of 20 offers on a home we have three to five, so it's still chaos, but it's controlled chaos and something we can all deal with a little bit. But yet if you're not offering asking, you're not getting the house, if you're not offering 10 grand 15-20 above the house, you're probably still not getting it if somebody else's cash. So it's, it's extremely competitive. You have to be willing to push that cap rate on your own and be ready for the appreciation and the rent growth next year to kind of float you to where you want to be.   Michael: Okay, so good to know, Jeff, our certified agent out in Tampa, and folks have questions for you want to get a hold up? Where's the best place for them to do that?   Jeff: Absolutely. Um, you can visit our website at any time https://sefair-inv.com or feel free to reach out to me directly. My cell phone and email will be left in the podcast notes and I'll be happy to do whatever you like.   Michael: Right on. Thanks so much Jeff, can't wait to hear from you to chat soon.   Jeff: Absolutely, buddy. Have a great day, thank you!   Michael: Thanks, take care. All right, everyone. That was our episode A big thank you to Jeff for coming on and hanging out with me. It was a lot of fun, super interesting and clearly he is jazz about the market. I think a lot of us should be too. As always, if you've liked the episode I would love, love, love to hear from you all check out some ratings or reviews from you all and just hear what you have to say about the show. We look forward to seeing on the next one and happy investing!

Happy New Year everyone! So a few days ago, I was super psyched to learn that my jazz ensemble was booked for the 2022 Boston Food and Wine Festival jazz brunches, to be held at one of my favorite locations, The Boston Harbor Hotel. With wine on my mind, I thought I’d do a post on it, especially since a lot of folks are curious.  As it so happens, I’m married to a wine and whisky aficionado, Jeff Hunter.Now this isn’t a proper interview at all.  We were about to settle down for the season finale of Mandalorian when it occurred to me I should see if Jeff was up for an impromptu interview, something he is more predisposed to do with a glass in hand.  He was.  So while he prepared for us to sample 2018 vintage Cabernet Sauvignon from two very different locales, one from Alexander Valley Vineyards California, the other from Penley Estate Phoenix Australia , I grabbed a mic. I know wine events can be daunting.  There’s the odd swish and sniff of glasses; the confident gargle, and the spit.  And what about the knowing look you get when you opt to swallow your sip ‘coz goodness knows you’ve paid good money for this!   And then there’s the jargon—  “structured,” “hint of oak,”  “tannic,” that defines moments of deliberation.It’s easy to forget that a wine palate is cultivated.  Unless vinification is a family business or inherent in your culture, there’s a big chance your first sip of wine was disappointing and far from how you imagined it to be.  My parents let us have a sip or two when we were kids and I did not understand what the big to-do was.  Even in my college days it wasn’t something I enjoyed though I learned to tolerate it because I badly wanted to travel to Europe and I thought wine was something everyone had with their meals.  In the 70’s and 80’s in Manila, I remember drinking Blue Nun Riesling and Cold Duck champagne in our family events. Paul Masson Chablis was the main wine served at my 18th birthday party debut, an important milestone in Filipino society.   At the time, and in a nation of beer and whisky drinkers, any wine at a party was impressive, even if they all tasted like tart juice or downright vinegary. In a hot tropical country like the Philippines where houses don’t have basements, cellars, cool pantries,  nor any concept of proper storage, it’s highly likely we’d been blissfully toasting with turned wines and thinking that was cool.So we all start somewhere and my first point is, wherever you are in your wine journey is okay.  Second, over time and as you explore a breadth of varieties, your palate will evolve.  What you find pleasant today may not be so tomorrow, and the opposite could also be true. Third, what is considered “good,” even by experts, need not be expensive.  Though price point can be indicative of quality, it is also affected by supply (limited production usually is pricier), brand name, popularity and other factors that have nothing to do with quality.  Wine regions like Bordeaux (France) or Napa Valley (US) have more cachet with some people than Australian or Argentinian wines, hence my earlier example of two 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon wines we were comparing, both very good and under $20, with the Penley Estate Phoenix Australia rated #69 in the Wine Enthusiast top 100 wines.Learning about wines is fun and a lifetime activity. While I can barely remember vineyard names, I know what I like, am confident about food pairing , and am more articulate about my descriptions, which means, I can pretty much fake my way in an event.  I’m fortunate to have learned from others and most especially Jeff, who often cooks dishes with particular libations in mind, such as this evening’s Seafood Cioppino paired with 2006 Constanti Brunello di Montalcino, which means, a lot of our dinners are mini wine tasting events.  Since I have a resident (literally) wine expert on board, and he now has the mic, let’s see what he has to say.  Bear in mind, we’ve had a few glasses at this point.Marlene:  So I’m here with Jeff, an avid wine and whisky collector, purveyor in auctions and former wine consultant.  So Jeff, tell us a bit more about your passion for wine.Jeff: Oh, good evening. Thanks, Marlene. Thanks for the nice introduction. My name is Jeff, Jeff Hunter, and I've enjoyed wine for many years.  I can recall the first case I got of an older Bordeaux that I kept in my parents’ basement. And that was kind of the beginning to my desire to collect. I just love the smell of the case of wine, the wood, the ability to taste that wine over the course of many dinners, as it evolved, and how long it would age and trying to correctly predict when I would drink it.Marlene:  What kind of wines should we be looking at?Jeff: Okay, we're gonna talk about popular wines or those that are less discovered at Wine Festivals. So if you're a curious person, and you would be interested in trying different regions, Lebanon, has some interesting things that are coming out. Israel as well has some fabulous Cabs. So explore. I'm not too familiar with Greece and Italy was always a mystery to me. But the more I've tried and the more I've looked at the maps of the different landscapes and wine producing regions of the various countries, the more I've gotten to appreciate all the things that make up the different wines of Italy, let's say,  France, as well, obviously, with many different wine producing regions, so great to be an explorer. And there's a lot of great wines being produced today around the world.Marlene: Any favorites?Jeff: Personally, I've been really enjoying something that's not as popular as it used to be. That's the Australian Cabernets and Shiraz. I just love those big, jammy, bomb-y types of wines and the concentration and the freshness of fruit that I find in some of them. So it's been kind of fun enjoying those, otherwise I go to, for sure, vintage Bordeaux.  Always buy the good years, sit on them, give them time, 5-10 years to come around. So get them early and be patient. Marlene: What about unusual wines? Jeff: I think that as esoteric wines go, the Tokaj of Hungary can be quite fascinating. And I was able to purchase six bottles of the Essencia of Pajzos from Tokaj, and that's the best of the best. It's a 1993 Vintage Robert Parker who's the wine critic gave it an O M G 100 points. Said it tasted like heaven. Amazing wine. Residual sugar is sky high but yet there's still some crisp snap through all the apricot flavor. Amazing wine.  I think I paid $125 a bottle with a discount should be about $300 to 500 at this point in 2022.Marlene:   Lots of people are curious about wine events.  For those who’ve never been to one, can you perhaps give an idea on what they can expect?Jeff: Going to wine festivals has always been a fun thing. I've always enjoyed the opportunity to taste many wines and a big gathering. And my favorite way of doing this is to have a friend who works in the wine industry and then have him get you in for free as his roadie; you can help him bring his wines in, and then maybe even help pour some of his wines, and then get to go in and check everything out for free. That's my favorite way to go into wine festivals.Marlene: Ok, ok, let’s be serious.  If it was for like, you know, just a regular Joe, how would it be?Jeff:  Of course yeah. You know I do love wine festivals and my approach to attending a wine festival based on the limited amount of time I have with so much to taste. And so I would recommend getting in doing your research. Look at the listing, see who's attending, see who's pouring, see who's pouring what. Stay away from the pedestrian wines, focus on your whites first. So you don't ruin your palate. Get around, it doesn't matter if the table has red or white just stay with the whites. You can always come back for the Reds later. And then just keep moving through the festival. Don't get bogged down. And as the more you taste and don't forget to spit because the more you taste, the more you can become a little bit more friendly with all the participants and lose valuable time-- tasting time. Focus on the big boys at the end, the big reds, and make sure you get them before they run out because the popular ones do go fast. Marlene: Thank you, Jeff.  So let me clarify. Jeff’s point is to maximize time at a wine event, and he’s just outlined an efficient way to go about it, if that’s your goal. 1.     Do a bit of homework so you can home in on what you really want to try, to avoid palate fatigue and being too inebriated to appreciate what you’re consuming.2.     Spit.  You can’t taste a whole lot of wines and be sober otherwise.  In other words, though ruthless: Not spitting = inebriation= friendliness=waste of tasting time3.     Start with whites and end with reds.  The reverse will ruin your palate for whites.Now most of us don’t approach wine events with Jeff’s single-minded efficiency, nor should you, unless you are a collector.  For everyone else, I’d say, go where you will, listen to the wine curators, ask questions (they love this) and meet people.  Have fun. And if you’re worried about looking gauche, here are a few tips:1.     Hold wine glasses by the stem, not the glass, so you don’t warm the wine (or get fingerprints on glass)2.     Swish the wine in the glass to aerate and release the bouquet; sniff to appreciate.  Note what you’re smelling—apricots, raspberries, etc.3.     Sip together with a slight breath in, and swish around the back of your mouth for aeration.  It looks and sounds a bit like a gargle, but isn’t. It’s not a pretentious action.  Retronasal olfaction is smelling and tasting from the back of your mouth, and better perceived when wine is aerated.4.     Spit.  In bucket.5.     Describe what you smell and taste with fellow participants and wine curators so you can build your wine vocabulary.6.     And finally, if like my sister, Manischewitz is your favorite wine, never admit it. Get full access to Cooking Subversive at cookingsubversive.substack.com/subscribe

 This week's episode tackles everything from upcoming BU events to global waterways. Tune in and hang out with us to get the latest scoop on whatever tangent our brain's decided to take today.

Sean: What does it take for an entrepreneur to say that's impossible, I'm stuck in the mud.?What do you do, Jeff? What do you say during those times? Jeff: Oh, it's the difference really is every company from a business perspective, everybody's going to constantly be hitting ceilings as they grow on the business side. And the reality is simply and a lot of times, it's just a matter. Honestly, I'm pointing this out to say, okay, the, the skill set, the structure of the company at 5 to 10 people for that level of business is completely different than what you need at say, 50 employees kind of a thing there with three or four different markets instead of one market, kind of a thing as you start to grow that business. As long as we get processes and procedures, even your culture, things like that, and documented and figure out such that you've got everybody on board with that, then you can step back and trust that, okay, we can grow to the next level. Because we have our systems, we have our foundation in place. And so therefore going from sales person, one, two, now two, three, and four is really not that big a deal. It actually is a true scale at that point, because we have documented sales processes. We have documented target market. We have documented differentiators and a guarantee that makes us different than our competitors. And all four of those salespeople are using the same language, the same - everything that we're talking about in our business and working together. So what's the true scale, rather than saying, Hey throw you to the sharks out here and go, come up with your own verbiage. And all of a sudden we've got marketing, pushing out one message sale and doing something else and operations kind of throwing their hands up and saying, what the heck did you sell this time? If we've got this all documented and put together, then everything just keeps working as we grow, as we keep scaling there, it really takes a lot of that pressure off of the leadership team as they grow. And it's a transition and it can definitely can be difficult for some people, but it's, it's one that, okay. Once you kind of start seeing that picture as to one realizing, okay, this is the goal that we're working towards for our company as a whole, but still the fact that I can see that, okay, we are making progress to that and I've gotten visibility. I've got clarity into my company, says, Hey, we can make this work. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Making a Foundation for Growth with Jeff Chastain Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. I've got Jeff Chastain here from Admentus. And he's going to be talking to us about a few different ways that you can make a foundation for growth with something called EOS. So tell me a bit more about the process and what EOS is for anyone out there that's listening. Jeff: Sure. Well, thanks for having me. EOS is really just a, it's honestly just a simple set of business practices, business processes that work for entrepreneurial-led organisations to kind of instill that foundation, what you're talking about, it's still kind of that basic process in place, because honestly, most entrepreneurs that come into business, they've got a great idea, they've got an idea for a solution, a product, something like that, they take it to market, but what they don't necessarily have is an MBA and know exactly how to go structure and build a business. They go out to market, they hopefully have something that's viable, that a customer wants to go by, they've got it sold. And then we're kind of at the stage of, okay, now, what do we do are we actually going to grow up and treat this like a real business and scale out people, scale out systems, things like that, so we can move forward. If you look at all the business statistics and stuff like that three to four year mark, when a lot of small businesses failed, it's really that stage where the entrepreneur, their core team has basically kind of hit their limit of they're trying to do everything themselves and getting frustrated that okay, things just aren't working quite as well. And they lose traction, the business saying, okay, when we first started, it was really easy change really easy to adapt. Now we're here and it just feels like the business is stuck in the mud, we've kind of lost all sense of fun of direction here. And that point, they just say, hey, we're bailing out and starting over. Whereas an operating system like EOS really comes back in underneath their successful business really that they built to that point and says, okay, now let's solidify the foundation underneath it. Let's actually get everybody working together with the same vision, get everybody performing the same way. And just really kind of reinvigorate that business going forward. Josh: Okay, so what you said there pretty much you need to create structure within the business to allow for growth and to allow for everyone to pull the ship in the same direction. Because if everyone's blowing wind in the sails in the same direction, the ship will move forward, as opposed to creating turbulence. So how would you go about moving to a structure where you have the systems in place when most people are going off their feet their busy as. Everyone's complaining, they have no time. So how do you go about introducing something that takes up time, that will save you time, if you need to get over that hump to be able to get there, what's the process? Jeff: It's a longer journey process is the way we look at it. With a lot of things you'll go out and visionaries especially go to a weekend conference, or read a book and come back into the office Monday. And here's all the new ideas we're going to go implement. That kind of stuff honestly never works, it never gets the traction. Whereas EOS is really implemented as a very phased process where it will actually start working right off the bat with individual tools to say, okay, go back in tomorrow and into your business, let's start on just this one tool, just these two tools, and start kind of building that piece by piece into your daily journey, your daily practice your daily work right there, and really build it in over time. It's a longer implementation process. But it helps take, okay, everything that you're doing today, all your ideas you're doing today, now, let's map in a little bit of structure. Let's map in some new processes. Let's figure out okay, what are you doing today in your sales process, for example. And let's go take and document that at an 80/20 kind approach from an entrepreneurial standpoint, and really get just that little bit in place to where now everybody on your sales team is using the same process kind of a thing. So it's little pieces that you can build into time, and it's not a complete turn right right now with the entire company and expect everybody to stay on the track. Josh: Getting back to my ship analogy, you can’t turn a ship on a dime, can you? Or a five-cent piece if you're listening in Australia. So what kind of tools would you say you're looking to implement or would be something that you that you go into and you get, okay, 80% of the people are having this same problem because they haven't implemented X, Y, Z or haven't reviewed this stack? Jeff: Oh, one of the keys that we really look at first and you kind of already touched on it is simply just looking at the company vision to say, okay, this entrepreneur, this leader has his idea of, okay, where are we trying to get to as a company, but I forget where it was, was a Forbes study or something not too long ago that went in and did basically a study on all those thousand something different employees of a company, and they said basically one in four had some idea of what was going on in the company, that they understood the direction of the company, they understood where they fit, etc. And if you look at it and say, okay, if you've got Sally sitting here working in your operations department, and she's just there to go in and punch a clock, nine to five, in and out kind of a thing, versus you've got somebody over here on the other side that is in tune with the company vision, they're excited about, hey, this is what my job is. This is how it contributes to the company. This is how where we're going as a company, and this is how I'm helping to facilitate that. That type of employee is going to be a lot more productive for you. And obviously, if you can get everybody in the company with that mental attitude, then to your earlier point about blowing the sales, okay, yeah, now we've got everybody on the same page, because that's really the key is to say, okay when most people look at vision they're looking at, okay, here's our core values, our core focus of being honest, integrity, all the kind of buzzwords that they go stick on the website. And honestly, forget about at that point, it goes and collects dust out there on the About Us page, and really what vision should be, it starts with that but it goes a lot deeper to say, okay, our vision X, Y, Z IT company here, who are we trying to serve? Are we trying to serve a different certain market? And why are we trying to reach out to them? What makes us special to go reach out to that market? What are our key differentiators for reaching that market? So that way, it's defined at a company level. And so when marketing is putting together their pitch, sales knows what marketing is doing. Sales can go out and use those same three key differentiators right there and their sales pitch. And that way, the support team, the IT team, the operations team, whatever this delivering the service knows exactly what they're supposed to deliver. Because if marketing goes off and sells one thing, sales, goes off the rails and sells something else, operations just kind of sitting there left saying how in the heck are we going to deliver this? And everything's a mess at that point. Josh: Yeah, and unsatisfied customers are never a good thing to have. And that then makes the whole system crumble down. Like I know, for us, when we first started out 13 years ago, the direction that we went was like a lot of people that haven't read enough personal development books and decided to jump out there with a gung ho awesome attitude, knowing that you can do better than some of the other people out there decide to get the clients charge a lower price. Wrong move, Josh. What are you doing? Jeff: That works for a little while. Josh: That's right. I'm gonna go back and select teenage Josh, what's he doing? Idiot, read a book. Jeff: Yeah, you had to start somewhere. Josh: That's right. So when we did that, we had incredible growth, and we bought someone else on and we're both sitting on 150,000 a year. So we're both pretty happy before turned 21. So we're both pretty pumped, if I call myself Batman, and he's Robin. When Robin had a stroke, and Batman had to pick up the slack. Batman didn't have enough time. And he say to do that he was too busy saving lives. So that was nearly the collapse of our company. And that came down to all processes at that stage and growing on a price. And when we decided to change that around, exactly like you're saying, create that differentiator. So now the businesses that we work with, we guarantee that they will have the uptime that we've agreed upon. So depending on the business, that could be businesses not down for more than 30 minutes, or for an IT problem not down for four hours, if it's a smaller business or something like that. And if they go down that guarantee means we pay them per hour at the agreed rate while their business is down. So we want them to be up and running as quickly as possible, because there's no money in us paying them while we're fixing the problem. Jeff: Sure, sure. Yep. Josh: It just realigns the way and make sure that our offerings and what you're saying there perfectly with the team. You want to make sure your team's pulling in the same direction. We figured as an IT provider and solutions provider to make sure that we are pulling in the same direction as them. And if we're charging people per hour, when something goes down, they're already upset with us, and then we're whacking them with a big invoice. So they just get more upset with us. And we found that the less skilled, less experienced IT companies would take longer to fix the problems therefore earn more money. And we went this doesn't make any sense. What is going on with this world? Why are we doing this? This doesn't make any sense at all. So we changed the model and then let's flip it on its head, let's have them be paid when things go down. That's one of our differentiators that we try to push through in our marketing as well as through our sales. But you're exactly right. You need to have that thing that we differentiate it isn't price because it's very easy to see the differences between that and that doesn't help businesses out. Getting back to what you said you said is Sally's in the business that may just want to do nothing but clock in. And it did sound like you want to create a latest mentality throughout the whole company. We have ever been looking at a problem, finding a solution and bringing that to the table for everyone to review and look at as opposed to just being a meat in a seat, so to speak. Jeff: Definitely you want to you want to empower your team basically give them give them a reason to come reason that they want to be there a reason that they feel like they're contributing, and also basically have that almost honesty, integrity, kind of openness in the company such that regardless of what level of the company Sally's at, if she sees an issue, or has a problem, or whatever, she feels comfortable raising that and everybody's going to take it seriously kind of a thing. While, you've got to have the structure in the company, and obviously reporting structure hierarchy, stuff like that. You've got to be real careful not to make that too rigid, especially in a small company that say, okay, well, you're at the bottom level, you can't do anything, just go do your job kind of a thing. You want to encourage that growth, that leadership model there to say, hey, no matter what your role is you're contributing this is how you fit into our long-term strategy, our long-term vision, this is where you are. And really, I said, empower them, make them feel like they're part of that so that they can contribute, they feel like they've got a worth and value in that company. Josh: I know, Dad has always said, if you can think of a way a problem can be solved. It's better to have that solution be found by a staff member. And they will then take ownership over that, and they'll cradle that and that'll become their baby, as opposed to even if you know what the solution can be just jamming that down someone's throat doesn't necessarily have people care for your solution. But if someone finds that, and then they take that ownership, and they take that pride in what they have found, that they brought to the table, and everyone wins. It's kind of like inception, you need to try and put that idea into their head, if you've got the idea, or work together and have people just started to spring up ideas and have moments. So we do a half Friday. And normally at the moment, I'm not drinking any beer for six weeks, but we only have a few beers and have a beer meeting, and go through how can we have done this week better? What was your favorite part? What was your least favorite part? And is there any new tools that you've seen out there that could help? Was there any special compliments that you had from clients? Was there any particularly difficult clients? And then we go through and work out how we can phase that. And then we do a difficult question section, which is where we reflect on each other? And we say, oh, look, I didn't quite like the way that you said X, Y, Z. Or you could have approached that question that you asked me in a less hasty way, or whatever the case is, just to make sure that you do have a better team, a better family that you're working with. When you go into businesses, what are the families like? How is the structure that disparity? Is it sometimes like, is there more strength in one arm than there is another say, for instance, they've got a fantastic team, but not a very well defined vision? Or is it all over the place? Jeff: Honestly, I'd say family is the right term to describe it with, because you can obviously have some families that are really tight, well knit together and enjoy being together, working together. And you've got other families that you better not put them all at the dinner table because they're going to be yelling and screaming at each other. Yeah, picking whatever, whatever the discussion is politics or religion, or whatever, they want to go at each other about kind of a thing there. You see it all in both kind of thing. And a lot of times, that's really, it's a culture really, from the top of the business. I see most of the time, that okay, are you going to have that entrepreneurial leader, because if you look at entrepreneurs, the journey, most of the time you've been talking about, okay, you and your partner starting off that business, at that point, you start growing out, start growing out. And the question is, are you going to be able to hand off one of those hats that you're wearing to your new teammates that you brought on? Or are you going to kind of pull and tug on the hat at the same time, they're trying to take it sit in their back pocket and say, make sure you're doing this this way, make sure you're following these steps kind of thing, writing over them. At that point, you're not instilling any kind of trust or any kind of confidence in your team. They're sitting there looking over their shoulder all the time, saying, okay, am I about to get beaten over this kind of a thing? Am I about to get called out in front of everybody, because this didn't go exactly the way the owner would have done it kind of a thing? And when you've got that kind of mentality with that owner, not being able to delegate, not being able to hand things off, and it just cripples the entire staff right there from an attitude perspective, because honestly, everybody's sitting there saying, okay, I'm basically ducking the entire time saying, okay, who's going to be the next one to get on his radar? And being glad that okay, sorry, it's your turn here to go be in the spotlight, not mine kind of a thing. And it's like bad attitude. I've seen that in too many companies where the owner is all frustrated himself or herself saying, okay, why is the company not working? I'm having to get down to here in the weeds and do all this stuff. It's like, you got to realise that okay, delegation is one of the key points of being a successful leader. And then really, where really the EOS comes in is, okay, yes, is delegation, but you've got to have the processes in place. You've got to have the numbers, the metric stuff in place where if I've got a documented process for how we're going to handle a trouble ticket in an IT business, I can hand that off to my IT support team over here. And as long as my numbers, my dashboard are correct here to say, okay, all tickets are getting handled in less than 30 minutes or whatever our metrics are for our business. Then as a leader, as the CEO, I can step back and actually relax. I don't have to go stand over that IT tech and sit here and watch the stopwatch. Okay, are you getting done here, you got five minutes left kind of thing. Because I can see the metrics. I know everybody's following the process. And I don't have to worry about that anymore. And that's really the key with these businesses as you've got to be able to systematise the business, you got to go put those processes in place. It's almost kind of counterintuitive to say, we've got to put more structure in the business, we've got to put more framework more processes in place, so that you can relax and have more fun. But most people would look at that and say, wait a minute, more structure means rigidity. I take the creativity out of my business, I take the fun out of my business. And it's actually just the opposite. Josh: We call it elastic documentation. And in where I'll be the first to say I'll create our documentation internally, and I think you have owned that hat so to speak, it's only fair that you write down how you've managed that hat and how that has worked. But once that's being created, it's then up to the person or team that has received that hat to then modify it and change it and tweak it as time goes on. And as processes change, as you might find a better way. Because ultimately, I'm just one person that's walked one direction, but the path you've walked in your life, Jeff, is different to my path. And that's means that the input that you would have would be different. So we make sure that everyone knows that this is the documentation and how it can work, not how it should work. And make sure to have elastic documentation. And as you're saying, delegation is key. Absolutely. You need to be able to let go and let that bird fly than hold its wings and hold it back. Because if you’ll just tire it out. Jeff: And really the key with especially when you're talking about documentation, because too many times I'll see a company say okay, we don't have enough capacity, we need more resources. So they'll go hire somebody in. And it's like, well, jump in, go, Good luck, go figure out your own job, almost kind of a thing. So when you've got these processes and stuff, like you're talking figured out, you can go scale out your helpdesk support team, because you've got documented processes where somebody's gonna step into that role, know exactly what they're supposed to do on day one, it can be productive there rather than spend the next three, four months trying to figure out what their job is or reinvent processes, reinvent things figure out, okay, previous guy walked out the door and basically took all the knowledge in his head with him. And now what am I supposed to do in my new job? And we're sitting there as owners paying them to flounder basically, having that kind of system. Again, that kind of structure in place for those people just facilitates that scale and just again, adds economies of scale, right there. Josh: Coming back to that first employee, I was talking about, we both just worked together enough to learn how to do it. The second employee after David was Alex, and it took seven months before he became profitable. And I went this is terrible, especially like I had read the E-myth by Michael Gerber. And I thought, okay, I should know to do this, but I got caught in that. Don't have time to do it. So I haven't done it. And so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing until that's done. And then I'll never have time to have any fun, which sucks. Yeah, but the moment you have these processes in place, like the E myth, sort of discusses, McDonald's is run by 14-year olds. It's a multi billion dollar business, it's ran by teenagers, really old enough to know how to read the documents that you've got in front of them. And it means that you've got something to lean back on for KPIs, for everything. Every business should have their processes documented. And sometimes it's a lot easier to say than it is to do. Jeff: Definitely is. And one key point about McDonald's or any kind of place like that, if you go in there as your 14-year-old and say, okay, you're going to be a new line cook. They don't hand them a six-inch-thick SAP manual that says, Okay, here's every single little detail about every single little thing you need to know. They've got a laminated sheet there that says step one, step two through step six, this is what you need to follow right here. So to me, that's where a lot of people get stuck when we talk about processes. It is like, okay, where do I even start, and I'm going to end up working for months building out this huge thing. And then nobody looks at it kind of kind of a system, whereas EOS really pushes the 80/20 approach to say, okay, we're going to document the top 20% of exactly what you need to know from a high level to go figure this out, rather than dive down and build that entire SOP manual kind of a thing there that nobody does. It doesn't matter that it's 100% perfect right up front. Take a quick pass to say okay, this is what we do every time. This is the high-level points, and we can always go back and refine it agile kind of process but still just make a quick pass at it and get started, rather than sit there and say, hey, there's no way we can spend months trying to figure all this out, you don't need much, you just need something quick to get started. And honestly at that point, let the people doing the job right now fill in the details as needed. But even still, I would say, don't even, it's not worth their time your investment to go build that huge manual, you don't need all those little details. Just make sure you've got the flow to where somebody can sit down and figure out okay, I can take these six steps and go cook the hamburger, I can do whatever I need to at a high level right there. Josh: Keep it simple, stupid, I think is the case sort of mentality. And keeping it simple. I know if you bought up earlier going to different day seminars and things like that, that they tell you, this is how you change the world with your business just implement this one little thing. And one of them said, I document everything, everything has to be documented. I document where the coffee filters have to be purchased from. What seat I want in an aeroplane. And I've got 120, whatever it was, a lot of procedures just around the way that I travel. And I thought, holy shit. I left going, why oh my goodness. Jeff: At that point, you hire the person on and is still take some six months just to go read all that. Yeah, it’s still why? Josh: It's just too much I went My goodness. And I thought he must have a huge churn rate in his business. Because if you've got a VA, and they're used to booking tickets for you, and they're doing what they're meant to be doing, they already know your preferences. You've told them once, they know. If there is, sound like getting away from the documentation thing, but it gets to a level where it's you don't need to know that on the plane, you're going to be ordering this drink first, followed by this many drinks if it's this many hours long flight, it just becomes too much. Jeff: It's definitely too much. But at the same time, there's a balance between it because for whatever reason, even if you want to scale out, it's not that you lost your VA, you just need to add a second VA. She doesn't necessarily or he doesn't necessarily know all that and having the quick high-level points to say, okay, we prefer this airline, or we prefer middle level seats, mid seats instead of aisle seats or whatever. It's just a couple quick bullet points there to say, Okay, this is what our list of preferences are, it doesn't have to go down to the point of okay, we want a third aisle or third row only, not fourth row kind of a thing and all that kind of mess. It's just okay, here's the couple quick points that we just know, anytime we go book travel, here's the quick set of preferences that we need to follow. And that just makes that new VA that comes on board, their job, they’re onboarding is so much easier, because they can just say, oh, we need to book travel. Here's the five or so pieces of data that I need to know when I go book travel. Josh: I agree completely. The way that I kind of worked at any process that we do in business, whether it be making documentation, or creating systems comes back to something that my brother told me many years ago. I was in my bedroom as a young teenager building electronic projects. And I said to my brothers and oh look up the one remote control turns the lights on, turns the fan on, turns the TV on, turns DVD player on, turns the computer on, does everything with the one can control. Anyway, so I said I'm going to make it to this remote control can also unlock the door and then with an actuator open up the door and then close the door as well. So that sounds pretty cool. And he's an engineer 14 years my senior. Yes, that sounds pretty cool. So he said, how long that's gonna take you to make? Oh, well with these parts, I have to make the PCBs and everything I said it's probably gonna take me 100 hours 100, 120 hours programming everything else. Okay, cool. Cool. How many times could you have open and close the door in 120 hours? Yep. Okay, I get it. Yep. So the door was never automated. But the lesson learned there was if you're going to be telling someone something more than once then document it. If you're going to be telling someone, something many times 100% documented. But if it's something that's just very quick, and you're not going to need to do that process, the same in business, we went automate something unless we know that it's going to benefit the masses of people. And that's what it comes down to being sensible, and maybe just writing a list of what would you suggest that maybe a list of 10 or 20 things of processes? Get five things that they do on a daily basis and try to write those down. What would you say is the magic number? Jeff: I don't know there's necessarily a magic number, but it's definitely just even hitting a one or two kind of a thing to say, okay, let's just look at this at a high level. But what I would take from what you were just saying, supposed the door was already automated or whatever, you wouldn't want to write the process that explains exactly how the motor turns and that electrical current comes on to this motor, and then it swings 35 degrees and it pushes here. It's like no, the process says press the button. That's all the process needs to say kind of a thing there. So you got to be careful with that's really what I'm trying to get at is how deep you go. All they need know is press the button right there if you need to go in or out kind of a thing. You don't need to know how it works. You don't have to no all that kind of detail at that level. Yeah, to your point, it's, it's really just a matter of, obviously one keeping it simple like we talked about, but really just getting started is the biggest thing. With the EOS implementation, it's actually typically almost a two-year journey that we look at from initial start to really calling mastery at that point of all the tools and the processes. And it's just literally, it starts out actually month to month, but then goes to more of a quarterly basis. But the idea is just to start doing something, getting one or two of those tools and start getting some muscle memory basically built with that. And that's really where you got to start with any of this stuff, it is just okay. Again, keeping it simple, but just get started with something. Pick up a piece and move forward with it. That's really the whole premise behind the system, it’s just simplicity. Because even going all the way back the first we were talking vision, at one point, I was working with a branding coach on one company I was working with, and I got this huge document on all the different logos, the color styles, the fonts, everything was all laid out, it was just this big old thing here. It's like, okay, this is just the brand that doesn't even talk about anything else. And when we talked to a company about establishing your vision, it's not again, some master plan that you got to bring in all these consultants on it’s literally two pages. It's eight questions that we go through, it's two pages. It's entrepreneurial, keep it simple, keep it basic, because again, same as the process is if you get in too deep, you start getting too big. Everybody freezes up and nothing gets done, or else it gets over-done and it’s never used kind of a thing. Josh: Well, I think there's going tp be a lot of listeners out there that have heard a lot of what we've been talking about, and probably looking at ways to get this implemented. And at least some consulting. I understand you’ve got admentus.com/resources, there is some bits and pieces such as a quick 20 question checkup? Jeff: Yeah, there's actually three different things on that page. The EOS system itself is built around six different key areas that we say, okay, if you strengthen those six key areas, basically all your issues fall into those buckets. So that's where that checkup comes in is, like I said, a 20 question checkup, they're just kind of measures how strong you are. And those those six key areas. And we'll actually utilise that through the implementation journey to say, okay, here's where we started, here's where we are now kind of a thing to other resources on that page are actually. Two of the EOS books, there's a whole, honestly, a whole library pretty much about EOS, but the traction book, literally lays out the entire system. You've got all the tools in that one book right there. So if you want to just pick up the book, read it yourself, go through it yourself, more power to you kind of a thing. The difference really is that I build myself or it was more of a coach and facilitator, I'm not a consultant, I'm not going to come in and do EOS for you. My role is to come in here and be that third-party working with you on that book. So we're still working from that book from those materials. So you can very easily if you're just curious right now the first chapter’s free up there on that website slash resources, grab the traction or the Get a Grip book, either one right there. And then other resources, simply just if you're curious, or you got questions about any of that, just send me an email at admentus.com/ask. And I'm always open for questions always opened up to help anywhere I can there. Josh: Cool. Well, we'll make sure to check this in the description there for the podcast over on the blog for us. And so everyone can definitely jump in there. I'm actually looking at jumping into doing the organisational checkup. Why not? Why not? It's only 20 questions. What's the harm? Jeff: We're going to get another set of data point for you. Josh: Exactly. Well, I've only got one other question for you. And that is, you've probably already answered the question, to be completely honest. But if there was to be one book that you think that anyone should be reading to be doing better in their business, what would that be? I think I already know the answer. Jeff: You're looking at two of them right there. It really is. It was because honestly, I've been doing I've done a number of businesses myself, I've been doing this kind of stuff for 15 plus years, too many I wouldn't want to count at that point. But it's it really was almost just a complete lightbulb moment when I first saw Traction, because I've been through so many businesses, getting frustrated with clients just you've got to get the foundation the business together. Because we were talking earlier about technology and stuff like that. It's like it doesn't matter how good the technology is, if you don't have the foundation there, and it just really hit me when I was first introduced to Traction. I'm not trying to sell I really do and it's not even my book, it's somebody else. Gino Whitman's the one that wrote it kind of thing. I don't get any credit on it. But it's still it's just that from an entrepreneurial standpoint is just one of those books that just really the lightbulb kinds of content comes on. And the other book is called Get a Grip and it's right there in parallel. But basically what that book is a fictional in quotes, narrative about actually implementing EOS into a technology company, or all type of companies. But still, it's one of those that Yeah, we didn't write this with any one particular person in mind. But sure, yeah. But yeah, if you prefer more of the fictional side, then the technical implement the tools side, but they complement each other really well right there. I've read them both multiple times, and like I said first chapter on both. I was free right there on the website. But honestly, those are the two books that from a business perspective I'd be diving into pretty quick right there. Josh: Sweet. Well, is there any other questions that you had for me? Jeff: I don't think so at this point. Like I said, technology's always kind of my thing I just I know exactly where you're coming from there all the all the terminology and everything. But it's a fun world. But I just try to emphasise especially now being on this side of it, there's like, okay, it's a great tool to help improve productivity, help make things better if you got the foundation laid right, and getting that foundation is really key, because I've seen too many times trying to implement technology to fix underlying problems. And it just can't do that really. Josh: We definitely find you have technology problems, then you have people problems, and you shouldn't be trying to fix people problems with technology. It's been fantastic having on the show there, Jeff. And if anyone has any questions, you can definitely jump across to a admentus.com or ask at admentus.com. Is that correct? Jeff: That's correct. Yep. Or you can email me anytime. Josh: Awesome. Sweet. So definitely jump across there. If you have liked this episode, head over to iTunes and leave us some love. Give us some feedback. And everyone stay healthy out there in podcast land.

Jude is joined by Jeff Oh of the Divorced Dad podcast. Their topic is "Self Care" during and after divorce. Some tips include: - Taking control of and creating your environment- Get exercise, eat right, and get enough sleep- Make time for things that you like to do - Spend time with loved ones- Make sure to talk to someoneResources:The Divorced Dadvocate Website - http://www.TheDivorcedDadvocate.comThe Divorced Dadvocate YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeSwx-F8KK4&list=PLT4HyN5ishYJznK51205ESxGZ2d19YkBpThe Divorced Dadvocate Podcast - https://thedivorceddadvocate.buzzsprout.com/Divorced Dads Online Meetup Group - https://www.meetup.com/Divorced-Dads-Meetup-Group/music credit: Akira the Don - Daredevil ThemeSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/thedivorceddadvocate)

How important is content marketing strategy to your e-commerce business? Crafting valuable content helps build brand trust with both existing and potential customers, allowing you to successfully grow your brand. Today we're talking all about content and smart ways to ramp up your strategy. Jeff Coyle is co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of MarketMuse. Coming from twenty years in the SEO and content strategy arena, Jeff's products use AI to accelerate content planning, creation, and optimization. With their spokes-of-a-wheel keyword approach, MarketMuse's content marketing strategy connects ideas, allowing clients to demonstrate product expertise. Episode Highlights: How content relates to growth and where to start assessing the need for your business. Strategies that help tell the story that you are trying to tell. How to gauge the success rate. Where the news dynamic fits into your content campaign. The breadth and depth of your content. Figuring out where the gaps are. When to hire an expert. How the Marketmuse suite of services help the writer. Using smart content to illustrate expertise. Why search volume is not the only strategy for content valuation. Some quick win strategies – aka one-page plans. Packages MM offers for different sized audiences. Tools and hacks Jeff recommends. Transcription: Mark: So there was a time early on in Quiet Light Brokerage when I was doing all of the Content Marketing for the firm and I was writing on average eight blog posts or articles per week averaging about 18,200 words in length. And I underestimated when I started on this kind of venture of can I do these eight to 10 per month; I underestimated how much work it was going to be and it was a lot of work because it's not just writing down your thoughts it's writing for the web and writing for SEO and understanding what do you write about next. It's amazing how quick the writer's block comes in. I know that you had a conversation with Jeff Coyle a mutual friend of ours from Rhodium and one of the founders of MarketMuse which is an awesome company; a great tool from an SEO and content marketing standpoint. You guys talked about everything content which is relevant to buyers, anyone looking to acquire a web-based business and grow it. I know it's been a huge part of our marketing plan. What are some of the things that you and Jeff talked about in this conversation? Chuck: It's quite great. I had a great conversation with Jeff and we're talking about if you've got a dollar spend where to spend it. Most people they're doing basic keyword research, they're looking for what's the keyword that's getting the most searches versus the keyword difficulty. And he takes it like way beyond that and they're looking at not just the specific keywords but what keywords are actually tied to other keywords that show that you're an expert in the topic. If I'm talking about like a specific thing but I fail to mention other words Google then thinks that I'm not an expert because anybody who's an expert would be using these other words or when you're just looking at keyword tools to look at the ones they're getting the most traffic you often miss the additional keywords that are in there. Mark: Right. And I know full disclosure I use MarketMuse with Quiet Light Brokerage and actually with my other company as well. I use their service and the general sales pitch is pretty simple. It's this idea of setting up pillar pages and having this kind of spokes on a wheel branch now so the example that they use I think in some of the marketing materials is if you're going to have a website on craft beer you should have a blog post on craft beer but you should also have an entire section on hops and an entire section on barley and malts and then even from there if you want to be all about hops and afford it to do a page on hops you should also have some satellite pages on imperial hops or these other types of varieties of hops and being able to have this kind of wheel with different spokes coming out. And you know what a bunch of SEO tools use this. Like I've been using Sight Bulb recently; a really cool software that diagrams out your site and the sort of hub sort of format. What MarketMuse does is they take a blog post and had topics so you say I want to focus on craft beer and they say okay if you want to really be known as an expert, make sure that you're talking about hops at least 10 or 15 times in this blog post. And make sure that you're also talking about different types of barley. And then you can use that and say well okay I'll talk about this in this blog post but what do I write on other blog post? It's made for me and I don't do a lot of the writing anymore but it makes the content creation process super easy; like the ideation part, I mean that's the hard part about all of this. How do you come up with new ideas on what you should write about? But I don't want people to think this is just a sales pitch for MarketMuse. It's a great piece of software, obviously, I believe in it from that standpoint. But I think from a buyer standpoint also from a seller standpoint having a solid content strategy is really really key. If you were to spend money; Chuck you've had a bunch of businesses in the past and I know you've used content, if you're going to spend your money somewhere for long term marketing dollar I'm kind of leading you to the answer here, where would you spend it? Would it be in the content marketing world or would it be PPC or what are the advantages in your opinion of this content marketing versus other types of marketing? Chuck: Yeah I mean it really depends I think on the type of business you have. Obviously, if you have a content-related business then you want to hop out as much quality content as you can. If you've got an e-commerce business there's different funnels and then buckets may be that you need to put your money in but you definitely need to be investing in content. Even on Amazon when you're thinking about like selling something on Amazon you go to some people's pages and the content is just horrible and it's so important. One of the things we didn't talk about but like when you're looking at Amazon you'll look at the questions people are asking and then answer those questions. So content is definitely important. We talked just a lot about what you should be writing about next. When you're looking at competitors sometimes you can actually see the direction they're going and then beat them and write a bunch of content. Actually, get in front of them because you look at their keyword list and you know the direction they're headed and you can actually get in front of them. Mark: Yeah for my money I think the two areas that are the most important for a marketing strategy at least long term return will be content marketing and CRO, conversion rate optimization. Those two things alone have such staying power where you invest now and you're going to benefit for years to come as opposed to PPC which is great because you can throttle PPCC; that's the reason people love it. You can throttle up and down. You can really find some gems and it's very immediate. But long term success I think is predicated on this content strategy frank that's something we've even bought a little bit at Quiet Light. I just got to give you a quick shot out Chuck because you are wearing a Quiet Light shirt. So for all those people that are watching on YouTube and I know it's not a ton of you that are watching on YouTube but those that are you can see that Chuck actually has a really cool shirt. I don't even have that shirt. Did you give me one? Chuck: I think I kind of bought Joe one but I didn't get you one so maybe I'll have to get you one as well. Mark: Okay, I think Brad gave me one and it was like enormous. I was swimming on the thing. Chuck: I think that's the one I have with Joe when I bought his it was too big for him so I have to get your size. Mark: Make sure you size it down and hey if we get a few extras of these maybe we can set up a contest for people that actually want a Quiet Light; I don't care what you do with it but it's kind of fun to give that away as a prize. Let's get into the episode. Content marketing is where I cut my teeth early in the Internet world. I love this topic. I think Jeff is one of the smartest people in the industry when it comes to content marketing [inaudible 00:07:02.0] good market views and this is definitely one to learn from. Chuck: Yeah absolutely and two things before we dive right into it; one they're giving a special discount. Again we're not trying to promote it. It's just a good product if you want it great but in the show notes, there's going to be a discount code to get a nice percentage off. And stay tuned to till the end of the video because I also asked Jeff for some additional tools that he likes to use. I always think it's fun to ask entrepreneurs what are some various tools that are unrelated to our discussion from what you're using so. Chuck: All right hi everybody Chuck Mullins here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today on the call we have Jeff Coyle the co-founder of MarketMuse and chief is it, product officer? Jeff: Yeah, Chief Product Officer, I manage the product data science and engineering teams as well as the marketing team at Marketing News. Chuck: Awesome. So I've known Jeff for a couple of years, we run in the same circles. I've been on the Internet world for quite a while. Jeff do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself? Jeff: Sure. I am as you mentioned the co-founder and chief product officer for MarketMuse. Prior to this, I've been in this space as Chuck mentioned for quite a long time; about 20 years as scary as that might sound in the search engine optimization content strategy game. I have generated like 50 million leads and not as an exaggeration for B2B technology primarily companies in the early part of my career. I worked as an early employee at a company called Knowledge Storm which sold to Tech Target which is also a great B2B publisher and an intent data and ABM platform for enterprise and mid-market B2B companies. I worked for them through their in-house team and in-house capabilities while I was there really focused on driving engaged users through content and content strategy. When I left Tech Target having already spoken with my co-founder about ways that we could grow MarketMuse I came on as a bit of a late co-founder and we've since grown the company to almost 50 people; really, really an amazing story about growth, building a new category about content strategy, what should you write next, what should you update or optimize next that's going to have the biggest impact on your business and everything that goes along with that from how do I assess my own authority, how do I understand where my gaps are, how do I know where my strengths are. And that's been the mission of our business is really to tell the story of I could spend a dollar on content; creating, optimizing, blah, blah, blah, tomorrow what should it be? And that's what MarketMuse is for; to tell that story. Chuck: Alright so kind of you alluded to it but today we'll get you on a call to talk about SEO and maybe more so how content is applicable to SEO. So maybe starting at the base when somebody either acquires a new site or maybe is looking at a site trying to think of how do I grow this site like where's my opportunity, what kind of analysis do you think somebody should start off with? Jeff: Well I think that traditionally the way that people have assessed sites for their strengths sometimes is only by looking at their current and existing rankings or their historical rankings. So it's a bit of you know kind of a tail wagging the dog assessment of where you're at, where you have been, but that as a starting point does provide some value as to where you are. It just doesn't tell typically the entire story about what it means to be about something. So when I'm looking at assessing a site for the merits of its; the collection of its content or its inventory of content, when I'm looking at is to say yes certainly I want to see performance. I want to look at also things that I might get out of my analytics package engagement. I have to understand the goals of the company the key performance indicators of the business. Am I driving those things? Can I peddle out of them? But divorcing those concepts for this point in discussion about conversion rate optimization and such from a search engine optimization or authority perspective I want to see where I've written great content so how much content have I created on core topics that I care about. When I do cover those topics how in-depth do I get and how successful does that; what kind of success does that yield when I write about a concept I care about when I get deep when I write high-quality content on concepts that I care about. Those two things really tell the story of your existing momentum on a concept. And so that when I'm assessing a site that's one thing I want to want to figure out is where do I have momentum? What concepts can I write about and I expect to be successful. And that's Stage 1. Chuck: Before we move on from that one how do we gauge that success rate; what do we think is successful, what are the indicators that say hey I'm already doing well here or I'm not doing well here? Jeff: Absolutely and that's the hardest part. And to run an effective content marketing team and a content production team for any company you've got to start at what are the key performance indicators? If I'm an e-commerce site the key metrics that I have is my average order size, it's my conversion rate close to a closed cart, it's my cart abandons, it's my total revenue. If I'm an affiliate site it might be an RPM metric and I have to be agnostic of and when I have agnostic a reference of affiliate and then I want specific combinations of affiliates because sometimes you can actually fake your books accidentally if you've got great affiliates on one page and not great affiliates on another. So it's really about I think engagement with affiliate opportunities in addition to revenue. You get a look at both of those things. If you are a publisher it's going to be RPM but also it's engagement with those pages. Because again how your ad server validates is do you have paid ads? So if you have a bunch of house ads and those have a different rate you want to always account for that because you might have great content this shooting off impressions engaged users clicks and such. So I always like to look at my current value per visit and then by the way from a B2B tech or something PI attorney; all these places are where MarketMuse does business so I like to kind of list a full fledge. I'm looking at my conversion to lead. I'm also looking at as far down the funnel as I can track and attribute. Every deal no matter what every situation you're looking at you always want to get it back to current value per visit and aspirational value per visit from a channel. In this case, let's say organic. So if I'm in a scenario I want to always be able to back that up. That's the only way I can truly define quantified value. And for MarketMuse obviously, that's the only way we can truly walk in the door and be confident in that ROI analysis. And that's why we've had to do this hundreds of times. When we talk to somebody it's to say how much do you really value each one of these visits? And if you can't answer that question it's okay, let's back into it, let's figure it out. How much is that truly about? Because then if you grow your traffic 20% you can say okay well that's worth this much to me. How much am I willing to invest in that? And that's how I define. So that's a long way of answering a short question that was actually really duped question. But the answer then is my quantified value metric. How much did I publish? How much did I update? How much do those act motions cost or those actions cost? And what was the efficiency rate on the content achieving some sort of baseline goal? I like to use recurring traffic from organic search as my goal. So I might get a boost from other channels and then it dies off. So I want recurring traffic at or above a particular baseline. So if I wrote 100 articles and 10 of them achieved my baseline of ongoing recurring traffic when I have 10 percent efficiency rate in that zone. If I updated 100 articles and 40 of them grew in traffic at or above a particular level. Then I've got a 40% efficiency rate on optimization. So when I talk about effectiveness of content I want to see how much should I publish, how much should I update and how often did that achieve my goals? I see ranges by the way just it scares the crap out of me sometimes, 1 to 2% of efficiency. Like I write 100 articles and only 2 get rankings. Quite often 40 and 45% at best practice that it's so wide. So you need to take stock today whomever you are and say how often did I write, how often did that yield recurring traffic; that's my efficiency rate. Am I in that 10 percent zone? I got some work to do. Am I above 20, 30, 40? I'm kicking butt. Now how do I take advantage of that? What do I do? No matter where you are there's always steps you can take to really maximize your earn. But it's a great question because so many people talk about ROI and they can't explain how they calculated. Chuck: Right. And it sounds like what you're saying is maybe like diving into your analytics but not looking at like how much traffic this page is doing but what is the segmented traffic; how much is coming from Google or Bing or whatever you're targeting. Maybe you're targeting link acquisition with an article then you got to figure out what's the value of a link that's coming in, how many did I get on this piece of content, and then maybe kind of summing up the value of all the different components. Like knowing what your KPIs are for the specific content. Jeff: Absolutely. And so the ways that I do that so it's manageable; there are ways where you can do that so it's manageable because [inaudible 00:16:38.2] I have thousands of pages or I published hundreds of pages how could I possibly do that? It's do it for the site level. Do it by site section; it's the way Google thinks about your site anyway. Do it by site section and then take your marquee pages and do a more thorough analysis of them. And marquee could mean your best pages that you feel are the best but they punch below their weight class, stuff that does really well, stuff that you invested a lot of money in. So build your plat; this is the stuff I'm going to do with deep dive but I'm also going to get my section level and sight levels metrics. An example might be that when Chuck writes an article he's on a 20% conversion rate to my effectiveness metric. But when Ron I don't know who Ron is but well just say Ron, when Ron writes an article he's 5%. So you're to get; you could do person level, you could do section level. You really want to get that slice and dice to know what's the thing that is causing success to happen or is it luck. A lot of sites a lot of B2B companies they rely on all of their authority for 5, 10 pages and they've got hundreds. Not only is it completely scary and unhealthy from a competitive space situation but if you're a Quiet Light listener it's an opportunity. I mean it's an opportunity to see a site that has a risk of ruin. It's an opportunity to see a site that has huge opportunity if they just publish the right content. So all of those things are what we're typically looking at. It's when I publish about Chevrolets it does real well when I publish about smart cars it doesn't. So when I get that site I'm shooting off about Ford and about gosh as my adjacent so I'm talking about; so it's really getting into when I get in how can I write about tangential or semantically related concepts, really expand my inventory in ways I know we'll have more success, and if I do want to cover other things. I think a reasonable expectation about investment need because I can't just go right kitty cats and crush it. But I know that if I cover what hubcaps should be on the PT Cruiser I can. And so those are the types of conceptual analysis, editorial content strategies I have been doing with years. Now you have data to support it. And that's where I think that the next phase of great Search Engine Optimization outcomes comes from this type of content strategy analysis for sure. Chuck: And one of the things I was reading the other day was just and I think everybody already knows this but they were talking about news websites and why don't news websites rank for everything. Like a news website gets all the links because everybody's linking to articles but yet they don't have the ability to rank for all topics, right? Certain news agencies actually get a lot more traffic for specific topics because that is maybe their topical relevance of their business. Jeff: Yeah. Oh, I mean news is so unique. The news algorithm has so many components and so from a Google news perspective and Google top stories there's components of real-time boosting. There's the concept of the fact that news articles appear in organic search. And they're coming from different channels of information. So they cross the chasm from just being news to being appropriate in search results. So then there's the dynamic of some of those items stay forever. Some of them are temporal and they're going to bounce out when that thing becomes less of a temporal story. We actually have a solution for that. MarketMuse allows you to analyze both serps and overlay analysis and it's called newsroom but that's neither here nor there. But the point of the message is what if you write news articles about this topic you care about but there's four to five aggressive publishers also publishing in that that have authority for news and you're just picking up the scraps. You can see that with solutions that are out there now. You're going to just see what those things are and then tracking that back to assessing performance. If I'm looking at my content items and I write 80 articles about some topic I get no news referrals and I get trickles in of organic and I'm writing it for the purposes of news, is that great? Let's say they get other KPIs, let's say they do gather links and they become powerful. But I'm not winning news, I'm not getting the organic search value that I think I should, how do I use that? How do I use the power that those pages are acquiring to my benefit? And most of the time when I see problematic content strategy; document the content strategy at a company they're not looking at their existing power pages. What content are they publishing that is gaining some value and how do we use that? Because I've got something that's a link magnet that every SEO in the world will go we need to do something with that but they don't necessarily know what that is. And a lot of times you see these link magnets and they're out there. They got a little bit of traffic upfront. They're not valuable enough to get recurrent traffic or it's not; it was a temporal staged story so they don't know what to do. And so weaving that article; weaving that item into some real good content strategy, that's the win. That's building my thought leadership, building my clusters of content, and hey this powerful battery. Plug the battery in here, plug the battery in here, and weave it in with internal link, weave it in with appropriate content, upgrade opportunities for conversions, there's so many things you can do to repurpose but when you get a winner use the winner. And we see that older people are scared to touch them because they're like it might break up. So these are the main dynamics that we run into with kind of the Assessment Authority and news as a special case. But it's so misunderstood what to do when you get a news winner. Because if you can predict that every time you publish a news story on Linux you're in the top three of Google top stories. Like, open that wallet every darn day. And I have clients that are in that scenario and we're like you must write about this every day and they cringe at first and I'm like here's the value that this produces; it's not just traffic. It's all the good stuff that comes as a result of that. It's also a long answer to a short question but I think that's usually a theme with me. Chuck: Alright, so number two you're about to say before I ask you a question? Jeff: Oh gosh I don't even remember what it was now. No, I'm just kidding. So it's kind of breadth and depth and then is the things that you see as being really high quality that you've written. These pillar pieces, the centers of the universe, the things that have acquired the KPI. How are those KPIs; they've acquired some metric that gives you that sense. So we've talked about how your existing momentum, well what are these cornerstone pieces, what are the center of the cluster pieces that exist and how are you using them today? Are you weaving them in? Are you using them to write then support pieces, etcetera? And how do you combine that with analysis of your target readership or user or buyer intent? So what's their purchase cycle; do you have coverage in the information phase, do you have coverage in the middle of funnel, do you have coverage late in the funnel, do you have post-purchase troubleshooting and adherence in ownership? So when you have a beacon of power really that's the time your mirror needs to be the most clear. I always say this. Like, stop tilting the mirror your way because you think you have success. The garbage in the game right now as I call it is people looking at search results and saying I need to write articles just like that search result item regardless of whether you want to argue differentiation it doesn't work. It only works if you have existing power to start to do things like that. What you have to do is just say with my site that I'm assessing, do I have coverage at all phases of the cycle that people would care about who are in this motion; I mean research, intent, decision, conversion, adherence, troubleshooting, whatever the metrics of the buy spying journey would be. And that comes to the why I say this way because the pragmatic approach is to say does this site truly represent my business as an authority and as an expert? What about this collection of pages or this content inventory tells a story that I actually am an expert? And so when you're looking at coverage, you're looking at momentum and what's been validated that I am an authority. But then it's also going to be like aspirationally if I truly were an expert what would I have covered? I can do that by doing competitive analysis or I can do that by doing semantic analysis and manual research. And so when you cross-reference; the punch line here is cross-reference the aspirational model against what you have and that's your gap analysis. So think about the outcomes there. I have gaps in this part of the bio journey. I have gaps, I have blind spots I don't ever cover these topics. I have blind spots here blah, blah, blah. I also have ranking gaps where I have striking distance keywords like I'm on page two that's that the SEO trick, right? Go tell them to update the pages where you're on page two and they'll go up a little and hey you did your job. So but if you weave that into this type of semantic analysis; this gap analysis, your content strategy becomes 2, 3, 10x more impactful overnight. And so compare that to keyword gap analysis, think about the outcomes. You get a word out of it. You get a word where you're ranking 12th and you think you should rank 5th. Well, now you know why. And then you know what you need to do. And that's the secret here. It's get yourself out of just keywords; get yourself into the content that's needed to plug the holes. Chuck: So we don't know what we don't know so how do we figure out what the gaps are? Are there tools you can recommend? How do we figure this out? Jeff: Yeah. Well I think that they're certainly on it and they're obviously not just the ones I present with MarketMuse but there are ways if you want to see. You want to be able to look at using your analytics, using any off the shelf Search Engine Optimization suite whether you are a higher-end person in a more enterprise or kind of using an [inaudible 00:27:29.2]. Looking at those pages; again all of your pages trying to organize them or you're looking at you don't want to buy those things, you've got analytics and you look at something that can crawl and analyze the structure of your site like a screening frog or a [inaudible 00:27:45.5] or a solution like that. Get a true understanding about your site and what it's about. What are the things where every time you publish it it's a winner or more of the time versus what's the stuff where you've been tilting at; aspirational goals. So looking at that or even looking at just traffic and revenue versions by section or by page type or by publish state because last year this was under this person's management this year this is under this person's management. Just a combination of this basic information from analytics and page-level data from a [inaudible 00:28:23.7] can get you at least started. And just to start thinking critically about your content inventory. A solution like the MarketMuse obviously is going to give you the sniper rifle to say go write this page, go fill this gap. But even if you if you're just looking to get kind of a basic understanding it can be easily put together to say gosh Chuck I don't know if we should publish any more articles about backgammon we're a chess site, it just hasn't extended. But when I write about you know particular defenses, we crush. Why don't we just lean into that? So you can make those types of decisions but then how do you get where we want to be a backgammon site. What are the ways that we can bridge the gap between chess and backgammon? How can we become more of an authority on strategic board games in general? So those are the types of questions that are out of this type of analysis, if you're real with yourself you stop publishing stuff that's not going to succeed. Try to figure out why it's not succeeding. That's where a person like a business like ours operates. But there's many out of an agency that knows the answer to these questions that can do that introspection that can do that analysis. But if you're analyzing your site I think it's truly to step back and say am I putting myself out there as an expert? Am I really showing it or was I chasing keywords? And it's always that oh man I haven't even thought about; I've just been looking up keywords, building lists, writing articles, keywords, lists, articles, keywords, lists, articles especially in the affiliate side not knocking always [inaudible 00:29:58.8] so much. It clearly comes out of a keyword list. And then I wrote the article some of them get linked together. Some of them don't. It's not leaving the web of somebody who actually knows their stuff. A great example of this; I've got uprise for every product in the world prices or reviews combination; bottom of funnel. That encompasses my contact strategy against this topic. It could have helped with that and then people wonder why they get hit when there's a quality change in the algorithm. It's because they're looking for that thing. They're looking for that stuff. You haven't told the story about buying that thing. Why are you the expert on pricing it? It doesn't make sense. And so that's the thing that; think about; get out of these search engine optimization shoes get into an editorial shoe. Hire an expert to say hey if you were writing an inventory of content about sound bafflers what would you cover; what are the things you need to know? And then cross-reference that against your stuff. Obviously, there's ways of doing both of those things taking technology like what we do. Chuck: So let's talk about that I know we don't want to like hardcore pitch your product but you have a great product that I think is a lot of value to a lot of people. So let's talk about like how your product can help and maybe even hit it as like these are the things that my product can do and some of the stuff people can do without the product so they could do it on their own but you're offering a service that makes it a lot easier. So let's talk about that. Jeff: So if I'm going to assess the value of a site; for example, if I want to see where there's areas of opportunity to create content or update content and be more successful. If I can get that hit list immediately and go execute on those plans; really move the needle quickly, that's a direct value of what one of the components of MarketMuse Suite. So MarketMuse Suite is a collection of; a combination of an automated content inventory and content auditing solution. We'll also take it to the next level and say after you build; after you say I want to create this page or update this page we'll build a comprehensive content brief for your writer. So it acts as a blueprint or an outline or a brief if you're familiar with what a brief looks like. And it tells a story so that the writer can be creative. So that the writer can research imagery; so the writer can research their sources and doesn't have to worry about is this thing going to have success after I hit publish. So many writers the anxiety they have; this is a huge pain point in the writing space is am I doing my keyword research correctly. Ask them. I mean that's the part I don't know. That's the part I really don't care about. I'm speaking from their standpoint. So take that mystery out of it. Take the SEO mystery out of it. Here's the outline we need you to follow. Be super creative. So we answer that question with that side of MarketMuse. We also have some point applications for doing competitive analysis so I can look at any search engine result page and understand who's got great content; high quality, who's got weak content, what are the gaps. And if I were going to put out true best in Class content on this specific intent, this specific topic what would it look like getting into the gritty details. Chuck: So what are some of those details? Jeff: Yeah. So what are the concepts that need to be included, what are the variants to consider, what are the questions to ask, what are the questions to answer, what are the internal linking; things you should do to internally link to other pages to tell the story that this isn't an orphan page on left field that actually weaves into your existing inventory and then grading your existing coverage and understanding how to interweave and to weave those things together. I have this great page; the one that you talked about, the news one, I want to make sure that it's linked. So all of those things we have point solutions so you can do a one-page analysis and get recommendations to improve it. You can get that one-page analysis and recommendations to make it equal to or better than your competitors every time and go head to head or against the whole field; questions and answers analysis, internal and external linking recommendations, and then we have for premium; one of our premium offerings is the newsroom solution specifically for Google News optimization. So basically the story is what should I write next, can you give me details as to how I would execute that so that you're getting me as close as you can to publishing? And then for all of my adjunct workflows; this specific analysis, this one-page analysis, we have applications to solve those specific goals to say okay why is Quiet Light Brokerage beating me for this topic? Is it because of quality; MarketMuse will tell you. Is it because of links and they have a worst page? Darn, they're more authoritative than me; what do I need to do? I need to go write a package of content. Tell me more of the story that I'm the expert because I don't have that off-page authority. So no matter where you sit it's giving you the advice as to what those next steps should be. And that's kind of the spirit of what we do. Chuck: So one of the examples I've heard you say before is like you're writing about a specific topic blue fuzzy widgets, everybody who writes about blue fuzzy widgets also includes pink monkeys and if you're not writing about pink monkeys then you clearly don't know about blue fuzzy widgets. You're not an expert. So maybe can you talk about that a little bit? Jeff: Sure. So our core technology is built on it. It's a topic modeling technology and it tells the story of what it means to be an expert on a concept. So it tells me by analyzing in some cases hundreds of thousands or millions of content items that people who know a lot about blue fuzzy widgets also know a lot about pink monkeys and so if you write about blue fuzzy widgets and you don't include pink monkeys you're not telling the story that you're an expert. So often in the market people have just looked at like the top 10 results to do this assessment. For so many reasons that I could get into there's a great article online called TFIDF is not the answer to your content and SEO problems and it goes into detail of each one of these logic challenges that exist. It's great for information retrieval. It's been around for 30 something years. Obviously, it's still being used. The challenge though is don't base your business content strategy and thousands of dollars of investment on that. And so what we were able to do is to say that but we're also then because we're analyzing so much data we're able to say that well guess what the top competitors aren't talking about orange donkeys and it's very relevant. That's a way for you to differentiate yourself. So you're covering the blue fuzzy widgets, your covering the pink monkeys but then you're going to differentiate yourself by also illustrating that you know all about those orange donkeys and that's what makes you special. And how does that drive back to true expertise? In this, we see constantly being successful with the best content strategies. They're writing about the table stakes content but they're also illustrating that they really know this stuff. And I always use more detailed examples but a cool one I always use for content marketing is a lot of people that write about content strategy don't talk about buyer personas. They don't talk about target audience. They don't talk about the roles on a content strategy team. Do you know why? Because they're chasing keywords. And if you can look at a search engine results page and go ooh, they're chasing keywords, there's my opportunity. Even if they're 9,000-word articles by HubSpot if you can find gaps in their game you can really take advantage of that and you can punch above your weight. And if you can pop a page that doesn't have as much traditional off-page authority link profile to build that beautiful cluster you can start ranking with undersized off-page pages and sections. And that's niche hunting. That's what the niche hunters talk about. That's what the UN fencers of the world; that's what they're really focusing on. How can I punch above my weight with undervalued off page sites? That's the way you get there; great content illustrates that you're an expert every time. Chuck: So we're thinking; traditional people when they're thinking about articles they're doing keyword research they're finding those low difficulty versus high search volume relative and then they're just going after that but what they're missing is just because people aren't searching for a specific word doesn't mean that it's not important. Jeff: You shouldn't have it in there. Chuck: Right. Jeff: Oh yeah. Chuck: Or specific words within content that you need to have to show you're in authority even though people; the average Joe may not be searching for that. Jeff: Exactly right. And that is the funniest thing about to watch the evolution in this market. When we first launched four years ago everyone when they would see a list of topics; this is the most interesting thing I'll say today, four years ago they used to look at that list and go why isn't it sorted by search point? And I said because that's irrelevant to what we're trying to do here. We're trying to tell you what it means to write that golden article to be an expert. Why does it matter what search volume is because you're so ingrained to use volume and PPC competition which that's another story for another day; crazy. Why don't do it? By the way, I'm not correlative to organic competition. I can get into that in a second but they're so ingrained; heavily so ingrained to use search volume as their North Star. They want everything to have search volume next to it so they can sort by it. So if we sort by that and then you discredit the stuff on the bottom, that's bananas. You're thinking about this from a content strategy perspective or from an expertise perspective. And that's what we see time and time again. Fun fact and I think you've heard me speak about this; it's totally exploitable. If you see competitors who clearly take topic lists and sorted by search volume you can; we usually call it chopping down a tree, you can chop down the tree. Every time it works because they have this strategy gap. You can predict what they're going to do. You can also chop down the tree in areas where they have blind spots. They will never fill them because they're using search point as a North Star. And so another way to say it is stop using that four square; that volume competition, you've all seen it. Alright, let's try to find those low competition high volume words. Sure those are great. Lean into those but that's not the whole picture of how you should write your content. Because the last thing I'll say about this is if you have no content at one stage of the purchase cycle and you think that you're not at risk with having content at another stage you've got another thing coming. It's going to catch up to you. Someone is going to fill that. Somebody is going to fill those intent gaps and crush you. It's just common. And we see it with publishers that have been resting on the laurels of their powerful content. They're just getting their tail handed to them by real content strategies every day. Chuck: So what are some quick wins you think people can have? Like okay, I have a let's say a site about; I don't know, let's just say a general content site, you pick the topic. What are some real quick wins I can get? Jeff: I like to call them one-page plans. So I'm going to find a page of interest. So something that's special about my site and maybe it's a small collection of pages. This is my page that's for some reason it's special. It's really long form, it's beautiful, it converts very well. Chuck: Are we defining special meaning like it's already getting traffic or I just think it's pretty? Jeff: I like it and it gets me some KPI that I think is legitimate and is giving me value. So it could be traffic already. It could be rankings that I am already getting; it ranks for lots of words. So that's a signal of comprehensiveness. A quick win could be to look at what that page is ranking for and pick out the words; this is using SEM Rush; using that to pick out the words in that list that the page doesn't actually satisfy the user intent for rewrite those pages; quickest win ever. So that one-page plan I rank this; I'll use a great example. Content Marketing Institute; I love that site, they have a wonderful page on LinkedIn profiles. It dominates LinkedIn profile marketing. They also rank for marketing profiles, not very good. And the site; the page just covers LinkedIn profiles. It doesn't cover generally marketing profiles. So they could beam their other zoom higher and now cover marketing profiles in general and write about other marketing profile presences as a cluster. All boats are going to rise. So you do that exercise, a quick win every time. You can find it. We call them content mismatches or unaddressed intent plants; always a win. You can always find one on your site because you've probably got pages that rank for hundreds of things. No one page can answer a hundred things beautifully. So when you go write that page people are like won't that cannibalize? No. I mean [inaudible 00:43:23.2]. Do I have to explain myself no? Chuck: So the key there is again you've got that one page; it's linking for a lot of words, you've got tons of words, you'll pick out the few that it's not ranking well for and then you'll link through that keyword to a new article that is specifically about that content? Jeff: Or expand it if it's a fit. If it's not a fit writing new but the key is it's not just that it's not ranking. I mean if it's not ranking for that's important but it could be ranking reasonably but not satisfying like user searches for that on Google and then they land on that page and like this sucks this isn't what I wanted. So if that intent mismatched so can you correct that and improve the page or do you need to do that in a new creation motion? So that is a tried and true technique. That's a recycle, recycle, recycle. Inside MarketMuse you just press a button and it tells you those plans which make life a lot easier obviously but you can do it. It's just that manual labor to use that one technique. And if you ask me for a quick one it's always a quick one. Look for that hundred word or more ranking page, find the word that this; read the page. You'd be surprised how many content strategists and CEOs don't actually read their sites; it's amazing. Read the page, know what value it has, and does this page get people to achieve that value. It can also be done on the back end. Andy Crestodina who works at Orbit Media; he is an expert in Google Analytics and content strategy. He wrote a book called Content Chemistry. Inside his analytics book; parts of the book, it shows you how to do this in Google Analytics by looking at exit rate and engagement gaps. So you can do it there or you can do it from keywords or any other ways but those are some quick ones. Look at your worst exit rates. So many people don't break those down by; they don't cross-reference those two things. So they've got a page, this thing is broken it's 90% in exit rate. Go back to the words that are driving the users to that page. What if all of them are out of alignment? You can just flash the content double engagement overnight. So there's so many wins that you can do with just a quick one-page plan analysis. I like to say pick one you like, get started, put few wins on the board, prove it out, and then decide is this something I want to get serious with and invest in technology that can support it. Chuck: I got you. Now when I started first looking at your product a couple of years ago and seeing kind of the wonderful amazing things you were doing, it was at a price point where I actually kind of like when high price points because it keeps; on really good things it keeps other people from being able to do it. But I guess you just launched a new price point for a self-service. Jeff: Yes. It's actually something we've been looking forward to doing. And we are a mid-market enterprise large publisher; people who have really invested in content that's traditionally been our target market. Chuck: Could you give an example of some big players that you work with? Jeff: Yeah sure. I'm trying to think of who's on this site. G2 Crowd is a customer and they're on there; we work with divisions of the Walmart Corporation, Home Depot, large e-commerce but also just great publishers. Business.com; love them so there's a lot of people who are publishing content. A lot of people I can't name and I wish I could. But if you type in MarketMuse case studies you can find a cool example from Tomorrow's Sleep on that one and how their site grew from 4,000 to 400,000 in a year with their agency that works with us. So that was always a big focus of ours. It was make sure that they can write content. Make sure that they can update content, that they've committed; they actually believe content can get them there because then life's going to be a lot easier for everybody. But we then also said let's look at the mirror. I'm always about looking in the mirror and look at the demand that we have. And so we really looked at who's coming in the front door saying we want to be MarketMuse customers. And right now having made that case internally or I just I'm not a profile of a customer that can spend tens or in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars on software. And so what we did was we right-sized for a specific target market, we right-sized a self-serve offering. And there is also a trial experience that everyone who's listening can go to the site. Go to MarketMuse trial. Go to MarketMuse, see the trial and you'll get an experience with your data; we've actually set this up so you can use your site, optimize a page, create a content brief, update some existing content like I mentioned, get that content brief and then there's also a special workflow baked in there that'll amaze you that I'm not allowed to explain but you'll see it when you get there. But you can do a competitive analysis, you can update a page, you get a content brief; by the way, take that with you it's free and make that decision of whether you want to become a MarketMuse Pro customer which is our self-serve offering at 499 a month. Quiet Light Brokerage Podcast listeners have a promo which Chuck will include in his notes which gets you a discount there. Or if you're a larger team, if you have four writers, if you write 10, 15 articles a month it's going to make more sense for you to be in one of our other packages; a bronze, a silver, or a gold, or a higher offering. So it gives you an understanding about the value that we provide, the opportunity to buy, to see if that's a fit, or to immediately recognize oh gosh this is what I need for all of my content items. I need one of the larger offerings. So the experience we typically is that people find the right car on the lot. Or they begin using and saying oh wow I need more of this. I was successful with the first thing I did. I know this makes sense. Making your content higher quality, that's the fun part about being in Market Muse; it's you never look at it and you're like oh man I wish I hadn't made that page better. You're always on this ongoing quest to do a better job, write better content that resonates more with your audience. And that's what we do every day. Chuck: Awesome. So to wrap this up I always like to ask people could you give us a few random tools not really related to what we're talking about but just things you like to use in your daily work or just regular life. What are some of the hacks you may have? Jeff: Man, there's so many. I love this. So a couple that I use, when I had some personal time management issues I tried everything. I tried boards with; con bomb boards and everything. And one thing that helped me analyze where I was spending my time was called Tomecular and it looks like an eight-sided dice and you put stuff on it. And as you're working on stuff you move the dice around and it seems so; maybe it's because I like touching things like that but it really gave me an understanding about where I was spending my time and I fixed some stuff within MarketMuse like the business organizationally just from that information. So that's cool. I love Boomerang. I think it's a beautiful solution for making sure you don't forget stuff if you get a lot of e-mails. It's a really good productivity tool. Chuck: Before you move on from Boomerang I think Google now have something similar built-in where they have the… Jeff: They have don't let me forget this. Chuck: Yeah. It's like a little reminder you can set for different dates and it comes back in. Jeff: Yeah. Boomerang has some features that I'm so used to being able to set and forget things pause so I don't know if Google's ever going to pause Google so that's something that, but I like Boomerang. It's not that expensive. You do need to watch your SaaS subscriptions though. That's another story. Another one I love, love, love, love is Full Story. Full Story isn't; they keep going a little bit a little more expensive each time you look at them. Good for them. It's like having a DVR on every user that ever comes to your site. You can watch the experiences; obviously anonymized but you can watch their experiences, build pattern matching, look at segments, and really get an understanding about why people are doing things. I mean I think that that's really valuable. Chuck: It's kind of like what is it Crazy Egg? Jeff: It's similar to a Crazy Egg but it's more of like a heat map reporting. They've got this capability and a handful of other solutions that are out. I just think Full Story has this like really robust like I can go in and I can find users that went through this specific sequence and just watch all the sessions. I mean so many times. Just learn from that to really tell a story and it really is powerful when you are already doing a new multivariate testing to really catapult that into the next level. I mean if I told you what conversion rates we have you'd blow up. But yeah I mean you really have to think critically and fly the flag of your customers so that when you do get these solutions they don't just sit on the shelf. I mean my goal every day is to make sure that the next article that every one of my clients publish is more successful than it could have been without us. And I think that comes through in our online messaging. It's not just that we're this secret weapon of the elite agencies which I know for a while that's what we were. It's that if you use MarketMuse your stuff will do better more consistently and then I will be happy. And if it does not happen then I and our entire team will not be happy. And we hope that our messaging comes through and we couldn't do it without these other solutions that we work with Full Story, like Pendo; Pendo is a beautiful thing, and some other metrics, some other things we use to really dive deep into our customer experience. Chuck: Awesome well I appreciate you taking the time to talk with everybody today. Is there a way that people can reach out to you or the company? Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. So MarketMuse.com, Chuck's going to post a promo code that's for the MarketMuse Pro self-serve offering as a discount. You can email me directly Jeff@MarketMuse.com, Jeffrey_Coyle on Twitter. I'm pretty active. LinkedIn, please. I typically don't say no unless you've sent me a weirdo request that tells me in an unreal way that you like my profile and you'd love to connect. If it's clear that you bought or sold a website before in your life I'm probably going to connect with you and want to talk in any light. So yeah please reach out and go check it out. We have a lot of content. I have a lot of; this conversation is like this throughout the web that I think can really level up your game and give you the ability to assess deals quickly without just hunches. You got to go with your hunches but it's nice to have hunches and data. Chuck: Yeah for sure. And a quick pro tip from me, if you're trying to get somebody to accept your LinkedIn profile and they don't know who you are, write a message. Don't just send the like later. Personally, I feel like if I've LinkedIn with somebody and I'm connected then I'm somewhat vouching for them so I don't just accept random LinkedIns. Like, everybody, I've accepted for the most part are people I've actually met in person. But then we go to these conferences and somebody sent me a request and I don't remember them so it's like just send a little message with them, take the two seconds to write. Jeff: Yeah, and make it from the heart. We can smell of that. Come on. I think MarketMuse is cool. Oh really do you? I do too. So I guess we are connected I love the thing but you know. Chuck: There you go. All right well I appreciate your time and thank you, everybody, for taking the time to listen and see you soon.   Links and Resources: MarketMuse MarketMuse coupon code (mentioned in the podcast): QLBMM Email Jeff Twitter LinkedIn

Un auditeur, Claude, appelle Jeff pour lui dire pourquoi il est pro-tramway!

Un auditeur, Claude, appelle Jeff pour lui dire pourquoi il est pro-tramway!

James: So few things; we want to go through some of the markets and some of the value-add stuff and I think you do a lot of student housing things. Also, we can go through that as well. Yeah, that should be what it is. And okay, let me just get started. So 1 2 3...  Hey audience, welcome to Achieve Wealth Podcast where we focus a lot on value-add real estate investing. Today, we have Jeff Greenberg who has more than 40 years experience in management, staff supervision, development, and training. Jeff has been investing since 2007 and has more than 40 million multi-property projects consisting of around 2,000 units. So deals that he controls consist of student housing and some of the multifamily units across, Georgia, Arizona, Texas, and Ohio. And Jeff focuses a lot on value-add student housing, which is very interesting. Until now, we have a lot of podcast interview on conventional multifamily in workforce housing, but now, we're going to talk a lot more about student housing. Jeff has also done market rate and also senior living multifamily properties. Hey, Jeff, welcome to the show.  Jeff: Well, how you doing today?  James: I'm good. So thanks for coming in. I want to go with more details on how did you get started because you rent a thousand units across different states. So can you describe to our listeners and audience on how did you get started?  Jeff: Well, probably similar to a lot of other people, I started out with single-family, but actually never did any single family deals. That was in 2007 when the prices were going down so fast that it was hard to do much in the single-family area as far as REO properties, the bank's weren't releasing them. So I did bump into a guru and so I did go to seminars and did get some mentoring around in 2007-2008. And then started with my first property that I ever bought, other than my own personal residence, was a 20-unit property and it was a syndicated deal.  So we brought in investors into that first deal and that was essentially my entry into it. skipped right past all the single-family stuff. James: And what year was it, Jeff? Jeff: That was the first property we bought, actually it was in 2010. James: Okay. So 2010 you started with 20 units and the guru and the cost that you had taken was that more multifamily or was it more a single-family size? Jeff: It was all multi-family stuff.  James: Okay, got it. So you got into that and then you started buying 20 units and which market was that?  Jeff: Well, that Market was in Harlingen, which is in South Texas. Okay. It's near Brownsville and McAllen, for those people that know that area.  James: Okay. Okay. So 2010 was supposedly supposed to be a perfect time to start investing in real estate after the 2008 crash. So can you describe what happened in your first deal? I mean at high level and what happened and how did you come up, in terms of the results for the first day of... Jeff: Yeah. The first deal, that property was only three years old. It was built in 2007. It was a hundred percent occupied and it was in a very slow growth market. So we had big plans for raising rents and they were already paying electric so we were planning on billing back water. And the problem was it was very difficult to raise the rents. We were getting a lot of resistance and doing the bill back of the water, we met with a lot of resistance. So we had nowhere else to go. It was already a hundred percent occupied because it was a new property. And so that was a plan which didn't work very well because we couldn't get those rents up. It took them a long time to get the rents up. So the lesson learned from there was that you needed to do more research on to the potential for the value-adds. And in that property, we held it for six years; we were supposed to sell in five. We held it to 6 because we drew a line in the sand as far as what price we would take and it took us an extra year before we are able to get that price in order to get the investors a fair return. But it took us an extra year. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been much much of a profit on that property. So it was a seminar.   James: I mean, that's awesome that you're sharing your first lessons learned, right? Because sometimes you know, we forget that there are things that we missed out or there are things that you know, we don't really see it when you go and buy a multi-family. Sometimes you buy in a hot market and it went up 200-300%. People think that they did the work but that's not going to be the case all the time. Jeff:  Well, that's basically what happened on the next property though. So the next property was a property we bought in Houston where it was a foreclosed property that we were buying it. The owner we were buying it from actually bought it as a foreclosure so he had had it for about two years. It is 62 units so he bought it for 600,000 and we bought it for 1.3 after he had it for two years and so we got it for about under 21,000 a unit.  And at the time, in Houston, the values were going from 25,000 to maybe 35,000 a unit so we still bought it under market value and then in three years, we sold it for 2.7 million. And the reason we got that value part of it, it was 85 percent occupied when we got it. We got it up to 95 percent occupied. The revenue was about 36,000, we got it up to about 42,000. But also at that time, the cap rates compressed so we bought it at a 9 cap and sold it at a 7 cap. So we got the advantage of the market, the market appreciation as well as what we did for it so that was a perfect storm for us. So it completely made up for our first one, in that the investors got a 120% return on a three-year whole. So a 40% annualized return, which nobody complained about. James: Yeah, absolutely.  Jeff: But that's unusual and that was totally different from the other property where the investors got a lot better than they would have in the bank, but they didn't get a fantastic return. So different properties, different deals.  James: So I mean that too is conventional multifamily, right?  Jeff: Yeah. James: And how many conventional multifamilies did you do before you start hitting into student housing?  Jeff: Well, the next one after that actually was a student house. I mean, I was invested in another person's deal that was about 700 units 20 million dollar deal that we were in. But the next deal I did after that, actually, we broke up our partnership. My partner back decided not to do real estate anymore and I continued on my own and that's when I got a small property in Ohio. I had a 19-year-old student that went and found this property for me in Oxford, Ohio, and that's when I got into student housing. So we were talking, we mentioned earlier as far as how it getting into student housing, I really didn't plan on it. It was my intern that found the property and said, "Hey, let's get this," and the numbers look good and we got into it. So that was our first student housing deal in Oxford.  James: Yeah. I mean, I'm going to go a bit deeper into that. But I mean you are now in California, you are based California, but you have been buying in McAllen, Texas and Houston and Ohio. So how did you decide on where to go or is it just whatever opportunity that comes to you?  Jeff: Well, I've been pretty opportunistic, basically, when an opportunity comes in. Right now, we're kind of reversing out a little bit and trying to do more focus on markets. But at that point in time, we were just looking at opportunities and when an opportunity came we did our research on the market and did it afterward, rather than doing it up ahead of time. We decided do we really want to be in this market and if we did then we went up to the property. But it was more properties came to us from different directions. The one in Georgia, I had a lady working with me that I had trained and she developed a relationship with a broker in Georgia and that was pretty much where we got the Georgia property from, which was our next student housing property.  James: So one thing I want to clarify. You said you had an intern and you have this lady that you have been training. So do you have interns working for you or do you have students that are looking for deals? Jeff: Yeah. The first one was an intern that I had trained and then after that, there was a group of people that came to me and asked me to train them and so I started training them and teaching them how to find properties. And in the last three years, we've done a couple of deals together, but they basically found the properties. Yeah, and you know that I've been training them as we've been going, showing them a lot of the different aspects of it; doing due diligence with them and taking them on the tours with a lot of those students. Since then things have changed a little bit but at that time, those were people that I have trained. James: So is it like part of your mentoring program or you just train for fun kind of thing? Jeff: It wasn't a formal mentoring program, but it was kind of a mentoring program.  James: Okay got it. Jeff: But it was just more informal that I had helped people and in turn, they would bring properties in and if I like them, would go after them. Say it saves me underwriting a hundred deals to find one, they would underwrite a hundred deals, bring me one and I'd only have to look at a few of them. So much of our deals that I had to look at, you know, when they would bring them supposedly all ready to go and I would decide yay or nay on them if I liked them. James: Okay, got it. So coming back to the student housing and you said one of your interns found it. And, I mean, can you describe how did he find that deal?  Jeff: Well, he was embarrassed to tell me, actually. He was embarrassed to tell me until after we had closed that he actually found in on LoopNet. And you know there are deals on LoopNet but usually, they're overpriced or maybe there's some other problem with them and it so happened that the seller was beaten up by two other buyers prior to my purchase. We got it for a much lower rate. So at the price that we got it at,  it was a great deal but at the original price, it wouldn't have been.  James: Got it. Got it. So let's describe the process. So this intern brought you the deal. So what are the few things that you look at the deal that you think you're going to take a second look at it? Jeff: Well, I mean several things. The one thing I had my interns do is I want to do as little work as possible myself. So I told them I want bullet points on why I want to be on that market, you know, what's the advantages of this market? With student housing, the emphasis is more on the school, but all the different reasons that this is a great market to be in and also as well as the numbers for the property itself.  And basically, they have to come in and give me a sales pitch and convince me with a presentation that this is a deal I want to do. And on the regular market rate ones, you know the typical stuff with the employment and the population growth and the age of the population and all of that typical stuff that we look at. Over the student housing, it's the size of the college, the percentage of rooms available on campus versus off campus, basically, the health of the university. The location of the property, how close it is to the university, those kinds of things that we look for more so on the student housing. James: So, can you go a bit more, dig deeper into how far from the campus which you consider in campus versus other campuses? Jeff:  Well, as far as what we look for, typically, we want something within a mile of the campus. My Georgia one is a block away, my Ohio one is within what they call a Mile Square. My Arizona property is a little bit farther out. It's two miles off campus and that one, it's a little bit more of a struggle but you're not going to get the prime rates and we understood that because when you're two miles out. So you want it close by the campus, you want it on the right side of the campus, rather than way away from the classrooms where people still have to walk a mile across the fields to get to campus. So you want to be on the the the closer side where the classes are but it will help you out also if you're near. the bar district or where all the hangouts are that sometimes will make up for being a little bit far from the campus.  If you're where all the hangout places, the cool places are that helps you out. The other thing in student housing is the bedroom bathroom parody. If you could get a one-on-one with a one-bedroom and one bathroom that's going to be a lot better than your four twos or your 3 ones or whatever. The more bathrooms you have, they like that. Also, it seems that student nowadays, they want to share with fewer people. So a 4-2 wouldn't be as popular as a 2-1, you know where you still got two people sharing a bathroom, but you only have two people that have to get along with each other. And if you could get a 1-1, you're even better off; that they're a lot happier with.  In fact, I was talking to someone the other day that I had some 4-2 that I actually split them in half and made two ones out of them. Just had to put a kitchenette in order that they have fewer people to share. James: Okay, interesting. So have you started focusing fully on student housing now or you're still doing conventional multifamily? Jeff:  We're doing both because I do like the fact that people mess up student housing and it gives us an opportunity, you know, everybody we know from the groups we're in, everybody's looking for value-add multifamily, but there are fewer people looking for value-add student housing. And so that just gives me a little bit of an advantage on that. But other than that, I mean that's the main reason I'm looking at student housing is that there are fewer people looking at it and if you know what to do with the student housing, there are certainly some great opportunities. I don't think I would recommend it as somebody's first opportunity, the first investment because there is a little more risk into it, but it's a good asset class.  James: So let's discuss some of the risks that's involved with student housing. So can you outline a few risks that a newbie should watch out for student housing?  Jeff: Yeah. Well, part of the risk is missing the lease up window, wherein multifamily if you don't get it leased it up this month, maybe I'll lease it up next month. But on student housing, if you get it leased up by a certain time and each campus is usually different, if you don't get it leased up in time, during that time, you may be stuck with empty units for the whole year. So you've got to get it leased up during that time.  The other thing is, you're going to have higher turnover and it depends on the property as well. My Georgia property, we're hardly getting any turnover because there are not a lot of other options in the market. My Ohio property there's plenty of other options so they may go from one property to another each year. Same with my Arizona property, they may switch around. So it's going to depend on what's available at their price range if there's going to be turnover.  My first year on the Ohio property, I think was like 85 percent turnover, which most people will freak out thinking, you know, okay, 85% and it's all at once. It's everybody's gone at the same time. And so, you've got to turn all these units and have them ready for the new tenants coming in. So we always budget for a higher expense as far as because of the turnovers because turnovers, as we know, is one of our bigger expenses so we'll budget for that.  A lot of people think that student housing, you have a lot more in the way of damage and we really haven't seen that, we haven't seen a lot of damage. And the thing is we charge back everything that's caused by the students that not that normal wear and tear. I mean, we get things; wine stains in the carpeting or iron marks where they put an iron down on the carpeting and melted the carpet, shot glasses or beer caps in the garbage disposal. We do get lockouts, you know, where were you're having to fix the door because somebody kicked it in, in order to get in or you get domestic disputes where some boyfriend goes and punches a wall because he's pissed off or something. I mean, we do get some of those but the deposits cover most of that stuff.  James: Got it. I'm sure the parents will pay too, I guess. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, if it gets beyond the deposit we have then the parents will usually jump in. James:  And how much is the turnover cost that you usually budget for student housing like in conventional usually like for me I usually budget like $100 per unit, per year? Jeff: As far as for turnover? James: Yeah. Not repair and maintenance,  just turn over.  Jeff: Well, if we look at the overall repair and maintenance budget usually we're about five or six hundred, overall. And my student housing ones, my Ohio, I believe we're at 1,800 per units. James: Repair and maintenance? Jeff: Yeah. James: Well, that's a lot.  Jeff: I have to lower that down. I don't even think we're using that but that's what I originally put it about. James: Okay. Got it. Yeah. Because usually total repair and maintenance plus turnover is like 500 to maximum $600 on conventional.  Jeff: Yeah, I mean, mainly because of your turnover costs. On that property, we've been painting every wall every time we turn over. I'm not sure if we need that but we've been doing that. It's been a little bit higher. I mean, it's been higher on that one. The other one in Georgia, our turnover costs aren't nearly as much.  James: And what do you expect other than, do you do anything special to reduce your turnover cost? Jeff:  Well, we try to encourage re-leasing and we do give lower rates for those people that are releasing as well as if they release early, we do give them discounts on that. And in the thing is, on my Georgia property, if they release, we may keep their rents at the same rate or maybe just raise it slightly in order to keep them in because that saves us a lot of money. That saves us a lot of money on the turnovers.  James: Okay, correct. What about the interior? Like carpets vs. vinyl vs metal.  Jeff: Typically, I mean, we don't have to make it too fancy. But we do put, I believe in the Ohio one, we've got the role on vinyl flooring. In the bedrooms, we do have carpeting. It's just Formica countertops. We don't need to do anything fancy and that's going to depend as well on the demographics of your clients. My Ohio property is upper middle class. It's Miami University and it's probably an upper-middle-class clientele. My Georgia property is a very low economic clientele, they would be thrilled with anything we put in there. So we just kind of resurface the Formica countertops. We did some chemical wash on the showers and the tubs and repainted everything. We do have nice laminate floors in there, except for the bedrooms. The bedrooms are the only rooms with carpeting. We just painted the cabinets. From the state that they were in, what we did just totally brightened up the property. I mean, just totally changed it. They were a mess and this isn't an old property. That's a 1999 property but there was some old indoor-outdoor carpeting in the hallways that just look just totally disgusting. That we put all vinyl laminate in the hallway and it looks great now. James: Awesome. And what about during the summer? I mean a lot of them don't stay in the unit, right? So they still pay for the summer or does it get re-rent or is it vacant or what's happening? Jeff: Again, that depends on each of our markets. And the Georgia one, I believe we are 70% for this summer, which is high. I think last year we were about 60 percent during the summer. So those that are going to summer school can stay there. But in August, we'll be back up at 98 to 100% on that property.  That was a property we bought at 30% occupied and now we're over 100, we're at 100 like it's not over. We're at 100% occupancy on that one. James: And what about students which is more like, you know, four-year degree versus postgraduate degree, have you tried experimenting with that? Jeff:  You know, my Ohio property, we have some studio apartments and a lot of those are rented to graduates as well as young Professor. So yeah, those are great tenants if you can get them. The graduates, they're a little more mature and you never hear anything from them so those are great on some of the properties. We do have graduates in some properties, but most of them are second-year students. Typically the schools require that the students stay on campus the first year so as freshmen, so we usually get them as sophomores. James: Got it. So coming back to the demand side of it for student housing. I'm just trying to understand but I lost my train of thought here. I mean, for example, let's say the price, in terms of rent, I mean the rent is much higher compared to the normal workforce housing. Do you think that's a benefit as well?  Jeff: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And the rent is higher than we get more benefit from the additional rent than it costs us on any additional maintenance expenses. So there is a higher cost benefit that we do get from the student housing. So that's one of the things we like. The other thing that we do like also about the student housing is it is fairly recession-resilient and you know, we all know that we're at a high point in our market right now, we don't quite know what's going on, as far as where we're going to be in the economy. And student housing, historically, has done very well during down markets and that's something also that I look at when I look at properties. How well did it do during the last recession and to see how far down it dipped. And typically you find that student housing and as well as self-storage typically do well in those markets. And so that's another reason why we like looking at those deals.  James: Well, yeah, I mean the rationale is people go to school when the economy is downturn right? Jeff: That's part of it. And the other thing is parents are going to try to get their kids into college as soon as they get out of high school because if they lose them to the workforce for a year or two, it's going to be really tough getting them back in. So if a parent is going to be paying for their kid, they are going to find a way to do it. Otherwise, they may not get them in the college later on.  James: Got it. So, in terms of value-add and I'm sure you are trying to make your community, in terms of student housing much better than other communities. So is there one of the value-adds that you do in your community that you think, you know, you will be able to command much higher rent and much higher occupancy? Jeff: Well, the one we haven't really done is the bed to bath parity. And as I mentioned the person that broke a 4 2 into a 2 1 that was a value-add because as I said, the students prefer not to share. If you could add another bathroom, so you've got 2-2 even if it's a small little bathroom, you know, or just a makeup area with a sink that's of great value because the students now don't like to share the bathrooms.  In Ohio, I've got some 4-4s, as well as some 4-2s but they love having their own private bathroom. In Arizona is all 5-2s - five bedrooms, two baths. That's not as desirable. If I could put in some other baths, I would probably you know, make people happy but that's well expensive. That's not a real cost-effective way of doing it. But also in the Georgia property, we put Wi-Fi throughout the property. So essentially, anywhere they get on the campus or on the property they've got the Wi-Fi. So that was definitely a value-add that we put into it. James:  What about other things like study rooms or the Library, the community? Jeff: We just redid our office and we did put in a workspace. James: A workspace, a business center.  Jeff: Yeah a business center. Exactly. We did put in a business center where they could come in and print if they need to print documents because a lot of people, a lot of the kids have their tablets or their laptops or their phones or whatever, but they may not even have printers these days. And I guess a lot of the stuff they submit right online in a PDF to their teacher whatever but we did create the business center so they could come in and print stuff out if they need to. And also have a scanner where they can scan their documents.  The other thing that we were looking at but we may leave for the next owner because we are selling this property, is a picnic area. We haven't built that yet; put a picnic area with some barbecues and that kind of stuff but that's the last phase of what we've been trying to do on this property. The main thing on this property is, the students have loved it, just fixing it up so it's much more livable. It was pretty disgusting when we got there. I mean it was a nasty place and that's why it was 30% occupied. And now, we've got the premium property in the market.  James: Yeah. I mean, there you go. I mean, value-add in terms of managing it. So people love that. Jeff: And then the other thing that we did on this particular property is we got a relationship with the school. We went on campus and talk to all the coaches and told them we wanted them to send their athletes over to the property. And at first, well, the track coach went and looked at us like we were from Mars and said, "Why would I want to send my kids over there?" And then we invited him to come over and look at the property to see what we have done. And now we've got a bunch of athletes over there now after they've seen the improvements we've done.  We also have participated as a sponsor with the athletic department where we give them a donation every year and we've been able to get an advertisement spot on their Jumbotron during all home basketball and football games and so we've been putting our advertisement there. That's why we're essentially 100% with waiting lists on the property. You know, we got a relationship with them, we went and communicated with the police chief and the mayor. The mayor actually came out to our open house wearing one of our t-shirts, the mayor of the city. So we got really involved with the community and it's a small market but we did get involved with that and all of that essentially added value. As I said, we've got a waiting list now, we can raise rents. The main thing that we were emphasizing throughout this two-year hold, we've only had it for a little over two years, was getting the occupancy up. That was the big thing. I wanted the occupancy up, I didn't care about raising rents. Now, we've got the occupancy now, we're going to start raising rents. Or what we're doing is we're actually selling it. So we're leaving it for the next person. The next guy could come in raise rents without having to do anything. They can come in and raise rents without having to do anything just because we've redone this entire property.  James: Awesome, awesome. Very, very, very, very interesting tips on how to get engage in student housing marketing. So what about financing, who gives the financing? Is it still agency loans or is it small Banks or how's that?  Jeff: Well, we'll start off with the Georgia, probably. The Georgia property we paid all cash. At 30% occupied we weren't going to be looking for a lender. Yeah, my Ohio property that was a challenge and it ended up that I went with a privately owned bank. It's not a small bank, it has 36 branches so I wouldn't call it really small but it's privately held and they loan in Kentucky and Ohio, I think. So if anybody's looking for either student housing or lending, they do those two states. They're actually a Kentucky-based lender. The Arizona one was just a regular bridge lender that funded that one and eventually, we'll go out of the bridge into an agency loan.  James: So you think you can get an agency loan on student housing?  Jeff: Yeah. We can get an agency loan. James: Because I know usually when I go to an agency, they usually ask, you know, how many percents are students, how many percents are corporate housing and all that so I'm not sure. Jeff: Yeah, I don't remember if it's Fannie or Freddie that will do student housing. But they do require a certain population. I think it's 15,000 student population, something like that. James: Got it. Oh, really? Okay, that's interesting.  Jeff: Yeah, but I don't remember which one it was but one of them will do agency. James: Yeah, that's awesome. So, let's go back to slightly more personal questions. So do you have any proud moment in your real estate career that you're going to remember for a long time, that you think 'I really, really did something that I'm really, really proud of', do you want to share that?  Jeff: Oh, I could go back to the Georgia property where I had a period that I actually was brought to tears. When we were doing that video that I was talking about that we gave to the school to put on there, our advertisement, I actually went down and did the interviewing of the students myself for that property because I have a background in video. And the stuff that our property management was taking was just horrendous.  I went down there and interviewed the students and I didn't tell them who I was, they didn't know I was one of the owners or the owner. And the last question I asked them was if you had an opportunity to talk to the owner or to let the ownership know, what would you tell them? And some of the answers that I got were just tearjerkers. I mean, I had one girl that said that she was so happy with her new room that she now can actually bring her mom and show her where she lived that she was actually proud of where she was living now. And some of the other students were just saying, how much safer they felt, you know, much nicer environment. We had gotten rid of all the riffraff. We had gotten rid of a lot of people that were not students, but they were just living there and just smoking dope and we had increased the security and we had the police coming by, you know, just to keep things safe. And so just talking to these kids, they're not kids, they are 19- 20-year-old, you know, young adults, but that was one of the most rewarding moments I had. Because here they were, this is a low economic area where most of these students have very disadvantaged upbringing and we were giving them a nice clean safe place to live that they can be proud of.  And they appreciate it much more so than some of the other properties where we may have upper-middle-class people in there that probably don't appreciate what you're doing as much as these guys do. So that was just an absolute, you know, great opportunity to be there with these guys.  James: Yeah. It's very interesting on how we as entrepreneurs and operators change people's lives and it's just so fulfilling when you do that. And for me, It means a lot. Making the money, I mean, this story, you will always remember it. Sometimes you forget about how much money you made in that deal but you will remember how you impacted people's life, which is amazing. Jeff: Yeah, I mean, that's what I think about. I mean certainly we're all going to make money on this deal, you know, a good amount once we sell this but that feeling, you know, I'll have all the time. I mean that was great, you know hearing these guys.  James: So any advice that you want to give for newbies who want to walk your path in multifamily and student housing in general; if they want to be as successful as you? Jeff:  The thing is, find somebody that has walked the walk. You know, it could be a mentor, it could be a formal mentor, it could be somebody that's doing it. If you find somebody in your area or someone you meet up that is successful in whatever it is they're doing, be it multifamily, student housing, you know, senior living whatever; you find somebody else that's successful and find a way of being some kind of service to them. How you can help them out and go to them with that, hey, I would like to help you out. Do something and learn from them. That's the best way to learn anything is to be working with somebody else that's doing it. You know that would be what I would do. I did some formal mentoring in the beginning and that helped me get started. I would have loved to have been working side by side with someone with more experience. As it was, my partner and I were both about at the same level when we started but being around someone that's been there and done that is a great way to start out in this business.  James: Awesome. Awesome. Hey Jeff, we almost there to the end. You want to let our audience know how to reach you?   Jeff: Well, you can email me jeff@synergeticig.com or you could go to my website, which is also www.synergeticig.com  You could also get a hold of me at Bigger Pockets and I'm around on the forms a little bit. James: Yeah, I remember when I was starting in real estate, I used to see you a lot on Bigger Pockets. So it's good. Jeff:  I haven't been on as much lately. I need to start renewing some of that but I was on a lot in the beginning. That got me a lot. I mean it got me on my first podcast so... James: Awesome. Awesome. Well, Jeff, thanks for adding value to our listeners and audience here. I'm sure we learned a lot. I learned a lot as well, in terms of student housing and the nuances of how to add value in student housing and how to operate and at least look at the deal. And so it was very good to have you here, and that's it. Thank you very much and talk to you soon.  Jeff: Thank you.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: So, Jeff, we're talking about your trip across the Amazon. So you met this guy, this Russian guy, who was going to go with you across the Amazon, and you were in Lima, Peru, so how does your journey start?Jeff: The beginning of the journey is we had to get a truck. We had to get in a truck and the roads are terrible. They're not really roads. They're dirt tracks, and because it was monsoon season, the roads were really bad - just muddy and deep mud and the rivers were overflowing across the road so... there's no buses. There are no cars. So we had to get in the back of a big truck, a logging truck, and the Russian guy and myself and say twenty peasants, Inca Indian peasants, rode in the back of the truck down the... through the Andes Mountains and then down the backside of the Andes Mountains for four days in the back of this truck.Todd: That must have been so uncomfortable.Jeff: Oh, it was terribly uncomfortable, and it was raining quite often during the day, so you had to pull a big piece of plastic over the back of the truck, so it was dark and wet and damp and hot and humid and the road was bumpy and the truck got stuck many times, and it was... yeah it was a real adventure.Todd: That was for four days?Jeff: Four days, yeah. Yep. Yep. And you'd sleep in the truck overnight, and yeah, you just... everyone had big bags of food with them so they could eat along the way cause there's no restaurants. Yeah, it was interesting.Todd: So, in this rough beginning to the trip, did you start to think maybe you wanted not do it, postpone it and go back?Jeff: No, I never thought that. I like that kind of challenge and adventure but you just wonder how difficult it's going to get because each day gets a little more difficult and then the truck gets in really deep mud and you wonder can we get out of this? Are we going to have to start walking and maybe wait for another truck to come along and climb into that truck, so you never... I didn't want to go back, but you just.... it's great suspense cause you never know what's going to happen on a trip like that.Todd: And then the truck took you all the way to the beginning of the Amazon.Jeff: Yep. It was a transport truck so it had supplies and it was going to the... to a little town at the Amazon River and then from there we transferred into a canoe, a wooden canoe and the canoe would take the supplies into the little villages along the Amazon River.Todd: Amazing.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: So, Jeff, we're talking about your trip across the Amazon. So you met this guy, this Russian guy, who was going to go with you across the Amazon, and you were in Lima, Peru, so how does your journey start?Jeff: The beginning of the journey is we had to get a truck. We had to get in a truck and the roads are terrible. They're not really roads. They're dirt tracks, and because it was monsoon season, the roads were really bad - just muddy and deep mud and the rivers were overflowing across the road so... there's no buses. There are no cars. So we had to get in the back of a big truck, a logging truck, and the Russian guy and myself and say twenty peasants, Inca Indian peasants, rode in the back of the truck down the... through the Andes Mountains and then down the backside of the Andes Mountains for four days in the back of this truck.Todd: That must have been so uncomfortable.Jeff: Oh, it was terribly uncomfortable, and it was raining quite often during the day, so you had to pull a big piece of plastic over the back of the truck, so it was dark and wet and damp and hot and humid and the road was bumpy and the truck got stuck many times, and it was... yeah it was a real adventure.Todd: That was for four days?Jeff: Four days, yeah. Yep. Yep. And you'd sleep in the truck overnight, and yeah, you just... everyone had big bags of food with them so they could eat along the way cause there's no restaurants. Yeah, it was interesting.Todd: So, in this rough beginning to the trip, did you start to think maybe you wanted not do it, postpone it and go back?Jeff: No, I never thought that. I like that kind of challenge and adventure but you just wonder how difficult it's going to get because each day gets a little more difficult and then the truck gets in really deep mud and you wonder can we get out of this? Are we going to have to start walking and maybe wait for another truck to come along and climb into that truck, so you never... I didn't want to go back, but you just.... it's great suspense cause you never know what's going to happen on a trip like that.Todd: And then the truck took you all the way to the beginning of the Amazon.Jeff: Yep. It was a transport truck so it had supplies and it was going to the... to a little town at the Amazon River and then from there we transferred into a canoe, a wooden canoe and the canoe would take the supplies into the little villages along the Amazon River.Todd: Amazing.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: Jeff, you mentioned to me that you went across the Amazon in Brazil.Jeff: Yes. Yes. I was going to South America and when I do a trip I don't like to be a regular tourist and just go and sightsee, so I got an idea from a National Geographic magazine to go straight across South America from the Pacific Ocean in Peru, starting in Peru, across to the Atlantic Ocean on the opposite side in Brazil and you have to go through the Andes Mountains and then you have to go across and through the Amazon, so that's what I did.Todd: That's fantastic.Jeff: It was a good trip.Todd: How did you go? Did you travel alone? I mean it must have been dangerous.Jeff: It was. It was dangerous. It was high season, monsoon season, so the river was high, and of course they speak Spanish in South America and I can't speak Spanish and I was traveling alone and I didn't want to travel alone. It's too dangerous, so I had to look for another travel partner who was a little bit as crazy as I was to do this trip, so when I arrived in Lima, the capital of Peru, I started looking around for someone else who looked like a tough, good traveller, and one night in my guesthouse, this bald Russian guy came into the guesthouse carrying a big pack, and he had a big pack with a tent, a sleeping bag strapped to it and he had a big machete hanging off his belt, and I said this guys perfect, so went up and talked to him.Todd: He sounds a little bit like Indiana Jones.Jeff: Oh, he was great. He was a great guy, and his wife is Mexican so he spoke perfect Spanish, so I told him my idea and he was gung ho. He was ready to do it.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: Jeff, you mentioned to me that you went across the Amazon in Brazil.Jeff: Yes. Yes. I was going to South America and when I do a trip I don't like to be a regular tourist and just go and sightsee, so I got an idea from a National Geographic magazine to go straight across South America from the Pacific Ocean in Peru, starting in Peru, across to the Atlantic Ocean on the opposite side in Brazil and you have to go through the Andes Mountains and then you have to go across and through the Amazon, so that's what I did.Todd: That's fantastic.Jeff: It was a good trip.Todd: How did you go? Did you travel alone? I mean it must have been dangerous.Jeff: It was. It was dangerous. It was high season, monsoon season, so the river was high, and of course they speak Spanish in South America and I can't speak Spanish and I was traveling alone and I didn't want to travel alone. It's too dangerous, so I had to look for another travel partner who was a little bit as crazy as I was to do this trip, so when I arrived in Lima, the capital of Peru, I started looking around for someone else who looked like a tough, good traveller, and one night in my guesthouse, this bald Russian guy came into the guesthouse carrying a big pack, and he had a big pack with a tent, a sleeping bag strapped to it and he had a big machete hanging off his belt, and I said this guys perfect, so went up and talked to him.Todd: He sounds a little bit like Indiana Jones.Jeff: Oh, he was great. He was a great guy, and his wife is Mexican so he spoke perfect Spanish, so I told him my idea and he was gung ho. He was ready to do it.

In today's podcast Mason chats to Jeff Chilton. Jeff has been working in the medicinal mushroom industry since 1973 and is an absolute specialist in his field. Jeff is the founder of Nammex, the leading supplier of organic mushroom extracts in the world today. With over 40 years of mushroom growing experience, Jeff was one of the first people to bring mushroom extracts to the North American market. All you medicinal mushroom nerds out there make sure you catch this episode, Jeff is a deep reservoir of knowledge and insight!   The gents wax lyrical over: The ins and outs of mushroom harvesting. The difference between products made from mushroom mycelium as opposed to their fruiting body.  Cordyceps Cs-4. The inferior nature of grain grown medicinal mushroom products. The nature of the medicinal mushroom industry at large, and what to look out for in regards to quality and authenticity. Following your passion in business. Retaining your integrity in the mushroom industry. Polysaccharides and betaglucans. China as a superior source Who is Jeff Chilton ?   Resources  Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify and Soundcloud!   Check Out The Transcript Here: Time to talk tonic herbalism people. Maybe some medicinal mushrooms and philosophy for longevity, so pour yourself a tonic and get ready to get super human, baby. Let's start the show!   Mason: Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Got one that, I've been really looking forward to doing this interview. Jeff Chilton, I'll go into a little breakdown now, rather than just jumping ahead to why I'm really into his work. He's been in the mushroom industry since 1973. When it comes to mushroom cultivation, back then, he was really pioneering. Especially, a lot of the mushrooms that we have available today via cultivation in the west.   Mason: He had a lot to do with the developing the manufacturing of those. Then in 1989, switched over to the manufacturing of medicinal mushroom extract, so he's OG in this medicinal mushroom world. There was no real trending back then. And I, like him, we met two years ago at a herbal symposium in Oregon. That's when I really ... super aware of him and just how he was just via just his own integrity and just educating the market.   Mason: He became this internal watchdog of the industry. Just in the sense of just calling out real bad practices that are going on in the medicinal mushroom industry, and still today, and educating people, so you can spot a product on the market which is telling fibs, and really doesn't have the good stuff that we have all come to know and love about medicinal mushrooms.   Mason: So NAMMEX is his company, also Real Mushrooms, and I love the fact that we can sit down as colleagues, offering medicinal mushrooms, having more at it from the Taoist perspective and Jeff just rocking gin that specialization of mushrooms and especially being such an originator of the entire industry. I really love to be able to sit down, talk with him and ask him about the history, especially he's really been shining in educating people about the difference between growing medicinal mushrooms on wood and on mycelium. And we dive into nuances of that.   Mason: Basically we talk about the industry and we talk about setting up relationships in China and just how amazing it is to be able to source really incredible, the most high quality mushrooms that you're gonna be able to get in the world outside of a wild cultivated situation. Where we are talking about medicinal qualities. Getting those from China and being able to educate people about the beauty of getting them from China. We talk a little bit about that.   Mason: Also what it's taken for us to develop the relationships with growers and farmers and so I think you'll find it really interesting hearing me from 2011, Jeff from 1989 really navigating the difference in our stories. As well we go into organic because Jeff has pioneered in getting the first certified organic mushroom supplement in the US which is really amazing. We go a little bit into that, I share my two cents on where I see organic is at. More so the reason why I like Jeff is because he's not like most companies that just think the be all and end all is paying for this little sticker, jumping through a couple of hurdles and getting the sticker on your product.   Mason: But what we call going beyond organic. And Jeff does that with the organic certification and I share my two cents on where I'm at with that whole thing. But mostly just how much I love that he's non-stop out there educating people. Not just trying to flog a product, not just trying to grow this crazy big business. But I think that's kind of inevitably happening, it's just a nice slow growth of a business. Because it has a lot of trust and it has a lot of consistency in its messaging. And we talk a lot about that and have a lot of laughs and get a couple of stories about the history of the mushroom kingdom and those mushroom people back in the day. We talk about mushroom conferences and a bunch of other things. I think you'll really enjoy it, I hope as much as I did, here's Jeff Chilton from NAMMAX.   Mason: Jeff, thanks for joining me, man.   Jeff: Hey Mason, thanks a lot for having me.   Mason: Absolute pleasure, so remind me where are you again in the world?   Jeff: I am in British Columbia, Canada. I like on Vancouver Island out on the West Coast. You and I are actually connected by the Pacific Ocean.   Mason: Vancouver Island especially, for some reason that just keeps on calling in. I keep on having friends, awesome friends and now you. You're waiting there. And I'm like "What is the pull?"   Jeff: Yeah. You have gotta come. Definitely come in our summer time because otherwise you'll just be hit by all of those things you don't like, which is rain and all the rest.   Mason: Well, it brings mushrooms, yeah?   Jeff: It's true.   Mason: When is it really on for you there? What months is it on for mushroom harvesting?   Jeff: Mushroom season is really going strong in October. First couple weeks in November still happening but then things cool off too much then it slows down and there's nothing happening. We get rains in August, which really primes things then in the last couple weeks in September we could see things starting to pop up.   Mason: All right, I love it. October, that sounds good to me. Let's dive in a little bit because we met maybe we were chatting it must've been two years ago.   Jeff: At the American Herbalist Guild Conference in Oregon, which was just awesome.   Mason: That was amazing, I mean, we were in Silverton? Is that right?   Jeff: Silverton, exactly, yeah, that's where we were.   Mason: But apparently not the witch one. No, I think that's on the other side. Tony was looking at Silverton but that's where all the witches were.   Jeff: Oh, ah   Mason: That's a different Silverton. I can't remember the name of the hotel but their grounds rolling in and the ginkgo trees, big ginkgo trees as well lining it. And then all the herbalists who came and did their herb walks were just frothing at how much they were able to go and show everyone how to forage, how to identify. Because the array of herbs there was incredible. That place is designed.   Jeff: It was absolutely designed. It was a huge property and they put in all sorts of different plants, herbs and different kinds of trees. It was a beautiful venue there are a great place to have that. Even on the Saturday night when they had a band playing and everybody was dancing. I had a great time.   Mason: That's so good, yeah. I imagine that place gets a lot of herbal symposiums going through it. And man, the best thing, the fig tree was kicking. Did you get up there and face on the fig then, during that symposium? That was the best part of it. Right next to the pine.   Jeff: Oh my goodness, no. I hardly had a chance to get outside which is back to my place where I was staying on the grounds and then down to the venue. But I was locked into my booth most of the time and talking to people. And then in the evenings it was nice. It was a fun thing. And I know you said you had a chance to get to hear Christopher Hobbs while you were there. That had to have been really great because I always enjoy seeing Chris. I know he was really busy in fact, funny thing was Chris told me, he said "God, I'm sorry I didn't spend more time with you. I ran into an old girlfriend."   Mason: Oh, right, I'm happy for him.   Jeff: Me too.   Mason: You're like, 100%, I can't contend with that. So '86 Hobbs wrote the book. Were you aware when his book 'Medicinal Mushrooms' came out, because when was NAMMAX first created?   Jeff: I started the business in 1989. I'm trying to remember whether I knew Chris at that point in time or not, but he was part of the whole herbal industry, so to speak, and Herbalist Guild and all of that back then. I wasn't nearly as much in touch with herbalists until I started my company. Before that it was just pretty much just mushroom people and all the people that were in the mushroom world over here. There are a lot of them. Mushrooms really happening. Long before the herbal industry figured it out and got wind of it.Chris was one of the first because he was an herbalist but also was interested in fungi. So that was really cool.   Mason: Yeah, I think he studied and formally became a mycologist as well.   Jeff: Well, no, he was a botanist, definitely a trained botanist and a history orf botany in his family. Herbalists and things like that. And now he went on and he got a PhD in molecular genetics.   Mason: Okay, he's going down that route. I like that book because he was really able to balance the mystical aspects of the mushroom herbal kingdom especially and then dive deep down into the science. It's something that only him and Steven Hardliner. Steven is the master at going down deep, molecular how a particular compound is interacting with a particular viral passade. And then blowing into full throttle Earth poetry in the next paragraph. It's a real gift. Going back to the 80s, you were running with the mushroom clique in America. Yeah, tell us the story.   Jeff: The thing was in the 70s... Well, first of all in the late 60s magic mushrooms were really great interest. That was one of the things that I was really studying at university. I had this interested in mushrooms in the 60s and I reading all about a man named Gordon Wasson. Are you familiar with Gordon Wasson?   Mason: Just the name and loosely, but not really.   Jeff: Yeah, so Gord Wasson was a New York banker with a Russian wife. He learned about mushrooms being used deep in the mountains of Mexico by Curanderez and went down there in the 50s and spent the next five summers down there. He classified a whole bunch of different psilocybes during that period because he took a French mycologist with him. And so, five summers. But he basically opened up this whole world of Look! Still today after thousands of years there are people in the world that are still using these psychoactive mushrooms in their healing practices. Man, that was a mindblower.   Jeff: So I was reading Watson and other people that were involved in that and they had published these books that were incredible books. I mean Watson went on to publish a book called 'Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality.' He published that in 1968.   Jeff: Then somebody came along a man named John Allegro came and published a book called 'Sacred Mushroom and the Cross,' which talked about mushrooms in early Christianity. So, Mason, listen, think about it for a second. In 1968 two books are published. One says that a mushroom is at the root of Christianity. The other one says a mushroom is at the root of the Hindu religion.   Jeff: And then all of a sudden from there it just... You get going forward and you find that mushrooms, you see symbols of them and you start to hear stories about them used through all sorts of different groups throughout history. Pre-history actually, because as that came out people started looking and discovering this. That was really part of my study in university because I was studying anthropology. And mycology on the side.   Jeff: Going into the 70s in Olympia, Washington where I lived and worked on this big mushroom farm there was a whole core of people that were interested in mushrooms. It was an amazing group of people. Paul Stamos is one of those people. Ultimately he and I wrote the book called 'The Mushroom Cultivator' in 1983. We even had a group. We had four people, Paul and I and two other people, where we had four different mushroom conferences. These conferences were so ... You would have enjoyed it so much. We had people there that were speaking about how to identify mushrooms. I was speaking on cultivation of mushrooms, speaking on the anthropological aspect of mushrooms. We had great people there speaking. There was Andre Wyle was at our conferences. And it was just a great time had by everybody, right? You can imagine. All these mushroom people coming together. 200 people coming together for a weekend. Amazing.   Mason: So good. I mean, it's different, you got this original crew, there's always something special when you've got the original crew.   Jeff: Yeah.   Mason: There's a medicinal mushroom symposium every year that moves around the world. It was in Colombia a couple of years ago and then in Italy. Do you know that one?   Jeff: You're actually talking about the International Medicinal Mushroom --   Mason: Conference?   Jeff: Society IMMS and you know what? And that was more of a scientific group that was formed much later. I know the principles of the group. It started somewhere around 1999. They're having a conference in China on the 18th of September this year. You should come. I'm gonna be over there at this conference. I know lots of other people are gonna be there as well. It's gonna be an interesting time. I'm gonna be giving a paper there, which will be fun. There will be lots of other people too. I don't know what time of year you go to China.   Mason: Yeah, I go in September. I think this year we've got our staff retreat in September. I'm gonna check the dates, but otherwise I've been wanting to get along anyway. I've been trying to revolve it around going to Wudang mountain and doing some Taoist training as well. This is where I've been tossing up this year, what time to get over there. But that sounds a bit serendipitous.   Jeff: Yeah, well, the conference is I believe the 18th to the 22nd of September. That's normally kind of early for us. We like to go over more in November. We go every year. November's really harvest time for a lot of mushrooms like Shiitake, Maitaki, Wood ear. A little bit later is Hericium, Lion's mane. In September it's the Reishi harvest.   Mason: Yeah, Reishi harvest is normally for us in September. Where's your Lion's mane growing? Which region?   Jeff: It's growing in Fujian province.   Mason: Okay. Ours is a little bit earlier, in September as well. In Heilongjiang. In the northeast.   Jeff: Okay, yeah, because in Fujian province it is late, late November when it's quite cold. It's back to the mountains, quite cold. Maybe up in Heilongjiang it's colder in there right?   Mason: It's chilly.   Jeff: (laughs)   Mason: That's spoken like a true Australian.   Jeff: Let's fly in and start up north there and step off. I just can't wait to get to Yunan province.   Mason: (laughs)   Jeff: I can't wait to get down into that tropical vibe. Although, nothing beats that crisp air.   Jeff: Well that's good. I'm at that point where -- I don't know when your periods of this business growth have been -- but I've been real head down, bum up in the business. Not really been in that space of upgrading my information. Of course, I'm always reading and everything, doing all these things. I feel like that's like, you're at a point in your business where you are traveling around and you're educated. You're back at that point where you're free to go and educate and then go and educate yourself non-stop, constantly, which is really nice. I'm nearly back there.   Jeff: Yeah, you know what it's like. We are so swamped right now. We've got so much demand for the product right now. We're growing and over the past two years we've hired four people, two people for lab and another person for regulatory and, can you imagine, we've got one person that's strictly regulatory affairs and deals with all the paperwork that we have to deal with. The paperwork is really monumental. We get forms from companies that are 220 questions!   Mason: Companies that you're doing business with and they wanna know, looking at purity or is it you getting stocked with them that they want all those questions answered?   Jeff: No, they qualify their suppliers. And so this is all about GMPs for the most part and how your product is manufactured. They want to know that everything is according to the GMP, quality, and the standard operating procedures and all the rest.   Mason: I think that's where Real Mushrooms. Was it your son that created Real Mushrooms?   Jeff: Real Mushrooms, yeah. Sky created Real Mushrooms in 2015 as part of NAMMAX so it's just one division of the company. He runs Real Mushrooms as well as other things because he's in training to allow me to go fishing and he can stay and do all the work.   Mason: Great. NAMMAX is providing more providing bulk for people that are putting it into products and stuff?   Jeff: We're a business to business. We sell the raw materials and then Real Mushrooms is retail products and mostly sold online. Maybe getting it into the stores at some point, but right now an online business. But we're business to business where we sell to companies that then put the raw materials out under their own brand.   Mason: Does NAMMAX do... I'm increasingly aware because I think NAMMAX... we get a lot of people asking at SuperFeast but we don't really specialize in that B2B space. But one thing I want to talk a little bit about later is a lot of people who, like NAMMAX has bridged it and made it really accessible. Especially with you and the middlemen not having to deal straight with trying to... I'm still appreciating, it took me quite a few years but you'd know the in's and out's beyond what it's like developing relationships, critiquing, getting the authenticity on the testing. Also developing a relationship based on integrity and qualifying on that level takes so long. I feel like NAMMAX has really made it possible.   Mason: I know a lot of people in Australia who are like "Ah, great, I can just go and NAMMAX can just do it all for me." Which is really great, because there's a lot of people. I like it because there's a lot of people jumping onto the bandwagon, and Australia has got this nice buffer. We don't have too much shit here, which is really good. And that's something that's nice for me to be able to say about my competitors as well. Australian community doesn't need to be as wary, I think, as the U.S. world because the U.S. is a bit...I didn't realize it's a shit fight. I know talking to you a lot back in the day, I don't think I presented that I was from SuperFeast. We were just talking about mushrooms and I was just learning a bunch off you and learning about your history.   Mason: As a company when I started out it was an absolute no-brainer that we weren't gonna use fillers, that I wasn't going to be using mycelium product myself. We'll talk about that, it has its place. Of course, growing on good-quality wood. In Australia we're just small companies. I started in Mum's spare room getting products for me and Mum. Then talking to you I was like... and then reading your blogs and really falling off the back of it just like that. Wow, because you actually really inspired me after that talk going, "Well of course, I do talk about the fact that we don't use fillers and we don't grow on grains." And all these kinds of things, but it was getting to that point I didn't realize people really needed to know the in's and out's of your product and be able to ...   Mason: After seeing what happened in America with how much trickery there is and the percentages of polysaccharides there is, lets' go into it a little bit now. You've been watching it and been the internal watchdog of the industry, which I really like. When did that first start cropping up? When did people start jumping on the mushroom bandwagon and fibbing about the levels of polysaccharides and active ingredients?   Jeff: The interesting thing was that having been in the supplement industry since 1989, the key thing for me was that I was a mushroom grower by trade. So i spent ten years as a commercial mushroom grower on a very big, big farm. Not a hobbyist growing in my basement or a closet or something like this. A commercial mushroom grower, large farm. Millions of pounds of mushrooms every year. So I knew how it all worked, I knew the economics of it all. I realized back in the late 90s, for example. Or even the early 90s that you couldn't actually produce mushrooms in North America and turn them into a supplement, because it's a dry powder it's not a fresh product. Once you dry that thing out it's 90% water you gonna get ten times as much money for that pound of mushrooms. It doesn't work in the supplement world.   Jeff: That's where going to China and I went to farms, I went to factories, I went to research institutes, I went to conferences. The 90s was just amazing to see what was going on. I went north to south, east to west. Yunan province all the way up to Jilin province. It was all over China seeing this industry and seeing the research. One of the things, you talked a bit earlier about quality how do you know. Here I am visiting these companies going to all of these conferences. I'm having people coming up to me all the time saying, "Will you buy my product? Here it is." And they just show me a brown powder and I'm just like, it's a brown powder, I don't know what it is! How can I really know what that is. And then getting to know companies and people that were genuine and you could go to their factories and see what they were doing. Especially if they were only producing mushroom products and then building the relationships to that.   Jeff: Then I turned around and back in the United States here are these companies that come along and they start to produce mycelium on sterile grain. The worst part about it is they sell it as a mushroom.   Mason: Some people might not know what, so, we're talking about the fact, which you alluded to, which I completely agree with, that the only way to make a viable super high-quality product that's a powder is doing it in China. Based on the fact that, say you have 10 or 20 kilos worth of raw product that's gonna then give you a kilo of the powdered product in the end, it's not viable in the U.S. so to make it viable in the U.S., the way it generally works is that it's grown on a grain substrate, like rice, brown rice, oats, this kind of thing.   Jeff: Yeah, and the thing is, what people need to understand is that a mushroom is just one part of this fungal organism. So the other parts would be a spore, the spore germinates in to a fine filament, those filaments come together, they create mycelium, which is the actual body of the fungus. Which normally if you're out there hunting mushrooms you never see that because it's in the ground or it's in the wood. So most people are unaware of that. But that mycelial network amasses nutrients. When the conditions are right it produces the mushroom. That's what we see because up it comes and it's like "Wow, look at that thing there!" And then that matures, it produces spores, and then we have a complete life cycle.   Jeff: The interesting part, Mason, is that growing mycelium, which is the vegetative part of this organism, on sterile grain as a mushroom grower, what that is and what that was developed as mushroom spawn. Which is like the seed that is used to grow mushrooms. Because mushrooms don't have seeds they have spores. You don't plant spores when you grow mushrooms, you plant live mycelium. The mushroom growing world, what they developed is "Okay, we'll take that live mycelium and we'll put it onto some kind of a carrier. Then that carrier we can spread into our compost or whatever it was that they're growing their mushrooms in. If you take a gallon of grain, you've got maybe thousands of grains in there you coat that with mycelium, and then you take those thousands of grains and you can mix them into a big pile of straw or compost or something. Each one of those mycelium grows off of and it grows into this thing. So that myceliated grain actually was developed in the 1930s as mushroom spawn or essentially seed to grow mushroom.   Jeff: It's an easy process, it's done in a lab and people in the United States, we can't grow mushrooms. Why don't we just take that process, we'll grow out the mycelium. Mycelium in and of itself it's got beneficial properties because it is a fungal hyphae that has beta glucans in its cell walls. If you grow it in a certain way like in liquid or something it can produce certain medicinal compounds. But when you grow it on grain and then you don't separate it out from the grain at the end of the process you end up with mostly grain powder. That's what companies started to do. They started to grow the mycelium on grain. At the end of the process they would dry it -- just like you're drying a mushroom, but -- they'd dry it, they would grind it to a powder. No mushroom there at all. No mushroom, it's just myceliated grain, and it's mostly the grain powder. Finally, the worst part about it is then they call it mushroom when they sell it.   Mason: I definitely know I've been surprised, because my first trip to the States I went and bought all the different brands. I was floored by some of the grainy non-mushroom powder that I was buying. That was like white powder, it's in your face.   Jeff: Yeah, white powder and you taste it and you're like, "How's it supposed to taste like mushroom? It tastes kind of like flour."   Mason: Yeah, it's like flour, sawdust. So are there companies doing a mycelial growth that are more on the ethical spectrum, that they're not doing a full grain wash and that they're growing on a particular grain that they're able to separate out a lot of the mycelium? I know that a lot of the mycelium is embodied grain. That's just a reality that you're not gonna be able to get rid of. But I'm trying to play that... is that possible in your experience?   Jeff: In China they grow mycelium in large tanks of liquid.   Mason: Like Cs-4 Cordycep, yeah.   Jeff: Yeah, Cs-4 Cordyceps. They've been doing that for 50 years. But the thing is that it takes a lot of money to put in a big facility that can grow and these tanks are huge and you have to have a steam generator. It's a big investment but to actually grow out the mycelium on sterilized grain does not take a lot of money, it doesn't take a lot of expertise. It's a very simple process. Anybody can do it. In my book that I published in 1983, it tells you how to manufacture mycelium on grain at home in your kitchen. It's not difficult so it's very easy and ultimately, the stuff is so cheap to produce. And these people are selling it as mushroom and making a fortune doing it. It's really immoral in my opinion, and unethical. And especially if you're calling it mushroom.   Mason: I think because we sometimes maybe look at the market and what we subconsciously are looking for when we want a mushroom and most of the studies have been on if you're like... Most of the time we're looking for a fruiting body. That's the mushroom. It's the unspoken that we know that we're talking about is the fruiting body there? And I guess there are some companies that have been quite averse or trying to sign typically validate the mycelium. When I was first kicking around all this there were people going "Look, just have it all. Have the fruiting body, have the mycelium, have all these..." and I very quickly, before I had a company was like "Mmm, no." I'm not in this to justify a particular aspect of the market or go for ease. I'm in it personally, and especially in the beginning, being a dreadful romantic, trying to connect to a herbal system, particularly Taoist tonic herbalism for me.   Jeff: Exactly. The people who grow those products and they say "Oh, we want to have all parts of this. We want to have the spore, we want to have the mushroom, we want to have the mycelium." It's like they say "It's full spectrum." Well, the problem is that they leave out the fact that (A) there is no mushroom in it, and (B) the grain! How can it be a full spectrum product if they've got all of this grain in the product? That's what they don't like to talk about. They don't like to talk about the fact that it's mostly grain and all of this other stuff about "Oh, you know, the fruit body's in there and the spore's in there." Absolutely not. It's really a lot of smoke and mirrors.   Jeff: That's what's so hard to take is that when there are people out there actually espousing that and claiming that they've got a full spectrum product when in fact it doesn't take much in the way of analysis to prove what they do and they don't have. We've run analysis and what's really interesting is if you analyze it, for example, with a proximate analysis, which is proteins, carbohydrates, fats, ash, minerals. Those products line up perfectly with the grain they're grown on.   Mason: Are there exceptions to that?   Jeff: No. All of these products and there, it's the myceliated grain products. If it's grown on brown rice it lines up with brown rice. If it's grown on oats it lines up with oats. Literally the two lines run together. The way I like to think about it too is I talk to people and I tell them what they're growing is tempeh. And they say what tempeh is, it is cooked soybeans with fungal mycelium grown on it. If you look at that tempeh and it's all white that's the mycelium but if you look at tempeh and you cut it open you can see it's mostly the soybeans. And if you were to dry it out, look, Mason, mycelium is 90% water. Just like a mushroom. The soybeans are 50% water. When you dry that tempeh out the mycelium just goes "Fffft!" Just tell me, where's the mycelium? And you've got all of these dried soybeans and you're like, well, it's mostly dried soybeans, that product.   Mason: I'm sure you get it a lot as well. Yours, there's obviously a few brands in the U.S. becoming more aware of the others. I didn't go looking for them but as you move into a market. SuperFeast, I spoke to you about it the other day. We've got so many people ... like [inaudible 00:29:50] story. I've realized in business a lot of the time it's like, same with you, I like the people. I like the unique stories. People are like "Bring SuperFeast over, there's no one doing that like what you're doing over there!" I like, yeah.   Jeff: (laughs)   Mason: And it's the same. When you're upfront about the nuances although there's a lot of companies doing medicinal mushrooms like yourself and Taoist herbs like us, medicinal mushrooms. There's nuances there and the sourcing and there's nuances in the story. What I like is, which is going to get to the polysaccharide claim, and the full spectrum claim for the people growing the mycelium. Because people are in an egoic, competitive make money mentality a lot of the time. They think they have to be everything to everyone. Versus just being very upfront. I'm always quite upfront, I don't really look at that. I don't try and standardize color or anything in any way. I don't try and standardize the constituents. I don't even sell on the percentages of constituents. I don't focus on it. I'll move more in that direction because more and more people want to be satiated. I can say yes, we test for percentages of the active ingredients to ensure that they're in alignment with the Chinese cornucopia and ensure that they're actually active. And all that kind of stuff.   Mason: But going over into the States now and hearing about all these other brands and I'm with you whenever it's growing on grain I can't get behind it. Not to be disrespectful, and I'm always trying to be really amicable in my talks. There's a place for it, but less and less can I find that place.   Jeff: And I understand what you're saying too because if a person is genuine. For example the herbalists, who are at an American Herbal AHG conference. These are people that want to provide good products, they want to provide a body of knowledge to help people. That's who you wanna be, that's who I wanna be. I'm not in this to make a lot of money. I'm not in this to build some big company and go Oh, gee, isn't this great? Because I'm selling $20 million a year of this or that. That does not excite me at all. That has no meaning for me. What has meaning for me is that I'm producing a quality product that I've been working on for years and I can tell you the product is what I say it is and I want it to help you. I want you to be able to take this product and feel confidence that you're getting what the Chinese have used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years. That's what I want.   Jeff: I don't want to sell you something that is not what it really is and is a placebo and expect you to buy the product from me and I walk away going "I'm managing this great at my company. I'm making so much money and it's wonderful." No, I'm sorry, that's not me. I'm not interested. Those people turn me off. It's like the difference between being in a group of people that really understand mushrooms or herbs and being in a group of people that are just talking business and numbers and all that kind of stuff. And I don't give a shit about that.   Mason: Yeah. I think it's interesting. Watching your business I can see in the beginning it probably would've started out that everyone knew Jeff and knew your level of integrity and how you just wanted a good product. In that little circle it was like 'Great, we'll just go and get Jeff's product.' Then as you grow I think what you've done really well ... just to put it as an example of why I'm bringing this up, we're getting to this point where we're growing as a company where it's beyond Mason at the markets and everyone knows that Mason has the badass tonic herbs. Or people are coming along to the talks and all the health clique. We've started emerging.   Mason: I think you would've gone through this years ago when you emerged beyond the health clique. And it's very dramatically people aren't associating directly with you or the founder, it's the company. They don't even know or care who the founder is and therefore you need to have these things in place. We're getting to the point where everyone who's a SuperFeast customer is just like, "Yeah, we don't even care about organic, we know what you guys are doing," and we're going on that old philosophy and we're documenting that and there's all those other checks in place like independent testing for pesticides and metals and all that in place and available.   Mason: But it's getting to that point now where the people on the very outside... I still don't know if we're really gonna shift because I still personally don't care and I don't change my company for perception's sake. But you can see Wow, that organic would be really, really useful for those people on the outside. Or the testing to know what percentage of what's going on inside and being able to present that. I think we'll move in that direction. I think you've done that really well and really maintained the trust in the brand of course, and in yourself. But maintaining you there as the one that's rolling this along and not then just relying, you know, the organic certification or the percentages.   Mason: I think that's what I find really commendable, because most people then they rest on their laurels. Once they change over into, not standardizing but testing for minimum constituents like beta-glucans or organic. they then rest on that. Whereas that means nothing to me at all. Being able to talk to you I'm like, Yeah, because organic, I don't know what your take on that. I know there's some terrible organic products out there. Just the fact that we know we can go organic there's five different companies we can go to, so you just go and find the company that suits you. We can go with the company that's the hardest to jump through.   Mason: I won't go into the details of what's going on, why we're probably not going to go in that direction. For us there's so many little micro-farms that we're being nimble with whom we're working with. When we're beyond mushrooms we've got a lot of other herbs going on. We need to cut that farm out if they need to move on and do something else and we'll go and we've got that team to go around and constantly go and find these people. So every time we want to nimbly adapt and go down a different direction when someone's doing a little more traditionally than the other person, all right, get the organic certify up. Or lie, which is what I think a lot of people are doing. They get the organic certification, then when they change up those little farmers, because we're dealing with independent farmers as well, not a company that can provide the organic certification. I don't know why I went on that rant. So that's why we're not going on down that route.   Mason: It's something I see. I know there's a bunch of companies who are coming to NAMMAX, which I think is just been so good for the Australian industry. For people to know that they're very quickly going to be introducing a really good quality. You can tick off the organic but I hate it when it's just organic that they are going for and not just an incredible product with a story behind it as well. So I really commend you for offering that out.   Jeff: I've always really believed in chemical-free food. Organic is more than just chemical-free it's how it's grown. When you're growing out of soil it's building the soil and not just depleting it. For me organics is a holistic way of looking at things. I've always considered that to be very important and I support that type of agriculture no matter what it is. A lot of these companies that are producing myceliated grain, they're organically certified!   Jeff: It doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be a great product. These companies have what I call all sorts of merit badges. 'We're big and we're organic, we're kosher, we're this, we're that,' which ultimately means nothing at all. There's a lot more to it than just that. The one thing I really like about what you're doing too is that you're introducing the philosophy of it and that's something that you really believe in. That to me is important and that's what people look at. They look at who's behind the company and what that person has to say, is that person ethical, righteous, person or not. You're not up there as a smooth talking business salesman or anything like that, right?   Mason: You should see me try and sell something I don't like. I'm a bumbling mess. I think I told you that back in the markets people used to say god-made...you could sell ice to the Eskimos. But I'm terrible if I'm not talking about herbs or philosophy behind it.   Jeff: That's because you're doing something you believe in. That's where everybody should be. Not everybody has that opportunity, but if you can have that opportunity. I was lucky enough that I followed my passion and I didn't do that because I wanted to be rich. I did it because I loved it. I always say to people, if you really like to do something, whatever it is, just do it. Follow your passion. Maybe you're going to be poor for a long time. Make something that you feel good about.   Mason: Honestly, and I really mean it not just because you're on the podcast talking it up or trying to flatter you. But when I met you, you had a happy disposition to be in business that long. In the beginning I was trying to escape the business side of things. Quite scared about having a business and not coming out the other end alive. You have a sunny disposition and you still have control of your company and the standards and you're still educating about the same thing that you're educating, of course it's evolved, but you were educating about beforehand. And there's something that I've learned a bit about in that. There's something humbling and nice about not being in that pursuit for aggressive growth while still growing at a nice, sustainable rate. But staying true to what you were doing in the first place. I educate about basics of herbalism and medicinal mushrooms in the beginning and then I'll move on and doing other things. The more I go along the more I want to settle back into doing what I did all along.   Mason: I've got a weird thing about going back to the organic, I'll almost shy away from something if it's organic because I see it as a marketing ploy a lot of the time. And I think it is a lot of the time. With little things. When growing Lion's mane there's a lot of people who will use organic fungicide because they don't pick when they're watering out to the Lion's mane. I like to use this example because we don't have a plastic covering, it's just a straw and a hut to keep it nice and dark and it gets watered. That's the only part that gets watered. And one of the things I talked about in the beginning with Lion's mane, I just heard about it through the grapevine, that fungicide is needed if you're watering straw a lot of the time in order to, all right, we know why fungus grows. But found someone who wasn't doing that and found people who were doing organic Lion's mane who were using organic fungicide on the huts. Little things like that they get me so dejected about the marketing ploy behind it. But I think you're the one organic product that I would be over the moon to use.   Mason: And the other example is Ron Teeguarden. I think we talked about him. He was such a rogue in the industry herbally. You were telling me about the acupuncture when he was offering acupuncture because he's a barefoot herbalist and all the acupuncture's guilds are like "Screw you, you need to be regulated." And he's like "Hey."   Jeff: I know, it might've been somebody when you were in LA but it wasn't me. I don't know Ron that well. He's been around a long time. He's done his own thing, he's not out at the shows or anything like that. He's very well-known and in a sense he's been the herbalist to the stars. He's in Los Angeles, right? A lot of people in Los Angeles that are into herbal medicine and living properly in term of what they eat and things like that. They would go to Ron and Ron has one of the very first herb bars where you can walk in and have this type of a drink or that type of a drink. He was really in it very early and doing stuff that nobody else was. He was an outlier in that sense. I don't think he really needed to go into the industry proper. He's done a little more now that before. He didn't have to.   Mason: He, on the level of sourcing philosophy. I bumped into him years ago. I was at that place where I was starting to grow, people are asking why I'm getting my herbs from China and people asking me if I'm organic and all these kinds of things. I want to keep on doubling down on my philosophy, what I'm doing here. One thing that I drew from yourself as well and then be proactive and educating the market. Not in pushing your own product, just generally being happy about the market being educated as well. And Ron was like...In fact I talked with him for about five minutes. More or less he was like "Listen, if you have that spark," I remember, "do not deviate from that sourcing philosophy." And it really stuck with me and from that day I did. I doubled down and I was not going to try and... I'm going to continue to not worry about what's going on and just do me. It's a lot of fun. I was at Dragon Herbs Tonic Bar about three weeks ago. I frequent the Hollywood one when I'm in L.A.   Mason: Before we go too far off the mycelium grown, one of the things you've really educated, not only the market, but businesses in the market around medicinal mushrooms in the market, is how to identify a true polysaccharide read on medicinal mushrooms. Rather than people including 60% polysaccharides or even 30%, yet when you go down into the class of beta-glucan it's actually been tested you've been hoodwinked and they've gone dry from age or whatever. Can you talk a little bit about that?   Jeff: This is something in the herbal industry too that you learn right away, and I learned it back in the 90s, was that so many herbal extracts, when you make the extract they oftentimes need some kind of a stabilizer. Otherwise they can get gummy, they can jut come together if it's a powder. Putting a carrier with a lot of extracts was pretty common. What happened was sometimes companies would cheat a little bit. The next thing you know instead of 10% carrier it was 50% carrier or 80% carrier. And they're not revealing that to anybody. You think you're getting an herbal extract, not just mushroom extract, an herbal extract and it ends up being mostly maltodextrin or dextrose or something like that, and they're not telling you, then it is really deceptive. So there's a lot of companies that were doing that in the industry.   Jeff: As I went along, the whole time that I'm working with people in China I'm like, "Look, I want extracts where we aren't using any carriers. It has to be made in a certain way," because I'm looking for the pure essence. In traditional Chinese medicine they take the herbs and they throw it in a pot and they boil it up and pour it out and "Here, drink this!" There's no carriers in there.   Mason: That's right, not sliding agents.   Jeff: That's right. If you have to put something in a capsule you've got 150 milligrams of different types of fillers and binders and flow agents. Putting it into a pouch is so nice because then you don't have to put those things in with it. It's just the pure herb. Early on in the 90s everybody's testing for polysaccharides and nobody's testing for beta-glucans. And beta-glucan is a polysaccharide. Unfortunately all these carriers are polysaccharides too. A lot of people can hide that from you that you've got carriers on their product. No, no, we don't use carriers, it's 100% mushrooms, stuff like that. That's where with any kind of supplier you have to build up a level of trust. Like I say, they show you a brown powder and say. "Here's our product, it's shiitake mushroom extract. Isn't it great?" You can test it.   Jeff: This is the thing, Mason, it's not like you can take a mushroom product other than a reishi extract, consume it, and then a few hours later or a day later go, "Wow, yeah! Did I ever get a kick out of that!" No, it doesn't work that way. You can organoleptically, I can taste the shiitake extract and I can tell you yeah, that's definitely essence of shiitake. Or with reishi it's so bitter I can taste all those bitter notes in that reishi extract, that is an awesome extract.   Jeff: I used to give a reishi extract to a friend of mine who was a deep herbalist making his own liquid extracts and a big business ultimately. He'd taste some of my extracts in the beginning and he'd go, "Not bad, but it tastes a little bit burnt." And I'm like, "Oh shit." When it was dried it was maybe in the oven a little longer, and he could pick up on it. I thought that tastes pretty good. That was in the early days when I didn't know any better. I thought it's great and high triterpenes and all this. He'd go "Yeah, it tastes a little bit burnt." Those kind of things teach you a little bit about, okay, how's it made. Let me tell you, in the 90s the facilities that were making herbal extracts were nasty. They were old facilities   Mason: Not too much GMP regulation back in those days.   Jeff: It wasn't like stainless steel everywhere, no. Everywhere was dark from all the herbs they'd been cooking for who knows how many years. Now all that's been torn down and you see nothing but brand new factories in China. Everything is stainless steel and it's beautiful and there's none of that anymore. But back then, actually, it wasn't until we got the megazyme test and I started using that. And that was in 2012 or 2013. Up until that point I thought, well, the polysaccharide number was high, that's great. Then we starting testing the products and that's where we really pulled back the curtain. My main supplier, awesome! The test results we got from that. Beta-glucan and alpha-glucan and the alpha-glucan, that was where any of the carriers were revealed.   Jeff: And then another company that was supplying me with some products, only a few, not many, fortunately. And was swearing up and down they never used any carrier. Jesus, their alpha-glucan level was way up there. I was shocked and really upset because I thought their product was good because occasionally I'd test it for polysaccharides it was 50-60% and I was thinking, great product. I could taste it, it tasted okay. Nothing but mushrooms they were producing. But here they were. They were putting them on a carrier and telling me they weren't. That's the kind of thing that you face when you're over there.   Jeff: How do you qualify these products? You can go to the factory. They can show you around, you can look at all the mushrooms in their warehouse, you can look at them cooking these things up, the final products. They don't show you the bags and bags of maltodextrin that are hidden back in the warehouse somewhere that they're using as a carrier for the liquid extract. That literally pulled back the curtain and I went and confronted that with them. They claim no. Finally they actually admitted it and I'm like, okay, see you later. I'm not buying another product from you because you lied to me. Fortunately it was a secondary supplier. They weren't my main supplier at all, but I needed a secondary supplier. I visited them and it was all mushrooms that they were doing and they were in the heart of mushroom country and it was nothing but mushroom. Yet they had all these carriers in there. I was really upset not only with them but with myself because I got taken in by it too. And that's what you have to do.   Jeff: Look, Mason, have you ever been at Ali Baba and looked at all the mushroom products being sold?   Mason: It's always funny, and as you know, everyone's jumping onto the bandwagon right now. You can see people trawling through Ali Baba going "Oh, just tell me which one is awesome." I haven't been in there in a long time. I got curious, to be honest. I think we were in the office having afternoon drinks and seeing what was on Ali Baba. It is insane.   Jeff: It's totally insane. So many companies selling mushroom extracts. Sometimes they're selling at prices where you're like, "No, wait a minute, you can't sell me that extract for $20 for a 10:1 extract. That's impossible. You load it up with starch, that's quite possible, right? That's where analysis, for me, has been very helpful. Especially the beta-glucan analysis because that gives me that alpha-glucan which is the whole carrier. That's what unmasked all of those myceliated grain products. There's definitely a place for analysis. There's also a place for getting to know the grower. I don't believe in organic pesticides. I don't give a shit. Don't use whatever it is, you have to grow this. I know it's more difficult but you have to grow this without sprays and all that.   Jeff: The thing about China is that when you're traveling through China and I've been back in the mountains in all these different places and you go back and you look down and this little valley and here's this beautiful rice fields down there and you're going "Oh, isn't it great, back here. Everything's idyllic." And then you see somebody walking through the rice field and they've got a backpack sprayer. And they're going along spraying chemicals on this rice crop. I'm like, "Ugh, shit. Really? Do you have to do that?" And I think to myself, even the smallest growers out there are using some chemicals. That's where I'm like... And I want to be sure. And that's where we test and test to make sure that everything is staying on track because these things can slip in. Somebody can cheat. You have to ride herd on the whole thing. Otherwise it can slip right through your fingers.   Jeff: That's been good for me in the sense of having an organic product that has meant that we put these constraints on the people that we work with. We say look if your product shows one of these things in there I'm sorry we're not selling it. If you and if you shipped it over to us and we find it in there after you've done the testing that's all good and we find it in there it goes the landfill I'm sorry, we can't sell it. That has been a really good quality, that's how we keep that quality up. In that sense I kind of believe in it all and think it's important. It helps us keep the product a little bit more real.   Mason: As you say said there's all these things that can go by... even though it is organic, you can get organic pesticides and all this kind of stuff. I have taken your product and of course I really love it. You know that you're going to go that extra mile with it. It's a trip around it, there's a stigma around China is isn't that whole thing polluted?   Jeff: Well, that's the other side of it right now, Mason. People are so afraid of anything coming out of China that this gives them a little bit more confidence in it. They can say what they want about organic and all but we've got pesticide tests that can demonstrate what it is and of course the always have to do heavy metals and micros and all of that.   Mason: Alpha-toxins   Jeff: For us, especially as a raw material supplier to companies large and small we have to be able to give them confidence because you know they're selling a Chinese product that they buy from us and lot of people are just like you know when it comes to China it's like no no no no it's like not going to do it so I have to talk to a lot of people. And I say, well, hey look. There's products in the United States that are absolutely full of chemicals. So it doesn't matter where it's grown. It matters where it's grown but it's not this country or that country. You can grow good, clean products anywhere in the world if you're doing it properly.   Mason: It's so good. Of course people are realizing that the ultimate Chinese herbs and medicinal mushrooms are going to be coming out of China. I really like how it's still dominating and making it really easy for people to get One thing that's organic and Two very quickly have all those things to provide so enough people are going to be able to go, Oh, okay, so it's from China and we can trust it. That's something that makes it really easy, because people are going to jump on the mushroom bandwagon. We found it as well, a similar thing. People want to come, they're like okay, tell us about Chins. Okay, tested three times for pesticides before it comes to market, each batch. Plus here in Australia the TGA facility and heavy metals and alpha-toxins and microbes. At some point people go "Hmm, shit, okay." And testing of the water. And when we can going and doing radiation testing in the areas. And then going live and seeing pictures of you at your reishi farm is magic.   Mason: When I was going live around China going, you know we're still going up while we're outside the mountains going to the fields where the eucommia bark trees were grown or up in Yunnan. Just drove five hours in the middle of nowhere to get to the poria farm, where there's wild pine and people are going "Holy shit! Look at that land! The land of the dragon. It's calling me. It's real." All of a sudden popping that thing that first of all, yes, you just need to be vigilant, that's absolutely number one. I've only changed suppliers once. In the beginning I found someone I had really enjoyed their product. And then what I've decided was one of my areas in going forth is I need someone that could absolutely school me. If I'm requesting things and they weren't able to "bang" school me on that immediately, then I'm not going to be able to do business.   Mason: And it got to this point where I was confirming no municipal water. Only springs, only well water. Only creek water in the area. Nothing from the tap every touching the crops. At one point "Okay, sometimes that's a bit hard." I was like "All right, I'm gonna change now." That's when I started going down that route and ended up... developing relationships, developing a friendship first, understanding the intent behind the philosophy behind the business, understanding who owns the business that you're going to be dealing with and what their motives are and what their history is. These are the things where people don't realize what goes into it. People go "Can you tell me your supplier?" And you're like   Jeff: (laughs)   Mason: At this point it's not about me being scared about you having access to that supplier but so much has gone into this relationship. It's not just about finding someone and sourcing off them. Although, it's nice and easy to do that. If I was beginning right now I'd love to be buying just from suppliers on NAMMAX because it's cool. All the certificates, all the independents, and then all the years of vetting and tweaking that leads to this point where trust is inevitable and you become even more switched on to what to look for if anything ever comes up. If anything slips or changes you know the questions to ask and where the slip in quality could possibly be. And large ways you know how to put things in place that would stop that from ever happening to begin with. It's an interesting industry.   Jeff: We go there every year and we'll do an audit. We'll visit farms, the factory we'll be sure we confer with our partners to make sure everything is good. This year we're at the point where we're hiring someone to be on the ground in China that will do a lot of checking and stuff for us on a regular basis. More regular than us going over there once a year. It's gotten to a point where we really need that coverage of somebody right there that we can say "Can you go out to this farm or this factory?" Also, communications because sometimes communications... although some of our partners speak English but some of them not so well and then they have to use a go-between and that's not always the best. So we're gonna have somebody now that's right there in China and can do that for us. Can you imagine going to China and traveling around without having somebody with you to help you through the liaise and talk?   Mason: I have the best intentions of getting my Mandarin up to scratch and as soon as I'm out of it, it all slips out of my head. I haven't fully entered into that poetic language realm. The language is sticking. Can you speak Chinese?   Jeff: No, I speak Spanish, but Sky's learning Chinese. He has three classes a week, an hour each class with a Chinese speaker he does it over Zoom or something like that. He's very diligent about it. We get over there. He's speaking with them in Chinese and they love it. He's learning more, but unless you actually go and live somewhere for a while it's always tough. I've been thinking about it. You go over and spend two weeks, three weeks, whatever, then you leave. That's nothing in terms of really getting in and learning a language. That's swimming on the surface.   Mason: I gotta get onto it because I'm gonna do some Taoist training there.   Jeff: Yeah, that'd be really cool. You're young enough that you still can do that. I'm way beyond doing anything like that.   Mason: Come on, they'd love you up in the temple.   Jeff: Not only that, where I love to be is in Patagonia   Mason: Dude, that's the other place my heart lies, down in Patagonia. I want to become an old Argentinian man. I want to become a cowboy.   Jeff: Exactly, I know where we can get some horses, Mason, so let me know.   Mason: All right, that's it. That's on. China this year, maybe Patagonia next year.   Jeff: Yeah, two years ago Andrea and I went out and spent the day with, we had a gaucho that took us out. We went all over this one area. It was a hot day too. We were on horseback the whole time, cruising through, very slow. Slow living at its best, right?   Mason: Yeah, that's it. Drinking, eating a lot of meat, drinking a lot of yerba mate.   Jeff: Yeah, when you're on a horse you're not going to go very fast. You're going to cruise along. It's life in the slow lane.   Mason: I love it. So before we finish up is there anything that is coming up now that's exciting you about educating people about this market and about this industry with medicinal mushrooms?   Jeff: People really still need a lot of education with mushroom. Part of what I do too which I really like is I talk about the nutritional value of mushrooms. My thing too is eat mushrooms. I think mushrooms may be the missing link in terms of food. A lot of people are like, fungus, never eat it, right? And I'm like, "Dude, you've gotta get on and eat mushrooms, it's a fabulous food. They've got great benefits, you get medicinal benefits as well as nutritional benefits." That's the key for me, I'm pushing that really hard when I talk to people, saying "No, it's a fabulous food." And in China they have this whole thing of food is medicine.   Jeff: That's in Ancient Greece too. Food as your medicine. Everything that you take into your body should be something that is beneficial. And medicine as a very loose way in terms of it's feeding you and keeping you healthy. And that's what we should all be thinking about. What we consume is keeping us healthy and we should look at our food as that. That's providing me with all of these benefits. I say if you want a supplement, you feel you need more, that's great. You can supplement. But definitely use mushrooms for food. That's a big category for me.   Jeff: As a mushroom grower, can you imagine? I'm working on an agaricus farm. For ten years every day I'm going in I'm going through the rooms and each room ultimately is producing 20,000 pounds of mushrooms. There's mushrooms everywhere around me growing and I'm stoked. I love this. I've got mushrooms that I'm eating all the time. I've even got small beds of mushrooms that I bring stuff home and I'm growing them in my house because it's so interesting to me. The farm I was on it wasn't just an agaricus, we had a scientist that was growing shiitake and maikitake and oyster mushrooms. Back in the 70s when those weren't even on the markets anywhere. And I had access to these mushrooms. Besides the wild mushrooms that we were navigating. I'm like, make them part of your diet because it's a wonderful food.   Jeff: That's my message to people is this is a forgotten food, bring it home.   Mason: I love it so much. Thanks for reaching out, I really appreciate you reaching out and having you on here. It's not only do I admire you as a person, admire what you've done and your business. I spoke to you a little bit about it. I like talking to the other people who are perceived competitors. There's so much room in this market and everyone's doing their own thing and has their own story. This whole red ocean we have to fight over a scrap of people who are going to be buying mushrooms and not focusing on educating together is absolutely ridiculous. It's always awesome to meet people who trail-blazed that attitude in the industry. Calling out people that are bullshitting and then coming together and educating together and getting the world healthy together in our little way. There's something really nice about that that makes it possible to be in business for so much time, for so long, see so much shit yet still have such a positive attitude about it.   Jeff: That's absolutely right. I really love what you're doing too and I love the whole Taoist part of what you're taking to people and bringing to people. That philosophy is really awesome. That's what brings something really unique. When I hear you talking about mushrooms up around, what's the lake up there in the mountains?   Mason: Mumbai   Jeff: Yeah, that was so cool and you're hanging out there, talking about the mushrooms really excited about it all. That is really special. I love your energy, Mason, I'm really happy that we've been able to get together and have these meet-ups, speak and let's carry it on, let's keep doing it and stay in touch for sure.   Mason: Absolutely. We'll get some videos in another podcast together, 100%. I'll go check out these dates, see if I can swing a   Jeff: I'll send you the info on it so that you can check it out. If you can come you'll have a ball because there's gonna be lots of mushroom peop

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Jeff: So you do winter camping and the place you live, do you get a lot of snow there?Tim: We get quite a bit of snow but it's mostly just up in the mountains.Jeff: So, lately there's been a lot of talk about global warming. So where you live, do you find that you can see the effects global warming, say with less snow?Tim: I think you can. I think there's been less snow. That is not quite as noticeable as the glaciers that are on the mountains have gotten smaller and smaller, so I think there has been less snow although it's not really noticeable cause ski resorts are still open and there's still snow out there but to snowshoe but every summer the glaciers seem to be getting smaller and smaller.Jeff: So you are about - what - 35 now?Tim: Ah, younger than that actually.Jeff: Really. So in your thirties, but when you were a boy, when you were young like 5 or 6 and you were playing in the snow, was there more snow back then?Tim: I think there probably was. One thing is - I told you the snow is in the mountain - and there used to be a lot more snow in the valley where I live and I can't remember the last time we got snow in the valley.Jeff: Really! So global warming, you think maybe is getting worse?Tim: I would say so. I think one of the biggest effects is we seem to be getting more rain actually. The weather patterns have switched a little bit and it seems like it's been dumping rain. There's been more flooding, so we're actually getting more rain and less snow.Jeff: Oh, really. OK. Interesting.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Tim: So, Jeff, you asked me about what kind of job I'd like. Well, what about a job you definitely you wouldn't want to do. There are lots of jobs out there and some of them aren't so good, so what would you not want to do?Jeff: That's a difficult question. I don't like working period, really.Tim: Yeah, but who does?Jeff: Yes, that's right, but I think a type of job I wouldn't like to do would be an office job, a straight desk job, where it is just task work, where you get paper - maybe sort of like an accountant - where you are doing nothing but sitting at your desk sort of by yourself all day, crunching numbers or putting things into the computer. I think it's very anti-social, a little bit boring, not so healthy, and even if the pay was good, I still wouldn't want to do it because you're compromising your life, which is short, to something that's not so fun so maybe a desk job, something at a desk, I wouldn't like to do. How about you? What job would you not like to do?Tim: Well, to be honest with you I don't think I would make a very good police officer. I really wouldn't want to be a police officer. I know it's exciting and it's always different but I kind of feel like I would be judging people and I'm not anti-police. I think they're needed but sometimes I don't agree with everything that a government believes in and I think it would be difficult for me to be busting people for something that I don't agree with. And I think that you know, it's a hard job. It's a hard job and you've got to deal with people that you know need help in different ways, and a police officer is just coming and putting them in jail.Jeff: Another thing, sort of related to police officer is I wouldn't want to be a nurse or a doctor.Tim: Oh, I'm surprised.Jeff: A great job and it would be rewarding to save people's lives or to make them better if they're sick, to make them healthy again, but I hate blood.Tim: Oh, really.Jeff: I can't stand blood so if there is... I can't even stand somebody with a bloody nose so I think in a situation where there is any blood around I wouldn't be your man.Tim: Well, I think another job I wouldn't want to be is a garbage man, to be honest with you.Jeff: Oh, a garbage man would be great.Tim: I understand. Like, I like the idea of driving from house to house. I think I would be a great post office worker, and I don't mind the manual labor of just lifting stuff up and stuff.Jeff: A bit smelly though.Tim: Yeah. That's the biggest thing. I think the smell would really get to me, like kind of like you were with blood. I think that eventually, that smell would sometimes make me sick, and you'd be surprised what people throw away. I mean, needles, all kinds of things, dirty diapers. Things like that. I don't think I could deal with that very well.Jeff: OK, so you'll never be a garbage man and I'll never be a nurse.Tim: Ah, fair enough I suppose.

Show Notes Jeff: Welcome back to EMplify the podcast corollary to EB Medicine's Emergency Medicine Practice. I'm Jeff Nusbaum and I'm back with Nachi Gupta for the 30th episode of EMplify and the first Post-Ponte Vedra Episode of 2019. I hope everybody enjoyed a fantastic conference. This month, we are sticking in the abdomen for another round of evidence-based medicine, focusing on Emergency Department Management of Patients With Complications of Bariatric Surgery. Nachi: As the obesity epidemic continues to worsen in America, bariatric procedures are becoming more and more common, and this population is one that you will need to be comfortable seeing. Jeff: Thankfully, this month's author, Dr. Ogunniyi, associate residency director at Harbor-UCLA, is here to help with this month's evidence-based article. Nachi: And don't forget Dr. Li of NYU and Dr. Luber of McGovern Medical School, who both played a roll by peer reviewing this article. So let's dive in, starting with some background. Starting off with some real basics, obesity is defined as a BMI of greater than 30. Jeff: Oh man, already starting with the personal assaults, I see how this is gonna go… Show More v Nachi: Nah! Just some definitions, nothing personal! Jeff: Whatever, back to the article… Obesity is associated with an increased risk of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes. Rising levels of obesity and associated co-morbidities also lead to an increase in bariatric procedures, and thereby ED visits! Nachi: One study found a 30-day ED utilization rate of 11% for those undergoing bariatric surgery with an admission rate of 5%. Another study found a 1-year post Roux-en-y ED visit rate of 31% and yet another found that 25% of these patients will require admission within 2 years of surgery. Jeff: Well that's kind worrisome. Nachi: It sure is, but maybe even more worrisome is the rising prevalence of obesity. While it was < 15% in 1990, by 2016 it reached 40%. That's almost half of the population. Additionally, back in 2010, it was estimated that 6.6% of the US population had a BMI> 40 – approximately 15.5 million adults!! Jeff: Admittedly, the US numbers look awful, and honestly are awful, but this is a global problem. From the 80's to 2008, the worldwide prevalence of obesity nearly doubled! Nachi: Luckily, bariatric surgical procedures were invented and honed to the point that they have really shown measurable achievements in sustained weight loss. Along with treating obesity, these procedures have also resulted in an improvement in associated comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes, NAFLD, and dyslipidemia. Jeff: A 2014 study even showed an up to 80% reduction in the likelihood of developing DM2 postoperatively at the 7-year mark. Nachi: Taken all together, the rising rates of obesity and the rising success and availability of bariatric procedures has led to an increased number of bariatric procedures, with 228,000 performed in the US in 2017. Jeff: And while it's not exactly core EM, we're going to briefly discuss indications for bariatric surgery, as this is something we don't often review even in academic training programs. Nachi: According to joint guidelines from the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and The Obesity Society, there are three groups that meet indications for bariatric surgery. The first is patients with a BMI greater than or equal to 40 without coexisting medical problems. The second is patients with a BMI greater than or equal to 35 with at least one obesity related comorbidity such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or obstructive sleep apnea. And finally, the third is patient with a BMI of 30-35 with DM or metabolic syndrome though current evidence is limited for this group. Jeff: Based on the obesity numbers, we just cited – it seems like a TON of people should be eligible for these procedures.

Show Notes Jeff: Welcome back to EMplify the podcast corollary to EB Medicine’s Emergency Medicine Practice. I’m Jeff Nusbaum and I’m back with Nachi Gupta for the 30th episode of EMplify and the first Post-Ponte Vedra Episode of 2019. I hope everybody enjoyed a fantastic conference. This month, we are sticking in the abdomen for another round of evidence-based medicine, focusing on Emergency Department Management of Patients With Complications of Bariatric Surgery. Nachi: As the obesity epidemic continues to worsen in America, bariatric procedures are becoming more and more common, and this population is one that you will need to be comfortable seeing. Jeff: Thankfully, this month’s author, Dr. Ogunniyi, associate residency director at Harbor-UCLA, is here to help with this month’s evidence-based article. Nachi: And don’t forget Dr. Li of NYU and Dr. Luber of McGovern Medical School, who both played a roll by peer reviewing this article. So let’s dive in, starting with some background. Starting off with some real basics, obesity is defined as a BMI of greater than 30. Jeff: Oh man, already starting with the personal assaults, I see how this is gonna go… Show More v Nachi: Nah! Just some definitions, nothing personal! Jeff: Whatever, back to the article… Obesity is associated with an increased risk of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes. Rising levels of obesity and associated co-morbidities also lead to an increase in bariatric procedures, and thereby ED visits! Nachi: One study found a 30-day ED utilization rate of 11% for those undergoing bariatric surgery with an admission rate of 5%. Another study found a 1-year post Roux-en-y ED visit rate of 31% and yet another found that 25% of these patients will require admission within 2 years of surgery. Jeff: Well that’s kind worrisome. Nachi: It sure is, but maybe even more worrisome is the rising prevalence of obesity. While it was < 15% in 1990, by 2016 it reached 40%. That’s almost half of the population. Additionally, back in 2010, it was estimated that 6.6% of the US population had a BMI> 40 – approximately 15.5 million adults!! Jeff: Admittedly, the US numbers look awful, and honestly are awful, but this is a global problem. From the 80’s to 2008, the worldwide prevalence of obesity nearly doubled! Nachi: Luckily, bariatric surgical procedures were invented and honed to the point that they have really shown measurable achievements in sustained weight loss. Along with treating obesity, these procedures have also resulted in an improvement in associated comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes, NAFLD, and dyslipidemia. Jeff: A 2014 study even showed an up to 80% reduction in the likelihood of developing DM2 postoperatively at the 7-year mark. Nachi: Taken all together, the rising rates of obesity and the rising success and availability of bariatric procedures has led to an increased number of bariatric procedures, with 228,000 performed in the US in 2017. Jeff: And while it’s not exactly core EM, we’re going to briefly discuss indications for bariatric surgery, as this is something we don’t often review even in academic training programs. Nachi: According to joint guidelines from the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and The Obesity Society, there are three groups that meet indications for bariatric surgery. The first is patients with a BMI greater than or equal to 40 without coexisting medical problems. The second is patients with a BMI greater than or equal to 35 with at least one obesity related comorbidity such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or obstructive sleep apnea. And finally, the third is patient with a BMI of 30-35 with DM or metabolic syndrome though current evidence is limited for this group. Jeff: Based on the obesity numbers, we just cited – it seems like a TON of people should be eligible for these procedures. Which again reiterates why this is such an important topic for us as EM clinicians to be well-versed in. Nachi: As far as types of procedures go – while there are many, there are 3 major ones being done in the US and these are the lap sleeve gastrectomy, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, and lap adjustable gastric banding. In 2017, these were performed 60%, 18%, and 3% of the time. Jeff: And sadly, no two procedures were created alike and you must familiarize yourself with not only the procedure but also its associated complications. Nachi: So we have a lot to cover! overall, these surgeries are relatively safe with one 2014 review publishing a 10-17% overall complication rate and a perioperative 30 day mortality of less than 1%. Jeff: Before we get into the ED specific treatment guidelines, I think it’s worth discussing the procedures in more detail first. Understanding the surgeries will make understanding the workup, treatment, and disposition in the ED much easier. Nachi: Bariatric procedures can be classified as either restrictive or malabsorptive, with restrictive procedures essentially limiting intake and malabsorptive procedures limiting nutrient absorption. Not surprisingly, combined restrictive and malabsorptive procedures like the Roux-en-y gastric bypass tend to be the most effective. Jeff: Do note, however that 2013 guidelines do not recommend one procedure over another and leave that decision up to local surgical expertise, patient specific risk factors, and treatment goals. Nachi: That’s certainly an important point for the candidate patient. Let’s start by discussing the lap gastric sleeve. In this restrictive procedure, 80% of the greater curvature of the stomach is excised producing early satiety and weight loss from decreased caloric intake. This has been shown to have both low mortality and a low overall rate of complications. Jeff: Next we have the lap adjustable gastric band. This is also a restrictive procedure in which a plastic band is placed laparoscopically around the fundus leaving behind a small pouch that can change in size as the reservoir is inflated and deflated percutaneously. Nachi: Unfortunately this procedure is associated with a relatively high re-operation rate – one study found 20% of patients required removal or revision. Jeff: Even more shockingly, some series showed a 52% repeat operation rate. Nachi: 20-50% chance of removal, revision, or other cause for return to ER - those are some high numbers. Finally, there is the roux-en-y gastric bypass. As we mentioned previously this is both a restrictive and a malabsorptive procedure. In this procedure, the duodenum is separated from the proximal jejunum, and the jejunum is connected to a small gastric pouch. Food therefore transits from a small stomach to the small bowel. This leads to decreased caloric intake and decreased digestion and absorption. Jeff: Those are the main 3 procedures to know about. For the sake of completeness, just be aware that there is also the biliopancreatic diversion with or without a duodenal switch, as well as a vertical banded gastroplasty. The biliopancreatic diversion is used infrequently but is one of the most effective procedure in treating diabetes, though it does have an increased risk of complications. Expect to see this mostly in those with BMIs over 50. Nachi: Now that you have a sense of the procedures, let’s talk complications, both general and specific. Jeff: Of course, it should go without saying that this population is susceptive to all the typical post-operative complications such as venous thromboembolic disease, atelectasis, pneumonia, UTIs, and wound complications. Nachi: Because of their typical comorbidities, CAD and PE are still the leading causes of mortality, especially within the perioperative period. Jeff: Also, be on the lookout for self-harm emergencies as patients with known psychiatric disorders are at increased risk following bariatric surgery. Nachi: Surgical complications are wide ranging and can be grouped into early and late complications. More on this later… Jeff: Nutritional deficiencies are common enough to warrant pre and postoperative screening. Thiamine deficiency is one of the most common deficiencies. This can manifest within 1-3 months of surgery as beriberi or later as Wernicke encephalopathy. Symptoms of beriberi include peripheral neuropathy, ataxia, muscle weakness, high-output heart failure, LE edema, and respiratory distress. Nachi: All of that being said, each specific procedure has it’s own unique set of complications that we should discuss. Let’s start with the sleeve gastrectomy. Jeff: Early complications of sleeve gastrectomy include staple-line leaks, strictures, and hemorrhage. Leakage from the staple line typically presents within the first week, but can present up to 35 days, usually with fevers, tachycardia, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting sepsis, or peritonitis. This is one of the most serious and dreaded early complications and represents an important cause of morbidity with an incidence of 3-7%. Nachi: Strictures commonly occur at the incisura angularis of the remnant stomach and are usually due to ischemia, leaks, or twisting of the gastric pouch. Patients with strictures usually have n/v, reflux, and intolerance to oral intake. Jeff: Hemorrhage occurs due to erosions at the staple line, resulting in peritonitis, hematemesis, or melena. Nachi: Late complications of sleeve gastrectomies include reflux, which occurs in up to 25% of patients, and strictures, which lead to epigastric discomfort, nausea, and dysphagia. Jeff: I’m getting reflux and massive heartburn just thinking about all of these complications, or the tacos i just ate…. Next we have the Roux-en-Y bypass. Nachi: Early complications of the Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass include anastomotic or staple line leaks, hemorrhage, early postoperative obstruction, and dumping syndrome. Jeff: Leak incidence ranges from 1-6%, usually occurring at the gastro-jejunostomy site. Patients typically present within the first 10 days with abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and the feeling of impending doom. Some may present with isolated tachycardia while others may present with profound sepsis – tachycardia, hypotension, and fever. Nachi: Similar to the sleeve, hemorrhage can occur both intraperitoneally or intraluminally. This may lead to hematemesis or melena depending on the location of bleeding. Jeff: Early obstructions usually occur at either the gastro-jejunal or jejuno-jejunal junction. Depending on the location, patients typically present either within 2 days or in the first few weeks in the case of the gastro-jejunal site. Nachi: If the obstruction occurs in the jejuno-jejunostomy site, this can cause subsequent dilatation of the excluded stomach and lead to perforation, which portends a very poor prognosis. Jeff: Next, we have dumping syndrome. This has been seen in up to 50% of Roux-en-Y patients. Nachi: Early dumping occurs within 10-30 minutes after ingestion. As food rapidly empties from the stomach, this leads to distention and increased contractility, leading to nausea, abdominal pain, bloating, and diarrhea. This usually resolves within 7-12 weeks. Jeff: Moving on to late complications of the roux-en y - first we have marginal ulcers. Peptic ulcer disease and diabetes are risk factors and tobacco use and NSAIDs appear to increase your risk. In the worse case, they present with hematemesis or melena. Nachi: Internal hernias, intussusception, and SBOs are also seen after Roux-en-y gastric bypass. Patients with internal hernias usually present late in the postoperative period following significant weight loss. Jeff: Most studies cite a rate of 1-3% for internal hernias, with mortality up to 50% if there is strangulation. Nachi: And unfortunately for us on the front lines, diagnosis can be challenging. Presenting symptoms may be vague and CT imaging may be negative when patients are pain free, thus laparoscopy may be needed to definitively exclude an internal hernia. Jeff: Strictures may occur both during the early and late period. Most are minor, but significant strictures may result in obstruction. Nachi: Trocar site hernias and ventral hernias are also late complications, usually found after significant weight loss. Jeff: Cholelithiasis is another very common complication of bypass surgery, occurring in up to one third of patients, usually occurring during a peak incidence period between 6-18 months. Nachi: For this reason, the current recommendation is that patients undergoing bypass be placed on ursodeoxycholic acid for 6 months preventatively. Jeff: Some even go as far as to recommend prophylactic cholecystectomy to prevent complications, but as of 2013, the recommendation was only ‘to consider’ it. Nachi: Nutritional deficiencies are also common complications. Vitamin D, B12, Calcium, foate, iron, and thiamine deficiencies are all well documented complications. Patients typically take vitamins postoperatively to prevent such complications. Jeff: And next we have late dumping syndrome, which is far more rare than the last two complications. In late dumping syndrome, 1-3 hours after a meal, patients suffer hypoglycemia from excessive insulin release following the food bolus entering the GI tract. Symptoms are those typical of hypoglycemia. Nachi: Lastly, let’s talk about complications of lap adjustable gastric band surgery. In the early post op period, you can have esophageal and gastric perforations, which typically occur during balloon placement. Patients present with abd pain, n/v, and peritonitis. These patients often require emergent operative intervention. Jeff: The band can also be overtightened resulting in distention of the proximal gastric pouch. Presenting symptoms include abd pain with food and liquid intolerance and vomiting. Symptoms resolves once the balloon is deflated. The band can also slip, allowing the stomach to move upward and within the band. This occurs in up to 22% of patients and can cause strangulation. Presentation is similar to bowel ischemia. Nachi: Later complications include port site infections due to repeated port access. The infection can spread into connector tubing and the peritoneal cavity causing systemic symptoms. Definitely start antibiotics and touch base with the bariatric surgeon. Jeff: The connector can also dislodge or rupture with time. This can present as an arrest in weight loss. It’s diagnosed by contrast injection into the port. Of note, this complication is less common due to changes in the technique used. Nachi: Much like early band slippage and prolapse, patients can also experience late band slippage and prolapse after weeks or months. In extreme cases, the patients can again have strangulation and symptoms of bowel ischemia. More mild cases will present with arrest in weight loss, reflux, and n/v. Jeff: The band can also erode and migrate into the stomach cavity. If this occurs, it usually happens within 2 years of the initial procedure with an incidence of 4-11%. Presenting symptoms here include epigastric pain, bleeding, and infections. You’ll want to obtain emergent imaging if you are concerned. Nachi: And lastly there are two rare complications worth mentioning from any gastric bypass surgery. These are nephrolithiasis, possibly due to increased urinary oxalate excretion or hypocitraturia, and rhabdomyloysis. Jeff: That was a ton of information but certainly valuable as most EM clinicians, even ones in practice for decades, are unlikely to have that depth of knowledge on bariatric surgery. Nachi: And truthfully these patients are complicated. Aside from the pathologies we just discussed, you also have to still bear in mind other abdominal conditions unrelated to their surgery like appendicitis, diverticulitis, pyelo, colitis, hepatitis, pancreatitis, mesenteric ischemia, and GI bleeds. Jeff: Moving on to my favorite - prehospital care - as always, ABCs first. Consider IV access and early IV fluids in those at risk for dehydration and intra-abdominal infections. In terms of destination, if it’s feasible and the patient is stable consider transport directly to the nearest bariatric center - early efforts up front will really expedite patient care. Nachi: Once in the ED, you will want to continue initial stabilization. Special considerations for the airway include a concern for a difficult airway due to body habitus. Make sure to position appropriately and preoxygenate the patients if time allows. Keep the patient upright for as long as possible as they may desaturate quickly when flat. Jeff: We both routinely raise the head of the bed for all of our intubations. This is ever more important for your obese patients to help maximize your chance of first pass success without significant desaturation. Nachi: And though I’m sure we all remember this from residency, it’s worth repeating: tidal volume settings on the ventilator should be based on ideal body weight, not actual body weight. At 6 to 8 mL/kg. Jeff: Tachycardic patients should make you concerned for hypovolemia 2/2 dehydration, sepsis, leaks, and blood loss. Consider performing a RUSH exam (that is rapid ultrasound for shock and hypotension) to identify the cause. A HR > 120 with abdominal pain should make you concerned enough to discuss urgent ex-lap with the surgeon to evaluate for the post op complications we discussed earlier. Nachi: If possible, obtain a view of the IVC also while doing your ultrasound to assess for volume status. But bear in mind that ultrasound will undoubtedly be more difficult if the patient has a large body habitus, so don’t be disappointed if you’re not getting the best views. Jeff: Resuscitation should be aimed at early fluid replacement with IV crystalloids for hypovolemic patients and packed RBC transfusions for patients presumed to be unstable from hemorrhage. No real surprises there for our listeners. Nachi: Once stabilized, gather a thorough history. In addition to the usual questions, ask about po intolerance, early satiety, hematemesis, and hematochezia. Definitely also gather a thorough surgical history including name of procedure, date, known complications post op, and name of the surgeon. Jeff: You might also run into “medical tourism” or global bariatric care. Patients are traveling overseas to get their bariatric care more and more frequently. Accreditation and oversight is variable in different countries and there isn’t a worldwide standard of care. Just an important phenomenon to be aware of in this population. Nachi: On physical exam, be sure to look directly at the belly, making note of any infections especially near a port-site. Given the reorganized anatomy and extent of soft tissue in obese patients, don’t be reassured by a benign exam. Something awful may be happening deeper. Jeff: This naturally brings us into diagnostic testing. Not surprisingly, labs will be helpful in these patients. Make sure to check abdominal labs and a lipase. Abnormal LFTs or lipase may indicate obstruction of the biliopancreatic limb in bypass patients. Nachi: A lactic acid level will help in suspected cases of hypoperfusion from sepsis or bowel ischemia. Jeff: And as we mentioned earlier, these patients are often at risk for ACS given their comorbidities. Be sure to check a troponin if you suspect cardiac ischemia. Nachi: If concerned for sepsis, draw blood cultures, and if concerned for hemorrhage, be sure to send a type and screen. Urinalysis and urine culture should be considered especially for early post op patients, symptomatic patients, or those with GU complaints. Jeff: And don’t forget the urine pregnancy test for women of childbearing age, especially prior to imaging. Nachi: Check an EKG immediately after arrival for any patient that may be concerning for ACS. A normal ekg of course does not rule out a cardiac cause of their presentation. Jeff: As for imaging, plain radiographs certainly play a role here. For patients with respiratory complaints, check a CXR. In the early postoperative period, there is increased risk for pneumonia. Nachi: Unstable patients with abdominal pain will benefit from an emergent abdominal series, which may show free air under the diaphragm, pneumatosis, air-fluid levels, or even dilated loops of bowel. Jeff: Of course don’t forget that intra abd air may be seen after laparoscopic procedures depending on how recently the operation was performed. Nachi: Plain x-ray can also help diagnose malpositioned or slipped gastric bands. But a negative study doesn’t rule out any of these pathologies definitively, given the generally limited sensitivity and specificity of x-ray. Jeff: You might also consider an upper GI series. Emergent uses include diagnosis of slipped or prolapsed gastric bands as well as gastric or esophageal perforations. Urgent indications include diagnosis of strictures. These can also diagnose gastric band erosions and help identify staple-line or anastomotic leaks in stable patients. Nachi: However, upper GI series might not be easy to obtain in the ED, so it’s often not the first test performed. Jeff: This brings us to the workhorse for diagnostic evaluation. The CT. Depending on suspected pathology, oral and/or IV contrast will be helpful. Oral contrast can help identify gastric band erosions, staple-line leaks, and anastomotic leaks. Leaks can be identified in up 86% of cases with oral contrast. Nachi: CT will also help diagnose internal hernias. You might see the swirl sign on CT, which represents swirling of the mesenteric vessels. This is highly predictive of an internal hernia, with a sensitivity of 78-100% and specificity of 80-90% according to at least two studies. Jeff: While CT is extremely helpful in making this diagnosis, note that it may be falsely negative for internal hernias. A retrospective review showed a sensitivity of 76% and a specificity of 60%. It also showed that 22% of patients with an internal hernia on surgical exploration had a negative CT in the ED. Another study found a false negative rate of 32%. What does all this mean? It likely means that a negative study may still necessitate diagnostic laparoscopy to rule out an internal hernia. Nachi: While talking about CT, we should definitely mention CTA for concern of pulmonary embolism. In order to limit contrast exposure, you might consider doing a CTA chest and CT of the abdomen simultaneously. Jeff: Next up is ultrasound. Ultrasound is still the first-line imaging modality for assessing the gallbladder and for biliary tract disease. And as we mentioned previously, ultrasound should be considered for your RUSH exam and for assessing the IVC. Nachi: We also should discuss endoscopy, which is the test of choice for diagnosing gastric band erosions. Endoscopy is also useful for evaluating marginal ulcers, strictures, leaks, and GI bleeds. Endoscopy additionally can be therapeutic for patients. Jeff: When treating these patients, attempt to contact the bariatric surgeon for guidance as needed. This shouldn’t delay imaging however. Nachi: For septic patients, make sure your choice of antibiotics covers intra-abdominal gram-negative and anaerobic organisms. Port-site infections require gram-positive coverage to cover skin flora. Additionally, give IV fluids, blood products, and antiemetics as appropriate. Jeff: Alright, so this month, we also have 2 special populations to discuss. First up, the kids. Nachi: Recent estimates from 2015-2016 put the prevalence of obesity of those 2 years old to 19 years old at about 19%. As obese children are at higher risk for comorbidities later in life and bariatric surgery remains one of the best modalities for sustained weight loss, these surgical procedures are also being done in children. Jeff: Criteria for bariatric surgery in the adolescent population is similar to that of adults and includes a BMI of 35 and major comorbidities (like diabetes or moderate to severe sleep apnea) or patients with a BMI 40 with other comorbidities associated with long term risks like hypertension, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and impaired quality of life. Nachi: Despite many adolescents meeting criteria, they should be referred with caution as the long term effects are unclear and the adolescent experience is still in its infancy with few pediatric specific programs. Jeff: Still, the complication rate is low - about 2.3% with generally good clinical outcomes including improved quality of life and reducing or staving off comorbidities. Nachi: Women of childbearing age are the next special population. They are at particular risk because of the unique caloric and nutrient needs of a pregnant mother. Jeff: Pregnant women who have had bariatric surgery have an increased risk of perinatal complications including prematurity, small for gestational age status, NICU admission and low Apgar scores. However, these risks come with benefits as other studies have shown reduced incidence of pre-eclampsia, large for gestational age neonates, and gestational diabetes. Nachi: 2013 guidelines from various organizations recommend avoiding becoming pregnant for at least 12-18 months postoperatively, with ACOG recommending a minimum of 2 years. Bariatric surgery patients who do become pregnant require serial monitoring for fetal growth and higher doses of supplemental folate. Jeff: We also have 2 pretty cool cutting edge techniques to mention this month before getting to disposition. Nachi: Though these are certainly not going to be done in the ED, you should be aware of two new techniques. Recently, the FDA approved 3 new endoscopic gastric balloon procedures in which a balloon is inflated in the stomach as a means of simulating a restrictive procedure. Complications include perforation, ulceration, GI bleeding, and migration with obstruction. As of now, they are only approved as a temporary modality for up to 6 months. Jeff: And we also have the AspireAssist siphon, which was approved in 2016. With the siphon, a g tube is placed in the stomach, and then ⅓ of the stomach contents is drained 20 minutes after meals, thus limiting overall digested intake. Nachi: Pretty cool stuff... Jeff: Yup - In terms of disposition, decisions should often be made in conjunction with the bariatric surgical team. Urgent and occasionally emergent surgery is required for those with hemodynamic instability, anastomotic or staple line leaks, SBO, acute band slippage with dilatation of the gastric pouch, tight gastric bands, and infected port sites with concurrent intra abdominal infections. Nachi: And while general surgeons should be well-versed in these complications should the patient require an emergent surgery, it is often best to stabilize and consider transfer to your local bariatric specialty facility. Jeff: In addition to the need for admission for surgical procedures, admission should also be considered in those with dehydration and electrolyte disturbances, those with persistent vomiting, those with GI bleeding requiring transfusions, those with acute cholecystitis or choledococholithiasis, and those with malnutrition. Nachi: Finally, patients with chronic strictures, marginal ulcers, asymptomatic trocar or ventral hernias, and stable gastric band erosions can usually be safely discharged after an appropriate conversation with the patient’s bariatric surgeon. Jeff: Definitely a great time to do some joint decision making with the patient and their surgeon. Nachi: Exactly. Let’s close out with some Key points and clinical pearls. Jeff: Bariatric surgeries are being performed more frequently due to both their success in sustained weight loss and improvements in associated comorbidities. Nachi: There is an increased risk of postoperative myocardial infarction and pulmonary embolism after bariatric surgery. There is also an increased risk of self-harm emergencies after bariatric surgery, mostly in patients with known psychiatric co-morbidities. Jeff: Nutritional deficiencies can occur following bariatric surgery, with thiamine deficiency being one of the most common. Look for signs of beriberi or even Wernicke encephalopathy. Nachi: Staple-line leaks are an important cause of postoperative morbidity. Patients often present with abdominal pain, vomiting, sepsis, and peritonitis. Jeff: Strictures can also present postoperatively and cause reflux, epigastric discomfort, and vomiting. Nachi: Intraperitoneal or intraluminal hemorrhage is a known complication of bariatric surgery and may present as peritonitis or with hematemesis and melena. Jeff: After significant weight loss, internal hernias with our without features of strangulation are a late complication. Nachi: Late dumping syndrome is a rare complication following Roux-en-Y bypass occurring months to years postoperatively. It presents with hypoglycemia due to excessive insulin release. Jeff: Esophageal or gastric perforation are early complications of adjustable gastric band surgery. These patients require emergent surgical intervention. Nachi: Overtightening of the gastric band results in food and liquid intolerance. This resolves once the balloon is deflated. Jeff: Late complications of gastric band surgery include port-site infections, connector tubing dislodgement or rupture, band slippage or prolapse, and band erosion with intragastric migration. Nachi: Given the myriad of possible bariatric surgeries, emergency clinicians should be cognizant of procedure-specific complications. Jeff: Consider obtaining a lactic acid level for cases of suspected bowel ischemia or sepsis. Nachi: Endoscopy is the best method for diagnosing and treating gastric band erosions. Jeff: Septic patients should be treated with antibiotics that cover gram-negative and anaerobic organisms. Suspected port site or wound infections require gram positive coverage. Nachi: Pregnant patients who previously had bariatric surgery are at risk for complications from their prior surgery as well as pregnancy-related pathology. Jeff: A plain radiograph may be useful in unstable patients to evaluate for free air under the diaphragm, pneumatosis, air-fluid levels, or dilated loops of bowel. Nachi: CT of the abdomen and pelvis is the mainstay for evaluation. Oral and/or IV contrast should be considered depending on the suspected pathology. Jeff: Have a low threshold for emergent surgical consultation for ill-appearing, unstable, or peritonitic patients. Nachi: So that wraps up Episode 30! Jeff: As always, additional materials are available on our website for Emergency Medicine Practice subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber, consider joining today. You can find out more at ebmedicine.net/subscribe. Subscribers get in-depth articles on hundreds of emergency medicine topics, concise summaries of the articles, calculators and risk scores, and CME credit. You’ll also get enhanced access to the podcast, including any images and tables mentioned. PA’s and NP’s - make sure to use the code APP4 at checkout to save 50%. Nachi: And the address for this month’s cme credit is ebmedicine.net/E0719, so head over there to get your CME credit. As always, the [DING SOUND] you heard throughout the episode corresponds to the answers to the CME questions. Lastly, be sure to find us on iTunes and rate us or leave comments there. You can also email us directly at EMplify@ebmedicine.net with any comments or suggestions. Talk to you next month! Most Important References Altieri MS, Wright B, Peredo A, et al. Common weight loss procedures and their complications. Am J Emerg Med. 2018;36(3):475-479. (Review article) Colquitt JL, Pickett K, Loveman E, et al. Surgery for weight loss in adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014(8):CD003641. (Cochrane review; 22 trials) Mechanick JI, Youdim A, Jones DB, et al. Clinical practice guidelines for the perioperative nutritional, metabolic, and nonsurgical support of the bariatric surgery patient—2013 update: cosponsored by American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, The Obesity Society, and American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013;21 Suppl 1:S1-S27. (Society practice guidelines) Phillips BT, Shikora SA. The history of metabolic and bariatric surgery: development of standards for patient safety and efficacy. Metabolism. 2018;79:97-107. (Review article) Contival N, Menahem B, Gautier T, et al. Guiding the nonbariatric surgeon through complications of bariatric surgery. J Visc Surg. 2018;155(1):27-40. (Review article) Parrott J, Frank L, Rabena R, et al. American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery integrated health nutritional guidelines for the surgical weight loss patient, 2016 update: micronutrients. Surg Obes Relat Dis. 2017;13(5):727-741. (Society practice guidelines) Chousleb E, Chousleb A. Management of post-bariatric surgery emergencies. J Gastrointest Surg. 2017;21(11):1946-1953. (Review article) Goudsmedt F, Deylgat B, Coenegrachts K, et al. Internal hernia after laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass: a correlation between radiological and operative findings. Obes Surg. 2015;25(4):622-627. (Retrospective review; 7328 patients) Michalsky M, Reichard K, Inge T, et al. ASMBS pediatric committee best practice guidelines. Surg Obes Relat Dis. 2012;8(1):1-7. (Society practice guidelines)

The guys talk about the television they’ve been watching so far this summer, including American Ninja Warrior on NBC, FX’s Pose, American Masters: Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life on PBS, Grand Hotel on ABC, Good Trouble on Freeform and What/If on Netflix. Jeff reviews In Case You Forgot by Frederick Smith & Chaz Lamar. Jeff interviews Roan Parrish about Raze, the latest book in the Riven series. They talk about the research she did for the series, including going on tour with a band, as well as the eclectic music she enjoys. The origin of Roan’s collaboration with Avon Gale is also discussed along with what got Roan started with writing gay romance. Complete shownotes for episode 196 along with a transcript of the interview are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Interview Transcript - Roan Parrish This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast. Jeff: Welcome, Roan, to the podcast. It is so great to finally have you here. Roan: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Jeff: And it's a perfect opportunity because just last week, you released raise "Raze," just the third book in the "Riven" series. And for those who don't know, tell us about the series and, of course, this latest installment. Roan: Sure. So "Riven" starts out with the book, "Riven," also the series title. And it's kind of an anti-rock star romance. It's about Theo, who's the lead singer of the band, Riven. And they've suddenly hit it big and are super famous. And everyone in the band loves being famous and their success. And Theo hates it. He hates being famous. He hates being the center of attention. He hates, like, people knowing things about him or looking at him when he leaves the house. So he loves the music, but he finds fame, like, the worst thing ever. And so he's about to go off on a new leg of the tour and is sort of, like, wandering the streets of New York, feeling a little bit sorry for himself. When he hears this song coming from a bar, like, someone just strumming guitar, and it's one of the most beautiful things he's ever heard. So he goes in the bar to see who's playing this or what the song is. And he meets Caleb, who is the one playing the music. And Caleb, we learn later, has been a musician for a long time, a working musician, but has sort of gone away from the scene and hidden himself away in his uncle's house out of town because he's had some addiction issues, and he's trying to stay clean by staying away from everything that reminded him of the scene, including music. So they start to talk to each other and they bond over music. And then little by little, they fall in love. The problem being, of course, that for Theo being in the scene and being public is kind of part of his thing. And for Caleb, everything about that just brings back a lot of bad memories. So they have to sort of work together to figure out how that's gonna impact their relationship and if they can get through it. And then it kind of takes a hard left, I feel like this is the thing that I should say for people who haven't read the series, is that the series really does hang together. It has the same secondary characters. It deals with a lot of the same themes, like, the themes of ending up someplace that you never thought you would be. But then in book two, we met Reese, or we've met Reese in book one, but we have a book about Reese who was Caleb's best friend and Reese's husband, Matt. And Matt has nothing to do with the music scene. And the book is told from his perspective. So for people who go in expecting that the whole series is about music, it is in some ways, like, music as a through line. And certainly, this idea of fame and this idea of struggling with fame is a through line. But book one is sort of anti-rock star. And then book two is like working musician and person who's not involved with music at all. So I feel like that's the thing I should say. Jeff: Well, they it does hang together because you've got the working musician. Roan: Yeah, totally. And Reese, who is the working musician is someone who toured with Caleb when Caleb was still playing music. So the characters all hang together and the series hangs together, but it's not a kind of musician book, if that make sense. Jeff: Yeah, that makes sense. Roan: And then "Raze," which is book three, it also hangs together. "Raze," it's similarly about characters ending up someplace that they never thought they would be. And in this book we meet Huey, who was in the first two books, and has been a sort of a little bit of a shadowy figure who we never knew his backstory, we didn't know who he is, he just pops in and dispenses wisdom, and pops out again, he doesn't say much else. And so he was Caleb's sponsor in Narcotics Anonymous. And he's still been working as a sponsor. And he is so used to taking care of everyone else being a sponsor, helping people work through their own addiction issues, dealing with his own, that he doesn't really ever focus on his own life. He's built up this kind of wall of focusing on everyone else, so he never has to think about himself. And we meet Felix, who is doing the same thing, taking care of everyone else but him himself, but through his family instead of through NA. So he grew up and help take care of his younger brothers and sisters, and always helped his sister get whatever she wanted, and has now found himself as his sister goes off to do her music thing, found himself kind of like, "What the hell am I doing with my life? Who am I? I kind of forgot to ever notice what I wanted." And so the two of them come together. And two people who are so used to looking out for everyone except themselves, as you can imagine, when it comes down to trying to make a relationship, they kind of don't know how to do it. They don't know how to ask for what they want. They don't even know what they want from each other. And so feelings kinda bubble up and nobody knows what to do with them. And then it ends really happily. Jeff: As all romance must. Roan: That's a must. And there's even a kitten. So, yeah. Jeff: What attracted you to writing this series? Roan: I think that there's themes that go together. I love music. And I've always been a huge music fan. And one of the things that I've always thought was interesting is that music is so personal, to me, anyway. And I know for many other people, like, each of us, listens to music and feels something - has associations that are deeply personal. And something about the weirdness of something so personal, experienced on a large scale of fame has always struck me as really odd. So you can be at a concert with the band and have thousands and thousands of people there. And each person has been hit with his music in a really personal way. And yet, we're all there together in a super public space, having kind of a personal experience, like, smooshed up together with each other. And I've just always found that really strange. And I know for people who make music, the process of making music is really personal. And it's really different than the process of performing music. And so I think I was interested in what would it feel like to do something really personal in front of a lot of people and then watch as this thing that you've made gets loose on the world, and you no longer have any control over it or what people think of it. And to me being famous seems like absolutely the worst thing I can imagine outside of, like, actual torture. And I know that for some people, that's not the case. But, yeah. So I was interested in writing, like, the genre of rock star romance is a thing. And I was interested in looking at it from the perspective of what would a rock star romance look like, if instead of rock star being a desirable thing, it was a terrible thing or a thing that caused a lot of problems for the rock star. Jeff: What was the process around some of the research, because, like, you talk about this very personal thing. How do you research that? And then how do you try to read and put it in a book so everybody else gets it? Roan: You know, I mean, I don't know. I can't really claim that I did it correctly. I've never been a musician. I like singing karaoke to Paula Abdul once with five other people very drunk in college. And that's about my performance level. But my sister-in-law, my sister's wife is a musician. And she's very personal and writes very personal music and then performs it. And, you know, I've been to many of her shows, obviously. And I went on tour with her in Europe once, like, carrying her stuff and hanging on for the ride. And one thing that struck me was, like, people would come up to her after the show and tell her like, "Your music has meant so much to me. I was going through such a hard time and your music spoke to me in these really hard moments." And so I would see that and I know that people are having these personal responses and have personal relationships with the music. And I know that my sister-in-law does as well. And then, like, the moment that the two of them would be having together would be personal. But there was still this whole performance element that I kinda…yeah, just seems like a very strange crucible of the personal and the public smooshed together, and maybe the performativity of that, in some way, like, hides the personalness…or not hides necessarily, but, like, you need a little bit of distance, like, the lights and the smoke machine, and the darkness, and the space between the stage and the crowd to insulate you a little bit in order to take something that's so personal and project it out in public. Jeff: I love how you kinda had the personal research going on there that you actually went on this tour and got to see all of it kinda go down about as close to it as you could without being the actual performer. Roan: Yeah, yeah, which is awesome. And I mean, like, I've had many friends who do music. So I knew that if I had, like, specific questions, you know, I had some questions about, like, the studio stuff and how you laid out tracks that I was able to ask friends about. But I really do think it's, like, the feeling of performing that I was trying to capture and the sense of what it felt like to have something that was yours, like, the music, and then watch other people make it theirs. And although I've never been a performer in any way, I mean, that's a little bit, like, what happens with books is that I sit at home in my pajamas, like, with cat hair all over me, and I write these books. And then when they're published, it's not mine anymore, it belongs to the people who read it. And I don't really have any control over it. So that part was easy to kind of understand. Jeff: Of course, you mentioned your love of music. And your bio actually mentioned that you listen to torch songs and melodic death metal. Now, I get eccentricity because my playlists are, like, wildly, you know, strangely hooked together in some way. But these two seem very different. What attracts you to these two individual styles? Roan: I think I was trying to write my bio in a way that was, you know, like on dating sites, you wanna say the two things that seem most opposed. So you can be like, "Listen, this is what you're getting as a human being who is essentially at odds with himself," maybe that's just me. Anyway, yeah, I love both of those genres. I think they're both simultaneously really raw and really beautiful. Like, torch songs, I love because they are heartbroken, and tender, and they tell a story, and they're so vulnerable, and beautiful. And melodic death metal is like, doing the same thing, only it can't be vulnerable, or, like, it needs a really harsh bass riff, and loud guitar, and loud drums in order to do something that's that tender and that personal. And I find not like screamy death metal, but yeah, melodic death metal. I find it like one of those puppies that growls at you until you get a little bit closer, and then little by little it sorta lets you pet it. And then by the time you're petting it, it's like, "Oh, no, I really do love this. Please don't ever stop petting me," but then, like, someone else walks in the room and they're all growly again. Jeff: I love that analogy. So awesome. Jeff: Now, speaking of music, with the "Riven" series seems such an obvious thing to perhaps you write to music if you're a writer who does that. Was there a particular playlist that sort of pushed you along in the writing of the series? Roan: You know, I actually didn't listen to music at all writing the series, which is sort of strange when you say it like that. I go through phases of whether I like to write with music on or not. And there have been books that I've written where I listened to the same music over and over. Like, when I wrote...what book was it? Oh, "Out of Nowhere," which is the second book "In the Middle of Somewhere" series, I listened like obsessively to "The Civil Wars" just over, and over, and over. And for some reason, the mood of those albums was, like, exactly the mood that I needed to be in to write that book. But with the "Riven" series, I didn't listen to music at all. Jeff: Interesting. Okay. Roan: Yeah. And none of the music in the books is real. Like, I made up all the band names and all of the music. And I wonder if maybe part of it was like, I didn't want real music in my head because I was making it up. Jeff: That would make sense. Yeah. If you're having to write any kind of song lyrics or anything inside the book, I could see where you would wanna, like, accidentally just pick up something. Roan: Right. Well, it was super adorable actually because one of my best friends who reads all my stuff first is, like, she likes music a lot, but she's like a top 40 radio kind of tastes music person. And so she thought that all of the musical references in my books in the "Riven" series were real, because she knows that I like lots of different kinds of music, and she just didn't know that they were fake at all, which is totally adorable. Jeff: Oh, that's awesome. So you could have an extra career then as a songwriter if you're writing lyrics. Roan: Maybe a band-namer. I like the band names more. Jeff: So I have to ask for the audio book then that you've got song lyrics - does that mean your narrator is actually singing the lyrics? Did you make Iggy sing and Chris sing? Roan: No. And, you know, I don't think that I have a chunk of lyrics long enough to be sung. They're like a couple snippets. But I didn't even think about the fact that I could have written a song of it for the audio book. That would have been awesome. Too late. Jeff: Something to think about maybe for a future book or another installment in the series. Roan: Yeah, yeah. I could do it as like an extra or something, I guess. Jeff: And speaking of the series, is there more to come in this series? Roan: There's not. Like, The Good Place that we were talking about earlier, I have decided that book three is the end. Jeff: Okay. Time to wrap up that universe. Roan: Yeah. And, you know, I say that and obviously maybe I would go back in the future and write another one. But I think the fact that the last book is about a character whose story we've kinda been wondering about for the whole series, it felt like a good place to stop because it's sort of the wrap up of, like, solving the last interpersonal mystery. So that felt like the right place to stop. And there are definitely tendrils. Like, people who've read a bunch of my books will notice that Riven, the band, is mentioned in another book, and that some characters from the "Middle of Somewhere" series are briefly alluded to in "Riven." So there's, like, little Easter eggs for people who have read all the books because I sort of think of everything as being connected in that way. So it'll pop back up, I'm sure. Jeff: I love that. I love the broad interconnected universe thing. Roan: Yeah, yeah. Secretly in my head, all of the books are connected in lots of ways that I don't necessarily put on the page. But, like, I like to get a couple in there. Jeff: Nice. Now, you also co-write with Avon Gale. What got that collaboration going? Roan: You know, that collaboration happened completely by accident, or on a whim, I should say. And I'm so glad it did. So I was living in New Orleans a couple years ago. And Avon and I were friends on the internet. And she offered when I was moving back from New Orleans to Philadelphia, she was like, "I love a road trip. What if I fly to New Orleans and drive with you," because it's a many day drive and you have a cat. I had like my truck and then I had my car hitched to the back of the truck, and it was a whole big thing. So I was like, "Oh, great. This will be fun." So we started driving from Louisiana to Pennsylvania. And it was, like, a torrential downpour. And we couldn't hear the radio. We couldn't do anything. And so Avon was like, "Okay. Well, I'll just tell you about this book that I've been working on. And I am really stuck on it. I can't get the plot right." So I was like, "Okay." And I'm pretty introverted and Avon is very extroverted. And we going in... Jeff: And it's very true, she is. Roan: Yes. And, you know, I really just love a clear communicator, so I loved it. She was like, "Basically, I talk constantly. And if you want me to stop, you have to tell me to stop." And I was like, "Oh, that's amazing. I run out of steam socially in approximately two-and-a-half hours, and I'm still listening to you, but I won't respond." And she was like, "Okay, great." And thus, it was. And so she basically narrated to me the entire plot of this book that she was trying to write, and she was having trouble with it. And I kept doing this probably obnoxious thing where I was like, "Oh, what if you did this?" Or, "What if you did that?" Or, "Oh, my gosh, it's so funny, because if that were me, I would totally do this." And she, instead of being annoyed, was like, "Well, you should obviously write this book with me." And that book was what it turned into "Heart of the Steal," which is the first book we wrote together. And it was so fun because then as we were driving, we just plotted the whole book. And she had her little, like, computer that she was typing on while we drove. And I drove the truck the whole way. And so I would like yammer at her and she would take notes, and then in the hotel rooms at night, we would kinda hash it out. And so it happened on a total whim, and then turned out to be really fun. And so we planned it on that trip. And then I went and visited her months later, I guess. Yeah, some months later, and we actually wrote "Thrall," which was the second book that we co-wrote together, like, in the same place. So we wrote it, like, together, even though we don't live in the same place. So it was two very different writing experiences, but both equally awesome. Jeff: That's fantastic. And I have to imagine it's a nice way to kill the time in a road trip to just write a book. Roan: Oh, yeah, totally. And it's really fun because I don't know about you or about other writers in general, but, like, I find that traveling is one of the best, like, brain, what do you call it? Like, catalyzers, brain catalyzers, something about moving through space constantly, whether it's, like, on a train or just walking or whatever. It's, like, the rhythm of moving through space makes my brain also work in a forward rhythm. And I find myself, excuse me, getting so many ideas when I'm just, like, walking a long distance, or on a train, or on a bus, or something. And so something about driving and plotting the thing together was, like, super, some word… Jeff: Awesome. Roan: Yeah, awesome. Jeff: Probably better than awesome, but awesome was the first thing that popped into my head. Roan: Yeah, yeah. Jeff: And then I totally get what you're talking about there, too, because I've done a lot of plotting and some writing on planes. Because it's like, yeah, there's something about just that that just you've got the time, and, like, the brain is working, so use it. Roan: Yeah. And it's, like, looking out the window of something moving through that kinda space with everything passing so quickly, it almost feels like it changes the rhythm of thoughts or something. Jeff: Yeah. And kudos to Avon for being able to type in a moving vehicle because I don't know that I could do that. Roan: Oh, my God, she has, like, motion sickness proof. I swear to God. Jeff: That's just crazy. Roan: Oh, I know. Jeff: But we definitely got to talk a little bit about "Thrall." I reviewed it back in Episode 157. I was just blown away by it. For folks who don't know, tell us about what that book is and what in fact does make it so special? Roan: So "Thrall" is our modern "Dracula" retelling, basically. And for anyone who's read "Dracula," you'll remember that "Dracula," it's an epistolary novel, so it's told through letters, and diary entries, and, like, newspaper clippings, telegram, stuff like that. And so we did "Thrall" in the same way, we made it an epistolary novel. But since ours was modern, and that one was 19th century, instead of letters and journal entries, and stuff like that, we have emails, and g-chats, and tweets, and podcast descriptions, and stuff like that. So the whole thing is written in that way, this combination of different print media. So we have the main characters that people will recognize from "Dracula." And Mina, and Lucy, who are the two characters that people will know from "Dracula," in our version, have a podcast, a true crime podcast in New Orleans. And they get caught up in basically trying to solve the mystery of Lucy's brother who seems to have disappeared. And so in getting caught up in that mystery, they stumble upon this a role-playing game kind of thing, where they use an app, and they go to different places, and they try to solve clues, hoping that it will take them to Lucy's brother. And so in addition to it being an epistolary form in general for the whole book, then kind of within that epistolary form, there's this mystery that they're trying to solve on a computer, I mean, on a phone app. So it's like a game inside an epistolary novel that's an adaptation of another epistolary novel. Jeff: And epistolary just not something you see very much. At least I don't, especially in the romance genre that I tend to read in general. What was it like as a writer, and just plotting to take on such a different narrative format? Roan: Yeah, it was awesome. It was really, really cool. I love form, like, I'm super interested in what different things you can do with form. And one of the things that, like, when I'm reading other things I'm always interested in is what form did this author choose, whether it's something simple, like, short chapters, or long chapters, or, like, flashbacks versus telling everything in order, all of that stuff, I think, has such an impact on the way the story gets delivered. And so I was really excited to play with the form. And I think that with the genre of romance, one of the reasons why we don't see epistolary stuff so often is that it's, like, an additional level of remove between the two characters. And romance seems, to me, to be all about intimacy and connection. And sure, it can be really romantic or sexy to write a love letter or love email, I guess, in 2019. But there's still something where you're not in the moment. There's no, like, tracking a touch as it happens, or a kiss, or whatever it is. And so I think that going into "Thrall," we were like, "How the hell do we make a romance happen when the characters essentially are never in the same scene?" Like, in order to be texting each other, they probably aren't together. In order to be chatting each other, they're probably not together. And so any evidence of an encounter, which is all we could show, also demonstrated their distance. So that was a challenge. And we got around it in a couple of different ways, including characters literally writing out sex scenes that they wished would happen like fantasies, having chats that were more intimate. But yeah, the romance part, I think, was actually the hardest to portray via the epistolary form because it introduces that necessary distance, which is sort of the anti-romance. It was much easier, for example, for the mystery, or the suspense parts because those things can be portrayed that way no problem. But, yeah, the romance part was tricky. Jeff: Well, as I said the review, I think you guys pulled it off so amazingly. If people have not read "Thrall," they should really pick it up and give it a try. Roan: Oh, thanks. Jeff: Because maybe a little much to call it a breath of fresh air, but it's certainly gonna be something very different than what I think most people tend to read. Roan: Yeah, it definitely is different. And it's one of those books that Avon and I knew going in, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. It's an adaptation. It's an adaptation of "Dracula." It's an adaptation of "Dracula" without vampires. It's a romance where you don't ever see the characters touch necessarily. But like, I feel, like, for people who are interested in form for people who are interested in Dracula or interested in suspense, and all that stuff, we were really excited to just do something totally new for us. Jeff: Yeah. It was super cool. Please do more of that sometime. Roan: I would love too. Jeff: So laying a little bit of your origin story, how did you get involved in writing M/M romance? Roan: You know, at the risk of making, it sound completely accidental, it was kind of accidental. My good friend from graduate school, got a job in Phoenix, and didn't know very many people. She didn't have many friends. And she and I both started reading both young adult and M/M mysteries in grad school. And so I went to go visit her and she was having a hard time. Like, I said she didn't know very many people, didn't have any friends, and she just wanted like, escape reading. And we were, like, in the kitchen cooking dinner or something, and she was saying that she just wished that there was, like, a romance novel that she could read about someone who was in her situation. So someone who was a new professor in a new place, didn't know very many people and was kind of struggling to fit in. And because she's my friend and I wanted to make it all better, I was like, "Oh, no worries, I'll write you a story. Everything is gonna be okay." So on the plane home from Arizona, I wrote the first chapter of what would eventually be "In the Middle of Somewhere," my first book, thinking that, like, I would send it to my friend, and she would read it and be like, "You are such a nerd. I can't believe you actually wrote me this story. I was just complaining. You're weird." But instead, she read it and wrote back and was like, "Oh, a story. Oh, my gosh. What happens next?" And, of course, I didn't know what happened next because there was no next. I thought that it was going to be a little one-off thing. But then I wrote the next chapter and I emailed it to her, and she wrote back and was like, "What happens next?" And I actually wrote the whole first half of the book that way just chunking out a chapter, emailing it to my friend, and I was really writing it for her. I never thought I would show it to anyone. I never intended to send it to a publisher. I didn't even have a plot, I just was writing these little sections. And around halfway through the book, I suddenly realized that, like, it was getting kinda long, and I should probably figure out how it was gonna end. Otherwise, I would just end up writing this, like, email missive to my friend forever, which was really fun. But also, I thought she would get sick of it eventually. And then when I finished the book, I thought that was gonna be the end of it. And it was my friend who was like, "No, you should totally try to publish it." And I owe it all to her, I never occurred to me to send it to anyone. And I would never have done it if she hadn't made me. Jeff: Well, kudos to her for making that happen. And that's the best accident story ever. I mean, just amazing. Were you writing before that at all? Or was this just really like, "Hey, I could write. I'll write you something. No worries." Roan: Well, you know, I've always written different things. I was a poetry major in college of all the super useful things to pursue. And so I wrote poetry or some short fiction. And then I did my PhD in literature. So, you know, I wrote a dissertation, I wrote nonfiction for years, and years, and years. But I've always loved to write. And I love reading novels. And so sitting down to write a novel, I think it actually helps that I wasn't thinking of it as writing a novel. I just thought of it as writing the story for my friend. So I didn't have any of the self-consciousness or like that internal editorial voice that I'm sure if I had planned to send it out, would have like, killed me as I was trying to start. And in terms of, like, as we get back to your original question, which I don't know that I actually answered in terms of, like, why M/M romance specifically. I hate misogyny, and sexism, and can't deal with stories where I read female characters and feel intensely alienated from them. And I find often in romance, not all by any means, there are some amazing, amazing, like, revolutionary really amazing people writing romance with women, but I've often found that reading romance novels that are, like, heterosexual romance stories make me feel alienated, and angry, and the opposite of anything that I associate with romantic. And so, yeah. Jeff: Who are sort of your author influences? Roan: Oh, man. Well, you know, growing up, I read everything. I'm a real, like, moody reader. So I go through phases. And when I'm in that phase, that's all I read. So, like, when I was in elementary school, I was obsessed with S. E. Hinton Hinton, "The Outsiders" and "Rumble Fish," those books. And she writes with this very kind of, like, spare style, but lots of sensory detail. And I think that that's definitely something that I've always really admired was the ability to evoke feeling even while being very spare. And then when I was in middle school, I was obsessed with Anne Rice, obviously, because middle school. And I read her books over, and over, and over. And I think that she is like the master of the kind of Baroque sentence structure that when you're deep in, reading one of her books, you don't notice that she's, like, in a strange Yoda way, like, flipping a subject and predicate to make things sound, more flourishy and purple prosy. You don't notice it because you're so deep in it that, like, of course, that character would talk that way. But if you go and you read another author or another book, you realize suddenly what she was doing. And so I think from her, I got just, like, I really respected this immersive detail-rich all the senses engaged kind of writing. Also, I really love long books, and the ability to sustain a story over 800 pages, and keep going with this level of detail. I mean, I know it's not everyone's bag, like, some people really like a short one and done, but I mean, I will read a series that goes on forever if I'm still engaged. And I just think that she does that incredibly well. Then, oh, gosh, I'm taking you on a tour. I don't know if this is actually answering your question, but I do think... Jeff: It is actually. Yeah. Roan: Oh, okay, good. The real answer is, like, I learned things from every single author I read. And sometimes, it's things that I don't ever wanna do. And sometimes, it's things that my mind is blown because I'm like, "Holy crap, I didn't even know you could do that." Sometimes it's like I feel like I'm weak in one area at a moment. And so I wanna go read someone who I think does something really well and try to learn it. Oh, Francesca Lia Block was a huge influence when I was a teenager. She writes this kind of magical realism that is, like, very urban set - in LA, deals with real world problems, but has this, like, pink fog over the entire thing. And I was really, really taken by that. That way of combining urbanity with fantasy, and so that's definitely something that I took from her. I went through a really deep, like, epic historical fiction kick, which maybe is that same kind of, like, very immersive detail, huge cast of characters, all that stuff. And, oh, gosh, I'm totally blanking on her. Oh, Sharon Kay Penman is her name. Okay. Sorry, this is maybe a tangent. But this story blows my mind and is, like, one of the more impressive things I've ever heard in my life, if you'll indulge me for a moment. Jeff: Of course. Roan: So Sharon Kay Penman writes these, like, hugely epic, 1,000-page long, British Isles historical fiction. And she wrote this book called "The Sunne in Splendour," in, like, I wanna say the early 80s, maybe mid-80s. And the book is epically long, and just detail, and hundreds and hundreds of characters, and like tons of things translated into Welsh. It's about Welsh civil wars, or wars with England. Anyway, she wrote the book and, like, on a typewriter, and had it in one of those, you know, the boxes that reams of paper come in…you would put your manuscript in this box. So she was going to drive her book to her publisher. And she stopped at the bank to, like, deposit a check or something. And when she came back out, her car had been stolen with the copy of the book inside, the only copy of the book, which I don't even know how that happens. So the car stolen, she's just sure she's never gonna get it back. And whereas, like, I don't know, I would probably immediately go home and, like, order seven pizzas, and you wouldn't see me for a month. She drove home and started writing the book again. Jeff: Wow. I would have done the seven-pizza thing and then walked away for, like, at least a week. Roan: Yeah. Like, I would have told every single person who would listen that my life's work had been ripped from me. And it was the worst thing that ever happened to me and which, you know, I think that's actually speaking pretty well of my life that that would be the worst thing. But, yeah, I just, like, that level of tenacity and dedication to a project, it just blows my mind. Anyway, she's amazing. Jeff: Yeah, that's awesome. And just, like, I can't even imagine, it speaks so well to these days where we're like, "Did you back that up on Dropbox?" Roan: Yeah, at least someone's like, "Oh, man, I just spent, like, 20 minutes writing that email and it got wiped." And I'm like, "Sharon Kay Penman." Jeff: So what's coming up next for you? What's yet to come this year? Roan: Well, do wanna be the first person to know because I actually just found out yesterday? Jeff: Oh, breaking news. Roan: Breaking News. Yeah, I just sold a new book, which I'm pretty excited about. Okay. The concept is, there is a guy who has a bunch of animals. He's like, kind of antisocial, kind of pissed off at the world for reasons that I will not divulge yet. And he likes animals better than people. So he has all these rescue dogs and a bunch of cats that hang around. And basically, all he wants to do is take his dogs on these long rambling walks and think about how fucked up his life has gotten. It's the only thing keeping him sane, it's just, like, rambling walks with these dogs. And one night he is walking with the dogs and one of them starts chasing something. And he starts chasing the dog and falls down a hill and breaks his ankle. So all of a sudden, he can't do the one thing that he's liked, which is walk his dogs. So he goes online, and he finds this app that, like, match makes pet owners with people who wanna hang out with animals, but can't have pets of their own, because he's looking for someone who could help him walk his dogs, since he can't do it anymore. Then you have this other character, who's super shy lives with his grandma is, like, husband saving up to try to, like, get a new apartment so that he could have a dog. And then his grandfather dies, he has to move in with his grandmother, and he can't have an animal because she's desperately allergic. So he goes on the matchmaker app, and gets matched with this dude who needs someone to walk his dogs. And so the Meet Cute is a dog walking app, and a grouchy meets a shy guy, and lots of animals, and love. Jeff: Well, this sounds awesome. When do we get to see this? I'm guessing 2020 sometime? Roan: I think so. I don't have a date on it. I'll start working on it soon. But, yeah, I think it's gonna be, like, cute-ish in tone. And I don't know, I keep, like, accidentally writing animals into every single one of my books. And I don't even mean too. And this time. I was like, "Well, I mean, I keep doing it by accident. Maybe this time, I'll just, like, actually do it on purpose." Jeff: And what's the best way people can keep up with you online and find out when this next thing comes out? Roan: Well, they can check out my website, roanparrish.com, where I post all things that exist. And then in terms of social media, I've been very active on Instagram stories lately. I just bought a house, my first house, like the first non-one-bedroom apartment that I've been living in. And I've been doing all these, like, garden planting, and baking, and projects, and stuff. So I've been really liking Instagram stories. So people should follow me there and tell me all the things that I'm doing wrong in my garden. Jeff: They may not think you're doing wrong. Roan: I mean, it's my first time and I feel, like, I'm doing everything wrong. But we'll see, it might grow. Jeff: I bet it does. And congratulations on the first house. That's such a huge thing. Roan: Oh, thank you. I really went, like, in the space of one month from a person who thought that they would always live in one-bedroom apartments to a person who bought a house. And so it was very shocking for me. I keep wandering to the extra room and being, like, "What's gonna go in here? I don't know." Jeff: It's part of the fun of home-ownership. Roan: Yeah. Mostly, it's like my cat goes in there. And that's what happened. So I mean, I'm on all the social media things. I'm everywhere as Roan Parrish and people can find me. But Instagram stories is totally the most fun. And for people who, like, wanna know about when books are coming out, but don't dig the social media vibe, BookBub is a great place to find me because they'll just get emails when I have books coming out or on sale. Jeff: Fantastic. Well, we will link up to everything we talked about in the show notes. We wish you the best of luck with the release of "Raze." And thanks so much for hanging out with us. Roan: Oh, thanks so much. It was a blast. Book Reviews Here's the text of this week's book reviews: In Case You Forgot by Frederick Smith and Chaz Lamar. Reviewed by Jeff Frederick Smith and Chaz Lamar are new to me authors and I loved reading their first collaboration, In Case You Forgot. Frederic and Chaz are two black gay men writing about two black gay men living in West Hollywood. This year in the life story left me wanting sequels because I want to read even more about these two interesting characters. Zaire James and Kenny Kane are in similar positions. Coming up on his 30th birthday, Zaire decided it was time to separate from his husband, even though a lot of his family and his friends thought Mario was perfect for him. Kenny, approaching 40, was dumped by Brandon-Malik via text as he was en route to his mother’s funeral. Both of these guys need a reboot. For Zaire that means moving into WeHo--it happens that he moves in across the street from Kenny. He’s got a new job at a social media firm and he’s looking for what comes next. He’s got a family that wants him to find it too--the James Gang siblings--brother Harlem and sisters Langston and Savannah--are always on him to get his life together and find his happy. Kenny, on the other hand, is working on getting his consulting business off the ground since he’s recently finished his doctorate. He’s trying to mostly focus on the business, but he also wants to find Mr. Right. Kenny also carries the weight of having watched his first boyfriend, Jeremy, die after a stabbing. He’s working on his life with some therapy. So what happens in this book? Life. Kenny and Zaire, at times together and at others separate, look for a good date that may lead to more, celebrate birthdays, experience success and failures. The last line of the book’s description captures this perfectly: “...they hope new opportunities, energy, mindsets, and connection will reinvigorate what is missing in their lives--drama and all.” That’s exactly what I liked about In Cast Your Forgot, the slice of life feel. It’s happy, sad, angry, messy and full of great triumph and really bad mistakes. It takes a lot to make this kind of loose plot work, especially since the two lead characters aren’t always together as the year progresses. Frederick and Chaz made it work though. One of the reasons it works is the cast of supporting characters from family, friends, roommates and co-workers. Among my favorite parts of the book was the use of social media to plan their lives and sometimes even to stalk their exes, at times to the chagrin of the friends trying to help them move on. There’s also a Labor Day trip to Palm Springs that was one of my favorite parts of the book because of the realness of how it unfolded and how it tweaked Kenny and Zaire’s relationships. The characters reminded me of Noah’s Arc, a show I loved that ran on Logo in 2005 and then was a movie in 2008. The show focused on queer men of color in various states of life and relationships. Kenny and Zaire would fit right in there. I do want to set some expectations around this book. As you may have figured out, it’s not a romance. It’s categorized that way on the Bold Strokes Books site as well as at retailers. I think that’s wrong. It doesn’t have any of the typical romantic story beats and, most importantly while Kenny and Zaire date for a bit in the middle of the book they don’t get an HEA or HFN as a couple….although the book does end with both characters in good places. If you want a great look at a year-in-the-life of some terrific characters who are trying to get their lives together, I highly recommend In Case You Forgot. And I’d love to see sequels to this book. Frederick, Chaz, please write romances for these guys...

The guys talk about their past week as Jeff worked on revisions and they saw a production of Oklahoma, which they both enjoyed. They also welcomed the new listeners that have found the show during the past month. Jeff reviews Something Like Gravity by Amber Smith and Will reviews Annabeth Albert's Arctic Wild. Will and Jeff talk with Annabeth Albert about the Frozen Hearts series, including getting a sneak peek of Arctic Heat, which comes out in September. Annabeth also talks about the research that goes into the Frozen Hearts books, the latest in the Out of Uniform and Rainbow Cove series plus she discusses her next series about smoke jumpers. Complete shownotes for episode 195 along with a transcript of the interview are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Interview Transcript - Annabeth Albert This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast. Jeff: We are excited to welcome back to the show, Annabeth Albert. She was last here, way back in December 2017 in episode 115, talking about "Wheels Up". You have written so much since then. It's so great to have you back to catch up. Annabeth: Hi, happy to see you. Jeff: Now, the most recent thing you got out is the "Frozen Hearts" series. Tell us a little bit about this series and what its inspiration was. Annabeth: So I started reading in the late '80s, early '90s romance. And I love the Alaska set Debbie Macomber's and Nora Roberts. And so my inspiration for this series would be, what if we went back to that sort of setting but made it LGBTQ and fun and that big, sweeping feeling - the big scenery, big emotions, mountain men? I wanted to capture all that feeling of Alaska. And also all the Alaska shows that I like watching, "Man Versus Nature," all those sort of shows. And so I thought, let's bring that sort of big scenery to life in a series that also has LGBTQ characters. And so it was really fun for me to get to bring that to life. And it's a three book trilogy, and each book stands alone really well because we kind of did it so that there's very little overlap in the storylines for this particular trilogy. With "Out Of Uniform", they were a little more closely linked, you saw more secondary characters popping up, back and forth. And here, they stand alone a little bit more. Will: Aside from the inspiration itself, did you have any experience with Alaska? Have you ever been there? Annabeth: That's what's the funny part. No, I haven't actually been there. I feel guilty admitting that right now. But I have done a ton of research. And I also had Alaska beta readers for each of the books. I had people who actually live in the area in Alaska, who are able to give me feedback. "Oh, this is wrong. The coast is over here. This is..." But I did a ton of reading books set in Alaska and documentaries and message boards. And then like I said, using the beta and the sensitivity readers too from Alaska. Jeff: It's so good to have readers in your readership who can be those beta people when you need them. Annabeth: Yeah. I think that it's really important. In Book Two, I have a hero who's native Alaskan. And so it was really important to me to get a couple of beta readers and sensitivity readers who themselves identified as native Alaskans so I can have that perspective come in. And so that's really important to me. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right beta reader for that particular project. Like with book one, we had some alcoholism and some eating disorders being dealt with in that book. And so what I was able to do is get beta readers for that issue. Like I had an eating disorder beta reader, I had an alcoholism beta reader, I had some sensitivity readers kind of about trauma and stuff like that. So I tried to really bring in a lot of perspectives, so that it's both authentic and it feels true to the character, but also is sensitively done. Will: I agree with you about the sensitivity. I mean, because you're dealing with some pretty, you know, heavy, serious subjects. But they're handled in an intelligent and thoughtful way that doesn't make it like preachy or a downer. So I really enjoyed that in the first book. And I wanted to go back to the second book, "Arctic Wild", which I really, really loved. Can you talk to us a little bit about the ideas and inspiration behind that particular book? Especially the themes kind of like, you know, there's like hurt-comfort going on, there's kind of May-December going on with that particular book. What was the inspiration behind book two? Annabeth: So each of the books, I wanted a different fish out of water, so different characters kind of coming. And so I wanted to do a character who was a little bit older, more settled in his life, and confident in who he is. And so I knew he was going to be older, I knew he was going to be a lawyer, I knew he was going to be fairly well off. And I wanted to do a silver fox sort of character, but I call him my silver bear, because he's also a little bit of a larger guy. I wanted something a little outside the norm for him kind of...and then I was like, "Well, so who is he going to get paired with?" Well, obviously, he's got to get paired with someone who's fun and younger, and kind of his opposite in a lot of ways. But I knew that I wanted the hook that kind of bonds them together to be this plane crash, because I knew all along that book two was going to have a plane crash, because every book kind of has its own thing. And I knew that book two's thing was going to be bush pilot, an emergency situation, we've got a crash landing. How are these guys going to deal with it, and who is the most unsuitable guy I could put with the bush pilot in the wilderness having to deal with this emergency? So I did that. And so that was kind of the thing that kind of spurred the book forward from that point. But as I started plotting, I realized that the bulk of the book was going to come after the plane crash. Because at first I was like, maybe I'll do a really tight timeline, I'll get the whole book into a week. And that just wasn't working for these heroes. They really resisted a tight timeline. So I ended up expanding it and I was like, okay, they're going to have to deal with this aftermath together. And so because they have to deal with it together, they kind of bond in a deeper sort of way, spending the summer together as opposed to just 24 hours in the wilderness. And so to me, that was a real joy to watch them evolve and change. And it's my longest book to date. You can see how thick it is. It's a monster. But part of why it's so big is kind of the scope of it. I was able to bring in the secondary characters, Reuben's daughter, and then Toby's sister and father. I have a lot of secondary characters happening in this one. And it was just really fun for me to take that initial idea--there was going to be a plane crash with these opposites attract guys, and they're going to have to deal with it--to this more sweeping sort of story where it does become, like you said, a hurt-comfort story. How do we cope with the aftermath? And the changes that it brought within each of us. So I think that's kind of what I think the book ends up doing. Jeff: You mentioned the Native Alaskan aspect in book two. And before we hit record, you mentioned that book two is also the most research-heavy of these. What kind of research did you do to get it all to work out right? Because I imagine bush pilot, plane crashes, there's research to do there, too. Annabeth: Yeah, each element, like each sort of...and a lot of times what I do is I work in Scrivener. And in Scrivener I'll have notes for each chapter. And in a short story, like I might have like a line or two of notes per scene. In something like this, I'll have a long list and it'll have the research questions for each chapter that's going to come up. Like, okay, I need to know how a pilot would handle this sort of altitude disturbance in his thing. And what would that actually mean? What do the instruments look like? What sort of plane is he flying and what's the weather like? I have to do a lot of research into that. For that, I look at message boards, I look at small plane businesses, I look at write-ups of past disasters, news reporting. I look at a lot of stuff to kind of get that one detail. Like, I won't just, you know, get one thing. I'll look at a couple of different things to kind of get a couple of perspectives. And the same thing with the Native Alaskan details. Obviously, it's not my own lived experience and I'm really aware of that. So I had the two beta readers who were themselves identifying as Native Alaskan. I did a lot of research with blogs, blogs written by people who identify as Native Alaskans. Autobiographies, I did a couple of phone interviews, I really tried to get a variety of experiences so that I could bring Toby to life in a way that was both sensitive and well-rounded and that reflected a variety of sort of different opinions and different ways that sort of their lives end up unfolding. And so I'm very proud of the amount of research that went into both Toby and the book as a whole because like you said, the bush pilot, the plane crash. I had a floor plan at one point of their rental house, I have a floor plan drawn on my office wall of exactly what this rental house would look like, where it's located, what the driveway...all this stuff. Like, I really go into the minutia. Jeff: I like that attention to detail. Because as you said, it just brings everything more to life as it goes. Now you did mention it was a trilogy, and in September, it wraps up with "Arctic Heat". What's coming in that book and can you give us a little sneak peek? Annabeth: So I am so excited for this one. I love the whole trilogy, each book was its own sort of joy to write. But "Arctic Heat" is the one that I was probably most excited about. It's close proximity. We have a ranger who's handed this volunteer and who's going to be snowed in for the season. And this does happen actually. In Alaska, there are volunteer positions where you can basically go and stay in the State Park over winter. And so you're able to basically experience an Alaskan winter with a ranger. And it's kind of cool. So I was like, "Yeah." When I heard about this, I was like, "Oh, yeah. This has got to be a romance." And so the one hero who comes from California, he's kind of a free spirit and he has no idea what he's in for. Even though he's been around snow a little bit, but he has no idea what he's in for. And then we have the older cranky ranger who also is like, he's lost his longtime partner. She's gone on to be back in the city and he's really kind of cranky about this. And he's been handed this guy, and so they're going to spend the winter snowed in together. And along the way, they're going to catch some feelings, and it's going to be really fun. And so they meet each other at training. And they're really not sure about each other. We have Quill, who's the ranger and Owen, who's the younger guy from California. And Owen has a feeling about Quill kind of from the beginning. And he's got his number. And so they end up going out to dinner. And at this point, Quill doesn't know yet that they're going to be snowed in together all winter. So Quill is kind of in the dark about that. But Owen is sure about kind of, he likes Quill, and he likes Quill a lot. And so I was going to give you guys...now if you read "Arctic Wild" in the back of "Arctic Wild" there's the first scene for this one, for "Arctic Heat". So I didn't want to read to you from that scene, because if you read "Arctic Wild" you've seen it. So I'm going to give you a little snippet of their first kiss. And it just kind of shows they're dynamic. I think it's just a couple of paragraphs and I'm just going to read it to you. And I'm not as good as my narrators, I have awesome narrators but we're just going to see. So they're leaving a restaurant here. "They each paid their share and then headed outside. The light had started to fade, the midnight sun of the summer long past. The crisp bite to the air making Owen wished he had grabbed more than his hoodie. 'Cold?' Quill asked as Owen rubbed his arm. 'A little, yeah. Warm me up, please. I know a shortcut through the alleyways back to the hotel. Lead on.' Owen followed him as he ducked down the narrow alley, both of them walking too fast for much conversation. 'Whoa!' Quill's arm shot out holding Owen back as an SUV unexpectedly backed into the alley. Yanking Owen into a dark doorway with him, Quill frowned at the vehicle which took it sweet time vacating the alley, long enough for Owen to sense Quill's warmth and nearness. More of that classic intoxicating scent, the harshness of their breathing that much sexier in the close quarters. The charged air around them was made worse with every brush of their arms. "You sure there's nothing on your bucket list?" As the SUV finally moved on, Owen turned to block Quill from an easy exit. 'Nothing I could help with?' 'Not sure,' Quill hissed out of breath which was decidedly not a resounding no. So Owen moved closer. 'I am very open minded and discreet. You could tell me.' 'You're something else,' Quill whispered. But his tone was more awestruck than censuring. 'So I've been told.' Taking a chance, Owen put a hand at his shoulder and was relieved when Quill didn't immediately flinch away or tell him off. 'Come on. Take a chance. Nothing you're curious about?' 'Like what?' Owen's voice with a harsh whisper. 'Mmh.' Owen pretended to think as he leaned in close enough to brush his lips against Quill's neck. Quill was taller but not by so much that Owen had to overly stretch. His skin tasted good, warm, ever so slightly salty. 'This maybe,' he moved to flip Quill's ear lobe with his tongue, 'Or this, so many delicious possibilities.'" And that's the look at kind of what's happening between them when they get started. And you'll have to see the rest. But I loved writing Owen and Quill. They were so much fun, it takes place over a couple of months. So we get to kind of see their progression. It's a little bit of a slow burn, each of the books in the series has been a little more slow burn. But once they get going, there's a lot of heat. And so it was a really fun one for me. And I really enjoyed kind of, whereas "Arctic Wild" had the bigger cast of characters, this is mainly the two of them, dealing with the elements of nature, dealing with each other, dealing with roommates issues. It's kind of the 'Odd Couple' in Alaska. And so it was just a lot of fun. I can't wait for you guys to get to see this in September. Jeff: Have you pre-ordered this yet? Because that forced proximity is so your jam. Will: I have enjoyed each of the books up to this point. But book three hits pretty much everything that I'm looking for in a romance. I mean, listeners, longtime listeners know, forced proximity is my absolute most favorite thing ever. So yes, that reading you just did it's like, whew, I can't wait. Jeff: I think you mentioned that this is a real thing people can do to opt to go snowed-in with a ranger. Annabeth: Yeah, they do. Yeah. So there's volunteer positions all year long with the Alaska state parks. And with the National Parks too, though, those are a little more competitive. But you can go for the summer, you can go for the winter, and they have like little yurts or tiny cabins. Pretty rustic conditions but they're looking for volunteers to basically help the paid rangers out because without the volunteers, they couldn't get nearly as much done as they can. So basically, you become a winter caretaker or a summer caretaker at one of these parks. And you get to help the Ranger but you also get to spend winter in Alaska, with all the snow and a tiny yurt. So stuff like that. And each of the sites has its own housing situation. And so that was some of the research I had to do was figure out, what would the housing situation be like at this particular site, as opposed to other sites? How are they going to get their heat? How are they going to get electric? Do they have access to the internet? All those little questions come up? Jeff: It's fascinating. Would you ever consider doing such a thing? Annabeth: I have small kids. And so sometimes that seems really appealing. Like, "Oh, I could go for three months." And other times, it's like, "No, they'd miss me and I'd miss them and the dog would pine." Jeff: Research trip. Annabeth: I'm going to say my next series is back to Oregon. We're going to be back in Oregon but we're going to be in Central Oregon. And so we are actually taking a research trip as a family towards later in the summer. We're doing a research trip to go into Central Oregon to see some of the places that will be in that series. So I'm excited about that. Jeff: Oh, cool. Not quite the same as snow in a yurt. But, you know, research trip nonetheless. Annabeth: Yeah. Well, I get to bring the kids on that one. So it'll be fun. Jeff: They might enjoy snow in a yurt. I don't know. Annabeth: They would. They would. Yeah. Jeff: You've had a prolific year, even before the "Frozen Hearts" books started coming out. You had new stuff in the "Rainbow Cove" and "Out Of Uniform" series. Are there challenges working across so many series that are so close together in release times? Annabeth: So what I tend to do is I tend to write in blocks. So all three Alaska books were written back to back to back. But in between two of them, I took a little tiny "Rainbow Cove" break. I gave myself five days to write a novella. I was like, "Okay, I'm kind of burned on Alaska, just a little." And so I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to give myself five days because I'm supposed to be writing these books back to back and I'm going to write a "Rainbow Cove" novella. And I did. I wrote 20k in five days. And that became "Lumber Jacked". And obviously editing it and stuff took more than the five days. But I got the basic draft down and then I worked on the edits for that while I went on to Alaska three. And that's how I worked a "Rainbow Cove" in. Because it's not a full length, it's a novella. And then the "Out Of Uniform", that wrapped, actually wrote that last April. So I wrote it April 2018. Then I started Alaska after that. But then it didn't come out until January because that's how publisher schedules work. And so I wrote it as part of Camp NaNoWriMo 2018. It was really fun. Loved writing "Rough Terrain". So it coming out in January was just a joy. But that kind of wrapped up a period of finishing up "Out Of Uniform" and then moving into the Alaska universe. And so I kind of go from universe to universe. I try not to hop back and forth anymore, because I've done that in the past. And I ended up having to reread a lot of my stuff a lot more when I'm going back and forth between series. And so I think the biggest challenge for me has been working in time for "Rainbow Cove" because that one doesn't have publisher deadlines. And so I tend to be overly optimistic with my publisher deadlines, and I'm like, "Oh, I'll get this book done early." And then I'll get another "Rainbow Cove" in. And lately that has not been happening. The books have been going long and complicated. And I love that. I love writing long, I love writing complex books. But it has made it a challenge in terms of working more "Rainbow Cove" in. Jeff: What is going on in "Lumber Jacked", that people who are reading "Rainbow Cove" might want to check out? Annabeth: So that one, like "Rainbow Cove", is set on the Oregon coast, and all the books are. So it has a honest to goodness lumberjack as the hero. He makes a brief appearance in book two but this stands alone. If you haven't read book two, you're fine. And it's just 99 cents and it's also in KU. It's a fun little...it's under 30K because I ended up adding a little bonus epilogue to it. But so it has a lumberjack who is an amateur photographer on the side. He likes to take bondage pictures, and so like rope, like Shibari pictures. Like, there's some really neat artwork done with Shibari. And so he meets this makeup blogger, and the makeup blogger is like, "Maybe I would like to pose for one of these pictures." And so their courtship kind of unfurls from there with photos and lumberjack plaid. And it's a lot of fun. But I really liked the chance to write my makeup blogger hero because there's been so many amazing male makeup bloggers recently, becoming even the face of some major brands and stuff. And so I wanted to show that sort of side of masculinity as well. These guys have embraced more of the makeup loving, glitter loving sides of themselves. And so I wanted to do a hero on that sort of spectrum. And so that was really fun for me to get to do him and contrast him with our big burly, older lumberjack guy. And so it's fun. Jeff: That's cool. And for "Out Of Uniform", is "Rough Terrain" the end of the line for that series? Annabeth: Well, I never say never and I do have more military in Alaska. One of my guys is a former Air Force pilot. And in the 'Heart To Heart' charity anthology coming up this fall - I'll have a marine in that one. So I haven't left military romance completely. But I think "Rough Terrain" kind of brought "Out Of Uniform" full circle in a lot of ways. It felt like book seven, a natural sort of stopping point for this part of the series right now. But I'm not ruling out more SEALs in the future. We'll just have to see what the future brings. There's a lot of things I want to explore and a lot of series I want to do. And so, we'll just have to see. But I think fans that like the "Out Of Uniform" will really like something that's coming from me in 2020, which is going to be smoke jumpers. So I've got the band of brothers again, but they're firefighters. And they're in Central Oregon, like I said. They're in Central Oregon fighting forest fires. And it's going to be really...I'm looking forward to the research and I'm really looking forward to being back with a band of brothers kind of group of friend heroes. And it should be really interesting and fun. Jeff: Is that some of the research you're doing on the Oregon trip this time? Annabeth: Yeah. So we'll be actually going to some Oregon fire stations. We'll look at like both the little towns that they live in. We'll also go to some of the state forest areas there, see some actual forest damage and stuff. I've got some different things planned for us to kind of really...I want to really get my five senses into that area, because I live in Oregon, obviously. But I live more in the valley. And so I'm going more into that Central Oregon terrain, it is way different, like you said. It's way different terrain. And so I want to really immerse myself in that to really get that flavor for readers. Jeff: That's very exciting. You've hinted at some stuff in the future like with "The Smoke Jumpers". Of course, "Arctic Heat" comes out in the fall. Anything else you can tease out in the universe? Fill us with what's coming up. Annabeth: So I have a book coming...so "The Smoke Jumpers" will be coming summer 2020. And in between, "Arctic Heat" and "The Smoke Jumpers", I have my first book with Sourcebooks coming. And it is a YA-NA crossover, little bit lower heat, but a lot of the same fun and energy that a YA-NA...you'd expect in a YA-NA crossover. I think fans who have liked some of the lower heat ones that have been rising up the charts like "Red, White, and Royal Blue", that sort of book, I think they might like this sort of tone. And it's a road trip romance, which I love road trips. Like I just said, I love road trips. And so I'm really excited. It's a road trip romance with gamer guys. They're in college, and they're going to a big gaming convention. Like imagine ComicCon, but it's for a card game that they both play. Like, Magic The Gathering, but I kind of invented a fake card game for them. So they're like these gamer guys who have to make the convention on time to get their chance in the big tournament. And it's going to be a lot of fun. I don't think they've gone public with the title yet. But it is coming in April 2020. And so I can't wait to see the cover they're doing and it's going to be really fun. It's going to be in bookstores, which is...I'm really excited about. So it's going to be in the trade paperback. Jeff: Yeah, we were excited to see...I believe it was the first of the "Frozen Hearts" series that we found in our local Barnes and Noble. Annabeth: I know. I'm so stoked. Readers keep tagging me in pictures in the wild of these books. And it makes me so happy. And readers, if you see the books in the wild, take a picture for me. I do love seeing them, I love...and if you like your local bookstore carrying more LGBTQ fiction, let the bookstore know. Even if you're not buying a book that day, say, "Hey, I'd like to see more fiction like this." Not just mine, but a lot of other authors that are coming into mass market and stuff. The more appetite there is for that, I think the more we'll see that in bookstores and stuff and airport kiosks and stuff. And so I'm excited for that. Jeff: Yeah, it's an exciting time. And it feels like "Red, White, and Royal Blue" may lead some of that too. I know that's not a mass-market book. But the fact that they're getting picked up in Target is pretty exciting. So definitely ask for those books. Annabeth: Yeah. I think the more you see that and my...and Sourcebooks has a lot sort of planned around the release of this road trip romance. That should take it to a broader audience. So I'm really excited to see some of what they've got planned and coming. And so it's been really fun to work on that. And that may end up being a series. We just have to see. Jeff: Cool. I'm thinking on your backlist, is this kind of a first for YA for you? Annabeth: Well, they're college age. And so I've done college age with a high heat level in "Winning Bracket". And then I did college age with a lower heat level in one of my freebies, "First In Line", which is set in the same universe as "Winning Bracket". And so that's a sweeter one, it just has a kiss. The one that I'm talking about is somewhere in between there. There are some love scenes, they're just not quite as graphic. And so it was kind of fun to go back to the college universe and kind of...I love that age of hero and I really enjoyed kind of being in that universe with them and that age for a little bit. And so that was fun. But it's not like YA is typically considered senior in high school and older. So that's why they're calling this kind of a crossover because they are in college but upper YA readers will probably enjoy this. Jeff: Cool. Awesome. I'm excited for that one. Will: Yeah, that sounds... Jeff: I love YA new adult so much. So what's the best way for everyone to keep up with you online? Annabeth: So I'm on Facebook. I have Annabeth's Angels as our Facebook reader group. I welcome everyone into there, whether you've read me or not. If you want to talk about fun books, we welcome people in there. I'm also on Facebook myself. I welcome people to follow me on Facebook. I'm on Twitter and Instagram, little bit less than Facebook. Facebook's kind of my big addiction. But I am on Instagram and Twitter. And I also do playlists for all of my books on Spotify. So if you're on Spotify, you can follow me on Spotify and see kind of the music that's influencing the different books. Jeff: Fantastic. We will link up to all that stuff in the show notes. For sure. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. We wish you the best of luck with everything you've got coming out later this year and into 2020. Annabeth: Thank you. Book Reviews Here's the text of this week's book reviews: Something Like Gravity by Amber Smith. Reviewed by Jeff. This was the summer book I didn’t know I was looking for. Not only is it set during the summer, but--in the best way possible--it moves like a lazy summer, filled with all the best things. It’s hard to explain that aspect of it, but it’s one of the things I loved about this book with the feel that with everything else that happens there was the vibe of the lazy summer. Something Like Gravity opens as summer break from school begins. Chris has just arrived at his Aunt Isobel’s where he’ll stay as he tries to reset after being assaulted the year before as he came out as transgender. Meanwhile, Maia, who lives across the field, is still reeling from the death of her older sister. Over the course of the summer, Chris and Maia find comfort and love with each other, reveal their secrets and are able to heal--although it’s far from easy. The meet cute for Chris and Maia is nearly fatal and sets the tone for how their early relationship works--rather adversarial. Chris goes out for a drive with the car that he gets to use for the summer and he practically runs over Maia, who was stopped on her bicycle in the middle of the road. The two hardly speaking in the aftermath but after that gravity starts to pull them together. In the hands of a lesser writer, building a story of first love set amongst loss and trauma would likely be a disaster. Amber, however, crafts a story that I had a hard time putting down because I wanted to see how things would go--both the cringy difficult moments as well as the super sweet ones. I enjoyed both Maia and Chris’s journeys. Maia’s loss of her sister looms large over her family--Maia, her parents and even the family dog haven’t figured out the way forward. Maia tries to learn more about here sister by looking through all of the photographs and the places in them. Carrying her sister’s camera nearly constantly has many in the small town thinking that she’s trying to become her sister. It’s even something she lets Chris believe--that she is a photographer and has been taking pictures even though the camera has no film. Chris’s family is also under stress. His coming out didn’t go well. Not only was he assaulted, but his mom hasn’t adjusted well and his dad seems to be overcompensating for that. He’s come to Aunt Isobel’s to figure out what he wants to do for the next school year, to give his parents time and to find himself--including getting back to running which he enjoyed so much before the attack. He also has to decide what he wants to share with Maia. Chris and Maia have a lot of internal dialogue and it works so well. There’s a lot for them to work out for themselves and it’s some of the most powerful parts of the book. Some of the lazy summer vibe plays into the romance between Chris and Maia. Amber writes their falling for each other in such a wonderful way. There’s a perfect build up as they learn more about each other--at the same time it’s complicated by big secrets. The moments of meltdown and tremendous emotional stregnth provide significant growth moments for them. The way Amber resolves all plots--Chris and Maia’s relationship as well as between them and their parents--were so well done. I loved the meaningful talks the teens had with their parents over the span of a few days. There was much to handle and, like the rest of the story, the pacing was perfect. Chris and Maia end up in a good place too as they prepare for another year of school. I’d love to see more of these two and how their story continues. Arctic Wild by Annabeth Albert. Reviewed by Will. Buttoned up east coast lawyer Ruben is forced to take a vacation by himself in the wilds of Alaska. Needless to say, the prospect doesn’t thrill him, until he meets Toby, his handsome bush pilot tour guide. Toby has dealt with tough customers like Ruben before, and soon enough they’re enjoying each other’s company while exploring Alaska – until an unexpected storm sends their plane crashing into the remote wilderness. After they’re rescued, Toby needs time to heal from his injuries. Rueben comes up with the plan that he’ll stay in Alaska for the summer, rent a house for himself and his teenage daughter and have Toby stay with them. Ruben can care for Toby, while Toby can come up with activities than Rueben can use to reconnect with his daughter, Amelia. Amelia is no cutesy romance novel kid, she’s realistically surly and constantly annoyed by her dad – but she gradually begins to enjoy her vacation, just as her dad is enjoying all the time spent with Toby. Love is definitely in the air for our two heroes, but both are unwilling to admit that it’s more than just a fling – primarily because they’re both stubborn in their own ways, as well as an unending number of outside obstacles to their happily ever after. Both of them have complicated family and work situations to deal with. After weeks of nighttime cuddles and furtive blowjobs, Toby’s injuries are finally healed enough that he and Ruben can sleep together, it’s magical – and then, as it must in all romance novels, the black moment arrives. A serious issue with Toby’s dad forces him to take a look at his obligations – he wants happiness with Ruben and Amelia, but that doesn’t seem possible. It takes some serious soul searching until Toby finally realizes that he can’t let a misguided sense of pride keep him from accepting help when needed. By the same token, Ruben can’t swoop in and solve everyone’s problems with his money and influence. As with the previous book in this series, the author takes the time to let the story breathe – giving the characters time to know and like one another, before falling in love with each other. This extra time spent on the story also gives readers a chance to know and understand the unique and complicated situation our heroes find themselves in, primarily concerning their obligations to their respective families. Annabeth Albert has written yet another winner with Arctic Wild, giving us a terrific romance featuring two dynamic and interesting heroes that readers are sure to root for.

It's the final week of Pride Month 2019. The guys wish everyone celebrating World Pride in NYC a wonderful time. Jeff talks about being homesick for New York and missing playing hockey. Pose's early season 3 renewal is praised. Will talks about the special Masterwork Experiment happening on The Story Grid Podcast where they are breaking down and analyzing the story structure of Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain. Jeff and author/blogger Lee Wind have an extended interview in which Lee discusses his debut YA novel, Queer as a Five Dollar Bill and how he's become engaged in discovering queer history. They also talk about the YA book blog I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? that Lee began over a decade ago. Lee also recommends a couple of his favorite YA books and the queer history project he's trying to jump start on Instagram. Complete shownotes for episode 194 along with a transcript of the interview are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Interview Transcript - Lee Wind This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast. Jeff: Lee, welcome to the podcast. It is so great to have you here. Lee: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here, Jeff. Jeff: Now, I recently read your debut novel, "Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill". In fact, I reviewed it back in Episode 189. And absolutely love it. Now, tell people in your own words what this YA novel is about. Lee: So it's all about the fact that I don't have a time machine. When I went...in 2011, I went to a game in summer camp kind of weekend. And there was a guy talking about the letters that Abraham Lincoln wrote Joshua Fry Speed that convinced him that Abraham was in love with Joshua. And I just thought he was full of it. Like how could that have been possibly been true? It's the first time I heard about it. And I went to the library, and I got the letters and I read them and because the emotions Lincoln speaks about are the same emotions I experienced when I was closeted in dating girls and sort of judging it the right thing to do, but not feeling it, I had this moment of sort of goosebumps, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I think maybe Lincoln was in love with speed." And I thought, "Oh, if I had a time machine and go back and tell my 15-year-old self that the guy on Mount Rushmore, the guy on the $5 bill, the guy on the penny, was maybe in love with another guy, I think it would have changed my whole life. I don't think it would have taken me until I was 25 years old to fully come out. I think it would have been a game changer. But I don't have a time machine. So "Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill" is my paying it forward. I'm a writer, I wanted to write the story about a 15-year-old who's closeted and bullied and dating a girl because he kind of judges it's the right thing to do, but he doesn't feel it. And then he's assigned a book report on Lincoln and he gets the same book that I got from the library, he reads the actual letter, where Lincoln is asking his best friend, after the best friend has gotten married to a woman, "Are you now, in feeling as well as judgment, glad you're married as you are? From anybody but me, this would be an impudent question not to be tolerated, but I know you'll tolerate it for me." And he ends the letter saying, "Please tell me quickly, I feel very impatient to know." And we don't have Joshua's answer, because Mary Todd burned all the letters on that side of the correspondence. But we do know it was only four weeks later that Abraham had married Mary. So to me, it felt like wow, that, like what would happen if a kid today found that out and decided that he wants the world to know? Because everyone loves Abraham Lincoln in our country. And he thought, "Well, okay, so if he tells - the main character, Wyatt - if he tells the whole world that Abraham Lincoln was in love with another guy, he thinks it's going to change how everyone feels about gay people, cue the songbirds and the rainbow and happy ending." I do think if in our culture today if someone was to go really viral with the information that Abraham Lincoln was, wrote these letters and was in love with Joshua Fry Speed, I think there would be a huge conservative backlash and media firestorm. And that's really that what I wanted to show in the novel, how this Wyatt, how Wyatt, this main character makes his way through this incredible maelstrom of fury that he's ignited by just sharing what actually is part of American history. And then to kind of ratchet the stakes up even further, I wanted to make it, like, how was it important for a teenager today? Why is Abraham Lincoln important? So I kind of situated him in Lincolnville, Oregon, a town I kind of made up. His parents own the Lincoln Slept Here Bed & Breakfast. And when the economy of the town kind of starts to tank and they're threatened with losing their business, they bring in a civil rights attorney to help and she has an openly gay son and sparks fly between the two teens. But the main character Wyatt can't do anything about it. Because gay kids saying Lincoln is gay is really different than a straight kid saying Lincoln is gay. And he's faced with his choice, does he follow his heart and see if something might be happening with this guy, Martin? But the cost of that is letting this secret fade back into history, and nothing will ever change in our world. Or does he sort of sacrifice himself and his own happiness, and persist with the story that Lincoln was indeed in love with another guy and see if he can change the world a little bit, even though it won't change for him? So that's the story of "Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill". Jeff: And I feel like even before I read this book that I had heard, you know, some of the rumblings that Lincoln may have had a relationship, may have been gay. So I think it kind of dances around the edge of what some people know, because I can't even begin to tell you where I heard it or anything else, just that it had been kind of back there somewhere in the memory of I don't know, something. Does that even make sense? Lee: Well, it's been a big thing on "Will & Grace", the revived series. They've been doing a whole run on jokes about Jack doing a one-man play called Gaybraham Lincoln, which is sort of all about Lincoln being gay, which I think has been good on the one hand, because it's letting more people know that this is something that people are talking about, but it's also doing so as if it's a farce, as if it's not true at all, and completely made up in a complete flight of fancy on the part of this bigger than life character. When in fact, if you read the letters, it is remarkable how to me it feels so clear that Lincoln was in love with Joshua. Jeff: What was your process for researching the history? Because there's more in here than just the letters themselves. There's a lot of Lincoln history, there's comparisons drawn between Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. In my review, you know, I kind of likened it a little bit, you know, you go see "Hamilton" and you get this big infusion of history, while you're wildly entertained. What was kind of your process around gathering all the pieces you needed? Lee: Well, first of all, thank you for comparing it to "Hamilton." That is like the best compliment ever. I need to embroider that on a pillow or something. I did a lot of research. I started out with the letters and then I realized that I just didn't know enough. I looked around and I live in Southern California. And it turns out in Redlands, California, there is an Abraham Lincoln Memorial shrine and museum. And it's like a three-room edifice that has display cases and a gift shop. And so many of the things that ended up being part of the bed and breakfast that Wyatt's parents own were kind of taken from that real-world experience of going to this place and seeing that they actually had, you know, civil war chess sets. And they had, you know, little teddy bears that were gray or blue. And they had, you know, Confederate Flag and a Union Flag. And that was hugely helpful. And then just starting to dig in deeper to some of the things I discovered there, there's a whole sort of subplot about how Wyatt feels that there's no one he can actually talk to. And so he's developed this strange internal dialogue with this image of a soldier in the background of one of their display cases. And I actually have a photo of it from when I went to this Lincoln shrine. And it was there, it was behind all these ammunitions. And I don't know that my gaydar works 150 some years later, but definitely, there's somebody in that, they're one of the soldiers in that photo does look like he could be gay. And I thought, "Wow, what if this was the only way that Wyatt felt that he could have somebody that recognized who he was, and how sad that was that he didn't really have a friend?" And that was why I was excited to create the character of Martin so he had somebody. Jeff: Were you a history buff all along? Lee: No, I hated history. And I'm sure that they're all these teachers that are like hitting their foreheads in shame right now. But like, honestly, I never had a history teacher that kind of got me excited about the stories of history, because I really feel like the way we teach history today, and my daughter's in 10th grade right now and her history textbook could have been my history textbook from the 1980s, where basically, it's the stories of rich, white, straight, cis-gendered, able-bodied men from Europe. And, you know, history is more than that. There are the stories of disabled people and people of color and women and men who loved men and women who loved women and people who looked outside gender boundaries in history. And I kind of feel like, we have to crack that facade of that false facade of history and let people know that that there's all this amazing light and you can see yourself in history. And, you know, Lincoln and Joshua are just sort of like the tip of the iceberg. There's, you know, Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, there's Mahatma Gandhi and his love for this German Jewish architect, Hermann Kallenbach. There's the pharaoh Hatshepsut in Egypt, there is Safa, there's so many stories that impact us today. But we don't really know them because they don't get taught, or when they are taught, they're not taught in a sort of, queer inclusive or respectful manner. So I kind of feel like now I love history. And in fact, I wrote this novel, but as I was writing the novel, there was so much history, there was so many things that came up, so many more pieces of evidence, so many more pieces of the pie, things that made me surprised, like, I didn't really know that Lincoln was sort of a racist, even though he's credited with freeing all the slaves, he had this whole plan that he signed off on with Congress at that time to sort of, you know, explore shipping all black people back to Africa. And I didn't know that. And the deeper I dug, when I found a piece of information that kind of contradicted what I knew, I really wanted to find a way to include it in the story. Because I feel like that's what we should be doing when we find things that show that history is complex, and that people are not black and white, that it just makes it all so much more real and so much more relatable. And if we can see reflections of ourselves in the past, like if we know that there were men who love men in the past, then we can believe that we have a place at the table today. And if we know that we have a place at the table today, we can envision a future that is sort of limitless. And I want that for everyone that doesn't feel like their history is included. I want it for all the women and all the people of color and the disabled people and the women who love women and the people who lived outside gender boundaries, too. Because that's, you know, we call it LGBTQAI+ or QUILTBAG or whatever. But really, the job is about being an ally to other people. And me as a gay man, I have to think, "Well, how can I be an ally to everybody else?" And hopefully, they're thinking the same thing. And that's how we start to create societal change. Jeff:: That is wildly profound. And especially, given that this episode of the podcast is dropping in the last week of June, as you know, the queer community celebrates Stonewall 50. Lee: Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I love that we're celebrating Stonewall, I love that the gender non-conforming people that were there, the transgender people, the drag queens are getting some respect now that they were part of that and they were in fact, the leaders of standing up to the police finally. But for many, many years, Stonewall had a banner, the Stonewall Inn had a banner outside that read "Where Pride Began". And I think that's really misleading. And we talk in the queer community in America as if that's where pride began, right. Like, pride, "Hey, we're celebrating 50 years of Stonewall, Hooray." But wait a minute, Karl-Maria Kertbeny came up with the word homosexual 100 years before Stonewall. Right? Like Lincoln and Speed were writing these letters to each other 20 years before that. You know, you can go back thousands and thousands of years and there's this beautiful story from China before China was unified, where the State of Wey that the guy that ruled it, his name was Duke Ling and he had a guy he loved his name is Mizi Xia. And they were walking through the orchard one day and Mizi Xia picks a peach off a tree and starts to eat it. And halfway through, he stops because it's so delicious. He wants to share it and he gives the half eaten peach to the Duke and the Duke makes a really big deal out of it. Like, "I can't believe your love for me is so profound that you would sacrifice your own happiness to give me the peach." And something about that moment captured the imagination of people in that pre-unified China. And for over 1,000 years, the way in Chinese that they said gay love was love of the half-eaten peach. Like we have this amazing, amazing history. And we just need to kind of breakthrough that facade and let all this amazing rainbow light shine through. So that's kind of what I feel my mission is to kind of let people know that we have all this amazing history, and we can start to dive into it. Jeff: Is this all history? Because you mentioned earlier that you're not, you weren't a history buff and you hated history. Have you gathered up all of this new knowledge since you were researching to write "Queer as Five-Dollar Bill"? Lee: Yeah. So while I was writing "Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill," like I mentioned, there was just so much stuff that came up, so much evidence that I was like, "I can't really cram all this into a novel, because at the end of the day, the novel is really about a kid today." And I didn't want it to feel like a historical novel. I wanted it to be this page-turner. So I realized that maybe it was two books, maybe there was the novel. But what if there's a nonfiction book as well that presents the primary source materials, like a popup video thing on MTV or VH1, whatever it was, helps interpret, or at least how I interpret the thing? So like, there's all this talk about Shakespeare's Sonnets, and how, while they're very rarely taught, over 100 of the sonnets, Shakespeare wrote to another guy. And these are love sonnets that include really, really famous lines that we all recognize, like, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day. Thou art more worthy, yet more temperate." That's a line that Shakespeare wrote to another guy. For hundreds of years, they had changed the pronouns of that in one of the folios. So it ended up being that for hundreds of years, people thought that Shakespeare wrote all those poems to a woman, to the Dark Lady. But when "The Riverside Shakespeare" came out, the editor of that section, he talked about how, "Well, we've restored the sonnets to their original, you know, pronouns, but you shouldn't mistake that, you know, the affection men felt for each other in the 1500s was nothing like the homosexual attraction today." He wrote this in 1970s. And I'm like, "Really? Really?" Because, you know, "A man in hue all hues in his controlling, Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth," it sounds pretty romantic to me. So what I realized what I wanted to do is to create a book that wouldn't be just a book about Lincoln and Speed, but it would be a book about the broader thing, about men who love men and women who love women and people who lived outside gender boundaries. So there's 15 chapters. One is about Lincoln and Speed, one is about Shakespeare. And then there's, like, you know, a bunch of other amazing people in history, and it really presents the primary source material. And I'm really excited because today - that we're recording this - is the day that I'm signing the contract for that book with a publisher. Jeff: Oh, that is exciting. Congratulations. Lee: Thank you. It's been a long journey, long and crazy journey. Because the book originally was set up at one of the big five publishers, and I worked on it for a year and a half with them. It was approved, we were talking cover design. And then two weeks after our current president was elected, they canceled the book. I think they were concerned that it was going to be too controversial. They just didn't have the courage to proceed. And that was really devastating. And it took a long time to find a new home for it. There were a lot of shenanigans, a lot of plot twists. The agent I had had at the time turned out to be a criminal who, well, she was telling all her clients she was submitting things and that they were having all these pending book deals. She was lying. And the book was never submitted anywhere. Even after it was returned, the rights were returned to me. And the novel, "Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill" ended up getting crowdfunded because I thought that I was being, well, stonewalled by the children's book industry and they didn't want word to get out about Lincoln and Speed so much so that no one would even respond to the submissions. So I crowdfunded it. I have a blog, I think we're talking about that a little bit later. But I have a bunch of people that know who I am and what I was trying to do, and they all supported me to not just publish the book professionally, but also, what I wanted to do is raise enough money to donate at least 400 copies of the novel to LGBTQ and allied teens, and the Kickstarter funded in six days, it was amazing. And then it went on for another 24 days. So we ultimately raised enough money to give away 910 copies. So that's been really, really gratifying. Jeff: That's incredible. I mean, it's really one of the great things about publishing today is that there's really no more gatekeepers out there. Anybody can publish, get it on Amazon, get an audiobook done, etc, and get their messages out there. Lee: There still is the thing, though, that being with a traditional publisher, you generally can reach more, especially when we're talking about like middle grade, you know, or books, where you go into libraries, which I think that this nonfiction book really is a, you know, hopefully, it'll sell like hotcakes. But also, I do think that to get it adopted more broadly into schools and into libraries, I think that coming from an established publisher is really useful and really helpful. So I'm excited about that. I do think that yeah, that there are many, many fewer boundaries than there used to be - or barriers than there used to be. But at the same time, we have the additional challenge that while access to the marketplace has never been easier, the marketplace has never been bigger. So getting noticed in a marketplace, where there's over a million books that are published every year now in the U.S., is a challenge. And that's why it's so important to have safe places to find out about these things, like your podcast, and my blog. Jeff: Yes, absolutely. To spin back on "Five-Dollar Bill" a little bit and talk a little bit more about it. What were your inspirations for both Wyatt and Martin and the type of teenagers they would be? Lee: When I was growing up, or when I was coming out, I think it felt like you couldn't be gay if you lived anywhere except for one of the big cities like San Francisco or New York. And I really wanted to have a character that felt connected to nature. And that one of the thematic subplots would be, 'Could he be himself where he was? Could he be himself in small town America, in a rural community, was there a way through for him to be successfully himself and authentic?' I feel like I spent so much of my life being inauthentic, that I want to do everything I can to help teens be authentic now. So on the one hand, Wyatt was the study of a kid that was on a journey to be authentic and Martin was the flip side of that. Martin was the character that already was authentic, and was already reaping the benefits of that level of confidence. And you know, as soon as you, for me, when I came out, it was like this huge burden off of me. And suddenly, I realized the weight of it was on everyone else, right? Like, if they had a problem with it, that was their problem. But it wasn't me hiding or holding back, or pretending or acting, which I did for so long. My husband and I have a joke, where when you go to a Starbucks or something, they're always like, "What's your name?" And every time my husband changes his name. Like he just makes up different names every single time. And they ask me and I'm always Lee because it took me 25 years to even start to like myself and to accept myself. And I finally got here. And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not anybody else. I am me. I am Lee." It's funny. I take a spin class and as a motivational thing the spin instructor does, "Who do you want to be today?" I'm always like, "Me, I want to be me." I spent so long being other people. And then also, it was really cool when I was creating Martin's character, to think about him being African American. And that being an opportunity for me to talk about the complexity of Abraham Lincoln and him not being so perfect and explore those themes a little more. And it's funny because I hear from a lot of people how much they love Martin. And yeah, he's pretty lovable. Jeff: Yeah, I really liked them both in their individual ways. For sure Wyatt...I grew up, I spent like middle school, high school, college in Alabama. So I could totally relate to where Wyatt was in his journey like he knows, but there's no way he's telling anybody. And I didn't have a Martin for a best friend. So I also loved Martin, because he was the ideal friend to have for Wyatt in the moment to show him what could be. Lee: Yeah, exactly. Jeff: What do you hope the audience takes away from this kind of history/fiction mashup? Lee: So I think a lot about words, you know, being a writer, and I think that the word homosexual isn't helping us. I think that if we, because we're so reactive and weird in our culture, in America about sex, and we are obsessed with it, and we don't want to acknowledge it. And especially we don't want to talk about it to teens. So when we talk about homosexual rights and homosexual history, all straight people are hearing, you know, to paint with a broad brush, is they're thinking about sex and that we have sex differently than they do and how do we have sex. And I just don't think that's particularly helpful. And I think that if we talked about love as sort of the binding element that makes me and my husband and our teenage daughter a family, or the love between you and your husband, if we talked about HomoLOVEual rights and HomoLOVEual history, I think we'd have a very different cultural conversation. So what the tagline of my book is, "What if you knew a secret from history that could change the world?" And I love this because it gets a little meta. But it's the challenge that Wyatt faces, right? He finds out the secret about Abraham Lincoln writing these letters and maybe being in love with Joshua Fry Speed. And he decides that he's going to tell the world because it could change the world. And then it's the same challenge that I faced because I knew the secret from history and I thought this drumming sense of responsibility, like I had to share it, I had to get it out in the world. And because I wasn't getting anywhere with traditional publishing, I thought, "Okay, well, I'm going to crowdfund it, I'm going to get it out in the world, myself." And then what I am really excited about is that it's also the challenge that the reader faces. Because when you've read the book, or you even heard me talk about the book, you know that there is something more to the story of Abraham Lincoln that has been taught to you. And it's that first crack in that facade of history. And it makes you think, "Well, wait a minute, when you see the picture of Mount Rushmore, or when you pick your kid up at the Lincoln middle school, or you're driving on Lincoln Boulevard, you know, does it occur to you that, you know, our culture has not shared that part of who Lincoln is? And does it make you feel a little more pride about the fact that you know what, we do have history, queer people, and we need to lean into it? And we have the opportunity to because there are hundreds of years of historians that are going to argue with us and that are going to say, "Yeah, yeah, it's not true. It was very typical for men to share beds on the frontier." Not that Springfield, Illinois was the frontier. But for four years, you know, Abraham and Joshua shared a bed long after Abraham could afford his own bed. "Well, it was cold." Okay, yeah. But they shared a bed for four years. It's not proof. But it's interesting. And I think that as all those things add up, we can all make our own determination of what we think, you know. Is it important for me that I convince the world that Abraham Lincoln was in love with Joshua Fry Speed? No. I think a lot about Anne Lamott, she's a writer, and she writes about writing. She has a beautiful book called "Bird by Bird". And in that book, she talks about lighthouses, and how they don't run all over an island looking for boats to save, they just sort of stand there and they shine. And I think a lot about that. Like, I need to be a lighthouse. Like I found out this amazing, cool stuff about history, and how it relates to today, and how empowering it is. And I just want to shine. And if people are interested, they can come closer to the light. And if they're not interested, no worries, you know, watch out, there's some rocks over there. Jeff: Any chance of a sequel? Because I know I would love to see more of Wyatt and Martin at some point Lee: I haven't really come up with a good angle on a sequel, I had this funny idea for...one of the other pieces of history that really struck me was Mahatma Gandhi and the story of his love for Hermann Kallenbach. And we talk a lot about Gandhi having this sort of breakthrough where he talked about it doesn't matter whether you pray facing left and I pray facing right - I may have that reversed. We're all praying to the same God. Like he had this huge breakthrough, not just in terms of, you know, a peaceful protest, Satyagraha. He changed our world in such profound ways. And at the same time, he was in love with this German Jewish architect named Hermann Kallenbach. And if he was in love with a Jewish guy, like that's actually really interesting and really germane. Like maybe that's why he had that inspiration, that insight about it doesn't matter who you're praying to, because it's, we're all sort of bonded by this sense of spiritual connection. Like, that's really exciting. And I feel like there's so many stories like that, like Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. Eleanor Roosevelt was the woman that after, you know, her husband died, she went to the UN and became this advocate for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And would she had done that if she didn't have this experience of being in love with another woman, and feeling that sort of outsider status, while at the same time being this empowered woman in our world? History starts to open up like a flower. So I don't have an exact idea for a sequel for Wyatt and Martin, but I will put it in the hopper as ideas. Reason I brought up Hermann Kallenbach and Mahatma Gandhi was that I thought, that would be an interesting thing to talk about a kid finding out about that, and how that would have changed their life. And then about, "Wait, that's the exact same story over again, I don't need to do that. I already wrote that." So for now, I'm going to focus on the nonfiction piece and some other fiction writing that I want to get to that, actually, I'm very inspired by your book too, by the "Codename: Winger" series, because I love the idea of mashing up a gay teen with a sort of spy thriller. Jeff: And I can't wait to read what you might do with that. So please, bring that to the marketplace. Lee: Thank you. I keep thinking, "Is there a way I can get gay history in here somehow?" I haven't figured that either yet. But, you know, I'll work on it. Jeff: You'd mentioned earlier that you've got your blog, which I was so excited to find right around the same time as finding the book. You've been a YA blogger for more than a decade now. I believe you said it'll be 12 years in September. And the blog is called "I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I Read?" What led you to starting that? Lee: Thanks. Yeah, there was no safe space to find out what were the books with queer characters for kids and teens. And I remember, there was a review on Amazon for a really sweet picture book called "The Family Book" by Todd Parr. And it's sort of a cartoon-y book. And there's like one page, it says, "Some families look alike." And it's a bunch of dogs that they all have similar features. "Some families look different." And it's a tree with all these different kind of animals in it. "Some families adopt children." And it's a bunch of ducks. And on the back of one duck is a penguin. And then you turn the page and it's, "Some families have two moms or two dads." And it's a picture of two women and two men. And then it continues, and there was a review, pretty high up that said, "If you tear out the page with the two moms and dads, then this is a lovely book on diversity." And I thought, "Wow, way to miss the entire point of what diversity is." And I got so upset and so hurt, you know, because I'm a gay dad. And I thought this was an amazing book for my daughter, but also for all of my daughter's classmates to see and recognize, "Yeah, yeah, you know, some families do have two moms and two dads." And to Amazon, that wasn't hate speech, it didn't violate their terms of service, it was just somebody's opinion. Albeit kind of, you know, nasty, or at least I interpreted as nasty. And it got me thinking about how there really needed to be a safe place online, where a kid could go and find out what are the books that were out there. And when I started, there were maybe 30 books total that were inclusive of LGBTQ characters and themes for kids and teens. And what's happened over the years is that by keeping this curated safe space, where I'm not vetting all the books, but I'm making sure that no nastiness is happening on the site. We have over 500 books now in many, many categories. And it's been really exciting to see that sort of explosion of content. And yet, it's that sort of similar problem again. Like now, suddenly, there's so much content, how do you make your way through it? How do you find the things that you want? So the idea behind it was to post about the books, what's queer about the books, and then let readers add their own reviews. There hasn't been a lot of review, there's just too many places for people to leave reviews these days. So I don't see a lot of that. But I also didn't want to make it, you know, "Lee's favorite book site" because I think that that has a limited value, I thought that there was more value in it being a site that felt really comprehensive. And that's what I aim for. And then it just became a place where I could talk about the stuff that I really care about, that I want queer and allied teens to know about. And over the years, what I've discovered is that the readership is split into thirds. There's about a third, queer teens and queer and allied teens on it. There about a third of librarians and teachers and people that work with LGBTQ teens. And then there's a whole bunch of adults that are sort of reading the books for themselves and sort of healing their inner teen. And I think that there is a healing that happens. Every time I read a queer book that has a happy or even a hopeful ending, there's a healing that happens. And I think maybe that's part of why romance as a genre is so popular. I know Will was saying in a previous episode that people get on his case for like ruining the ending, but it's all romance, you know it's going to be a good ending. And I think maybe that's why people turn to it. So I know how empowering it is for me when I read something where I see a reflection of myself, and it's a positive thing. Because when I was growing up, there was nothing to read, nothing positive. The only queer characters were like evil pedophile villains, it wasn't particularly helpful. Jeff: Yeah, that's, unfortunately, the case in the history that you and I have from that era when we were growing up. In the decade-plus that you've been running the site, other than just more YA, how have you seen it all evolve? Lee: There's more, and there's better and there's deeper, and there's less preachy and there's room for it all. It's funny, there was a kind of push a few years back for...well, maybe we're beyond the coming out story. And I kind of got my dander up a little bit on that. And I felt like, "Well, we're never going to be beyond the first love story when it's, you know, a straight romance. So, Andrew Solomon has this great book that he wrote called "Far From the Tree" and it's a nonfiction piece. And he talks about how, you know, when your identity is...where you're the apple that does fall far from the tree, or falls from the tree and rolls across the, you know, down the hill and across the orchard, when you're queer, most likely your parents were not. And so you have this moment where you have to find your sense of community outside of the family that you grew up in. A lot of other identities, you share that. Like, usually, like me, I was raised Jewish and so I would, you know, my parents were Jewish. So I sort of shared that identity. For all of our identities, we sort of are either sort of close to the tree or far from the tree. And when you're far from the tree, there's more work involved. So coming out, I think is going to continue to be this universal thing. Because just like, you know, my daughter has two dads, but she's straight. So in a funny way, she's going to have to, you know, she had a bit of a coming out where she had to tell us, sort of, you know, abashed, hoping that we'd be okay with it, that she was straight. And we had a good laugh about it. Because it's not that big a deal for us. We just want her to be her authentic self and to be happy. So we do want to have coming out books, and we also want to have books where being gay, like your character Winger, Theo, where it's the least interesting thing about him. I loved when you said that in your interview. Because yeah, we want those stories, too. It's like in acting, right? In improv, the rule is yes/and. So we want these books, and we want those books. We want the fantasy, we want the romance, we want the science fiction, we want all of it because truly, if you look at the numbers of books that are published - traditionally there about 5,000 books published a year for kids and teens. And then, if you look at the world of self-publishing, let's say that 5,000 are doing it really beautifully. And the books are indistinguishable with the quality of that from traditional publishing. That's 10,000 books a year, a year. And you have all those years going back too. So what we want is the opportunity to sort of have all of those books and right now we still only have like 500. So we have a long way to go. We need lots more books, we need lots more voices, we need people writing their own voices, stories, we need more diversity included in everybody's stories because truly, you're not going to have a classroom today that doesn't include someone that's LGBTQ, we need it all. Jeff: That's very true. Given that you had the blog, did you always see yourself eventually writing the YA novel that you did? Or did that just kind of manifest itself because you have the story to tell? Lee: I've always been a writer. I've written...I remember one summer when I was like between 9th and 10th Grade in high school, I was like, "I'm going to write a novel." I sometimes think of those poor characters still trapped in the broken space station that was orbiting the Earth. And I'm like, "Oh man, I have to do something with that someday." I don't think I will. I've always written. I think that for the last 14 years, I've really focused on writing for kids and teens. I also write picture books and middle grade. And when I found out this thing about Lincoln and Speed, it really inspired me to focus on writing that as a novel. I think that the blog has been a way to have my voice heard in a more direct way, and not wait for somebody to tap me on the shoulder and say, "Okay Lee, we're ready for what you have to share." So that's been really empowering. I remember, when I started the blog, there were very few people reading it, and I would get all excited, I'd be like, and I'd tell my husband, "Hey, 15, people went to my blog today." And I was so, so excited. And now, all these years later, we passed 2.6 million page loads. I get between, you know, 15,000 to 25,000 page views a month. It's remarkable, and humbling, and also a really cool responsibility to continue to maintain this safe place. And at the same time, I'm trying to keep writing and work on the new stuff, which has been really a good thing, because balancing the day job and the blogging, there's a lot but I have stories I want to tell. And I'm going to keep trying to tell them. Jeff: Good. Yeah, keep putting it out there. Because we always need more, to be sure. For people who haven't seen the site yet, and we're certainly going to link to it in the show notes. It has an amazing hero image across the top of the superhero. Where did that come from? And where did the name come from? For folks who might question the name too, because I have a pretty good idea where the name came from. But let's hear it from you. Lee: Sure. So "I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I read?" is a play on words of something we chanted in Act Up in the '80s and '90s. The chant was "We're here. We're queer. Get used to it." And I thought, well, my issue is a little more "What the hell do I read?" Because I felt so starved for any books that included somebody like me. I mean, you know, I grew up and I really and truly thought I was the only person in the world that felt the way I felt about other guys. And which was super ironic, because I have an older brother, who's five and a half years older, and he's gay too, but we never spoke about it. We are the children of immigrants and when my parents came from Israel, they sort of brought all their homophobia with them. And the American culture at the time was super homophobic, especially where we lived outside Philadelphia. It was not a safe place. And it's so amazing to think that you can grow up and feel like you're the only person and everything I read, I was obsessed with the series by Anne McCaffrey called the Dragonrider series. And there was this super between the lines, sort of thematic thing that you could maybe interpret that there was gay stuff happening in that world, but you had to really stretch for it. And looking back, I think, well, maybe that's why I was so obsessed with that book, with that series, because there was some faint, not even mirror reflection, but like the gleam of a tarnished piece of silverware. I was like, "Wait, wait, maybe that's me." So that's where "I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I read?" came from. The image happened a few years later. I had been running the site for about two years, it had been doing really well. And I realized I wanted to have a customized image. And yet, it's a pretty wordy title. So I realized I needed an image that didn't have any additional words to it. So I contacted someone I knew, an artist I knew, Jim DeBartolo. And, I said, "Look, I need an image that says empowerment." And he came up with this sort of superhero moment of like ripping the denim shirt off. And there's this sort of T-shirt underneath with the sort of superhero logo, which is the website, which is leewind.org. And it was funny. We tried to play with the sort of partial face that you see, we tried to, you know, could we make it a person of color? Could we do some things with you, know, the physique? But ultimately, it was sort of an avatar of me, and it took me years to admit it that's sort of what of course it is, it's an avatar of me, but I don't have that good a jawline. But at least in my mind, I think that it's been this sort of symbol of empowerment. And that's really what I hope that people get from visiting the site, from reading anything I write. I want them to feel empowered. Jeff: I like that. That's a great story behind that. Lee: Thanks. Jeff: So relying on your...I'm going to call it a YA expertise because of the site that you run. What are three or four titles of current YA that you would recommend our audience to take a stab at? Lee: Sure. So I have to start with "Carry On" by Rainbow Rowell. I know it's not super recent. But this is the gay Harry Potter book that I wanted so badly. And I was so frustrated that JK Rowling didn't include Dumbledore as being gay in the canon. It sort of was outside the books that that revelation happened and you can go back and sort of, you know, read subtexts and stuff. But I really was hoping that there would be some sort of, you know, on the page, queer love or something, and it didn't happen, there was really nothing. And, you know, Rainbow Rowell, she wrote two books, one about the girl that writes the fan fiction, which is called "Fangirl", which is really good. And then there was this book, which was the fan fiction, that ended up being a huge success on its own, called "Carry On". And I don't want to say too much, but it is absolutely brilliant. And if you are queer, or love queer stories, and you had any connection to Harry Potter, and that sort of world of magic, you've got to go read this. It's just wonderful. Jeff: Excellent. Her books have been on my TBR forever. And I actually need to take the leap and read them. Lee: Read this one first. It's just you will be so happy you did. Jeff: So you mentioned the nonfiction that you've just signed the contract on and other stuff noodling around in your head... anything else you want to shout out that's coming up soon for you? Lee: So there are a bunch of things percolating. But nothing has come to full boil yet. So I will let you all know when it does. Jeff: That is fair. I can't wait to hear what they are. Because I think that, yeah, having read the one book from you, I'm looking forward to reading so much more. So where can people keep up with you? There's leewind.org as we talked about, which is the "I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I read?" site. Anyplace else people should be looking for updates? Lee: Yeah. I mean, I'm playing around with Instagram. I'm trying to do this thing. I had the idea that we could do a #queerhistoryiseverywhere. And I wanted people to upload photos of Abraham Lincoln or the word Lincoln wherever they saw it and just start posting it on Instagram. It hasn't exactly caught on yet. But I still like that idea. Jeff: Maybe our podcast listeners will play along with that. Lee: Oh, yeah, that would be really fun. And also, I mean, as, you know, more queer history happens. I was speaking at the Bay Area Book Festival recently and someone came up after my panel and they said, "Did you know that Bābur from the Bāburnāma when he was a teen he was in love with another boy?" I was like, "Really?" Totally, I have sitting on my desk right next to me right now the "Bāburnāma" and indeed, when he was 18, he was in love with this other boy. And it's so exciting to find out this stuff. So I feel like because it's been hidden, the more we can crowdsource this information and share it and then all amplify each other. I think it's very, very exciting. Jeff: Very cool. So we will link to all that stuff, the books we talked about - everything else - in our show notes. And Lee, I'm so glad we got the opportunity to talk, spread the word a little bit more about this book and the website and thank you for all you're doing to get more out there about YA literature too. Lee: Thank you, Jeff. I really want to say thank you to you and to Will. I'm really a fan of the podcast and getting to be on it as a real thrill. So thanks.

The guys open the show congratulating the winners of the 31st Annual Lambda Literary Awards. They also discuss the podcast’s inclusion in Apple Podcasts’ Pride Month recommendations. Jeff also talks about some of the past week’s happenings with his Codename: Winger series and Will asks him what it was like wrapping up the series. Jeff and Will discuss the new Tales of the City series on Netflix. Will reviews the first two books in Piper Scott & Susi Hawke’s Redneck Unicorn Series. Aidan Wayne is interviewed about their three new books out this year: Hitting The Mark, Play It Again and the forthcoming Stage Presents. They also talk about how they decide what goes into the books, how they got started writing, author influences and what’s coming next. Complete shownotes for episode 192 along with a transcript of the interview are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Interview Transcript – Aidan Wayne This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast. Jeff: Welcome, Aidan, to the podcast. It’s great to have you here. Aidan: Thank you. I’m excited to be here. It’s an interesting experience for me. Never done this before. Jeff: Oh, cool. First podcast. Always fun to have people doing their first podcast with us. Now, you’ve had a busy few months of releases and we wanna talk about the most recent one first, which is “Hitting the Mark.” Tell us a little bit about that book and what inspired it. Aidan: Okay. So “Hitting the Mark,” in a nutshell, it’s about a famous movie star named Marcus Economidis, who used to train in martial arts when he was really young and really shy. And that helped him come out of a shell and then he moves. And being in martial arts actually helps him become more confident and he ends up getting a movie role, and that spirals, and then becomes a famous…10 years later, he’s a famous movie star who is also famous for doing his own stunts. Meanwhile, in Marcus’s hometown essentially, his original school – Choi’s Taekwondo Academy – is now run by Taemin Choi. Taemin was Marcus’s kind of assistant instructor growing up. They’re about 10 years apart. So Marcus was 10, Taemin was, like, in his early 20s and Taemin runs the school now. And Marcus happens to be coming back into town for a shoot and he decides to pay a visit to his old school… kind of nostalgia. He lost contact with Taemin when he moved. And so, he kind of wants to bridge the gap again, just like say hi, see what happens. And then they do meet with Marcus being an adult and, you know, there’s kind of an instant connection. The entire book is essentially about them navigating, first, relearning each other because they knew each other for several years, but it’s been several more years since they actually talked again. So they’re relearning who they are as people, especially Marcus as he’s grown into his own self, and that turns into a romantic relationship. And they’re just figuring out how to be in one considering that, you know, Marcus is this famous person and Taemin is a very busy man who runs his own school and takes care of a lot of things. And just, that’s the story basically. I do a lot of character-based stories where the plot is kind of, like, playing the course as opposed to, like, a person antagonist sort of. So it’s kind of like another one of those things for me. Jeff: Okay. And it ticks so many boxes because there’s friends to lovers, and second chances, and an age gap. Aidan: I tend to, when I write, sometimes I have several different things that I wanna include in various ideas. And so, sometimes when I have, like, the base, I’m just like, “Let’s just squish them all together. Let’s just push them all in one thing and see what happens, and if I can pull it off.” Jeff: And you mentioned when we were emailing to set this interview up that this is one of the books you didn’t have to do a ton of research on because… Aidan: Thank God. Jeff: …movies and martial arts, you had the knowledge there. What aspects of your background, you know, play into that? Aidan: Well, I’ve been involved in martial arts for about 20 years now, primarily Taekwondo and that’s the style that I had Taemin doing because I know the most about Taekwondo in Korean style. I technically have my black belt in two disciplines. One is Taekwondo and the other is a mixed type of martial art that I actually ended up teaching. I used to run a school. So a lot of my experience did transfer over into Taemin’s experiences in running a school and dealing with students and various endeavors that are required. And with movies, I actually majored in media production in college. I was on movie sets a lot both behind the camera and also growing up, I kind of dabbled in acting and I’ve been in front of the camera a lot too including on some big sets. Michigan used to be a pretty big movie hub before the tax thing happened and a lot of places moved away from it. And I was actually on a few different, like, SAG films. So I got to kind of be both in front of the camera and behind the camera. So learning about that aspect was…It was fun to basically shove as much knowledge as I could, especially the martial arts into one book because I have such a love for martial arts that it was like, “Let’s include inside jokes and inside knowledge. And I’ve never had to spell this Korean word in English before. So I have to probably look that up.” And fun fact actually, I’m not gonna spoil anything, but one of the plot points is Taemin working towards the Olympics. He’s qualified for the qualification and that entire piece is actually based on a co-worker of mine I used to work with who did qualify for the Olympic matches. Jeff: Incredible. You did stuff a lot in here in terms of all of your knowledge kinda went into this book. Aidan: Yeah. It was kinda, it was a nice break. I still had to do research obviously because I had to, like, fresh some things and again, like, Korean, making sure that I got that right. But for a lot of it, like, I have another book that I released late last year, “His Two Leading Men,” which takes place in New York with a Broadway star, and I’m like, “I like Broadway, I can just write about plays, that’s fine.” No, I ended up having to map out the entire city to figure out distances to whichever…I’m crazy…whichever restaurant he’d like to go to, which is closer, where is laundromat was. Like, I’m absolutely ridiculous when it comes to stuff like that. Nobody is gonna notice but me. But, like, I care. Jeff: But the native New Yorkers might. And so, it matters. Aidan: Yeah, yeah. Jeff: I have stopped myself of books going, “That’s not right. I know where that is and that doesn’t work that way.” So you do work Michigan into a lot of your books. “Hitting the Mark” is in Michigan. “Play It Again,” which we’ll dive more into in just a second, has a Michigan element simply because you have somebody sending Dovid, the main character, some Faygo Red Pop and some other Michigan treats, some Mackinac fudge included. Obviously, you live in Michigan. Is it something you try to work into the books, a little Michigan angle? Aidan: Kind of. Half of it is ‘write what you know’ because I’m thoroughly uncreative when it comes to that and it’s way easier to just, like, I don’t have to make something up, I don’t have to do more research. I just can set it in Farmington Hills or wherever it is. But sometimes it’s because I have, like, certain places in mind or I want to include certain things like, with Dovid receiving a care package, I wanted to make sure that I had a care package that at least was state-based and was really cool and could include especially a lot of food because a lot of…Dovid being blind, a lot of his things are food-based, it’s part of his schtick. So he reacts to taste and stuff. So knowing that I have my own experience with various Michigan cuisines and snacks and stuff, I could include that pretty easily and know that it would ring true but also be kind of funny. And even if the person didn’t necessarily know what things were, it would still, like, be something that they could get. Jeff: Speaking of “Play it Again,” that I reviewed back in episode 186 and really, really loved it. It was like the book I didn’t know I needed at the time. Aidan: Thank you. Jeff: And it’s quite different from “Hitting the Mark.” What was the inspiration behind this tale of two YouTubers who managed to find love even though they live half a world apart? Aidan: Well, going back to my ‘I have various ideas, but squish them all together into one sometimes.’ I really, really wanted to showcase a blind character. A lot of the characters that I do showcase are disabled in some way or have, you know, different aspects of their life that aren’t typical, you know, part of normative parts of society, etc., etc. And I apologize if my verbiage isn’t the best. And I really want to showcase a blind character, but obviously, I didn’t wanna fetishize that I wanted him to be successful and happy, and not be just blind as his character if that makes sense. And I thought YouTube would be a fun angle for that. And on the other side, I really wanted to focus on, like, a Let’s Player because I thought that it would be fun to try to, like, figure out how to write that because it’s so much narration and video-audio-based. And I like playing and like, “Can I do this? I will see if I can.” So making it a long-distance relationship was also kind of something that sort of happened because long-distance relationships, specifically internet-based ones, are very important to me because I have several relationships that started being internet-only and I consider a lot of these people some of my closest friends and I’ve met many of them in person now. One of my friends, I’ve only ever met them once, and it was in our first meeting ever…we then spent two weeks together, but our first meeting ever was in Narita Airport in Tokyo where we both flew separately and then spent two weeks in Japan together. So, like, yeah, there’s a lot that can come from internet relationships and I really wanted to showcase something like that too. Jeff: And I’d imagine here that the research was more than “Hitting the Mark” because you needed to make sure that Dovid was portrayed in the way that you wanted to where, you know, he wasn’t necessarily defined by the blindness. Aidan: Oh, yeah. I do extensive research whenever I write, especially disabled characters, because, you know, there’s so much misinformation out there and it’s so easy to fall into the trap of what the media has portrayed a person to be like or to do as opposed to actually reading experiences and watching experiences about, you know, real people. I kind of posed this question to myself on Twitter a while back, but it was basically, how does one write about a successful blind YouTuber? Watch a lot of successful blind YouTubers basically. So I watched a lot of, like, “The Tommy Edison Experience” is a man who is blind and he has a lot of Q&As; on YouTube. A lot of his videos are older and he’s an older gentleman. But it was still, you know, very informative. He has, like, an episode about cooking, which Dovid is the chef of his little family where he lives with his sister, Rachel. So it was interesting to, like, make sure that I was, you know, portraying his ability to do that correctly and, like, different tools that he’d use. Molly Burke is also a YouTuber that does makeup and fashion. But how she interacts, you know, with her audience and interacts with herself, and the things that are important to her – her experiences – because she does talk about that as well. It was very important. There’s a Tumblr called “Actually Blind” that did Q&As; and did a lot of commentary on different things and responded to different situations where, you know, there’s one impairment affected daily life that was not considered. And “Actually Blind” was a huge help in doing a lot of research because even when I didn’t actually ask the question myself, sometimes they just talked about things that I hadn’t thought about before. So that was a really good thing to notice. Like for instance, they had a post about the fact that the face touch thing in so many books and so many movies is absolutely ludicrous and no blind person really does that. And because it was made up by a sighted person who thought that it was kind of like romantic and intimate to have the blind person, like, touch the other person’s face to see what they look like and “Actually Blind” was like, “No, no. Uh-uh.” So it was something that I didn’t include then and I might have if I hadn’t read something like that. Jeff: The research is oh, so important. Aidan: Absolutely, absolutely. And I do a lot of sensitivity readers too. I have a short story that is going to be coming out probably in October, because I’m spacing it out a little bit, where one of the main characters is in a wheelchair. So luckily, I’m like, “Hey, sibling, I’m gonna ask you some wheelchair questions.” And know about how my experiences in, you know, living with somebody who uses a mobility aid and all that. So proper portrayal is really important to me. Jeff: And you have still yet another type of story coming out with your upcoming YA novel, “Stage Presents.” And I’m fascinated by this way because you’re taking us to Disney College Program. Do you have experience in that or was that a ton more research? And of course, what is this book about because it sounds just delightful? Aidan: Oh, well, thank you. I hope it is delightful. I hope people enjoy it. And to your question, yes and yes. I did experience, I did do the Disney college program many years ago, but I also did do a lot of research for the story in part because, you know, Disney updates and changes things. So some of the things I had to look up were the current menus and stuff because, again, it’s like a tiny little detail that only I will notice but I cared about. But I also had to make sure that I was getting details right in terms of characters because one of the main characters, Ashlee, with two Es, is a Disney princess literally. I did a lot of research into behind the scenes of that a little bit. I watched a lot of ex-princess interviews and posts about the experience of being a character performer. I didn’t have a lot of experience in that capacity. I knew some people who are friends with characters while I was in the program and I did ask, you know, I did learn about it that way. But princesses, I had to learn a little bit more. And, oh, yeah, what the book is about. Two girls who both get onto the Disney College Program and end up his roommates. One, Dana is a kind of, you know, calm, cool, collected, very down to earth, logical girl who is going into international business, she’s excited about working in a Fortune 500 company. She’s looking forward to living away from home. She’s trans. So, you know, that’s just another aspect of who she is as a person and she’s kind of like not sure about how she’s gonna get along with people. But she kind of has the mindset of ‘judge people before they judge you’ sort of thing because of past experiences. Meanwhile, on the other side, Ashlee, with two Es, loves Disney…I know, it’s a very important detail. She loves Disney, she’s a Disneyphile, she loves all the movies, she loves all the songs. She gets cast as an actual Disney princess. This is her dream come true. She’s been dancing since she was little. So one of her goals is to be a parade performer Disney princess, essentially, and she’s super excited. She’s from good old Southern Georgia and has never really, you know, met somebody who’s not exactly like her and her little clique, you know, popular, excited, happy group. So she doesn’t really know what trans means and she was born around…she knows what the internet is, but still, it’s different from knowing and meeting and, like, actually talking to somebody and interacting. And then so, Ashlee is kind of ignorant and Dana is kind of standoffish, and they hate each other. A good portion of the book is just them hating each other, and eventually, of course, a couple of different things happen and it turns into a begrudging friendship, which turns into actual friendship, which turns into more. And it was, you know, writing the evolution of enemies to lovers, which is something that I hadn’t done before really, and integrating different aspects of their situation and being roommates and living in such close quarters and, like, what constitutes that kind of relationship too, especially while you do not like each other and then as friends, and then, you know, once you’re more intimate as well. So that was, like, a whole encompassing aspect of the story itself. Jeff: And now, it sounds even more delightful than when I read the blurb. Aidan: Okay. Good. I had a lot of fun. I like my stories, which is, you know, a fun thing to be able to say because a lot of them I think, just kind of get defined as ‘fun’. There are obviously elements of angst and stuff and, you know, negativity that happens, but I have fun, you know, writing them. I hope that people have fun reading them. Jeff: What got you into writing and M/M romance in particular? Aidan: Well, I’ve always been a storyteller. My dad also, when we were kids, he would make up bedtime stories. We got read to a lot too, but he would make them up. So I grew up with the elements of imagination as something that you could play with and figuring out different elements of what characters could do. Really, you know, being totally honest, fan fiction. I was really, really interested in “Elfquest” as a kid. It is a fantasy novel by Wendy and Richard Penny. And man, I was an “Elfquest” fan. I read and actually own, I’ve collected almost all of the books and volumes and made up as a tiny little 9-year-old, self-inserts in my head as being an elf with such and such power, and being part of that self-insert stuff. And as I got into more media growing up, I really enjoyed reading and writing fan fiction because it was a way to interact with something that I enjoyed so much past where the media itself went. And sometimes things happen that you didn’t like. So you could make them better by writing it yourself or reading it by other people who did a good job or further exploring the world that had already been created with characters you already liked. And from there, it was kind of like, “Oh, I could do this with my own characters and make whatever I want to happen, happen. What? Oh.” And the kickoff was when I was, I don’t know, like, 15, I participated in my first NaNoWriMo and that was the first, like, write a lot of words and also write them really quickly. So you can’t think too much about what you were doing, you know, “wrong.” I wrote 50,000 words in the 30 days. And man, I still have it and it really portrays what I was into, what I was learning, and what I was experimenting with as a 15-year-old because it is a lot of stuff. And I really enjoyed doing that and I kind of just kept at it. And eventually, I had a friend who I really admired, Mina MacLeod, who was also a writer that I was friends with at the time. And she talked about an anthology and encouraged me to also, you know, submit a story, a piece, and I did. And we both got in and I still have the copy of the book, but we’re both in the anthology, both me and this writer that I really admire. And, like, that was really cool. And from there, I went, “Oh, wait, publishing is possible, that this is a thing that actually can happen to, like, real human people as opposed to just authors who are these untouchable people on pedestals.” So my next book that I wrote was written with publishing in mind. That was “Loud and Clear.” And it was technically my first original, original piece. Speaking of smooshing everything together at once, that book is about a man who is so dyslexic, he is essentially illiterate and a businessman who has a stutter so bad that he is a selective mute, falling in love and entering into a relationship. So you got someone who can’t read and someone who communicates through writing and I was like, “Let’s just make this as complicated for myself as possible. That’s a good idea.” But, you know. Jeff: Yeah. For a first book, you took on a lot there. Aidan: You know, it suffers from an overuse of italics, but it’s still something that I really appreciate that I did as a writer. I really like it. I had a lot of people really like the fact that I, you know, portrayed people that way, and of course, it does focus on non-normative people with disabilities and challenges in, you know, typical normal society. The illiteracy was actually based on a friend of mine who is illiterate. His dyslexia is so bad, he is effectively illiterate. He’s also an engineer. So, you know, it doesn’t stop you. It doesn’t have to stop you as long as you have the right elements and encouragement and resources. And that’s what a lot of people do struggle with. Like, he had to be homeschooled because his school that his parents had put him in originally were like, “We don’t know what to do with this child.” So being homeschooled allowed him to learn and actually grow and actually learn. Jeff: I have a suspicion a little bit where this next question at least will go a little bit given the “Elfquest” things, but what authors and genres do you tend to read? Aidan: Basically everything, but gore horror to be honest. I really enjoy contemporary pieces. I like fantasy. I really like nonfiction. I love learning stuff. This is probably not a surprise considering my need for research, my favorite author in the entire world is Terry Pratchett. That probably will never change. The man was absolutely brilliant and his ability to tell stories, and well-rounded characters, and development in plot, and his care in structure, and how he’s able to tie things up neatly with, you know, no questions except for like, what could happen next? He’s absolutely amazing. I really admire him. If I like a tenth of his ability to just, like, story weave, I’d be content in my ability to create. One of the other authors I really enjoy, he’s a very lesser known author, but Barry Hughart. He wrote “Bridge of Birds.” That is a Chinese fantasy mythology story, which basically happens in a historical China, but is written as if mythology was real. And he’s also, like, a very unknown and should be more known author for what he’s able to do with creativity. Other books that I appreciate, I enjoy a lot of Tamora Pierce’s work, especially the “Keladry” series because I really enjoyed her portrayal of a woman, a girl growing up and wanting to be a knight and fighting and dealing with a lot of the prejudices that come from, you know, girls trying to do anything that boys like to do. So, those pieces and she also is essentially…she’s written as not really interested in amorous connections, so to speak, and Tamora Pierce did end up saying that she did write her as asexual even though she didn’t, like, really know the term at the time. So that was really appreciated. Oh, that dovetailed a lot. M/M romance, yes, okay. There is a lot of het romance out there and that’s fine, you know, it’s got a market for a reason. It can be very well done. Me personally, it’s done by other people well and I gravitated more towards queer characters. M/M romance was easier for me to write because it was easier for me not necessarily to identify with the characters, but write about them in ways I wanted to, you know, with gentler portrayals and different effects. I wouldn’t say that I particularly write, like, alpha man male sort of things because it’s not really something that appeals to me personally as an author or as a person. I like people who are settled into themselves and know who they are and may be confident, maybe inconfident. For instance, in “Play it Again,” Dovid is a very confident individual who knows who he is and is really happy with himself. And Sam is much shyer and he’s wracked with anxiety all the time. But they’re both human. I like portraying clear people as human and I think that’s why I gravitated towards it first. I’m not super sure why I write M/M mostly. It’s just because it is a little bit easier for me to…I guess, it does come back to identification. I’ve written one…I have one published female-centric romance, which I do really like. It’s called “Making Love,” which I think is one of my favorite titles ever. It’s about a succubus and cupid falling in love. I was very proud of that, and it’s adorable. It’s very cute, it’s very loving, it’s really soft. And Carla, the cupid is just, like, made of cotton candy and love, sweet, and is really happy and bubbly. And Leeta, the succubus, is kind of cool and had reason to put up a lot of walls. Carla melts her heart and it’s so cute. It’s very silly, a lot of my reviews were like, “It’s cute, but cheesy.” And I’m like, “Yes, that was exactly what I was doing.” It’s called “Making Love,” what were you expecting? And then, same thing with “Stage Presents,” both the main characters are female. Dana is trans. I really enjoy portraying again, like, different aspects and different facets of queer people being human. They make coffee and they’re grumpy, and they might have disabilities or other challenges in life. And they also like stuff and are bad at things, and aren’t just, like, one cutout of a representation that, you know, people have one idea about. I like character-driven stories. Queer people deserve happy endings too. That’s the other thing. Jeff: Yeah. Absolutely on that one for sure. So we know “Stage Presents” is coming up here soon. What else is coming for you this year? Aidan: Well, I’ve mentioned it briefly, I have a short story that I had been kind of working on off and on. I was calling it “Baker Story” on Twitter and I did name it “Not So Cookie-Cutter” or something terrible like that because every single one of my titles…you may or may not know this, every single one of my titles are puns or play on words because I’m ridiculous and I love it. Yeah. So the book, “Bakery Story,” is called “Not So Cookie-Cutter.” I’m probably going to release it around October. It’s about two POC characters, which I did get sensitivity readers for because that was important to me. Jerel who is a baker at like, a cafe/coffee shop and Rafi who is a client who falls in love with Jerel’s pumpkin cheesecake essentially, and romance. They’re cute, it’s cute. One of my favorite things about the story is Rafi uses a wheelchair and Jerel is so smitten by Rafi that he doesn’t notice for, like, two chapters because Rafi is sitting down when he’s, you know, at the cafe and Jerel is just like, “Oh, my gosh, this handsome, amazing human being who is talking to me, like, he thinks I’m cute, okay.” And then, like, when Rafi actually, like, moves in front of him and he rolls away, Jerel’s like, “Oh, my God. I’m an idiot. This is fine. I’m an idiot.” So… Jeff: Nice. That will be one to look forward to this fall. Aidan: Yeah. I think, you know, it’s cute, cute and dumb. That’s kind of my mode. Jeff: What’s the best way for everyone to keep up with you online? Aidan: Twitter is mostly what I use, @aidanwayne is my Twitter handle, user name thing, and that’s primarily where I am. I have a website too and if you go to my website, there’s an option to sign up for my mailing list and mailing list is kind of how I send out information about releases to people. But I don’t like inundate people with mail. It’s just like, “I have a release, yay. Here it is, yay.” Jeff: Cool. We will link to those as well as all of the great stuff that we’ve talked about in this interview. Aidan: Cool. Jeff: Aidan, thank you so much for hanging out with us. It has just been a delight talking to you. Aidan: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Again, I’m ridiculous. So I appreciate being able to be ridiculous on a podcast. That’s cool. And, yeah, this was a lot of fun. Thank you so much. Book Reviews Here’s the text of this week’s book reviews: Seriously Horny (Redneck Unicorns #1) by Piper Scott & Susi Hawke and Dangerously Horny (Redneck Unicorns #2) by Piper Scott & Susi Hawke. Reviewed by Will.Seriously Horny Unicorn shifter Isaiah is pure white trash. How do we know? We’re introduced to him as he’s settling in for the evening, in his trailer with a bottle of his pappy’s moonshine – but he’s also an expert tracker. He’s tasked with finding a missing teenage dragon shifter. He runs into the kid’s college age brother, Eric, an irresistible dragon omega. They go to search together for Eric’s brother. One night, in a motel room they give in to their desire, and trust me, the scene lives up to the book’s title. Eric has the power of second sight, kind of like Faye Dunaway in Eyes of Laura Mars, and he ‘sees’ where his brother lays injured. Isaiah and Eric find him and bring him back to the dragon compound where he can heal from his injuries. Eric is with child after his night with Isaiah, and months later we find our heroes happily in love with the beginnings of a new family. In Dangerously Horny, Unicorn shifter Bo Luke finally gets up the nerve to tell Mitch just how he feels. But broken-down dragon is a less than ideal match for someone so young. The rejection hits Bo Luke hard and he runs off, straight into the clutches of a crazed woman who has uncovered the secret of the unicorn clan, and desperately wants to touch Bo Luke’s horn – and yes, that euphemism means exactly what you think it means. Mitch and some of his dragon buddies are sent to find Bo Luke. They rescue him and subdue his kidnapper. Because this is a paranormal shifter Mpreg romance, omega Bo Luke finds himself in an uncomfortable situation, and alpha Mitch is the only one who can scratch his particular itch. They fuck and it’s hot and amazing and (of course) totally magical. Mitch’s misgivings were unfounded, they are now fated mates. While waiting for their child to be born, Bo Luke’s stalker escapes custody and attempts to kidnap her unicorn obsession once more. In an action sequence that I thought was particularly bad-ass, Mitch and the entire dragon clan literally reign down fire upon her, rescuing Bo Luke once again. The story wraps up with a hilarious scene in which our heroes experience a very memorable wedding/birthday. The covers of these books tell you everything you need to know. The hot cover models clue you into the sexy times ahead, while the titles, which are decidedly camp, tell you that these romances also about the humor – humor with heart. I loved both of these stories and think they’re a fantastic way to kick off the new series. While ‘Redneck Unicorns’ is a continuation of the author’s previous dragon series, they stand alone just fine.

Jeff talks about the upcoming release of Netminder (Codename: Winger #4) and a blog post he’s written that talks about the impact the series has had on one reader. The guys also talk about the FX series Fosse/Verdon. Jeff reviews With A Kick Collection #2 by Clare London with narration by Joel Leslie and The Whispers by Greg Howard with narration by Kivlighan de Montebello. Will reviews American Fairytale by Adriana Herrera. Jeff & Will interview Adriana about the Dreamers series, including the soon to be released American Fairytale. Adriana also discusses the food that goes into her books, writing diverse characters, how her job as a social worker plays into American Fairytale and what’s coming up next in the Dreamer series. Complete shownotes for episode 188 along with a transcript of the interview are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Here’s the text of this week’s book reviews: With A Kick Collection #2 by Clare London, narrated by Joel Leslie. Reviewed by Jeff.Back in episode 144 I reviewed the audiobook of the first With A Kick collection. Now with collection two, once again the writing of Clare London combines with the narration of Joel Leslie to make a super awesome experience. We’ve got two stories in this collection–Pluck and Play and Double Scoop. In Pluck and Play delivery person Curtis is saved from a homophobic attack by cowboy/singer Riley. It’s an interesting meet cute since moments after Riley dispatches the attacker, he and Curtis fall into some delightful banter. Once they meet, they continually run into each other. Riley occasionally performs on the sidewalk across the street from the With A Kick ice cream shop, which is where Curtis often makes deliveries and hangs out with his friends who run the shop. The difficulty for Curtis and Riley–and I love how Clare handles this–is that they have to decide if the thing between them is just a one-off bit of fun or something more. Riley’s supposed to go back to the States eventually, plus he’s got issues going on with his family. Meanwhile, Curtis is hesitant to let anyone get close to him again after his last relationship was so disastrous. Clare does a wonderful job of finding the moments of tenderness for Curtis and Riley while also dealing with their troubles. I think I’ve developed a thing recently for the bodyguard trope. Riley has a protector streak that I loved so so much. As soon as he finds out what Curtis’s ex is up to, he wants to put a stop to it. The same can be said to for Curtis because he wants to help Riley deal with his family. It’s so clear these two are meant to be together and once they figure how to get out of their own way–and take care of their pasts–to get their happily ever after to they are golden. With Double Scoop, Clare has written my favorite of the With A Kick stories. This one centers on shop owners Patrick and Lee. As the story opens an explosion rocks the shop, injuring Lee and leaving Patrick in a fit of concern for his friend and their business. These two have had an ongoing business and flirty relationship through the series and now they get their moment in the spotlight. Patrick, as the slightly older one, can’t imagine why the younger Lee would be interested in him. He doesn’t feel particularly accomplished, despite the business, or particularly attractive. Lee, however, knows exactly what he wants and keeps going for it even though Patrick doesn’t make easy for Lee to get and stay close. Clare toys with them and the reader in the most delicious way–bringing them together and then causing a rift. It made for a fun yet tense read going back and forth. Luckily the amazing cast of characters that Claire has developed over the series come together to help get the shop reopen and bring the two men together. Their friends know what’s best for them even if they can’t figure out how to make it work. Both With A Kick collections are great for sexy short romances that have the best happily ever afters. You can’t go wrong picking it up on audio either. Joel Leslie does a tremendous job with a large cast of characters, particularly in Double Scoop since almost everyone who’s appeared in the series shows up here. Joel deserves a special shout out for Riley, who is the only American accent and it’s a southern one too. I enjoyed listening to him go back and forth between Curtis’s British and Riley’s southern. So if you’re looking for some fun reads, that will surely make you want some ice cream this summer, pickup With A Kick Collection #2 by Clare London … and grab the first one too if you haven’t already. The Whispers by Greg Howard. Narrated by Kivlighan de Montebello. Reviewed by Jeff.This was a quite an unexpected middle-grade gem that often surprised me with the depths it explored. I’ll caution as I get into this that the end packs a lot of emotional punch and some readers may want to tread lightly on this young man’s journey because it’s heartbreaking while it does conclude in a very satisfying and fulfilling place. Eleven-year-old Riley is missing his mama. She’s been gone for a few months and Riley doesn’t know why. He’s one of the last to see her and he meets regularly with a police detective to try to fill in pieces of what he knows. However, he gets frustrated with the speed the case is moving. He remembers the story his mama used to tell him about the whispers, little blue fairies who live out in the woods. He can’t help but wonder if the whispers might be the key to getting her back. What I loved so much about this book is how strong Greg made Riley’s narrative, keeping true to how an eleven-year-old might perceive the world. Riley already knows that he’s gay. He refers to that is one of his “conditions” that he has to keep secret, and this is not his only one. He also crushes on Dylan who he refers to as the redneck superhero. Dylan’s in eighth grade and he keeps up his superhero status by actually acknowledging Riley, and occasionally defending him against the school bully. Riley convinces his best friend Gary to go on an adventure in the woods to find The Whispers. Again, this trip reveals so much about Riley as he has to deal with a hobgoblin (or was it), the fact that Dylan may not be a superhero (or maybe he is) and the consequences of saying the wrong thing to your friend all the while trying to do the right thing so The Whispers will help him. One of the extraordinary characters in this book is Tucker the dog. Tucker is Riley’s faithful companion, always at the boy’s side to nudge him in the right direction and keep him safe. The dog has an amazing personality that shines through Riley’s narrative. I don’t think I’ve ever read a dog on a page quite like Tucker and I absolutely loved it. It’s a credit to Greg that he had me so invested in Riley that I didn’t try too hard to piece together what was happening. As the plot hurtled toward its conclusion I was constantly surprised and pivoted between sadness and happiness as the revelations came fast and furious. Kudos to Kivlighan as well for capturing Riley so perfectly. It was a very satisfying audiobook experience. This was my first Greg Howard book and I’ll definitely check out his other titles. I do very much recommend The Whispers if you’re looking for a superb read featuring an eleven-year-old who is going through a lot but comes out stronger and wiser on the other side. American Fairytale by Adriana Herrera. Reviewed by Will.When Camilo, a NYC social worker, goes to an absurdly swanky charity event that his boss can’t attend, he’s intent on enjoying the special evening, which includes chatting up the hottie he meets at the bar. After a few drinks and some suggestively flirty banter, he and Mr. hot stuff find a dark corner and make the night truly memorable. The next morning, Camilo’s boss introduces him to Tom, the millionaire who’ll be financing their agency’s major renovation project. Tom also happens to be Camilo’s hot charity gala hook-up from the night before. Aware how awkward the situation is, Tom agrees to keep things strictly professional from now on, but also asks that Milo be the point man on the project, keeping him up-to-date on the renovations. Their weekly meetings begin to look more and more like dates – a meal at a fancy restaurant, a walk through the botanical gardens. Camilo is no fool, but as he gets to know Tom better – he’s certainly not your average philanthropic millionaire, there is more than meets the eye – the pretense of “keeping things professional” begins to hold less and less appeal. When they can no longer deny the attraction, Tom takes Milo back to his place. The sex is amazing (of course), but the afterglow is short-lived when Tom’s ex drops buy with their daughter. Tom shares custody of Libertad, his daughter, with his former husband. Learning of all of this (which Tom failed to mention up until that point) briefly throws Milo for a loop, but it’s hard to resist the precocious the little girl, and Milo falls even harder for the millionaire and his ready-made family. A situation with Milo’s mom has him taking on more work and financial responsibility and, in addition to that, he’s working overtime as the massive renovation project is wrapping up. He’s stretched almost to the breaking point. When Tom offers to help, the fiercely independent Milo insists he has it all under control. Tom quietly takes care of things. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? In this case, no. Camilo is furious. As a reader, it’s hard not to feel frustrated by Milo’s stubborn streak. Your boyfriend is a millionaire for god’s sake! Get over yourself! But it eventually becomes clear that Milo is, of course, right. Tom’s intervention robbed Milo of his own autonomy. It’s Milo’s choice whether or not to ask for help – no one else’s. This is a deal-breaker for Milo and it causes a major rift in their relationship. Tom has to find a way to fix things, by doing the hard work and not using his money to solve their problems. This is a romance, so Tom figures things out, and pulls off a grand gesture that is less grand, and more heartfelt and considerately thoughtful – which is exactly what Milo needed. It all wraps up with swoon-worthy family vacation to the Dominican Republic. This interview transcript is sponsored by Dreamspinner PressDreamspinner Press is proud to publish Hank Edwards and Deanna Wadsworth’s new book Murder Most Lovely. Check it out, and all the new mystery and suspense titles from your favorite authors like Amy Lane, KC Wells, Tara Lain, and Rhys Ford, just to name a few, and find a new favorite author while you’re at it. Go to dreamspinnerpress.com for everything you want in gay romance. Jeff: Welcome, Adriana to the show. Thanks for being with us. Adriana: Thank you for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. Jeff: So have we, to be honest, since we’ve read “American Dreamer” that we loved so much. So, a good first question is, what was the inspiration behind the “Dreamer” series? Adriana: So, basically, I think I wanted to write Afro-Latinx characters. I’ve said this in a couple of other conversations I’ve had about the book. It was really a specific time, a couple of years ago, right after the election when there was just a lot of negative conversation around the place of immigrants in the U.S. And I just really felt compelled to write a story that I felt can honor my identity which is Afro-Latinx, and the Afro-Latinx immigrant experience. And I think representation has also been an issue for me, with romance specifically. There are stories of people of color in gay romance, but I felt like they were either really surface characters or there was like a real, like, toil story. You know, the person had to go through every kind of horrific thing. So, I wanted to write something that could be nuanced and also show the joyfulness and the beauty of being a person that’s Afro-Latinx and all the amazing things that we come with. So, that was kind of where I was coming from. And I also really, really wanted a book literally full of…just like the gayest, most black and brown book I could write. Jeff: That should almost be a quote on the cover. Will: That’s funny. Adriana: Yeah. I wanted it to be super gay, super black, super brown. Jeff: So, right before we did this interview, Will raved about “Fairytale.” Tell us, in your own words, what that story is about, and kind of how it falls in the series. Adriana: So, it’s the second book in the “Dreamer” series and it’s set in New York City, which is different from “Dreamer” which is set in Ithaca. And it’s about Camilo Briggs who’s one of the best friends of Nesto from the first book. And he’s a Cuban-Jamaican social worker. And he works in the domestic violence field, which is the same field that I work in. And he meets this, like, very hot stranger at a gala and he turns out to be a big donor for the agency that he works for, that Camilo works for. And Tom is an interesting character because he’s a billionaire, which we love in our romances, but he’s also Dominican and white-passing, which is something that I really wanted to explore in a book. What it means to be Latinx but also kind of have the privilege of presenting as a white person, and what that means, and how hard that is to navigate. So, I guess, it’s about… It’s a fairytale, it’s a modern-day fairytale but it’s also, again, like a different side to the Latinx experience. And it’s sweet and fun, and cute and sexy. Will: Yeah, it definitely is. First, before we get to the next question, I want to commend you on the sort of…what I found really enjoyable about not only “American Dreamer” but “American Fairytale” as well is the group of friends, the sense of found family that comes across really strong in this series. I think it’s exceptionally well done. And especially in that first book because, like, right at the beginning, from the get-go, you introduce this, frankly, a really large cast of characters. And I think, with a lesser author, that could frankly get confusing. I know when I read a book, I get confused easily if there are five, six, seven people, you know, names and personalities all thrown at you at once. But each of your characters, each of the friends in that group are so clearly delineated and…especially in that first book, in the opening scene, you give us the briefest glimpses of who they are, and we understand right away where they kind of fit in the group of friends. And of course, they’re all wonderful, and interesting, and funny. They give each other shit like good friends do. I love this group of guys so much. Adriana: Thank you. I have to admit, they’re not my friends, but those four guys are very inspired on my, like, really core group of friends in my early 20s in the DR…when I was still in Dominican Republic. My core group of friends were mostly gay men because my cousin, who’s like my brother, who’s 14 months older than I, is gay. We kind of just like started hanging out with this group of, like, queer kids in the DR. Which in the ’90s was kind of an interesting crowd to be in just because it wasn’t really okay to be openly gay. And we had so much fun. And we did so much, like, crazy stuff together. And I just kind of really wanted to kind of like write a love letter to those friendships and those years. And a lot of them ended up coming to the States at the same time I did, in my early 20s. So, I think they feel so real because they are, like, real. Jeff: These books are getting so much praise. What do you think is resonating with the readers? Adriana: I think people are more open now, or I think there were always those that were open to reading about those different experiences. But I think there’s a particular appetite now for reading more characters that are bringing with them a different lived experience. And I think that might be part of it, like why people are interested in the story. And I think everybody can connect to a striving story, you know. I think Nesto, and Jude, and Camilo, Patrice, Juan Pablo, all of them, they’re just striving to be who they know they deserve to be – for the lives that they’re working for. And I think everyone can relate to that and that struggle of fighting for what you want. Jeff: Did you also intend to make everybody hungry with “American Dreamer?” Adriana: Yes. Yes. Jeff: Was that part of, like, your side plot? Adriana: Yes. Yes, I did. I wanted because…also that’s the other piece, like Caribbean food is very similar but very different in many ways. And I talk about that a lot in “Dreamer.” And it’s the…I wanted to just show people, like, all the different flavors and how we’re all connected. So, I think it’s something that doesn’t really get talked about as much, the wide variety of our flavors. So, I did intentionally want people to be very interested in Caribbean food. I wanted people to Google Dominican restaurants and it sounds like I succeeded. Jeff: I think you did, yeah. I haven’t gotten into “Fairytale” yet. Is there food there also or do we break away from the food a little bit? Will: A little bit. Jeff: A little bit. Adriana: Yeah, a little bit. It’s not as much food. It’s more of…I feel like “Fairytale” is more about, like, Harlem and The Bronx. I have a lot of places in Harlem and The Bronx because again, there are a lot of romances set in New York City. Not many of them are set in Harlem and The Bronx. So, I wanted to go to the places where…like, the diaspora that I belong to, came to. So, I think that’s more… I’m hoping people Google places to go in The Bronx and Harlem with this one. Will: That is a good goal to have, most definitely. Now, with this group of characters, they come from a lot of different backgrounds, what is your process for basically ensuring accurate representation? Is it all from your own personal experience or something else? Adriana: Yeah. So far in this series…and I’m sure that as I write more, then I’m gonna have to go outside of that, but so far in this series, I’ve really gone with origin stories that I know of or from people that are, like, my friends or things like that, like Camilo’s mom, for example, is a Marielita, which was a specific group of Cuban refugees that came at a specific time to the U.S.. And I kind of touched upon that because that’s a very important influx of immigrants that came at a specific time. And they’re all particular experiences that I have been connected to through my friends or family. But I do think writing diaspora is something that people need to be more thoughtful about. So, I try to think a lot about like when did this person come, how did they come, what was the political situation in the U.S. at that time, how they would’ve been received. Like, with Patrice, you know, he’s Haitian and he’s black. His experience and the way he was received would be different than, for example, Camilo’s mom who came as a Cuban refugee and had protected status as she came in to the U.S. So, it’s very…like, there’s nuances there in the context that really needs to be thought about because it really impacts how the person can integrate into American life. Will: And speaking of writing from experience, you have a job in social work and advocacy, did you use your own personal experience when writing about Camilo’s work? Adriana: Yes. So, Camilo’s work and my work…I mean, I really drew from what I do every day to kind of build Camilo’s agency. I mean, kind of like my wish list almost. I wish we could have a guy that just wants to drop $2 million on my agency and tell us, “Do whatever you want with it.” So, I think it was like my fantasy of what it would be like to be in an agency that is just being well-funded, and, like, resources are just there to do the work. So, I think it’s like my own fairytale of what it would be like to work, and just have a millionaire just drop money on us. But, yes, it’s very, very connected to my own work and kind of like my philosophy around the domestic violence field and how the work should go. Jeff: I like how you set the books in our extremely modern times too. And I think in “American Dreamer” as Nesto faces the discrimination of the, who I like to call the evil woman, how he deals with it because I think that it tells a story that not everybody necessarily thinks about all the time. Adriana: Yeah. And I really wanted to contrast, even in the book like Jude’s own reactions to the racism and the obvious discrimination and sabotaging and Nesto’s reactions to it, and the reality that there are different consequences for some people than to others. And that that’s a reality you kind of just have to work with. Jeff: And I loved how he dealt with it too, taking that high road. I just like, “Go, Nesto.” Adriana: Right. I mean, it’s a reality, like, it could have a consequence that was like very, very difficult for him. So, he couldn’t just like get into a thing with this lady. Jeff: Right. “American Dreamer” was your first book. How did you come into writing romance and specifically MM romance? Adriana: So, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing an MM romance for a long time. I’ve been a MM romance reader for, like, a long time. I was at the first GRL (Gay Rom Lit Retreat). I’m like an OG of MM romance. But I was a lot more involved in the community, and then kind of stepped back. I got busy and I just kind of kept reading, but I had it in the back of my mind. I find that what MM romance brought to my life, in terms of dynamics and relationships, and seeing…like I said, having friends all my life that were gay men, and me being so close to so many men who were like looking to fall in love and not being able to see love stories. I remember when I started reading LGBT books, they were very, like, sad, very sad stories like in the ’90s, right? I mean, I grew up in the ’90s. And so just finding your romance was something that was so incredibly wonderful for me. And I thought, “Wouldn’t it be even more wonderful if I could actually find my particular experience and the particular experience of the people who I love in those books?” So, it was kind of like a combination of going to a place…like the type of story that had been really meaningful to me, and then kind of putting my own experience into the space. Jeff: What was it like to write the first book after having read so many? Was it kind of an easy process or was it crazy and hard and took years or…? Adriana: So, it didn’t take me that long, if I’m honest, but I had been thinking about it for a long time. So, before I actually started writing, I kind of did a whole year of reading a lot of craft books, and going to workshops, and trying things. And I actually started a book set in Ethiopia, which is also a gay romance. And I got through a third of that and I was like, “I cannot write this book. I am not equipped to write a gay romance in Ethiopia right now.” And I decided I wanna do this story, this “Dreamer” story. And then that’s when I started it. But it was like a year and a half before I actually felt brave enough to actually write it. Yes. Jeff: I’m so glad that you found that bravery. Who would you say your author influences are? You say you’ve read, you know, MM forever even before it was truly MM, back in the sadder days? Adriana: Yeah. I have a lot of authors that…I mean, I’ve loved a lot of authors from the beginning that I think, I don’t know if I emulate, but I think about a lot in their…kind of how they render a story. Like K.J. Charles, I think, is a wonderful author. I think she just does things that are like phenomenal in writing. E. Lynn Harris was probably the first queer romance that I ever read. I think it’s really sad that he’s not, like, in the canon of what we talk about when we talk about queer romance. So, yeah, but I mean there’s a lot of writers I like. Amy Lane’s early work was super significant for me. I thought her…some of her early books are really some of my all-time favorites. So, yeah, there’s a lot of authors that I kind of go back to and read just to kind of be inspired by the way that they render a story. Does that make sense? Jeff: But what is it about those books that resonated for you so much? Adriana: I think…well, first of all, it was they felt familiar in a way that was like a discovery almost, because I didn’t really ever know any people…a black man who was really exploring the falling in love and the feelings, and the struggle, and the conflicts of trying to make yourself happy, and to find the love that you have…to keep the love that you’ve discovered, right? So, I think his (E. Lynn Harris’) books thought were just so beautifully written, and so tender, and so heartbreaking. It was just wonderful. I think being raised in Dominican Republic where there’s, toxic masculinity on steroids, like, the tenderness of his books really was something that I hadn’t read before. I think it just was kind of like eye-opening to me. Will: Now, so far in your “Dreamer” series, we’ve had Nesto and Jude’s story, and Camilo and Tom’s story. There is, of course…thank God, there’s going to be a third book. Whose story are we gonna get in that one and what can you tell us about that one? Adriana: So, it’s Patrice’s book. Patrice is Nesto’s friend who is a Haitian-American man, who’s a professor. It’s set in Ithaca. He conveniently gets a job at Cornell in the economics department and moves to Ithaca. And he reconnects with Easton Archer who is a character that we meet in “Dreamer” who’s a prosecutor, an assistant district attorney in Ithaca. And Easton is white, so it’s an interracial romance. Yeah. Jeff: When does that one come out? Adriana: That one comes out in October. I just saw a proof for the cover last week…or no, earlier this week, and it is so nice. I love it. I think it’s my favorite one, and I really love the covers for both books so far. I’m calling it my Black Lives Matter romance, although it’s not super intense, but it’s definitely…like the conflict between Patrice and Easton is definitely revolving around kind of having to navigate both of, like, their positions in life. Will: We got a brief glimpse of Patrice and Easton, like you mentioned in that first book. And then in “American Fairytale,” there was a scene with all of the friends together and Patrice sort of like phones in on Skype while they’re, like, dishing about Camilo’s love life, which was very, very funny. So, I’m genuinely looking forward to Patrice’s story. I think it’s gonna be amazing. I can’t wait. Adriana: I know. I’ve been revising it, like I said, and I think it’s a sweet story. And then, there’s a little bit more of two characters that people have been curious about. Ari and Jin, who are employees of Nesto, and they are in their little tiny young person romance. So, they’re like a little cute element for a love story. It’s called “American Love Story.” It’s the title of Patrice’s story. Jeff: Cool. And then you mentioned before we started actually recording the interview that you’re writing the fourth book right now. Any teasers on that? Adriana: So, that one is not an MM. It’s an MF, actually. It’s Juan Pablo’s story. And Juan Pablo is…it’s like a, I’d say, a second chances story. And the heroine is Priscilla who is Nesto’s cousin, who’s a police officer. And it’s called “American Sweethearts.” So, the book starts with a wedding in the Dominican Republic, but I’m not gonna say whose. Jeff: Oh, such a tease. Will: Oh, man. Adriana: Yeah. I’ll tease a little more when I have…I feel like I can’t tease too much on this book because it’s not even halfway done yet. But right now, I’m writing the first few chapters and they’re all in this wedding in the DR. So, everybody is there. Jeff: But I do like how you…we’ve seen with some traditionally MF series where an MM book ends up in the series. And I like how you’re kind of spinning that around too, you’ve got an MM series so far and you’re putting an MF book in it just to, like, broaden that universe out. Adriana: Yeah. So, my kind of little tagline is like, I write romance full of people who look and sound like my people. And there’s a lot of my people who are gay men, like so many of them. But not all of them are. So, I wanted to, in this series at least, have one story where, you know…like both Priscilla and Juan Pablo are queer. Like, she’s pan, he’s bi. But it’s also like a different type of, you know, experience because they’re both engaging in a straight relationship, which brings in…has its own privileges in terms of how it appears. So, I also wanted to explore that a little bit. Jeff: And I think exploring the pansexuality too will be interesting because that doesn’t turn up in a lot of books, at least the ones that cross my radar. And I think it’s nice to see that representation alongside the ethic background representation that you’re bringing as well. Adriana: Yeah, yeah. And it’s something that I think it’s…because of their age, I’m trying to kind of like engage a little bit in even Priscilla arriving to a place where she’s like, “Oh, actually, I’m pan,” as opposed to like, “I thought I was bisexual,” and how she arrived at that. Because I think that’s something that, for people my age, like I’m 40, it’s something that we arrived because we didn’t even have the language for that. Like, 15, 10 years ago, we were like, “Oh, I think I’m gay.” But then it’s like, “Oh, but there’s a whole spectrum of sexuality, gender identity.” And I think there’s so much that we didn’t know – that we know now – that should be coming up in books. Jeff: It’s great that you’re leading the way to kind of get some of that out there, too. Adriana: Yeah. It’s a great time to be writing romance, I think. Jeff: So, besides the “Dreamer” books, is there anything else coming up that you’re looking to write in the coming…I’ll say years since “Dreamer” has you going for the rest of this year probably, if nothing else. Adriana: Yeah, yeah. So, I do have a couple of things that I’m working on. I’m in the process right now of getting out this…I did write the gay romance set in Ethiopia, and I’m in the process of…like, I should have some good news about it soon. And it’s a romance set in Ethiopia, and it’s a Dominican-American relief worker. I did international relief work for a long time. And I lived in Ethiopia for about five years. And so, I really wanted to write a book set in Ethiopia because I have a lot of love for Ethiopia, and my years there were very significant in my life. So, it’s a gay romance. It’s not legal to be in a same-sex relationship in Ethiopia so there are complications. And it’s a Dominican-American relief worker and a colleague who’s Ethiopian, and they fall in love. Jeff: I am so glad you finished that book. You kind of left that off back there when we were talking about it before, because that will be great to see… I have, you know, no experience in any of those spaces. So, to read a romance set there will be an adventure. Adriana: Yeah. It was wonderful to write. Like I said, I have a lot of love for that country. And I think people’s perception of it is like, you know, people starving. And there’s just so much richness and so much beauty and magic in Ethiopia, that I really wanted to just show a different face to it. And I think it’s like a really sweet romance, too. And the setting is interesting. It’s more like a new adult. They’re in their 20s. Jeff: Do you think it will be out this year, maybe? Adriana: I don’t know of this year, but definitely early next year. Like, for sure early next year, yeah. Will: Very cool. Fantastic. Definitely looking forward to that. Now, you’ve given us a lot of amazing information about all of your amazing books, but if our listeners want to learn even more, where can they find out more about you and your books online? Adriana: So, they can go to my website, it’s adrianaherreraromance.com. I’m pretty active on Twitter, and my handle is @ladrianaherrera. And Facebook, I’m also there, Adriana Herrera. So, those are the places…and I’m on Instagram but not as much. Jeff: Very cool. We will link to all of that, plus all the books in our show notes so that folks can easily click on that stuff to find you. Adriana, thank you so, so much for being with us. It’s been awesome talking to you. Adriana: Thank you. It was so much fun and just as amazing as I thought it was gonna be to chat with you guys.

April was our most downloaded month ever. Thank you to our listeners! Jeff and Will discuss their upcoming travel schedule. They will be at the Romance Writers of America national conference, Podcast Movement, Dreamspinner’s Author Conference and GayRomLit. Jeff reviews Top Secret by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy and Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Jeff interviews Casey about her debut novel. They talk about the inspiration for Red, White & Royal Blue and the impact the 2016 election had on the story.  In addition, they discuss the recently announced movie adaptation, what got Casey into writing romance and what she’s working on next. Complete shownotes for episode 187 along with a transcript of the interview are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Here’s the text of this week’s book reviews: Top Secret by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy. Reviewed by Jeff. I’ve been a huge fan of Sarina Bowen’s for some years now. Her Understatement of the Year is among my favorite books of all time and I also love Him and Us which were co-written with Elle Kennedy. Sarina and Elle are back with their first m/m romance in three years with Top Secret. They’ve written an extremely satisfying enemies to lovers romance that sizzles but also has some extremely sweet parts as well. Keaton’s a college junior from a privileged family whose been with his girlfriend since high school. For her birthday, she announces that she wants a threesome. After brief thought Keaton agrees. He lives in a frat house where one of his frat brothers is Luke. Luke basically keeps to himself barely gets along with anyone in the house. Luke’s a townie, going to school on an academic scholarship and as a despicable mom and older brother who only want to take advantage of him. He lives in the frat because it’s cheaper than a dorm and he’s running for president because that means free room. Keaton looks to an app to help find the right guy for this birthday present. He signs in as LobsterShorts and soon ends up talking to SinnerThree. Once SinnerThree finds out it’s Keaton’s first three way, he wants to make sure Keaton would be cool with him in the mix and to start considering what the rules would be. SinnerThree even gives sexy homework. This gets Keaton thinking because he’s buried his feelings about guys for a long time. Of course, SinnerThree is Luke, who lives right across the hall. What makes this book work so extraordinarily well is the two sides of Luke and Keaton we see between their public personas and their chats on the app. Luke wants to escape the town and the life he’s known growing up. He strives to excel in school so he can get the high-paying job and never be reliant on anybody again. Meanwhile, Keaton knows he’s got all the privilege but he also chafes at the expectations that his family and friends put on him and he keeps all that to himself because it’s what he’s supposed to do. When they’re chatting as SinnerThree and LobsterShorts the conversation occasionally drifts from figuring out what Keaton’s boundaries actually are to discussing their realities and what they want out of life. Their emotional shields fall away. The way Sarina and Elle transition from sexy to sweet and back again is perfect. Of course, the night finally comes and Keaton and Luke find out they’ve been talking for weeks. The night doesn’t go as planned, but they don’t stop exploring their sexual feelings or sharing closely guarded secrets. Both guys have great growth as Keaton comes into his own, embracing his true sexuality and the career he wants after college. I’m particularly happy this wasn’t a gay-for-you story but rather about a young man figuring out who he is. The battle for Luke is about his sexuality at all–he’s proudly bisexual. He can’t fathom that anyone could love him because of his terrible family. He’s been so battered by them, that he’s hesitant to accept help from anyone because it would surely come with strings. Thankfully, even though Keaton bungles quite a few things with Luke, he also works to make it right. It’s a credit to Sarina and Elle that they have created such fully fleshed out characters who evolve so much through the story. I was invested in so much more than the romance because I wanted these guys to find their way too. The motley crew of frat brothers also brought some great depth to the story as they were a mix of those who were genuinely kind and others were douchey. The parents were also an interesting contrast between Luke’s trailer trash and Keaton’s very well-to-do. Keaton’s father and mother are far more than meets the eye too. I don’t want to get into spoiler territory, but I have to call out them out too. It’s an example of Sarina and Elle creating multi-dimensional characters. Another extraordinary part of the story for me was how the black moment played out. A lot of stuff goes down and there were plenty of opportunities to cheapen the story. The way the last twenty percent of the book played was perfect even while it provided me with quite a few moments of stress. We’re headed into summer and this book is perfect for vacation reading. I highly recommend Top Secret by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy. Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Reviewed by Jeff I knew this book would be exactly right for me. I have a thing for the royal trope and the idea of an American first son and a British prince getting together made this a must read. What I didn’t expect was how Casey McQuiston elevated the material putting this enemies to lovers romance on the list of my all time favorites. Alex Claremont-Diaz is the first son. Henry is the prince. They have secretly crushed on each other for years. They developed an enemies vibe at the Rio Olympics when they had a less than good encounter, especially from Alex’s point of view. Move forward to today and a near international incident set off by the two at a royal wedding. As part of PR disaster control, a story is created that Henry and Alex are actually the best of friends. After some forced outings to appease the press they start talking to each other more and get past their public personas. One of the things that makes this story works so well is Casey has created an alternate history that many of us would like to see. Claremont took office from Obama so the Trump nightmare never happened. And it’s wonderful that her son is Mexican-American given the current hate filled climate around immigrants. There’s even a couple of lines in the book about how it’s not lost on Alex that there are some people who hate that a Mexican-American took the job of first son. Alex and Henry talk a lot about the lives they want. They’re both expected to meet family obligations and be leaders for their countries–it’s not really what they want though. The texts, emails and phone calls as Alex and Henry reveal more and more of themselves are absolutely priceless. At times funny and others heartbreakingly honest, they talk about how they feel trapped. As the first sparks of romance blossom between them their enemy side is quite fiery as they have rage filled kisses before succumbing to the fact that this is something that they both desperately want. The back-and-forth between sweet romance and the slightly angry romance enhanced the story as they fight against their feelings. The reality stays firmly rooted throughout the story and I loved that. Sometimes the royal trope, as much as I enjoy it, is far more fantasy than reality. It’s part of what makes the trope so good–that chancea prince might be your neighbor. This world could exist–a prince and a member of the first family. Casey gives them all the trappings, including secret rendezvous’s that are partially orchestrated by their security teams. Of course, as must happen the romance is horribly revealed and damages them both. The guys had to really work for the happy in this book, which makes the ending so sweetly satisfying. There were a lot of ways the end could’ve played out, but I can’t imagine one that would’ve been more perfect than what Casey gives us. I haven’t felt as overall thrilled by a book as I have by Red White & Royal Blue in quite some time. It reminded me of reading Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and the wonder of such rich, vivid characters in a charming story that deserves to be real. Casey captured not only an America that I desperately want to live in but a romance that was everything that I ever wanted. I could gush on and on about this book, and will more in the upcoming interview. For now I’ll leave this by saying that I beyond highly recommend Casey McQuiston’s Red White & Royal Blue. This interview transcript is sponsored by Dreamspinner PressDreamspinner Press is proud to publish Hank Edwards and Deanna Wadsworth’s new book Murder Most Lovely. Check it out, and all the new mystery and suspense titles from your favorite authors like Amy Lane, KC Wells, Tara Lain, and Rhys Ford, just to name a few, and find a new favorite author while you’re at it. Go to dreamspinnerpress.com for everything you want in gay romance. Jeff: Casey, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. Casey: Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited. Jeff: So, before we got to this segment, I spent a ton of time just going over “Red, White & Royal Blue” as being one of the best things I’ve read this year and one of my top books maybe in the “ever” category because it’s everything I needed in a romance with the prince trope and essentially royalty in the U.S. with the first son. And, I mean, Alex and Henry are so awesome. Tell us what your inspiration was behind this book? Casey: Yeah. So I first started…actually, it’s weird. A couple of days ago, I was going through my Timehop which shows you, you know, what you tweeted two, three, four years ago, and I realized that, a few days ago, which is April 13th, was the day that I tweeted, “Hey, I just had this idea for a book.” And it took me back to that moment of the exact lightning strike moment when I knew what I wanted to write. And this is a question we’ll get into later, but it was one of many attempts at a book I had started and none of them had really taken hold of me like this one did. So it was early 2016, I was obsessively following the presidential election, which, you know, we all were at the time with a lot of optimism. And, at the same time, I was reading two books. I was reading “The Royal We,” which is by Heather Morgan and Jessica Cocks, and it’s basically almost a novelization of Will and Kate with a bunch of different things changed about it. So I was reading that. And I was also reading a super dry Carl Bernstein Hillary Clinton biography, which was a fun little juxtaposition. And I had this idea in my head of I want to do… I’ve seen so many sub-versions of prince charming trope, but I feel, as a queer person, I’ve never seen one that seems the most obvious to me, which is, you know, what if, he wasn’t the perfect, going to produce a million heirs, prince, you know. And then on the other side, I was I loved “Chasing Liberty” when I was growing up and “My Date with the President’s Daughter” and I was really into the idea of a rom-com starring this rebellious first kid, and I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to do first, and I was like, “Wait a minute. If I put them both in the same story, I don’t have to pick.” So, honestly, it was me being indecisive that led to that decision. And on a wider scale, a bigger scope, I just really was looking for the perfect, fun escapist tropey rom-com that was so undeniably fun that the fact that it was also queer wouldn’t keep it out of the mainstream, you know, because a big thing that I want to do as an author and as a queer person is push those stories into the mainstream and be like, hey, you know, it’s kind of what they say in “Love, Simon,” everybody deserves to have a great love story, you know. And so everybody deserves to have a big shiny tropey, fun rom-com, you know. So, yeah, that was kind of where it came from for me. Jeff: And there is so much rom-com-y goodness floating in this book. I think you pulled a little bit from everything. Without giving spoilers, because there could be some depending on what you pick for this, what are the rom-com moments that just sticks out for you as one of your favorites among all of them? Casey: Wow, that’s a good question. I have pulled so many tropes from so many of my different favorite rom-coms. But there is this one thing that I love in every rom-com which is the gratuitous karaoke moment, which is actually if you ever watch “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” it’s a song on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” like “Shake Me Up.” Okay, yeah, that. So it’s like “27 Dresses” does it, and “10 Things I Hate About You” does it where it’s like somebody gets up and sings a song in front of a bunch people for no reason. And it’s like, “No, this doesn’t happen in real life, but it’s super fun.” And so writing the whole karaoke scene, which I don’t think is a spoiler, that was so much fun for me because I was, you know, as musical theater kid in high school, we all were, and so I got to be so indulgent with that, and it was such a blast. I loved it. Jeff: I think you picked a great one right there because you’re right, there is that moment. There’s even that movie, which of course I’m blanking out on right now, that was like…it was a Rebel Wilson movie earlier, I think this year, that she’s, like, there’s always the karaoke moment that she ends up trapped in the karaoke moment in her own little thing. Casey: I love the karaoke moment. Jeff: That says a lot about people, the songs they pick. Casey: It does. It’s character shorthand for sure. Yeah. Like when Bea gets up and sings “Call Me” by Blondie in the book I’m like, “This is what she’s about, you know.” Jeff: Yeah. There have been so many accolades on this book before it even got published. I mean, we were reading about it, I think in “Blush” almost two months ago now. What’s resonating so much with all these pre-readers? Casey: God, you know, I mean, just to start off, I’ve been, completely blown away by the response to it. When I wrote this book I was like, “This is so niche.” It’s a queer political rom-com with royal elements. And also we talk about gerrymandering in it, and I was like, “This is so niche,” no one’s gonna care, no one’s going to publish it. I was like, “I’m going to try and query this for a month, and then I’m just going to self-pub,” you know. And the fact that people have engaged with it so much and that it has gotten, I think three-star reviews now which is just blowing my mind completely, so beyond grateful for those. It’s just been so staggering and incredible. But, I don’t know, I think that right now the world is really depressing. We live in a world right now that is at times literally on fire, you know. And it is so important to have these little oases or moments of respite and little escapist things because when I first started writing this book, I’m so neck deep in the news cycle and I really couldn’t finish it until I pulled out of it because I realized that wasn’t what it needed to be. It didn’t need to be mired in all of the negativity and all of the darkness that was going on in the world. It needed to be this spark of hope, you know, that would kind of feel… I think about when Obama won re-election in 2012, and I was with my friends. I was in college at the time and we went out on the balcony, and popped a bottle of $60 French champagne, and I think about how I felt in that moment and I was like, “I want this book to feel like that moment,” you know. And I think that a lot of people have been missing that feeling. I think that we have so few things, especially when we look at the political sphere right now, to be excited about and to be hopeful about. And I think that we’re all just nostalgic almost for when we had hope. And I think that what this book does is it lives in the space of being here and now and still having hope, you know, and I think that’s really resonating with people. And then I also think that people are just excited to see…we’re seeing it with Helen Hoang and Jasmine Guillory who are writing romances that are integrating, you know, neurodiverse characters and just racially diverse characters. I think a lot of people are tired of seeing, you know, the same two straight white cisgender, neurotypical people falling in love, you know. And so I think that people are hungry for something that’s different in rom-com that can show that different types of people can have that same big, huge, escapist magical love story. So that’s kind of where I think it comes from. Jeff: You noted that you started writing this in 2016, essentially before the election happened. Do you think you would have written the same book had Hillary won? Casey: That’s a great question. And the book I had planned to write before the election went the way that it did was a different book. There were so many threads that I ended up dropping. I, at one point, had…and this was before anything about Russia had come up. I, at one, point had… a Russian double agent involved in the campaign and I was like, “This is too unrealistic. No one’s going to buy this. I’m cutting this,” you know. And now I’m like, “God…” But, yeah. I mean, it definitely…I think it would have been more lampooning the Democratic Party…not that I have anything against the Democratic Party as someone who is registered as Democrat, but it would have been more of “Veep” style, you know, that we’re all on the same side here, so we’re going to send each other up kind of thing. And instead it’s still very tongue in cheek, and it still has that “Veep” side to it, but it needed to have more of…. it needed to be less cynical, basically, you know, because I don’t think that we can really afford a lot of cynicism right now beyond what, you know, roasting the President on Twitter is cynical, I guess. But, yeah, I think that there are certain things that happen in the plot that never probably would have been explored if the results of the election had gone differently because I don’t think I would have felt as much of an urgency to put those into the story. So, yeah, it definitely would have been different. It definitely would have been a lot different. But the President was always the same. President Claremont was the same character from the moment I came up with the idea for the book. She’s like Tami Taylor, from “Friday Night Lights” meets Wendy Davis, the politician from Texas, meets a tiny bit of Selina Meyer from “Veep” and probably every strong female in my life, you know. So, yeah, long story short, yes, it would have been different.  Jeff: One of the things I like about it so much, and you touched on this a little bit, is that it’s not two white guys getting together because Alex is Mexican-American. And certainly given how things have played out under the current administration, having that element in the White House as first son, it says a lot. And Alex comments on this, you know, periodically as he’s kind of going through things and how that aspect of his heritage plays into things. Did you have that set early on or did that kind of manifest as we saw how immigrants were being treated post-election and even during the election cycle for that matter? Casey: Sure. Well, the minute…it kind of was, like, the plot itself that informed what Alex would be because, like I said, the first character I came up with was the president and everything kind of formed around her. And I’m from Louisiana, and I have this huge chip on my shoulder about democrats, and liberal people, and progressive people in red states because I was one for so long. I live in a purple-y state now. But, you know, I feel they’re so often written off and discredited, and I can probably count on one hand the number of actual presidential candidates who came and campaigned in my hometown, which is the capital of Louisiana. And people just don’t see anything worth investing in. So I wanted to do a southern Democrat. I didn’t think that a Louisiana Democrat was that realistic, so I did a Texas Democrat. And from the minute I knew she was from Texas, I was like, “Well, it would make sense for her to have married a Mexican man, or a, you know, a first or second generation Mexican man.” And it just kind of went from there where I was, like, “You know, I really do like that idea of that.” I spent so much time in Texas, I know so many people from Texas, I know so many Tejanos and people… it just made sense to me. And then, you know, the more that the rhetoric kind of got really vitriolic about Mexican immigrants around the election, I was like, “Yeah, fuck you. Actually, I am gonna put some Mexican people in the White House.” Yeah, that’s what’s gonna happen. I did as much as I could with it. Obviously, I’m white, and I did a ton of research, I talked to a ton of Mexican friends of mine, and especially Tejano first or second generation people. And then what I’m really excited about with the movie is that we have the opportunity to bring in more people on the creative side who are Latino who can offer more of that voice, that can go farther than I could go with it and that can explore more things with it. So, yeah. It just felt really natural to me, he’s from Texas, of course, he could be half Mexican. That’s just so typical there. So, yeah, it was a very natural progression of the character for me. Jeff: And in a weird twist, I’m actually interviewing you from Dallas. Casey: Yes, I know. I was just thinking about it. That’s so funny. Yeah. I feel like that’s appropriate. I feel the stars aligned to have you interview me from Texas. Jeff: And finish the book while I’m in Texas. It was kind of crazy. Casey: Yeah. That’d be so appropriate. I’m really excited because my second tour stop is in Austin, and I’m so excited. I haven’t been to Austin, like, a year or two, and it’s just feels so right to go back with this book. So I’m so excited. Jeff: There is a ton of history in this book. Henry goes into a lot of history of the monarchy. And one of the things I loved is in the emails that Alex and Henry are trading, they end up and quote a lot of literature or other letters of historical people. How much of that was in your head, and how much was “I need to go off and do a ton of research?” Casey: So, for me, a lot of…when I was talking about… there’s parts where after Alex starts figuring stuff out, he starts, like, develops independent research of, like, let me remediate myself on queer American history, and reconnect with it, which I think is something that a lot of queer people in their 20s do. Especially for me when I was 20, 25, and then I started to figure myself out, I was like, “Wow, I need to know the first thing about my own community.” And so I went back and really read a lot and educated myself. And so a lot of the American history, American queer history was stuff I was already familiar with because that’s something that I felt was my responsibility to learn in the past. But, yeah, I definitely didn’t know a lot about queer British history at all. And so that was a lot of reading for me, a lot of, you know, finding history threads on Twitter, and then okay, I’m gonna go look up all these stories individually, and find out what’s the real truth, because things get twisted online. But, yeah. The letters kind of started with…and this is gonna date when I started writing this, but I was really coming off the “Hamilton” high, you know, which I think we all were in early 2016. It was like, “Oh, man, I’ve been mainlining Alexander Hamilton history for six months, you know.” And, you know, I was really interested… I love all of Hamilton’s love letters with Eliza, but there was also his letters with Florence that were really fascinating to me, and I had started looking into that and that was how I found this book called “My Dear Boy” by Rictor Norton. And I found that because I was researching the Hamilton Lawrence letters, and that was where I found a lot of the letters that are featured in the emails. And then I also was looking into Virginia Woolf, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and all those figures from history who also have a lot of archive letters that are very interesting. And, yeah, honestly, it was almost…I had a blast with it because it was just a queer history, like Easter egg hunt. And, you know, I intentionally did that in the book because I pictured this book…I pictured it being something that a lot of people at different points in their journey with queerness would read, and I would want…let’s say some 19-year old who’s just figuring things out, and they don’t really know anything about queer history, I’m like, “Well, here’s the name of something that you should go look up.” “Here is ‘Paris Is Burning,’ go watch it,” you know, kind of thing. And so it was, it’s really, a bunch of sneaky history lessons. I’m a nerd, and I was like, “You should know this, too.” But, yeah, I had a blast doing that. And then just research, in general, was just so much fun. I spent so much time poring through the royal collection archives online, just for throwaway jokes and stuff. I was a journalist for six years before I quit to do this full time. And so, yeah, I’m a huge nerd and I love historical context for everything because that’s just what I’ve been wired to do for so long. So, yeah, that’s kind of where it all comes from for me. Jeff: And my musical theater geek self loves that “Hamilton” had a play in that because I kind of felt that I was reading some of it’s like, “This seems very ‘Hamilton’ in some ways that they’re using this.” Casey: I battled with myself over whether “Hamilton” was a thing that existed in this universe, and if I should mention it in the book, and I was like, “I’m not gonna,” because it’s still so fresh and I feel it’s gonna date the book a lot. But it’s definitely, like, there’s this undercurrent of we’re doing colonial rap battles under the text, you know. Jeff: That’s one of the things I like about this so much is that it is current revisionist history, you know, because, I mean, most of it, and this doesn’t get to a spoiler, most of it is leading into the 2020 election, with Claremont being President in the here and now and having succeeded from Obama. Yeah, its current revisionist history. It’s very interesting how that plays itself out. Now, I think we mentioned that this is your first book that’s out there in the world. What got you into writing romance and specifically m/m romance? Casey: I mean, I have always consumed all types of media and this is my one sacrilegious answer that I give in interviews which is I’m really more into movies and TV than I am into books, and that is the most media that I consume. It’s not what I write, I’m not a screenwriter, I’m not good at that type of writing, but it is where I pull most of my influences from, and what I consumed the most as a kid, I mean, unless you count “Harry Potter,” which everybody read… Jeff: Which does very much exist in the “Red, White & Royal Blue” universe, which I also love. Casey: Oh, yeah, very much so. But what I engaged with about all of those things was the relationships in them. I’ve watched “Lost” and I was like, “I don’t care about Dharma, or the clues or what this island actually means to the polar bear,” I was like, “I care about that everybody’s gonna end up together that I want to end up together in the end, you know,” and it was always like that with everything I watched. I’ve watched “Buffy,” and it was always about that for me. It was like, “This is cool, mythology is cool, whatever, but, like, Spike,” you know. And it really that was just what grabbed me, and so I knew that was what I was always gonna wanna write. And I tried to write other genres. Every other book I tried to start writing was young adult, magical realism, or young adult fantasy, which is clearly not my genre. And I tried a bunch of different false starts in those genres, and it didn’t pan out for me. And this was, like I said, the first time, I had an idea that completely grabbed me. And I think, like I said earlier, I gravitate to writing queer fiction for the same reason that straight people gravitate to writing straight fiction which is that I’m a queer person, and it’s my experience, it’s what I know. I didn’t really come into this book with an idea of what the gender should be more than what the story would be and it formed around that because I didn’t think that the story would take on all of the same qualities. If it was two women, you know, I thought that it would be a little different tone. I felt if it was two women there’d be a porn parody within 15 minutes of it coming out, you know. And so it’s just, there’s just different ways that lesbian couples and gay men couples are perceived by the world I felt, and for this story it made more sense with two men, and I also wanted to do that prince charming trope sub-version. And so it just kind of told me what it wanted to be. But my next book is…it’s about two women, and it’s a completely different story. And so, yeah, I really…honestly, it’s just me trying to make queer rom-coms a mainstream thing more than anything else. Jeff: More power to you. And, so far, it looks like you’re doing a great job with that. Casey: Thank you. Thank you so much. Jeff: This question may not have a good answer based on what you just told us about your kind of TV and movie thing, but are there authors who influence you? Casey: Well, yeah, I mean there are definitely authors that influence me. I loved Oscar Wilde growing up which is, you know, I was 15, my sisters, I remember being at my sister’s college graduation with highlighter and sticky tabs going through “The Importance of Being Earnest.” So, yeah, I did my term paper in high school on “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” and I was like, “This is straight behavior.” But, yeah, Oscar Wilde was a huge influence on me. The “Harry Potter” books, yes, of course, they influenced me. I read a lot of non-fiction and a lot of memoirs actually because I love the voice of them, and I think that’s what helps me to have a good narrative voice. So I love Carrie Fisher’s writings, I love…Nora Ephron’s memoirs are all incredible, Mary Karr. Let’s see, what else. I’m looking at my bookshelf right now. What else do I read? Jane Austen, obviously, the classics of romance, you know. And then more recently, my favorite author right now is Taylor Jenkins Reid. “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” is my favorite book I’ve read in the past couple years and definitely has earned a spot on my all-time faves shelf. And so that’s definitely… And I loved how she does a lot of…she does a lot of what we call in journalism alternate story formats, so epistolary style things that are threaded into the book, which is something that obviously I really love too. And then yeah, that’s…I mean, I read a lot…at least I read a lot of non-fictions like Rebecca Traister and Roxane Gay, those are those are all my faves. But then I pull from a lot of a lot of TV and movies. The biggest influences on this were “Veep,” “Parks and Rec.” There is this web series called “The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo” that I love, and it’s so millennial absurdity that it really kind of like… there’s a shout out to it in the book because they play the song, “Loco In Acapulco” by The Four Tops in that show, and I put that in the book. Yeah. So I’m kind of all over the place. I have a lot of influences and a lot of things that kind of all feed into what comes out of my brain. Jeff: So let’s talk movie. You hinted that a little bit ago. Amazon and Greg Berlanti picked this up before, you know, again before it’s even published out to the world. What was your reaction when you first heard that that was a done deal? Casey: Well, I mean, it was so many stages of reaction because what people don’t see behind the scenes is that the process is crazy. It starts with I have a Hollywood agent, and she sends it out to people and then one producer expresses interest and then more producers can if they want to, and then it turns into you’re on the phone with, you know, such and such from whatever huge production company, and it’s like, “I’m not qualified to do this.” And you talk to those and you pick your producer, and that’s how I picked Berlanti. And I was just really excited to even have a chance to work with them because I’ve loved so much of their work, not even just looking at “Love, Simon,” and going back to “Political Animals” which was a six episode series that’s on Netflix. It’s got…honestly, I have to say one of my touchstones too because it’s got Sigourney Weaver is the president in that which is just amazing, and they’ve got Sebastian Stan as one of the president’s kids, and he’s very tortured, and recovering from addiction, and he’s gay, and he’s Sebastian Stan so he’s crying, you know, and very beautiful. But, yeah. So I just knew that he had the range for it and I also knew that based on “Love, Simon” that production company had the chops to get an unapologetically queer rom-com into the mainstream. But also it was on a personal level, I just remember going to see “Love, Simon” in the theater and that was probably a week after I signed my book deal. And I showed up with an entire eight-inch Jimmy John’s sub in my purse because I knew I was going to cry and I like to eat my feelings. So it was literally me alone. I had to drive 15 minutes out of my city because I was living in Louisiana at the time to find a theater that was playing it, and it just me alone in the theater with my sandwich and was just weeping to Jennifer Garner, you know. And I just remember getting in my car and thinking if my book could make people feel half as seen as I just felt by watching that movie, then I will be so, so happy. And so I’d have the chance to do, to kind of pay forward what that feeling was for me to the next round of people, especially queer people, meant so much to me. And then yeah, Amazon, they just care so much about the project. They’re so passionate about it. They want it to, you know, really…they’re actually really invested in diversifying what is in the market, and taking some risks, and doing projects like this. And it’s just so incredibly mind-blowing, and it really doesn’t feel real yet to have people want to invest those kinds of resources in a story that I wrote. More than anything, I’m just so excited about what it could represent and what it could mean to people. I think about like…and not to at all compare the histories of these communities, but I think about “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” and what those movies meant to have as big cinematic events geared around a demographic that wasn’t usually catered to by the mainstream, you know, and what it meant for those people and what it represented for the future of storytelling for different groups. And I like the idea of being able to make any kind of similar impact with movie is incredible. And I really hope that we can do that, and I really hope that it can be the beginning of a lot more queer rom-coms, you know. So, yeah, it’s amazing. I’m so, so humbled, and amazed, and really excited to see what comes next with it. Jeff: As you were writing, I think all authors tend to cast their books to some degree. Do you have in mind, and knowing this is totally separate from anything that Amazon and Berlanti might do… Casey: Sure. Sure. Jeff: …do you have in mind who Alex and Henry are, at least in your head, as you were writing if you had to assign them an actor? Casey: Well, it’s so hard because…and this is kind of an indictment of the state of Hollywood and that is slowly beginning to change, but there really aren’t a lot of young Latino actors out there choose from, you know. And so it was… there really wasn’t a definitive Alex in my head because I have looked and looked and it was so hard to find someone that fit. And that’s what’s exciting to me about the movie is I think that we will get a chance to kind of give a star making role to some young unknown Latino actor, which would be amazing, and I would love to do that. And Henry is just very elusive. There’s five million charming white British men, but in my head, he’s just so specific-looking, and I have not yet found anyone that matched him. But the parts that were, I think, easiest for me to assign an actor to were like… I always pictured Daniel Day-Lewis as Richards with like the silver foxy and then, Ellen Claremont in my head from day one has been Connie Briton. And then, I mean, Rafael Luna in my head is Oscar Isaac for sure, you know. Jeff: Oh, yeah. I like that. Casey: There’s some characters that I came up with the character first and then tried to figure out what they looked like, and there are other characters where… with Rafael Luna I was like, “I want a character who looks like Oscar Isaac. What’s he going to be?” you know, and that was kind of how that came to be. But, yeah, I’m really excited casting is going to be so much fun, and I’m very excited about it. And I’m really, really excited about just getting to see, you know, what we can do for some…I think there’s gonna be a lot of unknowns in the lead roles, and that’s going to be amazing because they’re going to be able to really step into and embody those characters without it being distracting, like, “Oh, that’s like so and so. I look at them and all I see is the character they played in ‘Game of Thrones’ or whatever.” Yeah. so I think that’ll be, you know, a fun thing. But, yeah, that’s kind of it for that. Jeff: Do we get to see more of Alex and Henry in the future do you think? Casey: I think that I would not rule that out, and that’s all I can really say about that. Jeff: Sure. Casey: Yeah. I think that that would be amazing. I would love to do that. Jeff: And you mentioned your next book is going to be a female pairing. Casey: Yeah. Yeah. So it’s completely different from this. It’s a much smaller scope of a world. It’s just a girl who moves to New York, and she’s from the south. I don’t think I will…I don’t know if I will ever write a protagonist that’s not from the south because that’s just so deeply ingrained in me and in my voice. But she’s from south, she moves to New York, and she kind of stumbles into this roommate situation where it’s just sort of ragtag band of misfits kind of thing. And she develops this huge crush on this hot chick who’s on her subway commute every day. And it’s kind of based on the idea of that way that you fall in love with something on public transit for like 20 minutes, and then you step off, and it’s like they never existed anywhere other than the train. They’re just there for 20 minutes, and you never see them again. But the thing is that she sees this girl every single time she’s on the train. And there’s kind of a twist as to… I will say there’s some light rom-com-y style time travel shenanigans that happened, and the girl on the train is not exactly everything that she seems. And so the whole book is about their relationship and at the same time trying to figure out what’s going on with this girl. But it is rom-com, and it’s super fun, and, of course, it has a gratuitous karaoke moment. Jeff: Excellent. Casey: Well, it’s more of like there’s a gratuitous karaoke moment, and there’s a gratuitous drag show moment. Yeah, so, range. But I’m really excited it. I’m hoping…I mean, obviously, we haven’t set a date for it yet, but it is super, super personal, book of my heart for me, and I’m really excited for people to read it. Jeff: Fantastic, definitely looking forward to that. Casey: Yeah. Yeah. It’ll be awesome. I’m excited. Jeff: What’s the best way for folks to keep up with you online so they could track your progress with what’s up with Alex and Henry and also the new book and everything else? Casey: Yeah, Twitter for sure. I’m kind of been taking a step back lately because since we announced the movie my notifications have been busted, you know. But, yeah, I’ll definitely be back on more especially during tour. I tweet out playlists and a lot of little trivial information like their birth charts and things like that on there, and then also Instagram. That one is more for like I’m here for this tour date kind of thing. So yeah, those are my big two ones. It’s casey_mcquiston on Twitter, and then casey.mcquiston on Instagram. Jeff: Very cool. Well, we will put the links to all of that in the show notes. Casey: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Jeff: “Red, White & Royal Blue” comes out on May 14th, and we wish you just continued success because it’s been so much already and look forward to seeing the movie and everything else that comes from it. Casey: Yeah, thank you so much. I’m so, so grateful, and it’s been so much fun. So thank you so much for having me on.

The guys talk about having more books than shelf space and also their upcoming 24th anniversary. Will reviews An Easter Promise by A E Ryecart. Jeff reviews Play It Again by Aidan Wayne. Jeff interviews Hank Edwards and Deanna Wadsworth about their collaboration, Murder Most Lovely, the first in the Lacetown Murder Mysteries series. They talk about how they came up with the book, their process for co-writing and what’s still to come in the series. We also find out what’s coming up for each of them in 2019. Complete shownotes for episode 186 along with a transcript of the interview are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Here’s the text of this week’s book reviews: An Easter Promise by AE Ryecart. Reviewed by Will. This is the continuing story of Rory and Jack, who we first met in the holiday story, A Kiss Before Christmas. In that story, Jack finds the homeless Rory huddled on his doorstep and offers him a place to stay. As they learn more about one another, Jack asks Rory to pose as his fake boyfriend when he goes home for the holidays. An unexpectedly severe winter storm prevents them from that trip, but in the few days they’ve been together they’ve fallen in love. I read A Kiss Before Christmas last year, and I still highly recommend it. In An Easter Promise, it’s now Spring and our two heroes are finally making the trip to visit Jack’s family in his ancestral manor house in the countryside. This is a particularly nerve-wracking experience for Rory, whose childhood couldn’t have been more different than Jack’s well-heeled upbringing. Things go relatively well as Jack shows Rory around the expansive estate, but they then get frosty when Jack’s mom makes it clear that she believes that Rory is after her son’s money. Gold-digging accusations aside, as a favor to her, Rory steps in as a last-minute contestant in the Best Bake competition at the village festival. Though his brownies were obviously the best, he doesn’t win. Afterward, Jack announces that he and his culinarily gifted boyfriend are going into business together and are opening a bakery. This once again raises the suspicion that Rory is only after Jack for his money, causing a major rift in family relations. Jack tells his mom where she can stick her suspicions, and is ready to return to London, but when Rory takes the family dog for a walk, he gets lost on the moors in a sudden storm. If reading fiction set in the U.K. has taught me anything, it’s that going for a walk on the moors is always a bad idea. The family organizes a search party and journeys into the dark night to find Rory. He is eventually found, and Jack makes amends with his parents. Flash forward a few months to the opening of the bakery and the beginning of a new chapter for our romantic heroes. I really like both of the stories featuring Rory and Jack and sincerely hope that this isn’t the last that we’ll see of them. The opening of the bakery certainly presents several new story possibilities. A.E. Ryecart, if you’re reading this, I’m a fan and a series set in this world would be greatly appreciated. Play It Again by Aidan Wayne. Reviewed by Jeff. I was completely delighted by new-to-me author Aidan Wayne’s Play It Again. Part of what drew me in initially is that part of it relates to what we do here on the podcast. Dovid is a YouTuber alongside his sister Rachel. They run a channel called Don’t Look Now. Among the things they do is review eateries in Seattle for how accessible they are because Dovid is blind. They also interact with their fans, go on trips, open mystery boxes–it’s the full YouTube gambit. Over in Ireland, Sam runs a Let’s Play channel where he plays a popular videogame. Rachel and Dovid become obsessed with Sam’s channel because of his easy-going, fun delivery. Dovid calls out Sam’s channel in an episode and sends Sam’s subscriber count through the roof and when Sam contacts Dovid to thank him they end up talking frequently. Dovid and Sam are single–but as I mentioned live on opposite sides of the globe. Neither of them, quite cutely, realizes how flirty they’re being as they message each other. Initially Dovid offers Sam advice on how to manage his new subscribers and ways to grow his channel but as they move beyond that and get to know each other the realization comes that perhaps there’s more there. This isn’t the first book I’ve read that relies heavily on text messages, instant messenger, email and so on. I loved how these wove into the story. There’s a good deal of, what I’ll call, regular storytelling too, coming from both points of view. Dovid and Sam have quite a lot internal dialogue about their growing predicament. Just getting time to talk on the phone is a challenge with the nine hour difference between them. It doesn’t stop them though from being ridiculously cute and challenging themselves to let this relationship go through its formative stages without being in the same physical location. Of course, the guys have to get together and that happens when Dovid and Rachel had the chance to do a European tour, which includes Ireland. As much as Dovid and Sam questioned themselves as they did the long distance thing, the jitters ratchet up as they meet. Aidan does a great job of showing the hesitancy–from Dovid wanting everything to be perfect to Sam wondering if he’s worthy of Dovid. Sam comes from a family where he was put down a lot and Dovid goes into protector mode when Sam talks about this, which is incredibly touching and sexy. For all the exploration they did via email, the time they spend together in Ireland really made me appreciate the romance that Aidan spun even more. They’d bonded so much before, they almost fall into old married couple mode with how they try to take care of each other. Dovid is particularly mindful of Sam’s asexuality and makes sure Sam isn’t doing anything he doesn’t want to do. It’s wonderful to see two such diverse characters finding their happy. Speaking if the HEA, I’d wondered how it would manifest in a book where the two characters spend probably eighty percent of the book on separate continents. I adored how Aidan brought Sam and Dovid together. I would love to see more in this universe to know how Dovid and Sam are getting on. Besides the wonderful romance, I loved the attention to detail that Aidan put into showing the work Dovid and Rachel do on their channel. From the talk of creating Patreon campaigns to managing social media and how to interact with the audience, I enjoyed it and I don’t think it’s too much for people who don’t do this kind of thing. Another excellent detail, Dovid and Rachel receive a package from a fan in Michigan–it contained Faygo Red Pop and Mackinac Island fudge, two childhood favorites that made me smile and gave me cravings! So, in case you haven’t figured it out, I totally recommend Play it Again by Aidan Wayne. I’m also looking forward to their upcoming book, Hitting the Mark, which comes out at the end of May. This interview transcript is sponsored by Dreamspinner PressDreamspinner Press is proud to publish this week’s guests Hank Edwards and Deanna Wadsworth and their new book Murder Most Lovely. Check it out, and all the new mystery and suspense titles from your favorite authors like Amy Lane, KC Wells, Tara Lain, and Rhys Ford, just to name a few, and find a new favorite author while you’re at it. Go to dreamspinnerpress.com for everything you want in gay romance. Jeff: Welcome to the podcast, Hank Edwards and Deanna Wadsworth. Deanna: Hello. Jeff: Thanks for being here. Hank: Thanks for hosting us. Jeff: You guys have written a book together… Deanna: We did. Jeff: …which is super cool. April 30, which is the day after this comes out, you’re releasing the first book in the “Lacetown Murder Mysteries” called “Murder Most Lovely.” Tell us about this new series. What is the scoop? Deanna: Who wants to go first? Hank: Deanna? You go first. Deanna: Okay, I’ll go first. So like a year ago I went out to dinner with my husband, had some cocktails and at like 11:00 at night after having like wonderful conversations in my brain with myself because I think I’m clever, I messaged Hank, and I said, “Dude, we need to write a book together.” And he’s like, “We should.” And then we did. Hank: I might have had some cocktails that night too. I can’t remember. Deanna: You may have. Hank: Might have. Deanna: And it was, “Yeah, we should,” kind of moment. And we didn’t really know where it was going. Hank: We had no idea. Deanna: What’s that? Hank: We had no idea, like nothing. That was just the random start of things. “We should do a book.” We didn’t have an idea or anything. Deanna: It was a completely inane, “Dude, we should write a book together,” kind of moment. And then seriously, the next day, we had some conversations like, “What should it be? Superhero?” And then we just kind of like spitted ideas back and forth. And Hank was like, “We would write the fuck out of a rom-com.” Am I allowed to say fuck? Jeff: Yes, you are. We’ll put a little explicit logo on the episode and you can cuss as much as you want. Deanna: So he was like, “We would write the fuck out of a rom-com.” And I’m like, “We would.” And then we’re like, “What should it be?” And we just spitballed ideas back and forth. Like, I mean, literally, like there was probably like 30 or 40, like, things we shot back and forth at each other. And then Hank picked on two of them. And he’s like, “I love the idea of a mortician and a hairdresser.” Then we ran with it. Hank: Yeah, and we just ran with it. And it just started writing. I mean, we didn’t plan, like, “You take one chapter.” What we did was each of us wrote up a character bio and sent it to each other. And so I wrote up… Deanna: It was so great. Hank: You what? Deanna: It was so great, like blind dates for our character. Hank: It was. It was really fun. So you had Michael, right, and I had Jazz. Deanna: Yeah, you made Jazz. So tell us about Jazz. Hank: So Jazz is very sassy and very snarky. And he’s a talented hairstylist and he’s uprooted his life after separating from his husband, who is a best-selling novelist and mystery novelist. And so he’s moved to this small town on the coast of Lake Michigan in Michigan. And some Michigan love there, Jeff. Yes. Jeff: I love that. Hank: Yes, always. And so he’s starting over and he’s just trying to kind of like rebuild and he works at a fun little salon but he’s kind of, he’s 49 but he tells people he’s 41 and… Deanna: He tell’s people he’s 35, remember? Hank: And he tries that too. Deanna: He totally lies about his age. He says he’s 35. Hank: We had, our editor actually called us up and she was like, “Is this right?” Because he shouldn’t have been around back then. Jazz lies about his age. Deanna: He’s almost 50 but he says he’s 35. Hank: Right. So that’s how that started. And then she brought up Michael. Deanna: Yeah. Hank created Jazz, the hairdresser, which is funny because I actually legitimately am a hairdresser in real life. But when we were talking, Hank had said, “I’ve always wanted to write a hairdresser.” I’m like, “You take the hairdresser. Run with it.” And then I took the mortician, which sounded really great and exciting. And after dozens of Google search, Google decided that I obviously want to be a coroner and mortician and they send me casket ads, but yeah, whatever. So I created a…it was fun because Hank created Jazz, this sassy, almost-50 hairdresser who’s super sarcastic, he’s got long honey blonde hair and super stylish and wears eyeliner and he’s really sassy and he has a big potty mouth. Hank: Oh, yeah. Deanna: Oh, he does. And then I didn’t know who Hank was creating when we came upon this conversation. It was very much, “Hey, you pick your guy. I’ll pick my guy. We’ll see what happens. And I made Michael Fleishman who is a 42-year-old, very uptight, very socially awkward Jewish guy who runs the local funeral home and he’s also the county coroner to our fake county…is it Carver County? Hank: Carver County, yeah. Deanna: Carver County on Lake Michigan, which is sort of like in somewhere between, I don’t know… Hank: Like Saugatuck and… Deanna: Saugatuck and… Hank: Yeah, Muskegon. Deanna: Muskegon, somewhere, a fake county in between there and he’s the county coroner. He’s very uptight and super horny and has this like hilarious like sexual imagination but he’s really reserved and he is obsessed with mystery novels. And he goes to a bookstore in Lacetown, which is our fictional town on Lake Michigan, during a literary festival to meet his favorite also author, Russell Withingham, which happens to be Jazz’s husband. They’re separated but they’re not divorced yet. Hank: And that’s the meet-cute. Jeff: Wow. Hank: I know, right? Deanna: Total rom-com, meet and greet during the rain under an umbrella, cute scene. Until Jazz gets his little…I mean, he really worries Michael thinks he’s a bitchy queen and he kind of is. He’s totally the queen. Hank: He’s really fun to write. Deanna: It’s so fun. Jeff: So when you got these characters who are obviously really opposite to each other, you could just hear it in the bios, what was it like to mash them together? Hank: Oh, man. Jeff: Sparks had to have flown off the pages. Hank: Oh, yes, right away. It was really fun. The first chapter is their meet-cute. And we had…I mean, we do a lot of like editing, right? So we’ll write the first pass and we’ll talk about it. We message a lot during the day and stuff like that, talk about where we want to go with things. And then we use Google Docs to write together. Yeah, so that was a lot of fun to just see the whole creation of it and like set up that setting and understand how they were going to meet and how that was going to go and how Michael would be so taken with Jazz at first sight. It was really fun. Deanna: Totally. Like, “Oh, you’re so handsome. Why is he talking to me?” Hank: That’s really fun. Jeff: And of course you’ve got the mystery element in this too. So rom-com mystery, which trying to think, I haven’t necessarily seen that kind of combo a lot because there’s straight up romantic suspense, of course. And then there’s like cozy mystery and maybe this ekes a little towards that with the rom-com–iness. But did you know that this was going to be like something to go for? Or did you just like mash these two elements together and say, “This thing…” Deanna: We thought about doing like a film noir concept, like a 1940s film. But see, that’s the thing. Like when Hank and I started writing, we didn’t have a direction. We were very much open to anything. And it was sort of like he created Jazz, I created Michael. We knew we wanted a murder. We knew we wanted it to be like… Hank: We wanted a murder. The murder got pretty gruesome too. I was really shocked. Deanna: Yeah, we wanted some things but then as we began to write it, it began to have elements of a real murder. So like our sheriff is blustering and funny. And Michael has his kitty cat, the little Mr. Pickles. Hank: Mr. Pickles. Deanna: Mr. Pickles, the fat, black-and-white kitty, which my dog is growling at right now. Jeff: Which we should note, for the people who may not be watching the video, Deanna just held up this stuffed kitty. And you’re going to be giving these away at GRL in a few months. Deanna: Yes, we have a few couple. So like when we created the story, I guess maybe other people with their writing collaborations might be different than we were. But Hank and I were not in a competition with each other. We were not like…we just knew we were going to have fun because we like each other and we know each other personally. And we were just like, “Let’s have fun with this.” And there was no like obsessive competition with like, “I don’t like the storyline.” Or, “I like this.” It was just sort of like, “What do you want to do? Okay, that sounds fun.” And we both ran with it. And we ended up developing this city on Lake Michigan and this little town and these little side characters. Jeff: Let’s talk about the mystery side of it. Who is dead? Deanna: Oh, yes, the mystery side of it. That’s right. So I’ll talk and then I’ll let Hank talk because I’ve been blabbering too long. So we decided we wanted it to be, like, film noir idea. And then it became like a legitimate murder mystery where there is a dead body and it’s gruesome and it’s creepy and it’s sad. And there’s like some crazy shit happening. And there’s like cops that need to come in. And there’s like a real mystery. And there’s actually a couple side mysteries that are happening over the book arc of the next two novels, novel two of which we will be submitting in the morning. We would have submitted it today but I’m being a typo psycho. I am. I’m a typo psycho. Hank: She’s finding a lot of good stuff, though. I like the changes. So, yeah. So the murder actually got more gruesome than I was anticipating. We were like, “Let’s go.” “Wait, do we want to go?” “Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it.” So it’s…do we want to say who it is? I mean, it happens early on. So I don’t think it’s a spoiler, right? Deanna: Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t we just talk about how creepy the murder is. Hank: Okay, we’ll just leave it just like that. Deanna: Not who is murdered. Hank: Someone’s murdered and maybe their hands are missing. Deanna: Or chopped off. Jeff: Oh, wow. Hank: So, yeah, that’s kind of… Jeff: That’s more gruesome than I expect in a rom-com. Hank: I know. Jeff: I’ll say that. Deanna: Oh, wait ’till you hear about the serial killer. Wait, that was a spoiler. I didn’t say it. Hank: But in the first book… Jeff: Is that a spoiler that we’re leaving in or a spoiler that we’re taking out? Deanna: We’re leaving it in but we’re not gonna respond about it. Jeff: Fair enough. Hank: That’s right. Jeff: A little breaking news there for the podcast that we will not do follow-up questions on. You were saying, Hank, on this murder. Hank: So yeah, so it was gruesome. And then there’s the discovery. But Michael is kind of, you know, he can’t help but be a little excited about it because it’s his first murder because he’s a small town, county coroner. And the only… Deanna: He’s not only a mortician. He’s the county coroner too. Hank: Right. So it’s up to him now to, like, investigate it. He’s never had a murder like this. He’s had a murder but they knew the victim and the attacker. So this is completely new for him. And he reads murder like mystery novels, so he’s really excited about it. So he’s, like, starting to play, like, detective. And then the sheriff is kind of, you know, like all blustering and yelling at him like, “Fleishman. Dilworth.” You know, that’s Jazz’s last name, Jazz Dilworth and he like calls everybody their last name and yells at them. And they’re always a suspect, so, “Don’t leave town.” Deanna: Everyone is a suspect until Musgrave says they’re not a suspect. Hank: “Don’t leave town.” Yeah. Sheriff Musgrave. Jeff: So if I understood correctly, you kind of just created this on the fly. Hank: Yep. Deanna: Totally. Jeff: For both the romance and the mystery? Deanna: Totally. Jeff: How did that play out in like the day-to-day writing? Because I can’t even like imagine having co-written something that there wasn’t more of a plan to it. Hank [softly]: I know! Deanna: How did it go? Hank: Actually it went smoother than I expected. Deanna: It was so much fun. Hank: Yeah. And it was a lot of fun because we chatted a lot on Facebook Messenger. And we’d text and we call each other now and then. We’d have conversations, phone conversations, and we’d plan out where we wanted things to go. And then one of us would say, “Okay, I’ll do this and then you can write that.” And then we just kind of took it. And then it was really fun because like you’d go through and you’d read…you know, how you like read through what you’ve written and it’s somebody else has written something new and you’re like, “Wow, this is like a whole new story.” Like you don’t know what you’re reading, you don’t know anything of what to expect. So it was really fun. Deanna: So awesome because, like, first, I gotta say, writing with Hank Edwards has been a pleasure. Because not only is he a great writer and like stupid funny, like so funny, I can’t even tell you how many times he writes something and I’m just like…laughing. But he and I are not…we’re not competitive individuals. We’re not like jumping into this, like, “Well, this is what I want. This is what I want.” It was so easy, where it was just like we just…Hank created Jazz and then Jazz has this profile that we went with. I created Michael and we had this profile we went with. He and I created an exterior mystery that happened to them. But because he created such a good profile and I just created such a strong profile, both of us knew who Michael and who Jazz were. And then it was like, “Well, Michael wouldn’t do that,” or, “Jazz wouldn’t say that.” And we didn’t like try to, like, undermine the other person. I don’t know. I just feel really blessed. I love you. I just feel blessed to be able to write a story with someone who is so easy and so fun and our sense of humor is both very similar and darkly twisted and inappropriate, like we both knew when our editor was gonna go, “Mm-mm. No.” Hank: I told her several times, I’m like, “This is gonna get cut out and you put it in and it’s gonna get cut out. I’m telling you right now.” And she’s like, “I want to leave it in.” I’m like, “Okay, but it’s gonna get cut.” And it did. Deanna: And I’m like, “They’re not gonna let us use the C-word.” And he’s like, “Maybe they will.” No, they didn’t. But it was so much…I don’t know. It was just one of those things that were really easy because Hank is so fun to work with. It was just easy. I mean, not that writing and editing is easy. But even as we went through the process, there would be scenes…we each knew where the scene was going to go. We knew what scene was going to happen next. And if it was…because our work…he’s very typical 9:00 to 5:00 work schedule, Monday through Friday, and I am Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 8:00, those four days. So like he would do all the stuff Wednesday through Saturday and then I’d open it up on Sunday, and then I’d do all the stuff Sunday to Tuesday. And then it wasn’t like we were fixing or changing each other’s work. It was like, “Oh, that’s a great scene.” And then I would add to it. And then he would take my scene and add to it. And it was just like layering and layering cool stuff with what was already funny. So it was like I knew what I was writing on Tuesday. I wrote this whole scene. And then Hank would write the next scene. And when I would get a chance to read on Thursday, he was like, “Oh, what am I going to read? I know what’s gonna happen but how is it gonna happen?” And he is so funny. So funny. And, I mean, it was just so great writing together. Jeff: So, Hank, for you, what’s kind of your side of that story as you’re like going through and doing your part on the book on your days? Hank: So it was a lot of fun. Like Deanna said, because I’ve been writing during my lunch hours at work, so like Monday through Friday I’d have like an hour and I usually go and I hide somewhere at the building and I’ll, like, be able to focus and write. And it was really fun to go through Google Docs and be able to accept all those changes because we always do the suggestions, right, so like the track changes so we can see what each other has done. And it’s always so much fun to see. It looks like, you know, like Deanna said, it’s like, “Oh,” it’s like a little present. You know, like, “There’s something new.” And I go through. But then seeing how she did the layering, I was talking to my husband, Fred, and I was like, you know, it’s like I’m picking up such good ideas about how to layer emotion in. Deanna is awesome at doing that and like pulling out the emotions in a scene and like digging in deeper where it needs to be. You know, that’s something that I’ve always kind of like, you know, I’m always like, “Write the action. Write the action. Write the action.” Deanna: But that’s what I love about his writing because he will write action that conveys emotion, whereas I would have written a long, drawn-out emotional monologue. And somehow the two just worked so great. I think. Hank: We are a good blend together like that. So, yeah, it’s really funny and she’s funny and really darkly funny. So it’s been a lot of fun because there’s some stuff where I like write something dark and funny and then, you know, you get the comment. It’s always fun to get that comment like, “LOL. Oh, my God.” And so then like all of a sudden like further down the page, she’s added somebody I’m like, “Oh, my God, you did not just write that.” So it’s really funny. Deanna: We’re so wrong. We’re so wrong, we’re so right, Hank. Hank: Yes. Jeff: Well, I really like the organic method it sounds like you guys had. Because like my brain can’t even begin to process trying to co-write without a plan. But I’ve heard other people do that and it works out great. What, as you got the draft done, what was the revision and also, I guess, making the book seem like it had one voice? What was that like? So was it like two different people at work? Deanna: Can I respond to this? Hank: Of course. Deanna: Okay, so, Hank would send me…well, it was in Google Docs. So we would get scenes together. So I feel like the way it went before anyone else read anything or we got any feedback from editors, from beta readers, or whatever, it was like we had our strong characters decided who they were and what they were and what the mystery was. And he would write a scene and then I would get it and I’m like, “Oh, it’s a good scene. I love where it’s going. Maybe…” Okay, so like I’m not going to give a spoiler, but there’s a scene at the end of Book 1 where the murderer is caught and our two heroes are like in this epic battle fighting them, like the murderer, right? Okay. So Hank writes that scene and I’m like, “Ah,” and then I go in and I add some fighting, some struggling, and maybe a little dialogue. Hank comes back in, he adds a little more dialogue. He remembers that the gun is on the other side of the room. Whatever the detail is, we both keep adding layers. And I think it comes back to the point that we’re both so invested in our characters and we weren’t, like, competing to try to be the better person. And I think that’s a lot of it. I mean, I think you can’t co-write a book together if you’re competitive or need center of attention. Hank and I just had so much fun. It would be like, “Oh, yeah. Add that, add that.” And he’s just like “Oh, my God. We’re great. That’s great. You shot him. Oh, I didn’t expect to shoot him. Let’s do that.” Whatever it was and we kept adding these layers and it became so much fun. But in the end, when we would get a scene and it was completed, we would…each of us would go back and read through the whole manuscript and be like, “Oh, we missed that detail.” And Hank would send that to me. And I’d be like, “Oh, yeah, that’s right. I forgot about that.” And he would add it. Or I would like, even today, we’re actually like one day off submitting Book 2. We were going to submit it today but I am like typo crazy. So I sent the manuscript to my Kindle so I could find any misspellings and typos. And I was like, “Oh, my God. We have a scene where Michael and Jazz are sitting in Michael’s living room with the TV. And in Book 1, he only has a TV in his bedroom. What are we going to do?” And Hank is like, “That’s cool. Good for catching that.” And I feel like that’s kind of how we’ve been like we’ll catch something and go. “Oh, I’m glad you caught that.” Hank: Yeah. But to your point, Jeff, you said like about planning and writing off the cuff, so the first book, I think, Deanna, you can tell me if I’m wrong. But the first book was really, I mean, it wasn’t easy because writing is hard but it was easier. Book 2, it was more of a struggle I think with writing it. Deanna: Book 2 was more of a struggle. Hank: And we had a lot going on. So we have like an overarching mystery, we have another, like, contained mystery. Deanna: Yes. Hank: So we’ve talked about it and we’re like Book 3, we really need to plan it out more. We’re gonna… Like once we let this book to get out a little bit, we’re going to like start planning Book 3 and then really like… Deanna: We need a serious luncheon with some planning. Hank: Yeah, so, absolutely. Deanna: Book 1 was very organic and natural. And Book 2, I mean, you’ll probably agree, Hank, I think we fell in love with our side characters so much we got distracted with all these sides stories. Even our editor was like, “Why are you talking about that and that?” We’re like… Hank: “Because we like them.” Deanna: So we had to cut a lot of scenes and really focus back on the romance, on book 2. Jeff: DVD extras, deleted scenes. Hank: DVD extras, exactly. Jeff: But let’s talk about those side characters a little bit because there’s a whole paragraph of the blurb for Book 1 that details the side characters. Michael’s sassy assistant, Kitty, the grumpy Sheriff Musgrave, Russell’s creepy PR rep, Norbert, Michael’s grandfather who likes his Manhattans strong and his women saucy. And of course, who we’ve already met, Mr. Pickles Furryton the Third. Hank: Yes. Mm-hmm. Jeff: So did you guys split those up in the same way that you took Jazz, Hank, and Deanna took Michael? Or did these get created on the fly as you needed them? Deanna: They were on the fly. Hank: Yeah. Deanna: We just like… Hank: We just do, kind of. Yeah. Deanna: I think I came up with Mr. Pickles Furryton the Third and Hank created Sheriff Musgrave. Because I think when we were talking, Sheriff Musgrave was actually like an old man and Hank made him this whole, like, Ron Perlman kind of character. Hank: Yes. Very Ron Perlman. Deanna: He has a lot of attitude. And Kitty, I don’t know where she came from. Hank: You created Kitty. Deanna: Did I? Okay, because I imagine her. Do you watch “Blue Blood” with Tom Selleck? Jeff: I have not. Deanna: Oh, anyways. His secretary is this voluptuous like blonde chick and I pictured her. And I don’t know who created Grandpa. Hank: I think we both did. Deanna: You had Steve. Hank: Oh, yeah, the handyman. Deanna: We both made Ezra. Hank: The apprentice. Deanna: I don’t know anything about them. That’s not a spoiler at all. Jeff: That’s very impressive to just kind of create on the fly like that. Two people pantsing would make my head explode, but. Hank: It was insane. I don’t know how we managed to do it but… Jeff: I think you had fun with it all the more. Hank: …we had really good feedback from the editor. Deanna: We did have so much fun, Jeff. Hank: Yeah. Deanna: I don’t know how lucky I am. Like a year ago, I sent him a drunk text message that we should write a book together. And we have had the best year. Jeff: Had it even crossed your minds before the drunk text to do this in some, like, other random moment? Deanna: No. Hank: Never ever really even talked about it? I mean, we see each other GRL. She comes up for Ferndale Pride because she lives about an hour and a half away from me. Deanna: I’m northwest Ohio, he’s southwest Michigan, so we’ve done some pride festivals together. But in all freaking honesty, the whiskey made me do it, Jeff. I literally texted him, “Hey, full disclosure, I’ve been drinking. We should write a book together.” I do believe, Hank, that was the quote. Hank: Pretty much. Yeah. Deanna: And he was like, “We would write the fuck out of a rom-com.” And I was like, “We would.” And then we ran with it. And then that’s that. It was just, like, all fun. Jeff: And it’s interesting that you’re evolving in Book 2 and probably in Book 3 too. You had the fun moment. Now you kind of have to make everything keep tying together in the next two books. Hank: Yes. It’s all got to come together now for the third book. Yeah. Jeff: Because that’s like, yeah, when you have all that tied together stuff, because I’ve been reading a lot of romantic suspense lately where it’s like something that arcs across a trilogy or whatever, and it’s like…it’s exciting. Hank: Right. Deanna: Yeah. Book 2 is tentatively called “Murder Most Deserving,” and it was a lot harder to write than the first book. Hank: Yeah. Jeff: As fun though, I hope? Hank: Oh, yeah. Deanna: Oh yeah, just as fun, but there were moments I feel like we both checked out. And we’ve had this conversation. We know that we checked out because we had decided on a storyline for Michael and Jazz. And then we were like, “This doesn’t feel right.” Because it’s not your book, it also belongs to someone else, you don’t just say, “Oh, that storyline can’t happen,” because two of you decided together so you keep going with it. And then there’s moments where we had to talk and we’re like…where I was like, “I don’t like this.” And he’s like, “Yeah, I don’t like it either.” And I thought I said I didn’t like it. I’m like, “Maybe you said you didn’t like it. But I didn’t really expect you didn’t like it and I don’t know why we didn’t like it. And I don’t even know why we’re doing it.” And it was like we had…I mean, there was like, there was a couple of moments like that on the story. And there was also like we said in the beginning, we love our side characters too much. And we gave them a lot of screen time they did not deserve, even though we love them. So we had to distract and take a lot of stuff out. Not that we wanted to take it out but it was like why is this thing here? No one cares… Hank: Right. Deanna: …except us. So it was a little different. Like we created this wonderful world and in Book 2 we kind of just went crazy. We, like, went crazy with the Cheez Whiz. It’s like, “I love Sheriff Musgrave. I love Missy.” And we just wrote all these scenes and we’re like… And part of that I will say is my fault because I sent a lot of scenes to Hank before we even plotted the book. I was like, “I wrote this funny scene I’m going to send you.” And he’s like, “I love it.” And we wrote it. Hank: And I was like opening emails from Oprah. “And you get a storyline, and you get a storyline.” Deanna: Totally. Jeff: Maybe these could become short stories for these characters if you can’t get them into the book. Hank: That’s great. Jeff: So take a moment to brag on each other. And outside of working on this book, what do you like about each other’s work? Hank: I’ll go. Jeff: Hank first. Hank: All right. I love Deanna’s depth of characters. So her books, I think the first one I read of yours was “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” And I was like, “Oh, Ichabod. Oh, you naughty boy.” But then I can’t remember in what order then I read them but like “Easy Ryder,” I love that book. That is an awesome book. And I love the time period and I love the characters and I just love all of it and the discovery. That’s a road trip, another…you love the road trip books. Deanna: Apparently. Hank: Apparently. And then “Wrecked” is awesome. It’s really good. But she has a way of just like, you know, pulling up those emotions and really getting into the romance of it and doing an awesome job with it and having the characters. And then the conflict is organic, it’s not, like, fabricated. And it all blends together. She’s got a really good sense of story. Jeff: Nice. Deanna: That’s so sweet. I feel like, Hank, your dialogue sells your story. You could write a whole book on just dialogue with nothing else and people would buy it and laugh. You’re hilarious and your dialogue is great. And I feel like our styles mesh well because I do write more… I like to write a lot of the internal monologue and the emotion. But I’ll tell you an example, and this is a semi-spoiler in Book 2. But this is what I love about Hank’s writing. Okay. I’m not gonna tell too much of the story but there is a scene where something really shocking happens for our character, Jazz, the hairdresser. And the scene is in Jazz’s point of view. You’ll know what I’m talking about in a second. So the scene is in Jazz’s point of view and then Michael, our mortician, bursts through the door. And everyone is like, “How did you get here?” And he’s like, “I ran here.” And that sounds like simplistic but the emotional intensity of why Michael would run five blocks to the salon where Jazz works on a mere phone call just conveys so much intensity with three words, “I ran here.” And that’s what I love about Hank’s writing. I mean, I write the long emotional, internal monologue. And Hank writes that same intense emotional monologue in three words, “I ran here.” And I think, I mean, I’ve always…that’s what I love about his books. But I feel like those two things complement each other in our writing. Like I like to write the long drawn out emotional and he writes that same scene in three words, “I ran here.” And that’s why I love writing with him. Jeff: Cool. They’re hearting each other for those people not watching the video right now. Jeff: So you mentioned three towns…three towns, no, three books in the “Lacetown” series are planned. Do you foresee life in the universe beyond those three since you’re having such a good time? Deanna: Yeah. Hank: We talked about it. We’ve discussed it, yeah. We’ve got the trilogy planned and then we’ll see what happens with it. Deanna: We have at least two in our head. Jeff: That’s cool. Deanna: Beyond the three. Jeff: Now what about separately? What’s coming up next outside of the “Lacetown” series for you both? Hank: You have something coming up soon, Deanna. Deanna: Well, I have one thing coming up for sure and hopefully two. I also write young adult fiction just like Hank does under his…is it RG or RD? Hank: R.G. Deanna: R.G. Thomas. Hank has a young adult series under RG Thomas. And I have a young adult series, K.D. Worth, which is very different from my Deanna Wadsworth writing. It’s young adults/new adults because my characters are 19 and there are some, I don’t know, level-three sexy moments. So you can’t really…like you know people get funny about young adult that has sexy stuff in it. There’s a strong spiritual element with the main character who was trying to kill himself because of his family sending him to like one of those creepy pray-the-gay away camps. And the moment he kills himself he’s saved by a young teenage Grim Reaper, who decides that he wants to give him a second chance in life. And there’s a sassy foul-mouthed, because no one understands why Deanna would write a character like that, a sassy foul-mouthed angel who helps these boys on their journey. And that story is called “The Grim Life.” And Book 3, the final series, the final saga in that trilogy “The Lost Souls” is coming out this fall. And I’m really, really excited about that. I mean, a lot of M/M or gay romance, whatever you want to call it, authors know that young adult isn’t where the sales and money are at, sadly, but this is like a really intense…I don’t want to say pet project because that trivializes it, but it’s really a series that means more to me than almost anything I’ve ever written. Hank: Yeah. You’ve been working on these for what? Like two years now? Deanna: Yeah, four. It took me two years to write Book 3 because I just emotionally invested in it. There’s a lot of death and questioning of what goes on on the other side and where God sees your soul and all these like intensely hard questions. And to make things harder on myself, I put a school shooting in Book 3 because why not? Hank: No, why? Deanna: It’s so emotionally intense that you can’t write it. So that comes out this fall. But I’m hoping my second book in my Pride of the Caribbean Cruise series comes out which is a merman. Hank: Nice. Deanna: A merman… Hank: On a cruise. Deanna: …on a Caribbean cruise. It’s like I like to be intense or I like to be funny. I can’t be… Hank: There’s no in between, right. Jeff: Either end of the spectrum. Hank: That’s right. Deanna: That’s what I do. So that’s what’s coming out for me. Jeff: Cool. Hank: I will be working on the final book of the “Critter Catcher” series, final book for now. It’s tentatively titled “Dread of Night.” So and I’ve got about six chapters written. I’m working on a big pivotal scene also, so I need to just like…now that Book 2 has been sent off for consideration I can like, you know, kind of focus on that because I’m really bad at like jumping between projects too. Like my mind gets stuck in the other characters because while I’m working on this other I’m like, “But wait, what about…?” So, yeah. Jeff: Cool. All right. What is the… Hank: There’s other stuff to work on too but that’s the big thing coming up. Deanna: I love the “Critter Catcher” books. They’re so good. I manipulated Hank into giving me the last book when I was sick last summer. I was like, “Shouldn’t you send it to me? I know that you’re going to submit it for publishing in a month, but I’m really sick.” Hank: “I need to beta it. I’m sick.” Yeah. Deanna: Yes. I did do that. Jeff: And it worked too, right? Deanna: It worked. Hank: I did. I sent it. I was good. Deanna: And it was worth it. Jeff: So what’s the best way for readers to keep up with you guys online? Let’s start with Hank. Hank: I have a website. It’s hankedwardsbooks.com. You can also find my young adult fiction at townofsuperstition.com. And I do have those books listed on my Hank Edwards’ website just to make it easier. And then I’m on Facebook. I have a Facebook page. It’s facebook.com/hankedwardsbooks. And I really don’t use…Twitter confuses me. I get really…it’s just this noise. It’s like people yelling at each other. And so I have a Twitter account but I’m not out there much. But I am on Instagram. I usually post pictures of my cats. You know, and that’s @hankedwardsbooks as well. Jeff: Cool. And Deanna? Deanna: I’m on Facebook, deannawadsworthauthor. And Instagram, I go by @deannawads. I don’t know why I didn’t finish my last name but I don’t know. Everybody called my grandpa Wadsy. So I should have done Deanna Wadsy but I screwed that up. But I’m on those two. A little on Twitter and a little on Pinterest, all under Deanna Wadsworth. Mostly my most activity is on Instagram or my website, deannawadsworth.com. And that’s it. And you should totally read Hank’s R.G. Thomas books. It’s like Harry Potter but gay with, like, dragons. And little garden gnomes. I fricking love those books. You better write another one after we write our book. After we write our book. You’ve got to. Hank: Got it. Jeff: You’ve got your marching orders now, Hank. Hank: I do. I get them a lot. Deanna: He doesn’t have a wife, but… Hank: It’s all right. Deanna: …I’ll jump in that role. Hank: She’s my work wife. Jeff: All right. Well, this has been a blast. We will definitely link up to everything in the show notes that we’ve talked about here. And we wish you the best of success on the “Lacetown Murder Mysteries.” Hank: Thanks very much, Jeff. It’s been fun. Deanna: Thank you, Jeff.

New movie and TV deals are discussed with both Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue coming to Amazon and a Love, Simon series to the Disney+ streaming service. Jeff talks about seeing The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. New patrons Rhonda and Regi are welcomed. Will reviews the Netflix original Special. Jeff reviews Jay Bell’s Straight Boy. Jeff & Will discuss their trip to the LA Times Festival of Books. They also share the interviews they did at the festival with Julian Winters, Kim Fielding & Venona Keyes and S.A. Stovall. Julian talks about his upcoming book How to Be Remy Cameron. Kim discusses her Stars in Peril series and Venona also tells Jeff about her co-writing with Kim. S.A. gives the origin story of her Vice City series and how she uses caricature to encourage people to read the first chapter (she also did a super cute caricature of Jeff & Will). Complete shownotes for episode 185 are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Here’s the text of this week’s book review: Straight Boy by Jay Bell, narrated by Kirt Graves. Reviewed by Jeff. I went into Straight Boy without knowing much about it other than it was a young adult story involving Andrew, a gay high school student, who develops a crush on Carter, a straight (or maybe not-so-straight) boy. What made me buy the audiobook was the fact I’m a huge Jay Bell fan because of Something Like Summer and also for Kirt Graves’s narration. I knew these two together would give me a great read. And they did. With Something Like Summer and its sequels, Jay proved a master of telling a story with many characters and many plot lines that involve an array of emotions. He’s upped his game with Straight Boy. Two things happen right away–Andrew, a recent transplant to Chicago, discovers a boy who lives down the street having an argument with his parents and saying things like “I was born this way.” Andrew thinks he’s found a gay friend. The next day–his first day at his new school–Andrew comes out as he introduces himself in class. This makes him a target of the school bully, Bobby. Andrew goes off on Bobby, despite the bully’s threats and ends up getting sent to the guidance office. Here he meets Carter and discovers that’s the boy he heard arguing. Both of them end up in a special program at the school where learning happens outside a traditional classroom Andrew’s year is now set. Everyone–gay, straight or otherwise–inevitably has that phase where you want a romantic relationship that you can’t have. Andrew longs for Carter but also doesn’t want to wreck their friendship, which seems to grow stronger by the minute. The thing is, Carter seems to be a little experimental too and that only makes things more confusing for them both. In the hands of a lesser writer, this would end up a disaster on the page, but Jay deftly weaves the emotions and circumstances for both guys as they figure out the place they’ve got in each other’s lives as it evolves through the school year. I cheered for the good and wanted to protect them through the bad since my fifty-year-old self could vividly recall how confusing seventeen was. Bobby’s integrated deeply into their year too. He’s a friend of Carter’s and that mean’s Andrew is around Bobby far more than he likes–and he ends up putting up with more crap that he should. Andrew accepts dealing with that because he doesn’t want to lose Carter. It’s made even harder when Carter starts dating Bobby’s ex, Olivia. Along the way another of Bobby’s friends, Jackson, becomes tight with Andrew too, creating more bonds in the group. The evolution of Andrew and Jackson’s friendship is as interesting as Andrew and Carter’s. Things get rough in the last quarter of the book. Bobby doesn’t like the changes happening to his group and he plots revenge. I have to warn here that not only does bullying happen throughout the story at varying levels but as we get into the last act there’s also off-page sexual assault and a pretty epic final battle where Andrew, Carter and the group are in way over their heads. Again, Jay does an excellent job of telling the story, ratcheting tensions and putting characters–and readers–through the wringer. The epilogue was the icing on top of this cake. Jumping twenty years into the future, we find out where everyone ended up. There were some surprises here that made me go “awwww.” It provided the perfect ending. What this book excelled at was showing friendships up close–what makes them grow, what rips them apart, and most importantly, what can make a true friend for life. It also shows, perhaps too intensely for some readers, the lengths people can go to in order to protect a relationship even if it’s toxic. I can’t commend Jay enough for how well he did all of this. Kudos to Kirt Graves too. I know well from TJ Klune’s Green Creek series that Kirt can handle a large cast of characters and high emotional impact. Kirt is perfection here handling the emotional rollercoaster without sending it over the top. His performance adds perfectly to what Jay had on the page. I highly recommend Straight Boy by Jay Bell, just make sure you’re ready for the ride. Interview Transcript - Julian Winters, Kim Fielding & Venona Keyes, S.A. Stovall This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast. Interview with Julian Winters Jeff: We are at the LA Times Festival of Books with Julian Winters. Julian: Hi. Jeff: Who I’ve just had a major fanboy moment over. Julian: I had fanboy moments. Jeff: Okay. We kinda both had the fanboy moment. Julian: Yes, yes. It is equal. Jeff: Because I had to get him to sign my “Running with Lions.” Podcast listeners know that was one of my favorite books of last year. Julian: Thank you. Jeff: And you’ve got a little sneak peek… Julian: I do. Jeff: Right now of “How To Be Remy Cameron,” which comes out September 10th. Julian: Yes, yes. September 10th, yes. Jeff: Tell us what this is about. Julian: Remy is a very personal book. It’s about an out and proud teen in high school, who has always felt like he’s known himself until he has this AP lit course. And one of the final grades he has to write an essay about who am I and it’s like the make or break essay. He’s trying to get into Emory University, and he needs this course in order to get there. And so, he has this kind of panic mode of, “Okay, but who am I?” Because he’s always been defined by, “Oh, he’s the gay kid who came out at 14,” or, “Oh, he’s one of five black students that go to our school,” or “Oh, he’s the big brother to this character,” and he’s just all these labels he wears all the time. He’s, “This is who I am.” But then he starts to realize, “Is that all I am and do these labels really define exactly who Remy Cameron is?” So, it’s kinda an exploration of what labels mean to us, but it also has a great family dynamic. A couple of secret mystery parts I can’t tell you about but there’s a lot of guessing games going on in it. And of course, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have like a dorky romance in there. So, that’s in there too. Jeff: A dorky romance? I like that because that’s… Julian: Yes, that’s exactly what I promise you. It’s so geeky, it’s so dorky. Jeff: That’s kind of what “Lions” was as well for sure. That’s a good label for it. How would you say that your writing has evolved from first book to second? Julian: Oh, it’s a lot. A lot. With the first book, I just kinda wanted to write the feel-good story, and that was my goal, and touching on certain issues throughout the book. And it also was written in third person and “Remy’s” written in first person. I’ve never, not even when I was like a small child, wrote in first person. I love reading books like that, but I thought, I just can’t do that, it’s just too personal. And so, it was a challenge doing that, but it was a lot of fun. And “Remy,” like I said, it’s very personal, so exploring parts of myself and things that I see throughout, you know, our community and things like that. It really helped me grow as a writer to really say, Okay, you can challenge yourself and you can fail at it, but you can also improve. And that was great. So, to fail, I struggled so much in the beginning, but to have that under my belt now, it’s I think I could write a lot of different stories. Jeff: So, you think you’ll visit first again sometimes? Julian: Oh, yeah, yes, yes. The next book I’m working on, first might be where I’m stuck now. I think this might be my calling. I don’t know. Jeff: Okay. I could tell you, first is a nice place to be. Julian: Yeah, it is. Jeff: What are some elements of this book that are so personal to you? Julian: Growing up. So, I grew up in Upstate New York where I was one of five black students at my school. And then when we moved to Georgia, I was one of 400 that went to my school. So, it’s very personal in the sense of, I went through a lot of phases of am I too gay? Am I black enough? Am I too perfect as a friend? Am I good enough friend? A lot of things that I went through, Remy goes through in the book. It also explores my love for a lot of geeky things and how for a while I wouldn’t let that define me because I thought, “Oh, no, this is bad, people are gonna make fun of me.” And Remy goes through that because he had a lot of geeky moments, but it’s almost like he’s scared to show them now that he knows that these are the things that I’m defined by. Jeff: I love that you point out the geeky thing because I saw on your Instagram earlier today of the comic books that you read into here at the Festival. Julian: Listen, I almost had to leave, you know, our booth just to go, you know, bow down at the comic book booth and just say, “Listen, thank you. I love it.” Jeff: Now, let’s talk about “Lions” for a second because you’ve had an amazing year. I mean, you started out of the gate that the book was blurbed by Becky Albertalli. Julian: Yeah. Jeff: And now, just within the last week or two, you’ve won an award for it. So, tell us a little bit about that. Julian: It’s been a wild journey because, first of all, like, I never thought I’d meet Becky Albertalli, I never thought I’d talk to her, I never thought, you know, I would become friends with her. And then just meeting all the other people along the way that I’ve met and growing in that area… I always felt like I was the kid sitting at the table in the corner where I peek over at all the cool kids and say, “Yeah, I’m never sitting at that table,” but it’s been kinda really awesome being taken in by so many different people and I never thought I’d be an award-winning author. Like, I wanted to write the book for queer kids to enjoy, to see themselves and know that, you know, you’re not some other subcategory, you’re just a normal person. It’s just that…this is just a part of you, it doesn’t define you. And to win an award, I broke down crying. It wasn’t something I was expecting going into this because my journey has always been about the reader but to have something for myself was amazing. It still is amazing. I’m not over it. I guess I won’t be over it until I actually hold the award in my hands and say, “This happened.” Jeff: This actually happened. And the cover too, which was a stunning cover, also won. Julian: Yes, the cover won for best cover. And that was so great for me in the sense that I love our cover designer, C.B. Messer. She’s amazing. She reads all the books cover to cover. And so, she knows these characters, she knows their stories, and what she did with that cover just blew me away. What she did with the “Remy” cover, I’m still in complete awe of just how well she knows these characters. Jeff: When we talked back last year, the book had hardly been out. Julian: Yeah. Jeff: How’s the reader response been to it? Julian: It’s been amazing. Today just alone, just so many people will walk by and say, “Oh my gosh, ‘Running with Lions,’ I’ve heard of that book.” And I’m just like, “What? Of all the books that came out in 2018, you heard of that book?” The response has been amazing. Going to the events and having people walk up to me and say, “Thank you for writing this book because I played soccer all my life, but there was never a queer soccer book.” Or, “Thank you for writing this because there weren’t a lot of books with bisexual main characters, or characters that were gay and Muslim, or black characters, or whatever.” It’s been amazing, the response I get. I get teary-eyed every time. I’m like, “I’m not strong enough for this, we can’t talk about this.” But it’s also been so cool to know that I’m helping someone see themselves because I didn’t always get that opportunity growing up. So, to know I’m getting to be a part of their journey, it’s just been amazing. Jeff: Fantastic. And what have you thought of the fair, of the festival? Because it’s your first time up here. Julian: Yes, this is my first time here for the festival. And I was talking to another friend about it because I went to YALLWEST last year. YALLWEST is this…it’s nice little corner and then this is like a whole city. Like, I get lost every time I go either to the bathroom or get something to drink. But it’s amazing because it brings so many different publishers, so many different books together, so many different genres, so many different kinds of authors are here. And that’s the amazing part to me, just to know how influential books are because there are people everywhere all the time, stacks of books in their arms. And you don’t really get to see that in, like, media, like how impactful books are, how much people really enjoy the art that we put out there. So, this has just been amazing to watch how excited people get when they see the books. Jeff: Yeah, it’s been very cool here. So, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Julian: Thank you. You know, I love you guys. Jeff: Best of luck on “How To Be Remy Cameron,” coming out September 10th. Interview with Kim Fielding and Venona Keyes Jeff: We are at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books with Kim Fielding and Venona Keyes. Thanks for being here. Kim: Thanks so much. Venona: Thanks for asking. Jeff: We’re excited to have you both here. And now, Kim, of course, within the past couple of weeks, we’ve raved about the “The Spy’s Love Song” and the new “Dreamspun Desires.” Where did the inspiration for this book come from? Because it was so good. Kim: I think a big part of the inspiration came from my travels in Eastern Europe. So, you know, thinking about the way things used to be in Eastern Europe and how things are changing, plus politics as they’re happening right now. And so, yeah, I think that was the main thing. Jeff: What kind of research did you have to do to develop your spy and your rock star who becomes kind of…along on this mission without even knowing he’s on it? Kim: I didn’t have to do too much research on the spy part or on the travel part, but rock stars and music is not something I know anything or have any talent or anything else about, so that was where I had to do most of my research because I don’t know what it’s like. I don’t know what it’s like to be a rock star. I can’t even sing. Jeff: Does that mean you what it’s like to be a spy? Kim: Hmm, I’m not…I can’t divulge. Venona: You have kids. Kim: Yeah, I have kids. Jeff: And you wrote song lyrics too? Kim: I did. Yeah, I know. And it was really fun. And then in the audio version, my narrator Drew Bacca sang them, which was so cool. And it’s like, this is the closest I’m ever gonna get to being a songwriter. And it’s so much fun to listen to. And I can pretend, you know, like, I’m the next thing. Jeff: Which actually raises the question, did you give him an idea of what the melody for it was or did he just kind of make that up? Kim: I had no melody in mind. I didn’t know he was gonna sing. When I write a book, I’m sorry narrators, I don’t think about what I’m doing to my narrators. And so, sometimes I torture them, and I wasn’t even thinking about a narrator singing it. So, that was his idea and I was so pleased. Jeff: And this is a little different in “Dreamspuns” as well and I noted it in my review that you are a single point of view here. Did you go into it deliberately that way or just kind of organically discovered it was the way to go? Kim: It made more sense for this book because there’s some surprises about our spy character and I think it’s a lot more fun if we kinda discover the surprises along with the other character rather than knowing right from the start. So, you know, for some books, the dual point of view works really well, but for this one, I think this works well. Jeff: Yeah, I totally agree on that. Now, this is part of a bigger series that’s happening within the “Dreamspuns.” Kim: It is. Jeff: Tell us a little bit about the series overall. Kim: Sure. So, this series is called “Stars from Peril” and this is the first book in it. The second book comes out next month, and that’s “Redesigning Landry Bishop.” And the third book, I just finished the first round of edits on. It’ll be out in October and that one is “Drawing the Prince.” We went over several titles on that one. And so, what all three of them have in common is the main characters are from the same small town in Nebraska called Peril, Nebraska. And all three main characters have made it big in some way. So, our first guy is a rock star, our second guy is kind of a Martha Stewart type, and the third guy is an artist. And so, they’ve made it big in the world and they meet someone. And so, you can read each of them as a standalone and in any order you want to, but you’ll kind of see the characters appearing a little bit in one another’s story. Jeff: It didn’t even click for me that it was the name of the town too because peril plays into their own peril. Kim: Exactly. And I honestly cheated a little bit on that. There is a real town, a tiny little town, I think there’s like 60 people in it, in Nebraska called Hazard, Nebraska. So, Peril. Jeff: Peril, Hazard, it works. Kim: And it’s a great name. Jeff: Now, people may be wondering, why do we have both of them here together? Well, Venona and Kim also co-write. Tell us about that book. Venona: “Running Blind.” I will tell you this came about some years ago in Portland at our Dreamspinner meetup and she pulls me aside. Now, you have to understand that I was such a fan of Kim. I love “Brute”, I loved all of her stuff. And then she’s talking to me and I’m like, “You sure you’re talking to me because, you know, I don’t, like, co-write. I’m really bad at, you know, doing it by myself.” And she goes, “Oh, yeah, I heard on NPR…” And that’s how it started. Because Peter Sagal who’s out of Chicago hosts, “Wait, wait, Don’t Tell Me.” He is a running guide for blind people for marathons.” So, she had the idea and we came up with “Running Blind.” Kim: And the reason why Venona was such a perfect choice is because, unlike me, she does triathlons. So, I didn’t have to do the research on marathon running. Venona: No, or running guides either. Stuff like, “Yeah. That’s your department,” I’m like, “All right, we can do this.” And it’s a wonderful book and we decided that we wanted to have a second story because in the beginning, and it’s not giving a spoiler away, is Kyle and Matt who have been friends, who went to college together, were friends, became lovers, and now they’re in a comfortable pattern, and they really love each other but as brothers rather than lovers. So, when something happens to Kyle, Kyle breaks it off and he goes, “You gotta go do stuff.” And Matt’s reluctant, but this story is about Kyle and how he deals with the things that have happened in his life. So, the next book that we’re writing, the working title is “Playing,” is Matt’s story about how he finds romance after the breakup. Jeff: And when do we get to see that one come out? TBD. Venona: TBD. Kim: Well, that one is still in progress. Venona: It’s still in progress. It’s now in my hands. And so, we switch back and forth when we write, and I need to get it back to Kim. So, hopefully soon. Jeff: And you’ve got some other co-writing coming too? You’re working with Shira Anthony as well. Venona: Shira Anthony, it is another story. It’s actually about a farmer and a city boy. So, that one is coming up soon and that’s an honor of a friend of ours from GRL. So, we’re writing a story about a farmer which he is and who’s not out and a city boy who is. So, it’s a lot of fun. We already have the outline and we’re just getting started on writing that as well too. Jeff: Very cool. Anything else coming up we should know about? Venona: Yes. “How to Become a K-pop Idol,” I am writing that one by myself. We might get a co-writer on that one, you never know. But that one is, if people aren’t familiar with this, I love Korean culture, a lot of Asian culture, Japanese, Korean. I’m learning Korean. I’ve been a K-pop fan since 2009 proudly with the Big Bang. Jeff: Before it was cool. Venona: Before it was cool. And my bias is right now, because Big Bang, if you don’t know in Korea, you have to go in for military service mandatory by the time you’re 30. So, a lot of the K-pop idols are going in. So, new ones are coming up. So, the third gens right now is BTS, if you’ve not heard of Bangtan Sonyeondan, BTS, they’re really big. They’re the band that I’m following right now. Jeff: Very cool. Anything coming up for you, Kim, a part from the Peril series? Kim: Yes, start of the Peril series at the end of this month, so April 30th. I’ve got a new novella coming out. So, if people who are following my “Bureau” series, there’ll be a new novella in that. And I wanna push that because I give all my royalties for that to Doctors Without Borders. So, this is the fourth story in that series, but you can read them as standalones too. Venona: And they’re awesome stories too, I love those. Kim: Thanks. Jeff: And what have you guys thought of the festival? Venona: You know, this is the first time I’ve been here, and it is awesome. There’s just so many people here, there’s so many different books, and you get to browse them all at the same time instead of in a little bookstore somewhere. So, yeah. Kim: And it’s been a lot of fun just kinda hanging out with everybody, LA is fun. So, it’s been a lot of fun. Jeff: Very cool. Well, thanks for hanging out with us for a few minutes. Kim: Thanks so much. Venona: Thanks for asking us. Interview with S.A. Stovall Jeff: And we’re at the LA Times Festival of Books with S.A. Stovall. Thanks so much for being here with us. S.A.: Well, thank you for having me. It’s super exciting. Jeff: Now, you’re the author of “Vice City,” it’s currently two books in the series. Tell us a little bit about what the series is? S.A.: It’s a crime thriller like a noir style. Ironically, if you’ve ever read “Sin City,” which is a graphic novel, it’s kind of similar to that. I used to work at a courthouse and I got a lot of green, was an attorney and all that. I don’t do that anymore because it’s a little depressing, but I used some of my experience in that to write the series. And I really like redemption stories and like criminals turning it around. That’s what I did in the courts is I helped a lot of drug addicts get to rehab and turn their life around. And so, I’m really into that kind of story. So, the series follows an ex-mobster who like, you know, leaves the mob and then becomes a private detective, and then, you know, shenanigans ensue. Jeff: Shenanigans ensue? S.A.: Yeah. Jeff: And he’s consistent through the series? S.A.: He’s the main viewpoint. There’s a romance a subplot in which he falls in love with like a police academy cadet, and obviously, that’s his in to the police and you know, again, more shenanigans ensue that way. In the sequel book that just came out, one of the subplots is that a police officer suspects the main character’s actual identity, that he had connections to the mob and used to be a mob enforcer. And so, he’s out to prove that it’s him. And so, you know, it’s a thriller story so it’s got lots of thrills. Jeff: Mystery, suspense, thrills, it’s all there. S.A.: Yes, exactly. Jeff: What got you into starting to write these books? S.A.: So, I had a friend who really likes Dreamspinner Press and I used to write just books like short stories for my D&D group, because they really liked, you know, fantasy, all that kind of stuff. So, I wrote short story fantasies and she was like, “My God, you should write me a Dreamspinner-style novel, like, that’s what you should write for me.” And I was like, “Okay, I don’t know if I can do it as good as all these other people, but I’ll try.” And I wrote “Vice City” for her specifically. I even put that in the dedication. I’m like, “It’s just for you.” I didn’t think that it would go anywhere because, you know, I was just like, “Okay.” But I got an agent after I wrote this and then the agent sold it to Dreamspinner and then they published it for the DSP line because that’s where they do genre stuff. Jeff: It doesn’t necessarily have the romance in it, right? S.A.: Yeah. Well, mine does but it’s not the focal point. The focal point is the, you know, mystery and the mobster story. So, I was very surprised. I didn’t think it would go anywhere but it totally went somewhere. So, every time somebody is like, “Oh, I don’t know if I should write a novel,” there’s a piece of me that’s like, “Man, I just wrote that novel willy-nilly. So, you should try, you should do it. You should try.” Now admittedly, you know, I was writing before I wrote this because I wrote other stories and short stories, but still, if you’re thinking about it, you should just do it, you know. Don’t even think to yourself, “Oh, nobody will read this,” because I kinda thought, “Nobody’s gonna read a crime noir.” You know what I’m saying? Like, I was like, “That’s old school, nobody reads that kind of stuff anymore.” But no, people do, and people like it. So, I was really happy. Jeff: And you noted that the second book just came out. Do you have plans for third? S.A.: Yeah. Jeff: What is yet to come? S.A.: I’m about halfway through the third book and it’s a true series in the sense that it could go for as long as I want it or, you know, that kind of thing. It’s not like a trilogy or a set thing like, “Oh, something needs to happen.” But, you know, as a private investigator, anything can happen, you know, all sorts of shenanigans can ensue. Jeff: Very true, very true. S.A.: But there is a connecting theme. The whole reason that it’s the vice enforcer is that the mob that he used to work for was the vice family, and they’re still around by book three so you can kinda see the, like, he’s trying to take them down one by one. And so, I guess I could be limited to and then it got the whole vice family and then the series is over. But, you know, there’s that connecting thread too. Jeff: Now, that you’ve been writing in this genre, do you wanna expand out to other genres or is noir thriller kind of your sweet spot? S.A.: Well, it’s just a thing that I like a lot, that I thought, you know, nobody likes this anymore, but I like it. I wrote “Modern Gladiator” which is just a pure romance for Dreamspinner. It was a sports romance with UFC fighter. Jeff: Oh, cool. S.A.: I, a few years back, was dating a guy who was in the UFC. And so, I just used all of that experience to write a sports romance. And I know a lot about, you know, wrestling and all that kind of stuff just from him. And I put a lot of that kind of information in the book and it literally just came out about two weeks ago. Yeah, “Modern Gladiator” came out. And then I do a lot of fantasy and science fiction on the side as well. So, I mean, all sorts of things, all crazy things. Jeff: Very cool. Now you’re also an artist? S.A.: Yes, that’s true. Jeff: While she’s been here doing her signings and such, she’s also been doing caricatures of people who get their book signed. And so, we had this one done of us. It is so freaking adorable. How did this get started for you? S.A.: I’ve just always drawn things. I like doodling. I was really into comic books at a point in my life. I mean, so many comic books and manga. I mean, anything that was drawn and kind of that like storybook style with the panel, super loved. But I didn’t really intend for it to go anywhere. I went and got my history degree, I got a law degree. I wasn’t like, “Man, I need to study art.” But I did at least doodle enough that I was like, “I’m mildly good, you know.” And when I went to my first ever book fair, I thought, “I can’t just be the schmoe who’s standing in a booth trying to peddle their book, because I’m gonna be like 50 other people in the road doing the exact same thing. I should try and do something that’s at least enticing or to get people to read my stuff.” And I figured, “Hey, I could try a little caricature, and while I’m drawing them, they can read my book. And if it’s enticing enough, you know, they’ll buy the book, or they’ll feel guilty enough to buy the book, you know, I don’t know, whatever gets them to buy the book.” And a lot of people usually give me comments right away. Like, the first line in “Vice City,” everybody always comments, well, not everybody but like 80% of people. The first line is, “Getting hit with a wrench hurts.” And, so many people either laugh or comment like, “Oh my God, what a good line,” and I’m like, “Yeah.” And the first chapter in “Vice City” is an interrogation of that police cadet. So, Pierce, the mobster, is interrogating this guy who he thinks is a police mole. So, it’s really intense, you know, high stakes going on. I really like that first chapter and it usually hooks people. So, they read that first chapter while I’m drawing them and, bam, that’s my sales strategy. Don’t steal it. I’m joking, everybody can use it. Jeff: It’s all her’s. S.A.: Anybody can do it. Jeff: But the key is, like, I could never draw. There’s no way I’d do this, I’d have to find another hook. S.A.: I’ve been successful with it. People typically like that. And the caricatures are free. I just give them to people. So, even if they don’t buy the book, you know, it’s fine. Jeff: And it’s awesome watching her do them. We watched as she did ours. It’s like, “Oh my God, there we are just manifesting on the page.” It was very cool. Well, thank you so much for hanging out with us a little bit. One last question, what have you thought of the fair? S.A.: It’s good. There are a lot of people here though. I mean, just thousands of people all over the place. Going to the food trucks was fun, although not during lunchtime. There’s like a mile-long line from here to the sun and back. Nobody wants to do that. But the food trucks are good, the people seem to be really nice, and I don’t know, it’s just a good time. Jeff: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us. S.A.: Thank you for having me again, like, super awesome.

Jeff & Will talk about their upcoming trip to the 2019 LA Times Festival of Books. They also discuss two series they’ve been watching: Comedy Central’s The Other Two and Freeform’s Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists. Books reviewed this week include Kim Fielding’s The Spy’s Love Song, Ari McKay’s Take Two and Erin McLellan’s Clean Break. Jeff interviews Erin McLellan about Clean Break, the second book in her Farm College series, and about why it’s important for her to tell stories based in her home state of Oklahoma. They also talk about her Love Life series, what got her started writing, her author influences and the TV she likes to binge watch. Complete shownotes for episode 182 are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. -------- Here’s the text of Jeff’s book reviews: The Spy’s Love Song by Kim FieldingRock star and secret agent on a mission to a foreign country to topple a dictator all wrapped up in a Dreamspun Desires package. That combination pushed all of my romantic suspense buttons and I had no choice but to pick up this book. And I loved it every bit as much as I thought I would. I was in tropey goodness heaven with the rock star thing, a bodyguard vibe plus lovers on the run and some occasional forced proximity. Jaxon Powers is a jaded rock star who’s at the end of a long tour. After waking up in a hotel room barely remembering what happened the night before, he might also be ready for a change in lifestyle. He gets a lot more than he bargained for when his manager brings him to a meeting with the State Department. It seems the dictator that runs the small country of Vasnytsia is a fan and wants Jaxon to perform a private concert as well as a large outdoor one for a worker’s festival. The U.S. wants Jaxon to do this because it’s a chance to improve US relations with the Russia-supported dictator. The only person going with Jaxon on the trip is secret agent Reid Stanfill. Besides keeping Jaxon safe, Reid’s got an agenda that has global ramifications. I fell in love with this book right from the beginning. Kim plays with expectations from the beginning. While Jaxon appears to be the spoiled rock star we quickly find that’s not what he wants to be. He’s a small town boy, doing what he loves to do but he wants more substance to the way he’s living. The trip to Vasnytsia does exactly that as his world view gets a complete makeover. Not only does Jaxon end up traveling without the entourage he’s used to, as Reid’s mission goes sideways the two end up on the run. Reid’s mission is to try to destabilize the country and force elections and that makes him an enemy of the state. Despite his fear, Jaxon won’t leave Reid to fend for himself. Jaxon knows his celebrity can protect both of them and he sticks by Reid even as Reid tries to force the star to safety. Through all of the crazy events that could result in either of them dying, Jaxon and Reid manage to start a romance. Reid tries to keep it from beginning since they’re in a country where homosexuality is illegal but they give in to their passions. That’s just the beginning as they share stories about their pasts, which only endears them more to each other. The mix between the romance and suspense is perfect, giving our guys time to fall in love even while things around them go crazy. I liked that Kim avoided the usual Dreamspun scenario of having alternating points of view. Everything in the story is Jaxon, which works perfectly so we don’t know Reid’s mission or anything else too early. It makes for a very snappy read going on the roller coaster that Jaxon experiences. Kim brings Vasnytsia to life through its people. It starts with the guides taking Jaxon around the country, giving him peek behind the propaganda. As he meets fans who must covertly speak to him as it wouldn’t be proper for anyone to talk with the American he begins to understand why Reid’s mission is so important. Ultimately it’s these people who shelter Reid and Jaxon and help complete his mission–with a particularly awesome assist from Jaxon. Drew Bacca does a great job on the audiobook, including having to sing a couple of Jaxon’s songs. This is the first book in the “Stars From Peril” series that Kim has in the Dreamspun line. The second book, Redesigning Landry Bishop, comes out in May and I’m already looking forward to it.  -------- Clean Break by Erin McLellanI almost didn’t pick this book up because I couldn’t imagine reading a book that included the characters taking care of Madagascar hissing cockroaches. I’m not a fan of bugs and the trigger warning page discusses more about the bugs than anything else. However, I’m glad I listened to the re-assurances I wouldn’t be creeped out because this is a terrific book–and the bugs really are a non-thing. This book, the second in Erin’s “Farm College” series, throws together Connor Blume and Travis Bedford–two guys who very much don’t like each other in the aftermath of an awkward, failed hookup. As their final college term begins, Connor and Travis are taking Entomology 101 and because the professor likes students to sit alphabetically, they’re next to each other and end up becoming class partners. Their dislike for each other radiates from them during that first class. Connor’s OCD and anxiety flare up just being near the guy, who he’s still wildly attracted to and wants to have a real discussion with. Travis has the attraction too but carries the anger from their previous hookup. It only gets worse as they get the assignment that they’ll be caring for Madagascar hissing cockroaches for the semester or that they’ll have to answer discussion questions together. It doesn’t take long for the sparks of dislike to turn into sparks of desire and they end up spending time after class in a storage closet making out. Neither of them is particularly happy that they’re giving in to their desires, which makes the scenes cuter and hotter. Travis wants the fussy farmer and Connor very much wants the stand-offish English major. Even as their make out sessions start to cool their hatred, they realize they’re constrained by time. At graduation, Connor is set to take over management of his parent’s farm, even though he doesn’t necessarily want that. Meanwhile, Travis can’t wait to get out of the small town for his legal aid internship and then on to law school. The guys have their futures mapped out and there’s no space for the other. That doesn’t stop them from getting emotionally entangled. Erin does a terrific job of bringing these two together. As they move their hookups to the bedroom, Travis discovers he likes Connor’s controlling side and gives himself over to it. Connor though never takes advantage, making sure that he’s always got Travis’s consent and that Travis enjoys himself. That continues as Travis reveals he’d like to be spanked. Both guys discover this is exactly what they need. Beyond the sex though, their efforts to not get too attached aren’t helped by their post-sex talks. Travis usually wants Connor to tell him a story and it’s here that he opens up bit by bit about his anxiety, his OCD and his pre-determined future. There’s so much going on for him, as a reader I wanted to wrap him in a hug and do whatever I could to ease the load he carried. Travis talks a lot too and over time we learn what makes him so driven–it turns out he lost one of his dreams due to an accident and he doesn’t want to let anything or anyone cost him this one. Just a she was great at bringing them together, Erin tears the guys apart just as expertly. It’s a tough go as Connor and Travis force themselves apart as graduation nears. Erin does a number on the characters as they emotionally hurt themselves and each other as they keep to their plans. Both guys want to talk to the other so badly and yet they’ve promised not too. For Connor, this is particularly bad for his OCD. Of course, this is a romance, so all must end happy. Thankfully how Erin gets the guys back together his as satisfying as everything she did earlier in the book. There is a way for them to be together–it just takes time for them to get there. -------- Interview Transcript - Erin McLellan Jeff: Welcome, Erin, to the podcast. Erin: Hi. Thanks for having me. Jeff: Very excited to have you here. You’re a new-to-me author and I just finished reading “Clean Break,” which I have to tell you, I adored so much. I’m reviewing it right before we get into the interview segment I’ll have reviewed it to kinda tell everybody about it. Erin: Yay, thank you. Jeff: It is the second book in your “Farm College” Series. So before we dive into “Clean Break,” tell us more about what the “Farm College” Series is about. Erin: Okay. So it’s just two books so far like you said and they are set in a fictional college in Western Oklahoma. And I would say kind of the overarching themes are… Since they’re college stories, they’re new adult that’s kind of coming of age and self-discovery, finding your authentic self, finding a home is kind of a big one. I think that’s kind of important at that age. You’ve moved out of your parent’s house or wherever you grew up for a lot of people and kinda figuring out what is home, what is family, that kind of thing. So those types of themes are kind of follow both books. They’re both kind of angsty to be honest though “Controlled Burn,” more so than “Clean Break” actually. Jeff: Oh, my goodness. Erin: So be prepared. But, yeah, and I think in terms of… The setting is really important to me at least as the author and those books is important to me. I’m from Oklahoma. I live in Alaska now, but I’m from Oklahoma. And it’s important to me to write stories that are set in Oklahoma that have, you know, LGBTQIA+ characters in Oklahoma. And I know as somebody that reads a lot of romance, I don’t see that very often. I don’t see romance set there or it might be… I have seen it where it’s, you know, characters that are like, escaping Oklahoma which certainly is the case for a lot of people, but it’s also the case that people live and love, and make their lives there. And I kinda wanna show that. Jeff: Does a farm college like this exist in Oklahoma? Is it based on a real place? Erin: No. Kind of I guess. A lot of the kind of small details mirror Oklahoma State which was my alma mater for undergrad, but Oklahoma State is so much bigger than the college that I created. So Farm College is kind of a smaller college in Western Oklahoma that I’ve created, but in terms of being, you know, having a strong agriculture program, but also kind of having this liberal arts situation that’s going on and a pretty vibrant LGBTQIA community, I’ve kind of made most of that up. So… Jeff: And I agree that we don’t see, I mean, besides books set in Oklahoma, really the more rural settings kinda, it’s always escaping from those places. And I like that you kind of built a place as if this is what you’d like to see even if it doesn’t quite exist there now. Erin: Right. And I think it’s kind of funny when I started writing “Controlled Burn.” It was pre-2016, right? And I kind of had this, you know, I kind of had this idea that it’s getting better, right? It’s looking up for lots of communities and I’m not sure if that’s necessarily the case anymore. I hope it will be and I hope it is eventually. But, you know, there’s good and bad, I think, about places like Oklahoma and Kansas, and Texas. And, you know, Oklahoma is really special to me. It’s really important to me. Kansas is the same, but there’s also problems and, you know, I wanna kinda write those stories. And I also, thinking about Oklahoma or Texas probably more so, a lot of the romances that I’ve read that are set there are like, ranch, you know, the cowboys, the farmers which there is kind of a farmer in “Clean Break.” But there’s a lot of people that live in Oklahoma and in Texas, in Kansas that aren’t cowboys. So I wanted to tell that story too. Jeff: Right. And you really hinted that a little bit with some of the dialogue between Travis and Connor in “Clean Break” too as they kind of talk about the difference between cowboy and more the farmer type that Connor and his family are. Erin: Right. Jeff: And so, as we kinda move this direction, tell us what “Clean break” is about and kind of who Travis and Connor are. Erin: Right. So “Clean Break” is about Travis and Connor. Travis is…he’s the best friend in “Controlled Burn.” So if you read “Controlled Burn,” you see quite a bit of him. He’s an English major. He’s from Houston, Texas, very ambitious. He’s got these kind of life plans and nothing’s gonna slow him down, right? He wants to go to law school. He’s got an internship after for the summer. He’s planning to move to Saint Louis eventually to work at this legal aid charity. He has this very, you know, set goals and he’s also kind of a unique, quirky, funny character to me. And then you have Connor who comes in and I don’t know if I would say at the beginning of the book, it’s more like pre-book before the book happens, they have a little bit of a failed hookup in a lot of ways. Some misunderstandings and so, they don’t like each other very much. And then in the first chapter, they get paired together as class partners in a class. And Connor is a farm boy. He’s kind of a townie, right? He’s from Elkville which is the city that’s it’s set in. He’s expected to take over the family farm and so, he’s got this, you know, he kind of his future plans are set, right? He doesn’t have a say over them and he’s… I have a big soft spot in my heart for him. He’s got anxiety, he has OCD. I really wanted to kind of write against the archetype of the like, lackadaisical cowboy or even like, the kind of the hard cowboy or, you know, that kind of archetype that I had in my head. I wanted to write a sensitive farm boy who’s in therapy and, you know, it doesn’t really match some of the people or the characters that I have seen written that way. And kind of the main issue between them, first is that they don’t like each other, but they’re attracted to each other, right? But the kind of the main two things that I wanted to do with the book is I wanted to write a complex authentic characters that are really well-rounded and hopefully, I accomplish that. And then the other thing that I really wanted to do was kind of write to people that are heading towards their future which is graduation and then, you know, the future beyond. And then their futures don’t mesh. There’s not really a way to come together at the end of graduation. They’re moving in different directions and I think that’s a really universal thing for people in college that are dating and dating seriously… do you compromise your future for somebody else? Do you change it? How do you make it work? So those are kind of the two things that I really wanted to hit on and of course, there’s, you know, there’s some kink that happens in the book and kind of self-discovery with that especially on Connors’ part. So there’s a lot going on, but those two things. The characterization and the conflict there with their futures not meshing are the two things I really wanted to hit. Jeff: And I think you did them both, I mean, really well. This book has so much going on in it and yet it never…the story also never gets way down either with the weight of everything that’s kind of moving around here. Erin: Thank you. Jeff: And really, you started them off as enemies who sort of move to friends to sort of get to lovers. Erin: Right. Jeff: Just that progression was so fun to watch unfold as they both pick at each other and then also help each other grow at the same time. It’s like, they lift each other up and kinda tear each other down at the same time. Erin: Right. And I hope that that is realistic. I think people… Because in a lot of ways they are kind of mean to each other at certain points and people can be mean to each other in real life. Especially, they’re not very old, you know, they’re 21, 22. So they kinda make stupid mistakes sometimes and say things that can be hurtful and then have to figure out how to make it better. Jeff: And I think with Connor too, you talked about writing against the archetypes and just having kinda the anxiety plus the OCD. And being, you know, a young gay man in that setting really just sets up so much for him in that situation. Erin: Right. Yeah. He has a lot going on. He’s bi actually and… Jeff: Right. I’m sorry. You’re right. Yes. Erin: And so, kind of a lot. I mean, it’s just a lot and I think it’s a lot for him to kind of deal with all at the same time. Jeff: What was your research on the mental health side of it to kind of figure out what traits to weave into his personality? Erin: So I did a lot of research and I had some readers too that read it for me. One of the main things that I really looked at was kind of the myths especially with OCD, kind of the myths surrounding OCD. I think a lot of people think it’s just, you know, a cleanliness thing or even an organizational thing where they, you know, people with OCD have an impulse to organize or clean. And that’s not really how it presents for a lot of people. A lot people have intrusive thoughts which he has or, you know, they have checking where he checks the expiration dates on food and he can’t kind of stop doing that even though he knows he shouldn’t be doing it, and it’s not healthy for him to do. And so, I did a lot of research about the myths and the different ways that it presents for people and kind of the hardships that it causes them. And I also really wanted to make sure that I kind of made it clear. It’s something that he’ll always deal with, right? It’s not going away and so, it’s really… I did a lot of research on how to manage it, how, you know, how to kind of continue life dealing with a mental health problem like that. Jeff: Yeah. I just… So often I wanted to just give him a hug when he was starting to lapse into it. It’s like, “Oh, I’m so sorry this is happening.” What you did through the black moments and I don’t wanna give spoilers for folks who, you know, need to read the book. But what you did to the black moments for both Connor and Travis as they dealt with their emotions and for Connor how those emotions kinda manifest themselves in his OCD was really just, I really liked seeing two young adults kinda come to grapple with all of that. Erin: Yeah. And I think it’s pretty normal when you’re more stressed, right? Or when there’s more and more stress for, you know, the OCD to kind of build on itself. The same with anxiety like, whenever I am really stressed about my anxiety, it’s gonna be worse about small things, you know, you can kind of blow them out of proportion. I know I do that and so, I was kind of trying to show that how it’s like as things got more stressful for him with graduation moving and with kind of this relationship with Travis, that’s not going away he wants it to go. It does kind of snowball for him and it kinda snowballs for Travis too just in different ways because he doesn’t, you know, he doesn’t have anxiety or OCD of course, but, you know, he struggles just kind of the same way. Jeff: Yeah. When you were talking about with this books about you left out one of its major points. Erin: The bugs? Jeff: That is the inclusion of the the hissing cockroaches. Where did that idea even come from? Erin: So I knew I wanted to put them in a class together and I wanted them to be class partners. But Travis is an English major and Connor is agriculture sciences, agribusiness major. And so, I knew it had to be like a gen ed class for at least one of them. And so, I really started thinking about the gen ed class that I had taken as an English major whenever I was an undergrad trying to figure out what class would make sense. And then I realized that I actually had taken an ag class that was Entomology 101. And I loved it, I, you know, I held like, tarantulas and I held millipedes. And I could see myself being that like, weird bug girl a little bit. I just loved it. And so, that’s kinda how I decided to put them in an entomology class. And it’s funny because, I mean, I do think that college is one of those times to take the weird class and do the weird thing. And so, I think it kind of made sense there and I also felt like, I gave a degree of what kind of humor and lightness I thought it would to the story. But I realize now that a lot of readers maybe don’t like bugs. So it’s something that’s like a little distracting to some people. When I had took the entomology class, we had an assignment where we had that exact assignment with the Madagascar hissing cockroaches where we had to take them home and observe them. And so, you know, for an entire semester, I had a Madagascar hissing cockroach in my dorm room with me. I never took it out of its box. I like, you know, I fed it, like, carrots through the little hole that it couldn’t get out and so, that would be fun to put that in the story. And I can tell you for the readers, the cockroaches do not escape ever. They never… There’s no, like, unexpected cockroach scenes. I promise. Jeff: Yeah. And I can vouch for that. There are no unexpected scenes and in fact, I had to check… I had to ask about that before I took the book to read and I’m like, “Bugs, I don’t know about that.” Erin: I know. I have put it in the trigger warnings for the book and on my website, it really does lay out kinda scene by scene where they’re at and kind of the degree that they’re on the page. And they’re not on the page that much. Jeff: No, they’re not and I never got squirmy reading it either because I really don’t like bugs. But I was totally fine with how this turned out. So… Erin: Yeah. I know. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that it would gross people out. At that point it was too late when it, like, finally hit me. I was like, “Well, I can’t do anything about it.” But I kind of thought that they were funny. Jeff: Well, I think it really fits with the whole ag culture of the college that of course, they’re gonna end up with bugs or whatever and have to learn about them. So it all meshed in together and like you said, there’s no point where they’re escaping or, you know, being gross. They’re just kind of there. Erin: Right. And students… Jeff: I like to, you know, those classes sometimes you take in high school where you’re having to take care of the doll for a week or whatever. And in this case you’re hanging out with a cockroach. So… Erin: Right. It’s kinda like a little pet for them for this semester. Jeff: So is there more plan for the Farm College Series? Erin: I have not kind of set plans. I do want to write a story for Alex. He’s in both books. He’s not in “Controlled Burn” for very much though his part is kind of important in “Controlled Burn.” He’s a friend of Connor’s really in “Clean Break” and I do wanna give him a story and I will. I’ll probably start writing that soon. Kind of be on that. I don’t know how much more I’ll write in the Farm College Series though I do wanna do a spin off that’s kind of several years in the future. So they’re not really in college anymore and I want to do an F/F romance for Desie and Lena. So I would start there for them. Jeff: Yay. Yeah. I would totally read that book because one of the things you did in “Clean Break” and I’m sure you established it back in “Controlled Burn” too, was just the tight community of friends that Travis and Connor both have, and even, like, the strong family presence of Connor’s family and how they support him. So it would be great to see more of all of that. Erin: Yeah. So… Yeah. And I definitely… I think I did a little bit more successfully in “Clean Break” for sure where they have very supportive families and they do have kind of a big wide friend group. And so, yeah, I’m glad that you like that, but I do want to do the F/F romance for Lena and Desie kind of. But Lena is quite young in this book. She’s 20 and so, I wanna give her a little bit of time to grow up, I guess. Jeff: Yeah. That’s cool. Now, you’ve got another series out there called “Love Life.” And tell us a little bit about what goes on in that series? Erin: Sure. So that’s also, they’re both male/male romances. Set in Oklahoma, Eastern Oklahoma for the first book, “Life on Pause.” They’re kind of small town romances there. The first one is about a guy that works at a homestead kind of prairie museum. They’re kind of common in Oklahoma where the people that work there have to dress in like, historical costumes of the time. So he works at that type of museum and then he is paired with a high school choir teacher. And it’s kind of them trying to fall in love and figure out how their relationship will work. It’s definitely kind of lighter in tone than the farm college series, but it’s still a little angsty. The second book in the series, “Life of Bliss,” is more novella link that’s a little short and it’s very tropey. It’s kind of two people that don’t like each other very much, but are fooling around kind of behind their friends’ backs. They agree to be fake boyfriends for a family wedding in Arkansas and Arkansas kind of, well, it has this… Historically in the area, it was the only state that didn’t have a waiting period for marriage licenses. Now, most of the states don’t, but back in the day, you know, they made you like, test for syphilis and all kind of stuffs. But extended the marriage license period. So Arkansas is kind of the place where people go for their shotgun weddings historically. So this is going back quite away, but in this book they go to a wedding in Arkansas, they get drunk at the wedding and basically, end up getting married themselves. It’s set in Eureka Springs, Arkansas for the wedding part and I don’t know if anybody would be familiar with that. But you can get married practically anywhere in Eureka Springs. It’s kind of an economy there. So it’s quite easy to get married and that’s what happens. So it’s kind of fake dating to accidental marriage. Jeff: Fake dating to accidental marriage. I like… Those are favorite tropes right there. Erin: Yeah. It’s a fun one, I think. Jeff: So what is your writing origin story? You’ve got these four books out. How did all this start? Erin: Well, I was a creative writing English major in undergrad, but then I ended up going to grad school for library and information studies. And I was a public librarian. And I had… I kind of had a lot of big changes in my life. I just graduated grad school. I just got married, I just moved away from home like, all of these big changes. I had a full time job for the first time and I had… I was living in Houston, Texas and I had this horrible commute. It was like, an hour and a half each way and… Jeff: Yeah. that’s pretty horrible. Erin: I think most people that have been in Houston know what I’m talking about. And I had all this time to kind of think and I basically on my commute started plotting a book. And some of it came from, I missed kind of the creative outlet writing research papers and stuff like that from school. And so, yeah, that’s kind of how I started writing as I plotted this book on my commute and then finally, I decided that I was gonna sit down and write it. And that book was “Controlled Burn.” Jeff: That’s an awesome story. Erin: Thank you. Jeff: What led you into putting this creativity towards M/M romance amongst all of the genres that were possible? Erin: Yeah. Some of it I think is that I was reading a lot of it at that time, I kind of got into M/M romance I guess if we’re going further back by reading Suzanne Brockmann, right? So she has the “Troubleshooters” series and that has Jules Cassidy who’s the gay FBI agent, right? He’s got that kind of the secondary romance through several books and then the primary thorugh a novella. And then whenever I was in grad school, I kind of didn’t have time to read for pleasure very much. So I wasn’t reading very much and then I took a class about reader’s advisory that we had to read like, the books from the best books of the year for “Publishers Weekly” and “Kirkus,” and stuff. And I just kind of… I can’t remember what year it was, but I grabbed kind of a random book off the romance list and it ended up being “Brothers of the Wild North Sea” by Harper Fox and I didn’t really realize that it was a male/male romance. So I just kinda grabbed it and started reading, and then it became quite clear, you know, very early on what it was. And it’s a beautiful book. Harper Fox is, you know, is a beautiful writer. Everything that she writes is really awesome and so, I kind of gobbled up everything that she had written and then it kind of hit me at that time. There has to be other writers that are doing this and, you know, they weren’t the books that were in the libraries. They weren’t in my libraries. So I kind of started searching them out and, you know, read a lot of K.A. Mitchell and Z.A. Maxfield, and some of those authors at that time that were the most prolific. And I was just very excited because I felt like there are all these authors that I had never heard of that I didn’t know about and they were all really, really good. And they were writing, you know, stories that kind of the themes were very important to me. And so, then when I write finally, eventually, decided to sit down and write a book. I think probably the main thing for me is that I wanted to write characters who are LGBTQIA in Oklahoma and it just happened to be that the first book that kind of came to mind, and that I plotted fully was an M/M romance in “Controlled Burn.” So that’s definitely how I got started. Jeff: That’s very cool and some great authors there to get you introduced to the genre as well. Who do you count as your author influences? Erin: Well, definitely, you know, my gateways were Suzanne Brockmann into romance in general and then Harper Fox. Kind of on a wider scale, I really like Alisha Rai. She kind of, she writes the heroines that are the type of parents that I just love. They are raunchy and rowdy, and wonderful. I would say also Annabeth Albert in terms of contemporary romance. Alexis Hall, I think kind of teaches or his books are like a master class on first person point of view if you look at “For Real” or “Glitterland.” And so, I really, really like his books too. Jeff: Now, your bio mentions that you like binge worthy TV shows. So of course, we have to know what are you binging these days or have binged recently that you would recommend? Erin: So my husband and I have been rewatching “Game of Thrones” of course, because the last season was about to come out. So when you binge that show, you just kind of realize how many awful things happened back to back to back because the first time we watched it, we didn’t binge it. We are watching it week to week, but when you’re binge watching that it’s like, “Oh, my God. That’s so awful, these things that keep happening.” Other than that, I really like… I like true crime, but I’m not watching any kind of true crime right now. And I like comedies. So I’ve watched “Schitt’s Creek” recently which I love, “The Good Place,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “One Day at a Time,” all these sitcoms that I think are really good, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” because I love musicals is really good. And then I also watch a lot of like, reality TV. So I like, like, “Tiny House Hunters,” and “Instant Hotel,” and “Project Runway,” shows kind of like that. Jeff: Very cool. Yeah. Some good stuff on there. Erin: You can tell me I watch a lot of TV. Jeff: “The Good Place” is a particular favorite. Erin: Yeah. It’s so smart. It’s so different than like, yeah, it’s very, very unique. So this is a great list for everybody who’s looking for something to binge the spring right here. So what’s coming up next for you in your release plans? Jeff: So I don’t have anything kind of set in stone. I’m not very good at planning. [I”m working on one about] tornado chasers or storm chasers. That’s a male/male romance that I have on submission right now to a publisher that I’m hoping will pick it up. If they don’t, then, you know, it’ll keep going out and hopefully somebody else will want it. I’m currently writing a book about a rec league softball team and I want this to be really, really tropey and kind of fun and light. The first one is using kind of the one bed trope. So I hope that that would be a lot of fun. I’ll write Alex’s story pretty soon and then I have a book that I wrote. But I’m hoping to put out at Christmas, it’s called “Stocking Stuffers.” And it’s a M/F romance with a bi heroine who sell sex toys. You know, like the Tupperware parties, but it’s like the, you know, the sex toy Tupperware parties kind of. And so, she works for a company kinda is the marketing person for a company like that and she’s hosting one of those parties, get snowed in, you know, with a big red bag of toys basically. Jeff: Yeah. That’s like an interesting forced proximity story. Erin: yeah. So it was a lot of fun to write. Jeff: And I’m very interested in the storm chasers one too because I’m kind of a weather geek at heart. So you kind of got me on that one. Erin: It was a lot of fun to write. Growing up in Oklahoma, you know, tornadoes are such a kind of a constant really. I mean, my parents have lost a house in tornado. I know lots of people that have lost houses in tornado. It’s so common. It’s just kind of a part of your life especially if you’re from Central Oklahoma like me and so, it’s… Yeah. It was a really fun one to write because you are just kind of entrenched in bad weather in Oklahoma in the spring all the time. So… Jeff: Very cool. And how can readers keep up with you online to keep track of all these projects? Erin: So I have a Facebook group called Erin McLellan’s Meet Cute. That’s a good one if you kind of… I do giveaways and book recs, and stuff. On Twitter my handle is @emclellanwrites and I’m on Twitter pretty often. On Instagram it’s @erinmclellanwrites and on Instagram, I would say it’s about 70% Alaska stuff like, every moves that I’ve ever seen and then 30% books. Unless there’s a book released and then it flips. But it’s a lot of Alaska if you follow me on Instagram. And then my newsletter which you can get too on my website or through any of the social media too. You would be able to kind of find the link to my newsletter and that’s probably the best way if you just want like, to know about new releases or sales, or things like that without having to kind of trudge through Twitter. Jeff: Well, fantastic. Well, I thank you so much for coming to talk to us about “Clean Break” and wish you all the success on that one and the upcoming releases as well. Erin: Thank you so much. It was so fun.

The show opens with Jeff talking about turning in the manuscript for new/revised edition of Hat Trick. The guys also talk about Captain Marvel. Will reviews Wanted-Bad Boyfriend by TA Moore and IRL: In Real Life by Lucy Lennox and Molly Maddox. Jeff reviews Diversion by Eden Winters. Jason T. Gaffney and Kevin Held join Jeff & Will to discuss their new movie project, the romantic comedy/paranormal themed Out of Body. They recorded the audiobook of the novelization, which was written by Suzanne Brockmann. We also find out about their history-based podcast, The Bright Side with Kevin and Jason. Complete shownotes for episode 180 are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Book Reviews Here’s the text of this week’s book reviews: Diversion by Eden Winters, narrated by Darcy Stark. Reviewed by Jeff Eden Winters Diversion series has been recommended to me for some time now and I finally took the leap. This first book was first published in 2012 but just came out in audio in October 2018 with narration from new to me voice artist Darcy Stark, who does a great job with both the suspense and romance. This enemies-to-lovers, workplace romantic suspense story centers on agents for the Southeastern Narcotics Bureau, Richmond “Lucky” Lucklighter and Bo Schollenberger. Lucky’s nearing the end of his forced stint on the job–forced as it was his way out of jail. Bo is new and eager, but is also at the job because of incidents in his past. They end up working together to bring down a ring of drug diversion and insurance fraud that involves a doctor, a drug manufacturer and a drug destruction company. I fell in love with gruff, no nonsense Lucky right away. He’s extremely good at his job, mostly because he used to be on the other side of the law. He exudes frustration and irritation at what he has to do and why and yet there’s a teddy bear in there too because he cares about getting the job done right. The friction that’s stirred up when Lucky’s saddled with mentoring Bo is sublime. Lucky’s looking to ride a desk during his last few weeks at the bureau, but his boss has other ideas. Bo’s very green in terms of what he has to do here–but he is ex-military so he’s no pushover either. He can take what Lucky dishes out and it pisses the senior agent off… and eventually Bo gives back as good as he gets. The friction gets explosive as Lucky battles with himself about the feelings he develops for Bo. The other thing the friction brings is a ton of humor. Lucky and Bo know how to push each other’s buttons–whether it’s blasting Billy Ray Cyrus, forcing healthy eating habits or being messy. It’s a wonderful odd couple pairing that morphs in a beautiful way as it becomes less about antagonizing and more about a sweet nudging of one another to just maybe move things to another level in their relationships. Both men have complicated backstories that make you feel for even more for them. Lucky ended up at the bureau after going to prison for the part he played in a large scale drug operation. He’d been in love with the guy behind that operation and when it all came crashing down Lucky was sure he wanted no part of loving anyone again. The pain Eden created for Lucky is devastating, which makes him all the more loveable when he’s able to come out of his shell. Bo did illegal things to help an ex and ended up taking illegal substances to the point that it’s very difficult for him to be around the drugs in a Pharmacy, which his job requires. There’s also abuse in his past and Lucky’s careful to keep Bo away from triggers as much as he can. The lengths he goes to keep Bo feeling safe are extremely sweet. Eden takes great care in how backstory is presented. Once the men get past their posturing and disdain for each other, they peel back they reveal themselves in a very natural way–as friends, coworkers and eventually lovers do. The good and bad are offered in equal measure and it’s perfect relationship development. The only thing I wanted in this story that I didn’t get was Bo’s point of view. I would’ve loved to know what was rattling around in his head. Not to take away from Lucky though as he was quite the good narrator and this one point doesn’t take away from my love of the book. The Diversion series is up to book seven as of January 2019–with the third book released in audio in February 2019–so I’ve got some catching up to do. I’m looking very forward to that. IRL: In Real Life by Lucy Lennox & Molly Maddox. Reviewed by Will In Real Life combines the classic alpha billionaire character trope with the time-honored scenario of two characters who are combative in real life, but are secretly corresponding with one another and falling in love. Which is the long-winded way of saying it’s a similar set up as the classic movies Shop Around the Corner, You’ve Got Mail, In the Good Old Summertime, and the musical She Loves Me. The way that the characters write to each other has changed and evolved, but the premise remains the same. There’s also hints of enemies to lovers and opposites attract. This book is ripe with tropey goodness. So what’s it all about you might ask? Nice guy geek Conor is in New York to sell his mother’s bio-med technology to a ruthless CEO. The evening before his big presentation he decides to live a little and begins sexting with who he thinks is the sexy hotel bartender. It’s not. The text exchange he ends up having with a stranger, who he calls Trace, is amazing, and through several flirtatious and super-hot online conversations, they begin a fling. At the meeting the next morning, Wells Grange recognizes Conor thanks to the Dalek tie he is wearing. Conor is the hot and horny guy he sexted with the night before. His first inclination is to use this information as leverage in their business negotiations. But Wells quickly begins to fall for Conor, both the sexy online version and the awkward real-life version. As they work through the contracts for the sale, Wells continues his deception. They spend several days together and get to know one another, Conor unaware that Wells and Trace are the same person. We follow our heroes, almost in real time, as they fall in love while working together, going out to dinner, and taking carriage rides in Central Park. Once the business deal is finalized, Wells and Conor finally give in to their attraction and sleep with each other. Needless to say, it’s amazing and life altering for both of them. But, as is the case in stories like these, Conor finally puts two and two together before Wells can come clean about his sexting alter ego. Conor is humiliated and justifiably furious. He packs his bags and returns to North Carolina, with zero intention of ever speaking to Wells again. And rightly so. I’m going to be super upfront with you guys, there are certain aspects of the billionaire trope that I personally find problematic. I was on board with Wells and Conor for most of the story, but there were moments when I had a hard time dealing with certain aspects of Wells’ alphahole personality. In my view, if the ending of this book was going to be believable, Wells was going to have to move mountains and pull off one of the biggest mea culpas in romance history. It may not have been the biggest, but Lucy Lennox and Molly Maddox crafted a finale that was truly heartfelt and genuinely appropriate for our two heroes. To make amends, Wells makes sure Conor’s sick mom is well taken care of and part of an experimental treatment program (her illness was the reason they needed the money from the business deal). Later, when Conor is unable to attend a Comic convention to unveil an important new development in his gaming business, Wells steps in, and personally gives a rousing presentation on Conor’s behalf. Wells proves he isn’t the billionaire alphahole he seems. Yea for true love and happily-ever-afters! Interview Transcript Jeff: Welcome back to the show, Jason and Kevin. Kevin: Thank you. Jason: Hello. Thank you. Kevin: Nice to be back. How you been? Jeff: Awesome. Jeff: Well, we had you on before, we were talking all about “Analysis Paralysis.” But you guys have a lot more going on besides that movie. You’re actually in pre-production right now on a film called “Out of Body.” Jason: Yeah. Jeff: Tell us what that one’s about. Jason: So “Out of Body” is basically a story where it’s a friends-to-lover rom-com. And basically, Malcolm, who’s Kevin’s character, has his body stolen from him and he kind of ends up as a spirit for a while. And he has to prove that he exists to me, Henry, and then when that finally happens, we do some magic, we fight some demons, we might get the body back, there’s definitely a happily ever after because it’s a rom-com. Kevin: You and your end happily-ever-afters. Jason: Yeah. Jeff: It’s important. Kevin: I know, I know. But I just want to the rom…just one time I want a rom-com to be…it’s mostly romantic and funny but everyone does die. Jason: Or they die hilariously. Kevin: It’s a rom-com drama. Jason: Death by rubber chicken. Jeff: And what was kind of the inspiration behind this movie this time? Jason: I don’t even know how this idea came in my head. But I was sleeping one day and I woke up and I was like, “Oh, that’d be really cool. A movie where someone’s dead but they wanted to be together but then they didn’t get to be together. And then they have to fight to get their body back and come back to life.” And so I wrote a kind of a similar but different kind of script. And we did a table read, and my mom was a part of the table read. And she was like, “I love the story you have here. Can I take it and can I change a lot of it and make it like super romance with the comedy?” And so this particular movie and book and audiobook is definitely heavier on the romance than the comedy, as opposed to “Analysis Paralysis.” But it’s, in my opinion, really, really good because the romance really makes…it’s gripping, it really gets you right in the heartstrings. And she basically saw what I was going for and was able to finesse it and really kind of mold it into what my kind of original vision was and then some. So I’m really psyched about it. It’s got a little bit of everything. Will: Yeah, not too long ago, I talked about the novelization of “Out of Body” here on the show. Jason, your mom, Suzanne Brockmann, of course, wrote that novelization, it was rather amusing. Like, I think in the forward she kind of does like a behind the scenes thing where she kind of tells that story where she says, “Jason, this is great. But do you mind if I take it and make it better?” Kevin: Yeah. Jason: Yeah. And here’s the thing, I am all about that. Like the filmmaking, it’s such a collaborative process and storytelling can be a really collaborative process. And I want to make good movies. And so I was really happy with the script that I had written, but when someone who’s as great of a writer as my mom is comes and says, “I want to have fun with this and let me just see what I can do with it,” I’m like, “Hell yeah. Take it. Have at it.” Yeah. Kevin: And the end result is really a script, a novel, and a script that really looks like if brilliant improviser and plot maker and gay comedy guy let his script be taken over by a bestselling romance novelist, what would happen, it would be this. You know. And so it’s really got great, great aspects of all of those elements. Will: Yeah, I really enjoyed the book and the audiobook as well. And I think it’s a really unique opportunity for people who are interested in “Out of Body,” the movie, to check out the audiobook and sort of, it’s essentially like a preview of what they’re going to be getting when the film comes out to the public. Can you give us a little bit of an idea about what it was like to kind of get into the material early before you even like were thinking about shooting by recording the audiobook? Kevin: I can tell you for my part, like, since I’m not one of the writers on this, which is, you know, traditional for me because I’m not usually the writer on a project that I’m acting in. But it’s completely unprecedented to have a novel that you get to perform about the thing before you even film the script. You know, so we get…like as an actor, it’s a freaking dream because I have…so you know how actors have to create subtext and everything, I just have to go to the book, you know, it’s like, “Don’t worry. I don’t have to make it.” It’s already been written down for me. So if I’m wondering, like, what’s happening for Malcolm now, what’s going on there? What’s the deep, deep part of it? It’s already written out for me now. So I would say, so the book is available. It’s on, it’s called “Out of Body.” It’s on Audible.com. And I would say, don’t deprive yourself of the opportunity to say the book was better. Jason: Yeah. And, you know, it was really cool to do the audiobook in general because it was our first audiobook for both of us as narrators. And when we were talking about doing it, we were talking with my mom about it and I was interested in the idea of recording it in a way where it was more like a radio show where we are our characters’ dialogue voices all the time, even if it’s in the other person’s point of view. Whoever’s point of view reads the descriptive stuff in the chapters. But if Malcolm’s speaking, even though I’m the narrator of that chapter, he still says his line, and he still says the lines of the other characters that he had been assigned and vice versa for me. And that was really kind of fun to do because, you know, how often do you get to do kind of a radio show acting gig? And it was also really fun for me as a director to get to do this with Kevin in advance, because, like, he now really knows the story and I know he knows the story. So I know that when he comes to set, that’s going to be really easy. And I got into the head of the other characters as well reading them, and that’ll help me be able to hold my other actors hands and kind of with them through their parts, and still allow them to bring what they want to bring to the role and have it blossom into how great it can be. Kevin: Yeah, and that’s like all separate and apart from the experience of actually recording the audiobook, which you might think was done him some and then me some on consecutive days or anything, but it was actually live together. So we actually recorded in a space that had two recording booths in it. We could both hear each other so that when I am narrating a section and it’s his line, I can hear him do it. And then I jump back in. So it was live editing, like, to take out any breaths or anything, or mess-ups or anything, so, but we got to…you know, it was amazing because I had him in my head the whole time doing it, too. So that was wonderful. It’s a great experience. Jeff: That’s amazing, especially how it connected to your even now pre-production process that you’re involved in because you’re getting ready to shoot in about a month from when we’re recording. In pre-production, give everybody kind of an idea of what that means. What’s going on as you get ready for your 12 days of shooting? Jason: So basically, what I just did was go through each of the scenes and break them up on a piece of paper so that now I have the page count number, like how many pages each scene is. Kevin: These are them. Jason: Oh, yeah. Little strip paper… Kevin: Each one of these is a scene. Jason: And basically, the page count, when it starts, who is in the scene, all that stuff. Because I need to…you know I don’t have every actor every day. I’m going to have Kevin every day because he’s one of the leads. But there’s other parts in it where they’re only going to film for one day…anywhere from one to three days. And so you have to plan their scenes on the same day. And this time, we’re going to actually be filming in two different locations because our neighbors next door sold their house to flippers and they’re doing construction and it’s been kind of never-ending. So we can’t film when there’s kind of heavy construction going on in this house. So we’re going to do a lot of stuff at my father in law’s house and then will come get the rest of it after they’re done here. And so I’ve been doing that with my dad and breaking it into those days while simultaneously working with my cinematographer Nacia to map out which shots are needed for each scene and what angles are we doing. So I put little maps on the other side of the table here. Basically, me drawing out the room layout and doing little circles with an M for Malcolm and an H or Henry, and the arrows pointing they go here and then they go here… Kevin: Oh my god. And this isn’t even talking about how to deal with SAG paperwork or any of the art direction that he’s doing, or any of the clearances that he’s getting for this or that kind of thing. Jason: We’ve got a, we’re going to have a… Kevin: He’s a bit of a doer. Jason: We got Andrew Christian giving us underwear… Kevin: Oh, yeah, we have Andrew Christian underwear over here. Jason: And I’m working with some other companies too. So Outfit is a gay like sports good wear, they’ve given me a patent to us for the movie. Kevin: He’s been stenciling t-shirts and… Jason: Hand design t-shirts specific to the characters. I’m going to be making him a specific shirt three times because he wears the same outfit the whole movie and so if anything spills on it, it’s got to be good and not spilled upon because he magically can’t get stains. And so it’s intense, there’s a lot going on. Like Pinterest is my best friend. I’ve been learning all about how to make DIY Halloween decorations. Because again, when you’re low budget, you can’t spend, you know, $3,000 on set design. You can spend like $200, and so you have to get a little crafty. You have to start thinking like, “Okay, I’ve got five pages of construction paper and a pair of scissors and some tape, how going to make this look like I spent a lot of money on it?” Kevin: He’s like MacGyver. So that’s his experience with pre-production, mine’s a little bit different because I’m not all the hyphenates. So I’m busy making no changes at all to my daily routine. Jeff: You do have a script to learn. Kevin: Sure, when I get it. Jason: It’s in the mail. Kevin: We’re at your house. Jeff: Oh my goodness. Jason: The creating part, like creating the artwork, it actually makes me feel calm. The paperwork stresses me out. And so Matt, thankfully, jumps on that grenade and deals with SAG-AFTRA and making sure that all the paperwork’s there and all the money is in the right place and all that stuff. So thank you, Matt. Jeff: Now, we should say Matt is your husband, so he’s in the production family. Jason: Yes. Kevin: Yeah. Will: So now that our listeners know how completely awesome and funny this project is going to be, can you give us a little bit of info about the Indiegogo campaign? Jason: We have an Indiegogo campaign, basically we crowd-funded “Out of Body” on Kickstarter first, a successful crowdfunding campaign last year. and Indiegogo came to us and said, “We’d like to do an in-demand campaign for you.” So we have an open-ended campaign on Indiegogo right now, where you can help sponsor the film help and get some fabulous rewards, such as DVDs of “Out of Body” when it finally is all finished, you can get DVDs of “Analysis Paralysis,” our last feature film. Kevin: I’m going to get these down from the thingy here. Jason: So you can show people. Kevin: You can actually, because now we’re in the second feature film that stars the two of us. Like we got other projects that I have to do with like if you’re your fans of “Analysis Paralysis,” or perhaps the audiobook of “Out of Body,” you can get these copies, you can get copies of all that stuff. And so as we are on the way to becoming things of all media. Jason: Yeah, exactly. And yeah, so if you go to indiegogo.com and you go, indiegogo.com/projects/out-of-body-a-feature-length-lgbtq-rom-com-movie/, it’s a very long title. Kevin: Really, why don’t you go to indiegogo.com and search “Out of Body.” Yes. Jeff: Or just come to our show notes, it’ll be much easier. Will: Yes, do that. Kevin: Exactly. Go to “Big Gay Podcast” website and it’s going to be in the show notes. Jason: Another place you can find out information about “Out of Body” in the future and any sort of campaigns we’re having, etc., is if you go to tinyletter.com/mypethippo and join our newsletter, you’ll be able to find out things about “Analysis Paralysis” or “Out of Body,” or our podcast, “The Bright Side with Kevin and Jason,” all sorts of fun stuff. And yeah, so and basically indie film, it’s low budget. So every dollar really does make a difference. Like if we get enough money to buy a better meal for the cast and crew, everybody’s spirits raised, it gets raised up a little higher, you know, or we can afford an extra day of filming, or we can afford…it really does matter. So thank you to everyone who has supported us so far. And thank you to everyone who comes and supports us after this. Kevin: Yes, indeed. Jeff: Now, Kevin had this wonderful term about you guys, you know, essentially taking over media. You mentioned the podcast, “The Bright Side with Kevin and Jason.” It’s a comedy podcast about history. How did this idea spark? Because this just adds to you, I imagine, having to research these historical things. Kevin: Now, Jason does all the research for this, you know, and that’s huge. Like, because basically, he doesn’t have enough to do. But the impetus for the podcast, which is “The Bright Side with Kevin and Jason” is, you know, there’s so much bad news all the time. And my mom taught me how to look on the bright side of stuff, you know. If I got one thing from my mom, it was to…I would always complain about this or that and she would constantly remind me of there’s something good here, you know, and you have to find that. And so that’s really the gem of this, it’s really the heart of that show is that, especially when you look around at the news right now, there’s so much bad stuff that is going on. But you have to also recognize that bad stuff creates the opposite reaction. And so who is making the good out of that? You know, who is looking at that and reacting to it in a way of love, or in a way of furthering acceptance, or you know, who’s looking at the transgender ban, for example, that was finally instituted by the Supreme Court? And who is saying, you know, I want to reach out and tell my trans brothers and sisters that you are people and you are valuable and your service is useful and we love you? You know, so who’s doing that? You know, and so that’s what the podcast really kind of focuses on. We do wallow in some tragedy on the podcast because every week we take a historical episode of some varying degree of tragic-ness and talk about it. But then we also, every episode, find out what good that led to. Jason: And it kind of came about a long time ago after “Analysis Paralysis,” like Kevin mentioned in the last episode, we talked a little bit about how we met on a student film and basically got along really well, really quickly, and then we started hanging out together with our husbands and going on double dates, and so it kind of formed this bond. And after “Analysis Paralysis,” which was so much fun, it was 10 days of basically seeing Kevin and laughing and having a good time, I was like, “I don’t want to wait a year-and-a-half for the next project. I want to do something now with you.” Kevin: The experience of just chatting about a topic on a set or something was so much fun and we thought, “We should bottle this.” And then we thought, “You can.” There’s a method for this that’s called a podcast, and that’s what started. Yeah, you know, so now I get to come over here every damn week. Jason: Yeah, come to the Valley. You’re welcome. Kevin: Yeah, when I moved to Westwood I was hoping that my second bedroom would be a good place to record. But it’s not, it’s not good. Too much noise there. The valley’s a lot of things, but it is quiet. Jason: It is quiet. Unless they’re doing construction next door. Kevin: Right. Jeff: You could just turn that second bedroom into a soundproof area. Kevin: No, actually, currently, we didn’t have any…we moved from a house that had a lot of storage into a house that had another bedroom, but no storage. So that second bedroom has just become basically the id of our house. You know, everything’s like ahhhhh, you know? Jason: It’s like in “Harry Potter,” what’s that closet? Kevin: The room of requirements? Jason: Yes. Kevin: It’s the room of please don’t go in there actually. Will: Now, guys, I’m curious. How do you choose which historical events to feature and how much research goes into each episode? Kevin: That’s 100% question for Jason because though I feel that the podcast is a 50/50 pursuit, because Jason does all of the research for the topics that we do, and I don’t ever know what we’re going to talk about until I get here, but then I do all the web mastering and editing and I put up the shownotes and I do all of that stuff. So I feel like we end up spending around the same amount of time on things. Jason: Yeah. So basically, generally about a day of work I kind of surf the web, I find a topic that…like I kind of search, you know, the rabbit hole as to like what kind of weird historical thing is this? And I’ll like Google really weird stuff so my search history… Kevin: Yeah, they’re coming for you. Jason: …completely messed at this point. But like, you know, I’ll look up like “wild strikes historical funny” to see what I get from it. But honestly, there’s been a ton of them I’ve gotten through recommendations of friends and family and listeners of the podcast, and we really encourage listeners to throw ideas at us because there’s some really obscure events in history that I don’t know about that I would love to know about and I could easily find it if I knew to search for it. And so if anyone out there listening has weird events, definitely tweet me or email me. Kevin: You can find him @jasontgaffney on Twitter, and tell him and I don’t want to know about it. Jeff: That’s right. Kevin has to stay in the dark. Kevin: Right. Jason: So what I look for also, I try to look for topics where there’s a lot of tragedy, but you can still make fun of it. Like, if it’s a natural disaster, I try to find one where people made bad decisions with the natural disaster, not that it’s just, like, everyone got screwed and they tried to do the right thing, but they still got screwed because you can’t really make fun of those people. That’s just sad. Kevin: And mean. And it’s really not. I mean, I know we’re talking about a lot of tragedy, and that’s kind of what we focus on. But it’s not a cruel show. It’s not a Schadenfreude, really, because the ultimate goal is to find out what the hopeful aspect of it, who turned that situation into something good, you know. Jason: And you’d be surprised, like, we generally can find it. I don’t think we found one yet where there’s really nothing, no bright side to it. Kevin: No. Because the arc of history is long and you never know what the end result of a pebble, you know, when a pebble goes into a puddle, you don’t know how farther in they’re going to go, you know, and so, like, we talked about that event but that could lead to something incredible later, you know. Jeff: For you, Kevin, since you come in cold to these, what’s been of the episode so far that you’re like, “What? What did I just hear?” Kevin: Oh, my God. Well, the “Empire” panic, for example, has been insane. Like, I have a feeling when I post the episodes, I have a feeling like I hope…My mom and I listened to the Christmas episode over Christmas. And at the end of it, she said, “That was funny and I learned some stuff.” So that’s what…it was like I was, “Oh, good. There we go.” That’s what I would like people to have from it. Is like, “Oh, I enjoyed that, you know, conversation. That was fun and stuff.” But also, “God, who knew?” Yeah, that’s amazing. Because he’s pretty good at this, every episode there’s gonna be some point where I’m like, “Are you kidding? Human beings did this,” you know? It’s always, “Yes, they did,” good Lord. Jason: It’s also it’s gotten way more fun to do the research than it initially was because I was really nervous the first couple episodes to like, “Oh, my God, is this going to be funny? How can I make this funny?” And I was trying a little like…we actually have a couple of episodes that just never aired because I was trying too hard as opposed to just seeing that, yeah, that was absurd. I don’t need to say anything except what they said. And now that I’ve kind of mastered that to a degree. I mean, I’ll keep getting better as time goes on. But now I can really see like as I’m reading stuff, I’ll be like, “Oh, I know that Kevin’s gonna hear that and go, ‘Stop it.'” And then he’s gonna call it out, call the absurdity of it. I don’t need to do anything except, say, like, you know, “And then she picked up the knife and stabbed her own foot.” And it’s like, “Why?” Kevin: Spoiler alert. Jeff: Did you have a knack for history before this, Jason? Or did this just kind of happen? Jason: So I’ve always loved history. I always love the idea of history. When I was actually a little kid, I used to play with blocks a lot. And it’s probably why I like being a producer and a storyteller. I used to have like this giant castle and a giant village and an army of bad guys and I acted out this soap opera for years with the royal family and all that. And I was fascinated with the Romanovs and stuff so I kind of like did a little spoof on them. And so I kind of created like my own worlds, and history and stuff. And so when I can find sites that tell historical stories like a story, which is what history should be told as because it essentially is our story, it’s really fun. It’s really exciting to read it and be like, “No, oh, my goodness, that person’s totally the villain.” And then you read a couple more paragraphs, and you’re like, “Oh, no, they’re misguided. They have a heart of gold. They didn’t know.” And then five pages later, you’re like, “No, they’re just a dick.” And it’s exciting, it’s riveting, it gets you on the of the edge of your seat constantly with how people just constantly mess up. And then occasionally, you have a hero who’s just like, actually a good person, you’re like, “What’s the catch?” So, yeah, you know, history is really fun, especially when it’s told with a fun storytelling lens because… Kevin: And I think that’s like the thrust of the podcast is also it’s about the topic, sure, but it’s also just about how Jason and I interact with each other. And we just have such a fun friendship. And I don’t mean that it’s fun from the inside. I hope it is, but it’s fun from the inside of it. So I have such a good time with him that whatever we’re talking about is going to be fun for me. Jeff: That’s awesome. So besides “Out of Body” and more podcast episodes, what else is coming up for you both? Kevin: I may never work again. Who knows? Jason: We’ve actually started writing the sequel to “Analysis Paralysis” with the hope of filming it at the end of the year, with the additional hope of trying to film it in Palm Springs. Kevin: First time hearing of that. Really? Jeff: Breaking news. Kevin: I love Palm Springs. Jason: We’re gonna do what we can to make it work. And it would require assistance from the Palm Springs community, sure, help house us and give us locations and stuff. Kevin: It’s gonna be all on the gondola. Only there. Jason: What gondola? Kevin: The gondola up to the mountain thing. Jason: Oh, yeah, that gondola. Kevin: The whole thing is set on the gondola. Jason: I was thinking like the gondola with a little stick… Kevin: Yeah, the canals in Palm Springs. Jason: But another thing that I’m actually working on is my dad and I wrote a couple of novellas that you can get on Amazon. Kevin: What are they called? Jeff: “California Comedy Series.” Jason: The “California Comedy Series.” Yes. And I wrote a version of “Fixing Frank” with the hopes to get that kind of ball rolling. And it’s definitely a film that requires a bigger budget than what we have right now. But I’m starting to get those wheels in motion for you know, movie four, five, six sometime in the near future. And so yeah, that’s kind of what I’m working on. Kevin: We keep cranking them out. If people will keep putting them on screens and things, we’ll keep making them. Jason: The goal is to make people laugh. I feel like that’s why I was put on Earth and I feel like that’s why you were put on Earth. Kevin: Well, yeah. I know am laughing whenever I see you so that’s probably true. Jeff: Do we get new “California Comedy” anytime soon? Jason: I have been talking about that with my dad, we actually have a couple that are in the works, it’s just trying to figure out when we have a good time to sit down and edit it. I think after “Out of Body,” I’ll be able to take a look back at one of them that we wrote a while ago and kind of tweak it because there were a couple of things that just never felt right. And so it’s just figuring out how to fix those kinds of plot holes. And then hopefully that’ll be on the market before the end of 2019. Jeff: Excellent. And Kevin, what about you, anything you want to throw out for people to keep an eye out for? Kevin: Super excited about the podcast, actually. You know, going into production on “Out of Body” is really, really exciting. I don’t have a lot of acting projects coming up after that, that I can think of right now. But that’s kind of the nature of acting projects. Jeff: Sure. Kevin: You know, and so the podcast is where you can find us weekly up until the end…and actually, we make announcements there about projects that do come up for us, you know, in the interim. So, you know, to be a loyal listener to the show would be the best way to find out about what’s new with us. You know. Jason: Oh, and I almost forgot. We’re going to try in some way whether it’s self-published or with some other company helping us, the goal is to turn the “California Comedy Series” into audiobooks as well, similar to “Out of Body.” Jeff: Oh, fantastic. So both of you voicing? Jason: Yeah, for two of them. One of them, the plan is to have my good friend David Singletary come in as the role of Mike since that role is African American. And my friend David Singletary is African American and I’m all about… Kevin: Kevin Held is very much not. Jason: I’m all about own voices reading parts and stuff like that. And he’s great. You’re going to love him. Kevin: He is great. I’m a little jealous, but I’m okay. Jeff: Well, guys, thank you so much for telling us about “Out of Body” and the podcast. We wish you much success with those. Jason: Well, thank you. Kevin: Well, much success with your own podcast, gentlemen. Jason: Thank you, yes.  

He's a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist. He hosts the biggest conference, Anarchapulco, for anarcho-capitalism. He's The Dollar Vigilante. Originally from Canada, hailing from Mexico. Jeff Berwick   Stefan: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show, Respect The Grind, with Stefan Aarnio. This is the show where we interview people who achieve mastery and freedom through discipline. We interview entrepreneurs, athletes, authors, artists, real estate investors, anyone who has achieved mastery and examined what it took to get there. Today on the show, I have a very special guest out of the norm, Jeff Berwick. He's a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist. He hosts the biggest conference, Anarchapulco, for anarcho-capitalism. He's The Dollar Vigilante. Originally from Canada, hailing from Mexico. Jeff, good to have you on the show today. Respect The Grind, my friend. Jeff: It's a pleasure. Thank you. Stefan: Yeah. I really appreciate having a guest like you on the show, because we normally talk about like business and making money, and real estate. A lot of people listening to this show, they want financial freedom for themselves, and they're trying to make money. They're trying to invest, whatever that means. It's cool to have a guy like you on the show. We had a mutual friend of ours, John Sneisen, on the show a little while ago, and I love talking to guys like you, because we end up talking about the money system. We talk about freedom in the free world, free speech, all this kind of stuff. For the people at home who don't know you, Jeff, can you introduce yourself in your own words? Who are you, and why is this a relevant conversation for us to be speaking? Jeff: Sure. Yeah. Actually, it's a totally relevant conversation that's everything that I talk about. I've been doing that for about nine years now, since 2010, with The Dollar Vigilante, which is a anarcho-capitalist financial newsletter talking about how to free yourself. Not just financially, but in every way possible. Of course, for people that don't understand the word, "anarcho" means anarchy, of course, and that's a Greek word which means "an," without, "archy," ruler. I just believe that no one should have a ruler and no one should be a slave. I don't know why that's controversial at all, but that's the government indoctrination camps that people have had for about 12 years that most people have been forced into. Jeff: Then the capitalist part, a lot of people actually misunderstand that word, too. They think that what you have in the U.S. today is capitalism. There is a small part of capitalism still remaining, and that's why the U.S. is still standing, but it's mostly fascism, and crony capitalism, and what I call crapitalism. Really, when I say "capitalism," I just mean free market. I've been, and completely free market, so no government involvement whatsoever, no taxation, no regulation, no central banks, and no fiat currencies and things like that. I've been doing that for about nine years. Jeff: I also do a podcast called Anarchast. I've been doing that for about seven years, and it's grown quite a bit. It's nothing too huge, but it's actually spawned an entire conference now called Anarchapulco, as you mentioned. It's now the world's premier liberty and freedom event held in Acapulco, Mexico, every year. It's coming up in February 14th to 17th. We're expecting about 3,000 people, because the freedom, the idea of it is actually growing, believe it or not. I've been doing all that stuff for about, as I said, about eight or nine years now. Stefan: That's tremendous, Jeff. People like you, I really got to salute a guy like you, because it's not easy. It's not easy going against the grain. It's not easy speaking out about this stuff. It's not a popular table topic at the Thanksgiving table or the Christmas table. I remember when I was telling my family years ago about the money system at like at Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody got up and left. The average person doesn't want to hear about how they are enslaved. They don't want to hear about the money system. I remember years ago when I was 21, 22, I read a book called Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, and that's the capitalist bible. The communists have Karl Marx, Das Kapital, and then the capitalists have Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. It's number two most influential book in the United States. Stefan: Can you explain to the people at home, that's where I've first heard the word "libertarian." What's a libertarian? Because people, we're from Canada, or I'm from Canada, in Winnipeg, today, and people hear "libertarian," and they think libertarian is liberal, because it's L-I-B. They don't know the difference between the two words. What's a libertarian? Jeff: That's interesting you're up there in Winterpeg. I'm originally from what I call Deadmonton, so up in Canada. Stefan: Dude, that's the other Winnipeg. I'm giving that a gong. Bang. Just gonged it up. Deadmonton and Winterpeg. Jeff: Yeah, so the word "libertarian," I actually didn't even really know the word until about 15 years ago. It's become quite popular. It's become fairly popular since Ron Paul ran for president in 2008. Really, what the word means is, well, it's pretty simple word, "libertarianism." What it means is that if you're a libertarian, then you hold as one of your highest principles liberty or freedom. If you truly hold that as one of your highest principles, then you should actually be a anarchist, because an anarchist believes in complete freedom. It believes in the freedom of the individual that no one has the right to enslave and say they own another person. Of course, whenever you have a government, you're just born somewhere, and they go, "Well, you're ours now," especially in the U.S., where every baby born today in the U.S. has a quarter of a million U.S. dollars worth of debt and liabilities overhanging it from the government that it's supposed to pay off. Stefan: My God. Jeff: That's absolutely criminal and absolute tyranny and slavery. That's what we have in every country today, as well as Canada and every other country. A true libertarian truly believes that no one should be ruled or owned by anyone without their permission. Of course, there's a lot of people who don't mind being owned or being slaves. They're called statists, and if they want to do that, that's fine. I have no problem. As a libertarian or as an anarchist, do whatever you want. Just don't aggress against me. The only problem is, when they get these governments going, they always seem to include us and seem to think that, "Well, you are now owned by whichever government in whatever area you're in." I just completely disagree with that. Stefan: Yeah. I saw Jordan Peterson. You're probably familiar with Jordan Peterson, right? Jeff: Yeah. Stefan: I saw Jordan Peterson speak in the summer. He was speaking here in Winnipeg, Winterpeg, at the Burton Cummings Theatre, and he said something interesting that I thought something that I think people need to hear more often. He said, "The human race for most of history has lived under tyranny. We used to have monarchies. We used to have feudalism. For most, most of the human race, we've had tyranny, and for very brief times, we've had democracies or republics, but democracy lasts for about 250 years. Then it turns into a tyranny, usually, and then after that, turns back into a monarchy." Why do you think monarchies and tyrannies have existed throughout history, and why does it always seem to consolidate power like that? Why can't we just stay as a democracy or republic all the time? Jeff: Well, first of all, I'm not so sure about human history. I think most things we're told about history are lies, and so really, anything beyond a couple of hundred years ago, I really have doubts about what really happened. I really don't know what happened, but I don't trust anything that we're told by the media, or the governments, or the schools, which are all sort of the same sort of people running those sort of things, but what I understand happened is, a few hundred years ago, there was things like kings and queens, and they were doing that quite a bit. They were going around doing similar things that governments do today and say, "Hey, you were born here, so now you have to pay us a certain percentage of whatever you make," and that sort of a thing. Jeff: Really, a few hundred years ago, and it sort of seems to have happened in France, which is kind of interesting, because there's a bit of an uprising happening there again right now, is a lot of people said, "This is crazy. Just because you're born, this whole idea of kings and queens is so insane." I love the Monty Python, I think it was in the Holy Grail one, where the king's walking around, and he's like, "I'm your king." They're like, "You're who?" He's like, "I was born of this mother," and everyone's like, "What?" He's like, "I found a sword in the lake, and therefore I'm your king." They're like, "You're crazy," but for whatever reason, people kind of fell in line with that. Jeff: Of course, a lot of these monarchies were really tyrannical, and they would really, if you didn't pay them, they would kill you, that sort of a thing. That's very similar to governments. A few hundred years ago, people kind of woke up from it, and they said, "Well, this is stupid." The people who were in control at the time really realized they're going to lose a lot of power, and so they came up with an absolutely ingenious idea. That ingenious idea was democracy, which is a totally heinous, evil system of mob rule. If you have 51% of people decide that legally they can kill the other 49%, then everything's fine. Jeff: It's absolutely insane and just keeps people battling each other, but it's absolutely ingenious, because they've managed, through the government indoctrination camps, and through the media, the mainstream media, television, propaganda programming, to tell people that, "Oh, when you have a democracy, then you are the one who rules yourself, and you get to rule yourself by voting once every four or five years. You get to tick a box," and then some guy goes somewhere, and he makes decisions about what you're going to have to give up and how much they're going to extort you and things like that, but it's absolutely an ingenious idea. It's worked now for a few hundred years, and people have really fallen for it, but they're starting to wake up to it. That's what we're starting to see across the world, really. Jeff: We're starting to see that in France right now. Again, they're starting to realize, "This is absolutely insane that we have people ruling us without our permission, and taking our money, and things like that." Even Donald Trump, in the U.S., was to an extent an awakening of people going, "This system is horrible. We've got this total political class that is totally ruling us and just totally enslaving us." Jeff: What they thought was, "Well, we have democracy, thank God. We have democracy, so we can elect someone else," so they elected a kind of a bit of an outsider, Donald Trump, who's best friends with the Clintons and has been involved with central banks and with the Bush family for decades. His family's been very involved with the Bush family, so he's been very involved in the political class, but he came in as sort of an outsider, and you kind of see a lot of people saying, "Oh, he's an outsider, so he can fix things." He's not an outsider whatsoever. It's another sort of ruse in the whole democracy game, but really, that's what we've got today. Jeff: Now, what we've got at The Dollar Vigilante, I cover how bankrupt all these nation states are, how the central banks are printing money until we're going to be, hit hyperinflation very soon, so we're very near the end of this sort of system of these big nation states, of these big welfare states, warfare states, Big Brother nanny states, where everything is controlled, and regulated, and extorted, and taxed, and that sort of a thing. It's all going bankrupt right now, so even if people didn't wake up to what I'm talking about, we're still going to go through a massive amount of change in the next few years as all these systems all go down because they're all bankrupt. Stefan: Yeah. Well, there's a ... Man, Jeff, you said a mouthful there, man. I don't even know where to start, but I'm going to try to weigh in on what you said there at the end. Now, I wrote a book here called Hard Times Create Strong Men. I'm holding it up here for the camera for the people at home, and the cycles of history, as I understand it, goes like this. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. That whole cycle takes about 80 years, and every 80 years, there's a major war, a major crisis, a major reset. 80 years ago was World War II. 80 years before that was American Civil War, and you can trace this back in history. 80 to 100 years, every 80 to 100 years, is a major reset. Now, if you trace that out to the future right now from World War II to now, 2020 is the next "hard times create strong men." Stefan: That's what the book's about is, the men are becoming weak. When men become weak, the backbone of society falls apart. The family falls apart. The churches and the freedom of that falls apart, and what we end up with is some sort of major crisis. Would you say something like that's coming up? Jeff: Oh, absolutely, and I think those cycles are very true. If you just look at anyone who's like a rich kid, so his father most likely worked really hard his entire life and amassed a fairly large fortune, and then the kid comes along, and he's just pampered, and he never does anything. He never learns how to do anything. He never has to learn anything about life, and they usually become idiots, and they actually end up usually wasting or losing most of their money. This is a very natural sort of a cycle that can happen if you're not smart, if, as a father, if you make a lot of money, you don't just give it to your kids. That's absolutely ridiculous. Talk about a really great way to destroy your children, but the big problem with that cycle that you just mentioned that's been going on now for centuries is the government. Jeff: When you get the government involved, it's not just people who are destroying themselves through the cycle of people having to have hard times to get better and actually learn skills and work hard, and then they get soft afterwards, and then their kids get really soft and that sort of thing. That happens all normally, but when you add the government into it, it gets way worse, because then what, that's exactly what we're seeing today in a place like the U.S., which used to be quite capitalist. It has been fully capitalist, really, since its inception. It hasn't been, definitely has not been capitalist since 1913 when they first put in the Federal Reserve and the income tax acts in the same year, which is no coincidence whatsoever. It's been kind of a mix of the socialism, and communism, and fascism since then. Jeff: About what you've seen because of the capitalism, because of the free markets, there was quite a bit of free markets in the U.S. There isn't any more, but there used to be quite a bit. You build up all this wealth, and when you have a government, it always seems to skew to these people going, "Well, now that we have quite a wealthy place, we should be quite giving." Yeah, that's great. Give, but what they're talking about is, the government should steal money from everyone, extort everybody, and then give some of it to some people, which is absolutely heinous, and evil, and destroys everything. Jeff: Even the welfare system destroys the people on welfare, but as I was mentioning, like that whole cycle would happen probably quite normally unless people start to wake up and realize what they're doing, but the fact that we have governments today makes it so much worse, because that's what we're seeing in the U.S. You even see communism is really catching on in the U.S., because you've got all these pampered little kids. They sit there on their MacBook Pro at Starbucks ranting about how evil capitalism is and saying they want communism, and they don't even look up the last 100 years of what communism has brought a lot of places, like the Soviet Union, or Cuba, or Venezuela, and places like that. Jeff: They just, because they're so soft, and they've never really done anything, that's why they call them little snowflakes and things like that, and they become social justice warriors. Really, they're just non-player characters, NPCs, but yeah, the big problem with that whole cycle is government. If we can get government out of the way, then you'd have families destroying themselves over time over and over and not realizing the problems that they keep creating for themselves, but they wouldn't force it all on the rest of us through government. Stefan: Yeah. Wow. I mean, this is some really good stuff, and the snowflake thing, the snowflakism's a reason why I wrote Hard Times, because I had some of these snowflakes in my company. I have a company. I got 13 employees, and these little snowflakes were crying, "Oh, you're mean, and I don't love this. This isn't my dream job, and you make me feel like a piece of shit," and I had people showing up late. Just snowflakism all day, and I said, "Where does this come from? Where does the snowflakism come from?" I started writing this book Hard Times, and it's interesting, because what you said is absolutely true. Stefan: We've had some communist subversion come in from the Cold War into our schools, into our churches, into our militaries, everything, and we got this virus in our brain that thinks that communism is going to save inequality, but in history, communism has never worked. It has never worked once. It ends in massive, massive killing and massive death. There's something like 100 million people slaughtered in the last 100 years with communism. It's something brutal. It's the biggest cause of unnatural death, and every 80 years, we think it's going to work somehow. Somebody somewhere's trying communism. Stefan: As an extension, I've been studying communism, I was watching a show with Stefan Molyneux on Freedomain Radio, and he was talking about how feminism actually spawned out of communism when they started talking about equality, and men and women are equal, and next thing you know, in communist Russia, in 1917, when they switched over to communism, you had all sorts of major problems, where there was one crazy stat was, more babies were aborted than were born. You think about that, it's just a big, crazy, evil system. Why do we get this idea that we think that communism's going to save us from our own poverty? Like why does that idea keep coming in every 80 years into different societies around the world? Jeff: Yeah. That's a good question. I wish I knew the real answer, because it makes no sense. Obviously, these people don't look at actual history. As you pointed out, there's never been one ... It's not like there's been one that really worked out well, and they're like, "Oh, we screwed it up a few times." It's like every single one turns into disaster. It actually makes total sense why, because of human nature. For someone like yourself who's read books by Ayn Rand, you kind of understand the individualist sort of a thing, and that people will always do what's in their best interest. That just makes total and normal sense as human being. When you have this system that comes in and you say, "Okay, the guy at the top decides everything that we're all going to do," you don't keep anything from your work, so that makes it so a lot of people don't really want to work anymore, because why would you work if all the incentives go away to ... Jeff: I don't know about you, but when I do work, it's because I know I'm going to get something from it. I'm not just doing it because for no reason whatsoever. A lot of these people, especially ... Well, what's really happened in the West is that they've really pumped it up in the government indoctrination camps. That's why I say to people, "Get your kids out of the government schools. There's nothing that can be worse than that than having government actually teaching you ... " Not teaching, actually indoctrinating your child for like 12 of its most important years of its building of its sense of self, of its intelligence, of everything. Even Vladimir Lenin, of all people, said, "Give me your child for four years and the seed I plant will never be uprooted." Jeff: It starts a lot there, and then you go home in places like the U.S., or Canada, or a lot of places, and you turn on the television programming, and it's called programming for a reason. You get pro-cops, and pro-presidents, and, "The government saved us today," and turn on the news, which is total fake news. It's just government propaganda, and they're like, "Well, we saved this today," and all that sort of stuff. With the cycles that you're talking about, and we're in the snowflake cycle now of sort of this millennials that have never seen anything hard their whole life. To them, the hard thing they've seen is like when there's a long line at Starbucks or something like that. Stefan: No Wi-Fi on the plane. There's no Wi-Fi on the plane today. Darn. Jeff: Yeah, like that's the hardest times they've seen. Because they've gone through this indoctrination and that they're really, I actually stay away from colleges and universities, because it freaks me out to hang around, like they're all zombies, and they're the stupidest people I've ever met in my life. They're all indoctrinated and programmed. You go there, and half the classes are talking about communism and socialism, so they've got them in this sort of thing, and they're all going out there now. We've seen that ... What's that, there's that U.S. politician, some young girl, is just complete and total moron who's just got selected or elected into Congress. It's called Congress because it's a con game, and it's called the Constitution because that's also a con, and all that sort of stuff. Jeff: You've got those people out there pushing this stuff, and these kids just go out, and they think, they don't know anything better. It's very unfortunate, but that's why it's really important that we continue to push out what we push out, which is more free market stuff. A lot of people do catch on to it. It's not as bad as it seems. The worst place that it really is in the world today is the U.S. They've got everyone ... Not everyone, but most people, they're so indoctrinated, and so brainwashed, and so propagandized, but you go to a lot of other places like Mexico here, and a lot of people are pretty free market. They don't like government and things like that. That's why they make Mexico look so bad on the news. That's on purpose, because it's a lot more free market down here. Stefan: It's amazing. I mean, you moved to Mexico. I have this prediction that Russia right now is a freedom-growing country. They're getting more freedom over there. It's like the 1950s U.S. over there, and then over here, it's like we're a freedom-losing country in Canada and the U.S. It's interesting with, you're talking about the universities being scary. When I get a stack of résumés, and I'm hiring, I throw the ones with degrees in the trash. Yeah, they don't- Jeff: Yeah, me too. Stefan: The people can't think for themselves. I remember I went out with this 18-year-old girl, and she wanted a job, so we went out for lunch, and I said, "Okay, look. What do you want to do?" She goes, "I want to start a social media company." I'm like, "Great. Start it." We're eating lunch. I said, "Great. Start it." She says, "Well, I'm in the business school, and I'm going to get my MBA, and I don't think I can start, because I don't know how," and I said, "Well, go google that. Just start." "Oh, I don't think I know how. I'm not qualified." The school system literally disabled her mind from figuring out how she could just start a social media company. Stefan: I mean, I got some guys running my social media. They're 18, 19 years old, and I just met them at a restaurant. Boom, they're banging out my social media like crazy, doing a great job, but this same girl in the government indoctrination camp, as you say, the universities and the schools, can't think for herself. I also think it's interesting in the colleges and universities right now, the number one read book on economics is Karl Marx. That's just like, that just doesn't make sense. Why don't you tell me a bit, Jeff, why does Karl Marx as the number one economics book not make sense? Jeff: Oh, my God. First of all, he knows nothing about economics. He was a homeless guy who had no money, and he wrote a ... If I was around when he wrote the book, I would have given it a few minutes, or even maybe a few days, maybe even a month or two, of thought, because it sounds really good. Right? Like what is the communist sort of slogan? It is, "Give to-" Stefan: Seize the means of production? Jeff: No, but they have this slogan like, "Someone's needs ... " Stefan: Oh, "To every man's need," or, "To the best of his ability and every man's need," or something like that. Jeff: Something, but basically what it's saying is ... See, that's how stupid it is. I don't even memorize the stupid quote, but basically, it sounds nice. It sounds like, "Yeah, if people can't do things, then you help them." It's like, "Yeah, sounds great," but the way they're talking about is, you have this giant government. They come around. They steal things from people, and they decide who gets your money, essentially, and things like that. Yeah, and it's shocking that ... It's really mostly caught on in the U.S. Like obviously, if you go to the ... You brought up Russia. If you go to Russia, no one wants to read Karl Marx. They'd probably burn that book if they saw it, just because they'd be so angry at it. Jeff: Anyone who's actually lived through communism, a lot of the old Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, Poland, and a lot of those places, even Germany to an extent, they still remember a lot of that. That's all you need to know about communism is live through it, and you realize it. That's one thing that I always thought that's funny is, you have all these people like Bernie Sanders and all these people, and they're so pro-communism and socialism and all these sort of things. It's like, have you ever even just gone to Venezuela even for a weekend? Because I was there like a year and a half ago, and it was pretty bad. Jeff: I remember being there about 15 years ago, and it was really nice. In fact, you can look up Venezuela back in the '60s and '70s. It looked just as nice as what you see in the videos of the U.S. People got around in nice cars, looking all nice. Everyone's looking good and happy, and they have lots of food and all that sort of stuff, and now it's just a complete and total disaster, so ... Yeah, you have some people still ... It's mostly in the U.S., though, I have to say [inaudible 00:23:04]. Jeff: I meet a lot of people from the U.S., and they say, "Man, this whole world's going to hell." It's like, actually, it's not too bad. Most of the world is pretty good. It's really the U.S. is like, and Canada is almost just as bad now, and when you go to the universities, as you pointed out, and I do the same thing, I have only hired one university graduate ever, and it turned into the biggest disaster I've ever had. He was actually a producer at CNBC, I hired him in 1999 to head up a video department of a internet company I had, and he was a total disaster. He was an MBA, and I had all the, all that stuff, and I ended up having to pay him out like two years' salary to get him to leave, that sort of- Stefan: Oh, my God. Jeff: But yeah, so I just stay away from the universities. As you pointed out, if I ... I've got a number of businesses myself, so if someone's interested in working with us, I'll ask them what they do, and if they go, "Well, I just spent the last eight years in university," I'm like, "Well, you don't make very good decisions, do you? You [inaudible 00:24:00]-" Stefan: Bro, I'm going to give you a gong for that. Boom. I want you to instant replay that for the kids at home. "If you're hanging out in university the last eight years, you don't make very good decisions, do you?" Tell me why that's a bad decision in 2019. Jeff: Well, I'm sure there's probably a couple courses you could take in college that make some sense somehow. I've never seen them, though, but I ... There must be a couple, but the reason that it makes no sense in 2018, 2019, is because we have the internet now, and all information is on the internet. You don't have to pay $100,000 a year to go sit in a room with probably a unionized teacher who's never done anything his whole life, that's why he's a teacher, he doesn't know anything, and sit there with a bunch of other idiots like you, because you don't know anything, they don't know anything, and learn about socialism-type stuff pumped into you. It's a complete and total waste of time. Really, the best- Stefan: You mean it's a virgin sex therapy class, so the guy teaching, it's a virgin, but he's teaching sex therapy to everybody? Jeff: Yeah, that's one good way to put it, but yeah. It's just a waste of time. I think trade schools or something, where if you're going to become a mechanic, so you have to work on cars, so you can't really do that over the internet, I think that makes some sense, but 90-percent-plus of what you go to college for is just a complete and total waste of time that you could just totally learn much better stuff on the internet. It actually just came out, I don't know if you heard this, but Google and Facebook just said that they've removed university education as one of the requirements to work there. I think they're really slow and late to do that, but I think they're starting to realize, it's like, "Man, the people we're getting from the schools are just brainwashed idiots, whereas the young guy who's sitting at home just hacking away, and going on the internet all day, and figuring everything out, those are the kind of guys you want." Stefan: Yeah. I got a policy in my office, and when people come to me and ask for stuff, I say, "Google it, or handle it." Those are the two things, handle it, google it. Google and ... I think it was Google, Apple, Facebook, they don't need degrees anymore. I think that's been going on for some time, but it's an official statement now. Right? That's like super, super official. Jeff, let's go back to collapse of society and things like that. One thing that's common in history, and I've studied it over and over again when these collapses happen, it's usually, the people can't buy bread. The nonsense can keep going on. The ... Stefan: I've got the numbers in my book here, Hard Times, about minimum wage, and minimum wage in 1968, indexed to gold, is 103,000 dollars U.S., so you work at McDonald's, you made one cheeseburger, one hamburger, French fries, Coke, and a milkshake, you made 103 grand in purchasing power back then, indexed to gold. Same guy today making a cheeseburger, hamburger, French fries, well, he has to make 150 items down at McDonald's. They got a crazy menu. Stefan: Same guy at McDonald's makes 13,000 a year, so he's lost 90% of his purchasing power indexed to gold, and this shenanigan with the money system where the banks and the government rob people through inflation every year, and then suddenly, at some point, it keeps going, going, going, going until the average man can't buy bread. That's when the Russian Revolution happens. That's when the French Revolution happens. Why does that pattern keep happening over and over again? Jeff: Well, first, let me just mention that the reason that these jobs have gone so far down in value is because of the central bank. It's because of money printing and inflation, and that's why you pointed out those numbers in inflation terms. You have a lot of people out there today who are like, "We need to raise the minimum wage," which is, what you're saying is, "We need these people who extort us, called the government, to go out with guns and force businesses to pay us more because we can't afford to live." Well, the reason you can't afford to live is because you've had most of your stuff stolen from you by the central bank, and the central bank, by the way, is a tenet of communism, and that's why I say the U.S. is nothing even close to capitalism today. Jeff: Actual communism has already destroyed most of these people. You ask about revolutions, and yeah, it seems that people, this is one thing you can say about anarchy, a lot of people think about anarchy, "Well, if there was not government, it'd just be chaos, and horrible, and everyone would just kill each other." It's actually not true. Your average person, and this relates to your question, your average person just really doesn't want to do too much. They want to have a nice little life. They want to have a family or whatever, or they don't, but they want something nice, and that's about it. They don't want to go out and rock the boat too much. Your average person just does not want to rock the boat, and that's what ... Jeff: That's one of the problems we have today is, we have the statist system, and most people are just too scared to change it, but it appears, at some point, when you finally run out of even just food, and you can't even eat anymore, that's when finally people start to wake up, and stand up, and demand some sort of change. When I say demand, the problem is, they're demanding from the government change. What they should really realize is, the government caused it, the central bank caused it, and just break away from this system and stand up and become their own person and not be a slave to the systems, but yeah, it's unfortunate that your average person, for whatever reason, will wait until they're basically starving before they actually face the real problems in the world. Stefan: It's interesting in history, I think Putin kicked out the central banks. Is that right? Jeff: I'm not sure if Putin did, but the ruble basically collapsed. I don't think they had a central bank, definitely, at the start there. Stefan: Well, I've heard Putin's kicked out the central banks. I think it's interesting is, Hitler did that back in the day. I guess Germany was so poor, and they were so messed up, and they couldn't make their war reparation payments. They just couldn't pay, and that's how World War II started is, a bunch of people, super poor, couldn't pay their payments, boom, world war starts. It's interesting, because somehow, in the system, the political system, they go right versus left, and the right versus the left, and the left versus the right. Really, it's the same kind of thing. Nobody points the finger at the central banks. Stefan: One thing I love about America that still stands is, there's 300 million guns in the States and 300 million people, and they keep that gun amendment in there because they know that tyranny's going to come at some point. They left that in there, and if people can't buy bread, or they're really hungry, that's where those 300 million people with guns are going to rise up. Do you think we're going to see something like that in our lifetimes? Jeff: Yeah, definitely, because the U.S. is going to collapse in the next few years. It's not going to be decades, because it's so bankrupt. We have 22 trillion dollars' worth of debt now, so we're basically ... I said when I started The Dollar Vigilante that the U.S. dollar will collapse by the end of this decade, so we've got about a year left. I think we're pretty close to on track. That's how close we are to the end of this system. Yeah, we're definitely going to see collapses anyway. As far as people in the U.S. having guns, I think all people should have the right to defend themselves, obviously. I don't think anyone should be able to say, "You can't have this," if you're not hurting anyone else, and that's what government does, of course. It's very good. That's the only thing left in the U.S. that is keeping it from being complete and total carnage is that the people still can protect themselves, so the government has to be very careful about how they enslave everyone, but they've done an incredibly good job of enslaving people. Jeff: When you think about how the U.S. started, it started over the Tea Party, where it was a tax from England on tea, and that was it. It wasn't a tax on everything else, income tax, and capital gains tax, and smoking tax, and hotel tax, and food tax, and all this sort of stuff. It was just a little tax on tea, and that started the so-called American Revolution. Now you have people in the U.S. today where you have taxes that are over 50%. It's probably closer to 60 or 70% when you add up all the taxes, because literally every single thing in the U.S. is taxed today, including death. Death has a tax, and so when you die you get taxed. You still don't have people wanting to revolt. It's because, again, people are fairly, if they have a decent life, they don't tend to want to change things too much. You look at the U.S. and your average person, even poor people have a television. They probably even have a car. Even poor people have cars in the U.S. Jeff: That's how much free markets, even the poorest people are still ahead of a lot of other people in the world, and so because of that, they don't really want to have a revolt or anything like that. Plus, they don't even ... Because of all the years of government indoctrination and all the war propaganda about how they're trying to save the world by spreading freedom by bombing the entire world in the War on Terror, war of terror. It's absolutely insane, but your average person just doesn't seem to want to even break out of this system. Jeff: What's going to probably happen is, that system's going to collapse on its own because of all the debt and go into hyperinflation. Then hopefully, and you brought up about how Russia's become much more free market now. That's what happens. The same cycles that you mentioned before when you have countries, they usually start off quite small and poor. Even the U.S. was like that when it first started. Because it had a lot of freedom, it becomes quite rich. Then they get soft because of that and because of government and statism, they start doing socialism and all these sort of things which start to destroy everything. They start putting kids into the government schools and all that, and they get worse and worse until they eventually totally collapse, like the Soviet Union. Once it has a total collapse, then you can actually have free markets again. The U.S. actually, once this collapse happens, and after a few weeks or months, and that's sort of what happened in the Soviet Union as well, it takes a little bit of time, like weeks or months, definitely not years, then you can start to rebuild immediately again with free markets. Jeff: We've seen how the free markets, if you just allow people to be free, you just have to look at places like Hong Kong. That was a fishing village like 200 years ago. Look at it now. I don't know if you've ever been there. It's amazing to even go there. Singapore, even 100 years ago, was a fishing village. It's now one of the most luxurious, wealthy places in the world. Dubai was just desert. They just started doing like low-tax, no-tax sort of stuff, and all of a sudden, there you got like indoor ski parks in the hot, 150-degree desert. Once you have like all this tyranny, it will eventually collapse. Then once it collapses, you have freedom again, and then things take off again. Jeff: Really, that's the whole point of what I do at The Dollar Vigilante is, that's our actual tagline, which is, "Helping you to survive and prosper during and after the dollar collapse," because if you can hold on to some of your assets, and if you can get through this collapse that's coming, we're going to go on to amazing, prosperous times again, but if you have no assets, you'll have to work a lot harder to get back up, but if you have kept some of your assets and things like precious metals or cryptocurrencies, once everyone else gets wiped out, and all the banks close, and the currency becomes worthless, you'll be one of the richest guys around, and then you can start rebuilding the new free market. Stefan: Yeah. There's two cycles that are coming to an end. I wrote about this in my book, Hard Times. One is the 2020, which is that 80-year cycle of war. That's an important one to watch. Hard Times Create Strong Men. Then the other one is the 250-year cycle of democracy. Democracies only last about 250 years, so if the U.S. was born in 1776, it's going to be dead by 2026, so somewhere between 2020 and 2026, we know there's probably going to be an end of democracy, probably usually goes democracy into tyranny, and then tyranny back into monarchy usually is what happens. We'll see something happen. Do you think it's going to go back to tyranny and monarchy, or do you think it's going to go just to open freedom? Jeff: Yeah. A really good question. I don't know how it's going to play out. I could definitely see the tyranny part coming after this. What will likely happen, and probably be Trump will be in, his regime will be in as this collapse happens. As everyone's gets wiped out, as the banks close, as it's complete, way worse than 1929, Great Depression, someone like Trump will become sort of like Hitler-like in that sense, in that he will be the strongman who will lead the country out of this. Because of that, we're going to need more laws, and of course, Trump has been pro-asset, civil forfeitures, having the police just take whatever they want. He even came out recently and said that he's okay if the cops go and just take everyone's guns and then figure out if they did the right thing afterwards and go to court in that afterwards, so no due process and things like that. Yeah, I could totally see that we have this collapse in the next couple years. Jeff: It leads into a very sort of like Nazi Germany like sort of like tyranny type thing, and perhaps war, because the U.S. does have a massive amount of military just sitting there, and of course, if you're desperate, and if you're broke, and if your people are all crying out for something to be done, and of course, what do they always say on the news, the television programming? "Well, it's always Russia. Russia's always messing with us." Russia's not doing anything to the U.S. whatsoever, but they've been putting this into place, and they also mention China a lot. Yeah, they'll probably go into some sort of major war at some point. The key for people like us will be to stay outside of it and let them all go through this, again, if they want to go through this again, which is unbelievable. Jeff: There's lots of stories of people surviving through all of these, World War II, World War I, the Great Depression, and coming out way ahead afterwards, and even surviving quite well through it. A lot of them would go to places like Argentina or whatever for a few years, wait till all the craziness dies down with their assets and things like that. That's really the key, and to me, it's, we can't change everyone else. I wish we could, but we can't. Jeff: Actually, I don't wish I could. That'd be a huge responsibility, to change everyone else, but I wish that they would be a bit more able to see what's going on, but if they can't, really all that's left for us to do is to take care of ourselves and to keep spreading this information the ways that we can do it, but if they're going to go ahead and destroy the whole world with their statism, and their craziness, and their communism, and socialism, and fascism again, then it's really just up to us to survive and prosper through it and then try to be there to help rebuild once they get through doing it all again. Stefan: There's two interesting things that come to mind when you say that. There's the Hitler-Trump connection, which I think is super interesting. There's two things I want to allude to. There's the Hitler-Trump connection, and then there's another one, an Abraham Lincoln and Trump connection. When you look back in history, so if we go back 80 years to World War II, Germany was one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet, probably actually was the most advanced in science and medicine. They were so broke, they were so poor, they were so hungry, they were so messed up that the Nazis became popular, because Hitler was offering them a better life. He said, "Look, here's a better life. We can have a better way." People got behind that, the most sophisticated, probably, society on the planet went into absolute terror at that time. Stefan: I think there's a similar thing going on in the U.S. You've got a huge amount of people on food stamps. People are poor. People are pissed off, so they elect a strong leader. It's not ... It's interesting, like if it wasn't Hitler back in World War II, it probably would have been somebody else leading them, because the people were so poor and so messed up ... I like what Jordan Peterson said in the summary. He said, "You don't have an idea. An idea has you." That idea had Nazi Germany. I think there's a similar idea in the Brexit right now. There's a similar idea in the United States, and then that's the 80-year cycle. Stefan: If you go back 80 years before, you got the Civil War, the American Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln got shot. It's interesting, because Lincoln was a guy that wasn't totally popular with half the country. He got assassinated, and those things are all kind of floating around. You got a Trump, Trump-Hitler-like ruler there. I mean, I actually like Trump, personally, but at the end of the day, there's a sentiment in the country and a feeling around that that's Hitler-like, and then there's also an Abraham Lincoln kind of feeling where do you think he could get assassinated? Jeff: Look, I think it's possible. I think most of those sort of things, they're all actually orchestrated. JFK, for example, I believe that was Lyndon B. Johnson and the CIA who took him out. Ronald Reagan, that was the first Bush, the one who just died, George W. Bush, or sorry, George Bush, who was behind the assassination attempt, so-called assassination attempt, on Ronald Reagan. It's usually like an inside sort of a thing. It's really controlled. It's really theater. They actually keep all these things, including Putin, including little Kim in North Korea. They're all controlled by the same people, and it's just this big theater to keep people just mesmerized and watching their CNN and, "Oh, what did Trump say today," and all that. It's just no different than people in North Korea like, "What did little Kim say today? What are we supposed to do today?" Jeff: That sort of a thing, but anything is possible, but it is pretty tough to assassinate the president, as an outsider, but as an insider, it's not that hard, but they also seem to have some sort of weird like almost like protection around them. Like even George W. Bush, when he was in Iraq and the guy stood up at the media thing, and he was very mad, because Bush had been destroying his country and killing his family and all that sort of stuff, and he threw one shoe, and Bush just did the little dodge and just missed him, and then threw another shoe, and he just ... It's like, I don't know what it is with these people. They're kind of like, I don't know what it is, but it seems like he can't really get to them that way, not physically violent sort of thing. I think the only way we get rid of all of this is for people to wake up and realize that these people don't own you, and start to move away from these systems, and these people just go away and have to get real jobs. Stefan: I think one of the problems with human nature and people, I mean, you were talking about human nature and communism, where human nature doesn't work inside of communism, and then there's also another side of human nature, which is, I think humans have a hero worship, innate hero worship ability where we see someone, we see a leader, and we just want to worship them, and we want them to handle our problems. We want to have a personal Jesus. We want to have somebody we can just give it all to. Somehow, that's going to be the easy button. It'll all be solved, and then we don't have to think or deal with anything. Would you say that's true? Jeff: Oh, absolutely. That's exactly what government, it really is. That's what government always does. You look at every election. They come up there, and they give all these promises. "I'm going to solve this for you. I'm going to solve that." They never solve anything. They're just extorting you and destroying everything in the process, and making everything worse in the process, but yeah. That's absolutely the case is, your average person just won't take responsibility for themselves and just say, "I don't need this person to run this entire country for me. I can run myself," and that sort of a thing. Of course, it gets a little interesting how that would all, we've been in statism now for hundreds of years, so to actually break away from it's going to be difficult. Jeff: That's actually why we're starting up numerous sort of countries across the world now, so we've started Liberland in Europe, which is near Croatia and Serbia, which is a new sort of anarcho-capitalist country that's just being started, and there's some few others working on buying some islands, and we're going to start some totally anarcho-capitalist free sort of places there. We're also seasteading, so we're trying to start up in the ocean, start up our own little, what you call countries. None of them are really like countries, because there's no real government, but it's a place that we're going to start up that it's going to be completely free. Then through that, hopefully we could show the world, because they've never really seen it, what life would be like in a true free market. Jeff: If, all evidence seems to point to when you have a totally free market that it's incredibly good for most people. It just increases the wealth dramatically, as we've seen, as I pointed out, in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai. Whenever you have a lot of freedom, everything gets a lot more prosperous. The only sort of question a lot of people have is, "What if you have total freedom? What would happen?" We don't really have any good examples for that yet, so we're hoping to start do that in the next couple of years and try to show the world the light that, really, this governmental sort of statism system with central banks, and all these sort of things, are just absolutely terrible. The best thing for all humanity is to get rid of those sort of things and not have a belief in their authority. Stefan: Sounds like a page out of Atlas Shrugged right now. You got all the productive smart people wanting to go start their own country or start their own island. This is, it's just human nature. It's all written down in the book. It's all happened before, and here's a thought, Jeff. I don't know if you thought about this. At some point, there probably was some nice, true freedom in the Wild West, maybe, Wild West America or some place, and then at some point, the people organized themselves. At some point, there's a government. At some point, there's a king. At some point, there's a good king. He dies, and then you got his son, the bad king. Stefan: Do you think we've had freedom in history at some point, like true freedom, and then it just got consolidated into power? Because it seems to me that whether you look at a market like a real estate market, or you look at a Monopoly board, or you look at anything in life with humans, it seems that there's like always a consolidation going on. There's a consolidation at some point where somebody just ends up taking over, and we just end up in that over and over again, and the dominoes fall down at some point. We reset. Do you think we can actually exist as free people, like truly, or do you think someone's going to seize power at some point? Jeff: Well, the thing is, if you have enough people who actually believe that freedom is the way to go, and they want to do that, then no one can seize power, because there's nothing there to seize. You pointed out rightly that over history, it appears that people have always been okay with giving away their power to someone else and hoping this guy takes care of them all, and that never works out for the best, just like communism, it just never works out well. Jeff: Yeah, that's actually been the case over time is that people seem to have always sort of gravitated into these sort of things, but at the same time, when you think about life even today, we actually live in a state of complete anarchy right now. It just so happens that there's a lot of governments on earth which you can just consider to be criminal organizations who are stealing and extorting people, and kidnapping people, and forcing them to do things they don't want to do, but we actually live in a state of anarchy. Jeff: Your average person, actually, every single day of their life, pretty much lives in anarchy. When you're in your home, or you're talking to your friends, or you go to work, that's just anarchy. That's just day-to-day life, and there's no one there telling you what to do, except for a street cop or whatever, a road pirate who might try to extort you if he thinks you're going a little too fast over a arbitrary speed limit or things like that, but generally kind of already live in anarchy. Really, the important thing to understand is that the word "government," what it really means, "govern" is, the word "govern" comes from the Latin [Latin 00:46:24] which means to control, which makes a lot of sense, and the word "ment." Jeff: There's a lot of different sort of where that came from, but I lived here in Mexico, Spanish, [Spanish 00:46:34] is mind, so really, government is mind control. It's controlling people's minds to make them believe that this thing has authority over them and that it's sort of taking care of them as well. This is where we get into Stockholm syndrome and things like that, where people actually begin to really adore their kidnapper, the person who has basically kept them enslaved. I see [inaudible 00:46:56]- Stefan: I wanted to give a gong. At some point, you got to stop for me to give you a gong. I didn't know that "government" meant mind control. It's really interesting, because if you control the information, you control the thoughts, and if you control the thoughts, you control the stories. You control the stories, you control the beliefs. If you control the beliefs, you control reality. It's almost like ... In Hard Times, I talk about we almost live in a 1984 future from George Orwell, and some of it's like Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, which was Orwell's mentor. We got half of our stuff is the American Aldous Huxley Brave New World future with orgies, and synthetic music, and all these women with narrow hips that don't bear children anymore, and we have alphas, and betas, and gammas, and deltas and all that stuff, and epsilons. Stefan: Then the other part of our world is like the 1984 future where there's three gigantic powers that are always at war with each other, and it's like a Stalinist future. What do you think about those two books right now, Jeff, like 1984, Brave New World, and what we got going on right now? Jeff: Yeah. Both those guys, both, I think they went, both went to Oxford or one of those major schools. They hung out with the same people like the Bush crime family and all those, so they hung out with what you could call the elites, or some people call them the Illuminati or whatever words you want to put to these sort of secret societies that mostly sort of are in these schools like Oxford and stuff like that. They were actually good friends, as you pointed out, and it's really amazing that that long ago, what is it, like 60, 70, 80 years ago, they wrote- Stefan: It was 1945- Jeff: ... these books. Stefan: ... I think. It was like right after World War II the books came out. Jeff: Yeah, so I can't do the math. I went to government schools, but 70 years ago, whatever it was, and they've really just roadmapped the exact both ways that we're going. Actually, they're both happening at the same time. The Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, that was a lot of bread and circuses. The people would be too dumbed down, which we're seeing, through fluoridization in the water, through all the government indoctrination camps, through the television programming, all that sort of stuff. People are just watching the Kardashians and all that. Jeff: The sports, so the sports ball games, and that sort of thing, so people, that's what Aldous Huxley was saying is, people would be too dumbed down and too into these things like sports and entertainment to even notice that they're enslaved. That's what we have today, especially in the U.S. Then on the other side, there was Orwell went the other way with a bit more it's like a hard, top-down dictatorship. You can't say anything. Everything's the opposite of what it means in political speak, which is what we have today. You brought up about how there's these certain sectors of the world that always at war. East Oceania's always at war with whatever the other one was. That's what we have today. It's like, who's at war with who? This War on Terror, it's a war on a feeling. It's a war on, it's like terror is a feeling. It's like, "I was terrified when I saw that. We need a war against that." It's like- Stefan: Well, we got the- Jeff: ... "Who are you [inaudible 00:49:47]" Stefan: ... War on Drugs which doesn't work. We got the War on Terror that doesn't work. You got the War on Cancer that doesn't work. You got all these wars. They keep just funneling money into a couple dudes' pockets, and the War on Drugs makes drugs worse. The War on Cancer makes cancer worse. The War on Terror makes terrorism worse. It's pretty scary how those things just simply don't work. Jeff: Yeah, and it's all by design, like the people who really do these things know this is what's going to happen. It's just sad that people keep falling for it, but people are slowly waking up thanks to the internet. Yeah, I even saw like, who's that blonde, fairly not attractive, woman on U.S. TV who's like a really mean, nasty sort of ... Anyway. She just came out, and she just said all these wars are just stupid. They're just like, like we shouldn't be doing them. She was like a total war sort of a person. This just came out. Jeff: People are starting to wake up, but the biggest issue is, they don't know what the answer is, and so that's why they keep going back to what you pointed out, which is this false left-right paradigm, which they tell everyone that's all there is. There's left or right or somewhere in the middle and there's nothing else, but that's a very narrow range of political spectrum. That's basically statism right there, and you can have left or right in statism, but there's a whole other spectrum of just not having governments whatsoever that could really free a lot of people. It's really growing, actually, like when we first started Anarchast, Anarchapulco, Anarchapulco started five years ago. It was 150 people. We're now expecting about 3,000 people. It's doubled every year. Stefan: Wow. Jeff: My show, Anarchast, a lot of people said no one had ever watched the show, but anarchy, that's crazy. They think anarchy is throwing bombs and all this sort of stuff, but it's catching on. People are catching on to a lot of this stuff now, so we're going to see what happens. We're at an amazing time in human history, because all these things are coming to a head all at the same time. All these governments are bankrupt. The central banks are about to go into hyperinflation. Then we have people waking up and starting to realize what's going on, and then you still have all these people in the universities who think that communism's the way out, so they'll probably try to push for that. Jeff: It's just amazing, incredible time, and there's going to be so much change in the next 10 years. I don't think anyone will believe what happens over the next 10 years. I couldn't even imagine what will happen, but I know it's going to be mind-blowing what happens. It's going to be that much change. Stefan: Yeah. It's unbelievable. Now, Jeff, I got to wrap up the show, but I want to ask you a couple questions I ask every guest, because I think they're cool. If you can go back in time to, let's say, 15-year-old Jeff and give yourself a piece of advice, what's a piece of advice you'd give yourself? Jeff: Oh, man. That's a good question. I would say work on yourself. I really just started working on myself over the last couple of years. I'm like 48 years old now, and it's changed my life dramatically. I didn't deal with a lot of my past issues, childhood issues, a lot of the programming that we get from our cult, our culture they call it, but our cult, through our younger years. That still stays in your head. I think if I would have, if I could go back, I'd say, "Buy Bitcoin as soon as you hear about it," and I'd- Stefan: [inaudible 00:52:55]. Jeff: ... say, "Work on yourself," like- Stefan: [inaudible 00:52:57] man. Jeff: I'd probably also say, "Don't go to the bars that much. Don't be having a lot of drunken sex. It's a total waste of time. Try to find a good girlfriend. Try to fix yourself and work on yourself more than anything." That's what I'd tell him. Stefan: Wow. Great answer. Top three books that changed your life. Jeff: A good question again. We talked about G. Edward Griffin earlier. The Creature from Jekyll Island was one of the first books that got me looking into all this stuff that I talk about today. That was a really important to my life. I'd say The Lord of the Rings is, I read it when I was very young. I used to love to read. I was probably like 12 or something. This giant book, it's even bigger than your book there. What I didn't realize about The Lord of the Rings that is interesting, I love the book, and I loved everything about it, and it wasn't until a couple years ago I realized that that ring of power was actually a metaphor for government power. I actually looked- Stefan: Wow. Jeff: ... into it a couple years ago, and J. R. R. Tolkien, who wrote the book, called himself an anarchist, so that entire book was an allegory about the problems caused by government. Those two books are pretty good. I guess the third book that I thought was really interesting, and it's like a pamphlet. You can read it in about two hours. It's called The Market for Liberty. You can actually find it online for free in PDF format, and it shows what the world could be like without government. When I read that book, it just blew my mind, because I'm sure if you even read it, you'd go, you'd be like me, you'd be like, "Wow, I never thought things could work that way or that ... " Jeff: They actually thought about how things would work without government, so there'd be like private security companies. Well, how would that work? Well, there'd be insurance as well, so the insurance companies ... For example, like people go, "Well, how would you put out fires without the government?" Which is kind of funny, because the government rarely puts out fires [inaudible 00:54:34]. Stefan: Fire insurance. Jeff: Yeah. Fire insurance, and then the insurance companies have all this insurance money, and they'll have to pay out a ton if there's a giant fire, so they actually put out fire stuff, and fire stations, and all that kind of stuff so it can all work in the free market. I think that book really, in just such a small amount of time, can really just show how the free market can handle everything. Stefan: Yeah. Well, that's great. I always, people say, "Well, who's going to pay for the roads?" Well, you just tax cars and gasoline. If you got a car and gas- Jeff: Not even tax, right, but like the businesses would own the roads. You would never put up ... Let's say you're Walmart, and you want to put up a Walmart somewhere and there's no road there. You're going to build the road, because you want people to get to your thing. Plus, not to mention there's already all roads. All roads that already exist. I don't know why people think they'll just disappear, but obviously like gas stations would have a giant interest to making sure there was roads, so they would probably do something. The gas stations would all work together and say, "Okay, let's take 10% of all of our money that we make every month and put it into maintaining the roads." Right? It's fairly basic sort of stuff. Stefan: Right. All right. Second last question today, Jeff. What's the one thing that young people need to succeed these days? Let's talk to the snowflakes. Let's talk to the millennials, the guy with the MacBook Pro at Starbucks. What's something you want to say to h

  Jeff: Welcome back to Emplify, the podcast corollary to EB Medicine’s Emergency Medicine Practice. I’m Jeff Nusbaum, and I’m back with my co-host, Nachi Gupta. This month, we’re talking about a topic… Nachi: … woah wait, slow down for a minute, before we begin this month’s episode – we should take a quick pause to wish all of our listeners a happy new year! Thanks for your regular listenership and feedback. Jeff: And we’re actually hitting the two year mark since we started this podcast. At 25 episodes now, this is sort of our silver anniversary. Nachi: We have covered a ton of topics in emergency medicine so far, and we are looking forward to reviewing a lot more evidence based medicine with you all going forward. Jeff: With that, let’s get into the first episode of 2019 – the topic this month is first trimester pregnancy emergencies: recognition and management. Nachi: This month’s issue was authored by Dr. Ryan Pedigo, you may remember him from the June 2017 episode on dental emergencies, though he is perhaps better known as the director of undergraduate medical education at Harbor-UCLA Medical center. In addition, this issue was peer reviewed by Dr. Jennifer Beck-Esmay, assistant residency director at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s, and Dr. Taku Taira, the associate director of undergraduate medical education and associate clerkship director at LA County and USC department of Emergency Medicine. Jeff: For this review, Dr. Pedigo had to review a large body of literature, including thousands of articles, guidelines from the American college of obstetricians and gynecologists or ACOG, evidence based Practice bulletins, ACOG committee opinions, guidelines from the American college of radiology, the infectious diseases society of America, clinical policies from the American college of emergency physicians, and finally a series of reviews in the Cochrane database. Nachi: There is a wealth of literature on this topic and Dr. Pedigo comments that the relevant literature is overall “very good.” This may be the first article in many months for which there is an overall very good quality of literature. Jeff: It’s great to know that there is good literature on this topic. It’s incredibly important as we are not dealing with a single life here, as we usually do... we are quite literally dealing with potentially two lives as the fetus moves towards viability. With opportunities to improve outcomes for both the fetus and the mother, I’m confident that this episode will be worth your time. Nachi: Oh, and speaking of being worth your time…. Don’t forget that if you’re listening to this episode, you can claim your CME credit. Remember, the indicates an answer to one of the CME questions so make sure to keep the issue handy. Jeff: Let’s get started with some background. First trimester emergencies are not terribly uncommon in pregnancy. One study reported 85% experience nausea and vomiting. Luckily only 3% of these progressed to hyperemesis gravidarum. In addition, somewhere between 7-27% experience vaginal bleeding or miscarriage. Only 2% of these will be afflicted with an ectopic pregnancy. Overall, the maternal death rate is about 17 per 100,000 with huge racial-ethnic disparities. Nachi: And vaginal bleeding in pregnancy occurs in nearly 25% of patients. Weeks 4-8 represent the peak time for this. The heavier the bleeding, the higher the risk of miscarriage. Jeff: Miscarriage rates vary widely based on age, with an overall rate of 7-27%. This rises to nearly 40% risk in those over 40. And nearly half of miscarriages are due to fetal chromosomal abnormalities. Nachi: For patient who have a threatened miscarriage in the first trimester, there is a 2-fold increased risk of subsequent maternal and fetal adverse outcomes. Jeff: So key points here, since I think the wording and information you choose to share with often scared and worried women is important – nearly 25% of women experience bleeding in their first trimester. Not all of these will go on to miscarriages, though the risk does increase with maternal age. And of those that miscarry, nearly 50% were due to fetal chromosomal abnormalities. Nachi: So can we prevent a miscarriage, once the patient is bleeding…? Jeff: Short answer, no, longer answer, we’ll get to treatment in a few minutes. For now, let’s continue outlining the various first trimester emergencies. Next up, ectopic pregnancy… Nachi: An ectopic pregnancy is implantation of a fertilized ovum outside of the endometrial cavity. This occurs in up to 2% of pregnancies. About 98% occur in the fallopian tube. Risk factors for an ectopic pregnancy include salpingitis, history of STDs, history of PID, a prior ectopic, and smoking. Jeff: Interestingly, with respect to smoking, there is a dose-relationship between smoking and ectopic pregnancies. Simple advice here: don’t smoke if you are pregnant or trying to get pregnant. Nachi: Pretty sound advice. In addition, though an IUD is not a risk factor for an ectopic pregnancy, if you do become pregnant while you have in IUD in place, over half of these may end up being ectopic. Jeff: It’s also worth mentioning a more obscure related disease pathology here – the heterotopic pregnancy -- one in which there is an IUP and an ectopic pregnancy simultaneously. Nachi: Nausea and vomiting, though not as scary as miscarriages or an ectopic pregnancy, represent a fairly common pathophysiologic response in the first trimester -- with the vast majority of women experiencing nausea and vomiting. And as we mentioned earlier, only 3% of these progress to hyperemesis gravidarum. Jeff: And while nausea and vomiting clearly sucks, they seem to actually be protective of pregnancy loss, with a hazard ratio of 0.2. Nachi: Although this may be protective of pregnancy loss, nausea and vomiting can really decrease the quality of life in pregnancy -- with one study showing that about 25% of women with severe nausea and vomiting had actually considered pregnancy termination. 75% of those women also stated they would not want to get pregnant again because of these symptoms. Jeff: So certainly a big issue.. Two other common first trimester emergency are asymptomatic bacteriuria and UTIs. In pregnant patients, due to anatomical and physiologic changes in the GU tract – such as hydroureteronephrosis that occurs by the 7th week and urinary stasis due to bladder displacement – asymptomatic bacteriuria is a risk factor for developing pyelonephritis. Nachi: And pregnant women are, of course, still susceptible to the normal ailments of young adult women like acute appendicitis, which is the most common surgical problem in pregnancy. Jeff: Interestingly, based on epidemiologic data, pregnant women are less likely to have appendicitis than age-matched non-pregnant woman. I’d like to think that there is a good pathophysiologic explanation there, but I don’t have a clue as to why that might be. Nachi: Additionally, the RLQ is the the most common location of pain from appendicitis in pregnancies of all gestational ages. Peritonitis is actually slightly more common in pregnant patients, with an odds ratio of 1.3. Jeff: Alright, so I think we can put that intro behind us and move on to the differential. Nachi: When considering the differential for abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding in the first trimester, you have to think broadly. Among gynecologic causes, you should consider miscarriage, septic abortion, ectopic pregnancy, corpus luteum cyst, ovarian torsion, vaginal or cervical lacerations, and PID. For non-gynecologic causes, you should also consider appendicitis, cholecystitis, hepatitis, and pyelonephritis. Jeff: In the middle of that laundry list you mentioned there is one pathology which I think merits special attention - ovarian torsion. Don’t forget that patients undergoing ovarian stimulation as part of assisted reproductive technology are at a particularly increased risk due to the larger size of the ovaries. Nachi: Great point. Up next we have prehospital care... Jeff: Always a great section. First, prehospital providers should attempt to elicit an ob history. Including the number of weeks’ gestation, LMP, whether an IUP has already been confirmed, prior hx of ectopic, and amount of vaginal bleeding. In addition, providers should consider an early destination consult both to select the correct destination and to begin the process of mobilizing resources early in those patients who really need them, such as those with hemodynamic instability. Nachi: As with most pathologies, the more time you give the receiving facility to prepare, the better the care will be, especially the early care, which is critical. Jeff: Now that the patient has arrived in the ED we can begin our H&P. Nachi: When eliciting the patient’s obstetrical history, it’s common to use the G’s and Ps. This can be further annotated using the 4-digit TPAL method, that’s term-preterm-abortus-living. Jeff: With respect to vaginal bleeding, make sure to ask about the number of pads and how this relates to the woman’s normal number of pads. In addition, make sure to ask about vaginal discharge or even about the passage of tissue. Nachi: You will also need to elicit whether or not the patient has a history of a prior ectopic pregnancies as this is a major risk for future ectopics. And ask about previous sexually transmitted infections also. Jeff: And, of course, make sure to elicit a history of assisted reproductive technology, as this increases the risk of a heterotopic pregnancy. Nachi: Let’s move on to the physical. While you are certainly going to perform your standard focused physical exam, just as you would for any non-pregnant woman - what does the evidence say about the pelvic exam? I know this is a HOTLY debated topic among EM Docs. Jeff: Oh it certainly is. Dr. Pedigo takes a safe, but fair approach, noting, “A pelvic exam should always be performed if the emergency clinician suspects that it would change management, such as identifying the source of bleeding, or identifying an STD or PID.” However, it is noteworthy that the only real study he cites on this topic, an RCT of pelvic vs no pelvic in those with a confirmed IUP and first trimester bleeding, found no difference between the two groups. Obviously, the pelvic group reported more discomfort. Nachi: You did leave out one important fact about the study enrollment - they only enrolled about 200 of 700 intended patients. Jeff: Oh true, so a possibly underpowered study, but it’s all we’ve got on the topic. I think I’m still going to do pelvic exams, but it’s something to think about. Nachi: Moving on, all unstable patients with vaginal bleeding and no IUP should be assumed to have an ectopic until proven otherwise. Ruptured ectopics can manifest with a number of physical exam findings including abdominal tenderness, with peritoneal signs, or even with bradycardia due to vagal stimulation in the peritoneum. Jeff: Perhaps most importantly, no history or physical alone can rule in or out an ectopic pregnancy, for that you’ll need testing and imaging or operative findings. Nachi: And that’s a perfect segue into our next section - diagnostic studies. Jeff: Up first is the urine pregnancy test. A UPT should be obtained in all women of reproductive age with abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding, and likely other complaints too, though we’re not focusing on them now. Nachi: The UPT is a great test, with nearly 100% sensitivity, even in the setting of very dilute urine. False positives are certainly plausible, with likely culprits being recent pregnancy loss, exogenous HCG, or malignancy. Jeff: And not only is the sensitivity great, but it’s usually positive just 6-8 days after fertilization. Nachi: While the UPT is fairly straight forward, let’s talk about the next few tests in the context of specific disease entities, as I think that may make things a bit simpler -- starting with bHCG in the context of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy. Jeff: Great starting point since there is certainly a lot of debate about the discriminatory zone. So to get us all on the same page, the discriminatory zone is the b-HCG at which an IUP is expected to be seen on ultrasound. Generally 1500 is used as the cutoff. This corresponds nicely to a 2013 retrospective study demonstrating a bHCG threshold for the fetal pole to be just below 1400. Nachi: However, to actually catch 99% of gestational sacs, yolk sacs, and fetal poles, one would need cutoffs of around 3500, 18000, and 48,000 respectively -- much higher. Jeff: For this reason, if you want to use a discriminatory zone, ACOG recommends a conservatively high 3,500, as a cutoff. Nachi: I think that’s an understated point in this article, the classic teaching of a 1500 discriminatory zone cutoff is likely too low. Jeff: Right, which is why I think many ED physicians practice under the mantra that it’s an ectopic until proven otherwise. Nachi: Certainly a safe approach. Jeff: Along those lines, lack of an IUP with a bHCG above whatever discriminatory zone you are using does not diagnose an ectopic, it merely suggests a non-viable pregnancy of undetermined location. Nachi: And if you don’t identify an IUP, serial bHCGs can be really helpful. As a rule of thumb -- in cases of a viable IUP -- b-HCG typically doubles within 48 hours and at a minimum should rise 53%. Jeff: In perhaps one of the most concerning things I’ve read in awhile, one study showed that ⅓ of patients with an ectopic had a bCHG rise of 53% in 48h and 20% of patients with ectopics had a rate of decline typical to that of a miscarriage. Nachi: Definitely concerning, but this is all the more reason you need to employ our favorite imaging modality… the ultrasound. Jeff: All patients with a positive pregnancy test and vaginal bleeding should receive an ultrasound performed by either an emergency physician or by radiology. Combined with a pelvic exam, this can give you almost all the data necessary to make the diagnosis, even if you don’t find an IUP. Nachi: And yes, there is good data to support ED ultrasound for this indication, both transabdominal and transvaginal, assuming the emergency physician is credentialed to do so. A 2010 Meta-Analysis found a NPV of 99.96% when an er doc identified an IUP on bedside ultrasound. So keep doing your bedside scans with confidence. Jeff: Before we move on to other diagnostic tests, let’s discuss table 2 on page 7 to refresh on key findings of each of the different types of miscarriage. For a threatened abortion, the os would be closed with an IUP seen on ultrasound. For a completed abortion, you would expect a closed OS with no IUP on ultrasound with a previously documented IUP. Patients may or may not note the passage of products of conception. Nachi: A missed abortion presents with a closed os and a nonviable fetus on ultrasound. Findings such as a crown-rump length of 7 mm or greater without cardiac motion is one of several criteria to support this diagnosis. Jeff: An inevitable abortion presents with an open OS and an IUP on ultrasound. Along similar lines, an incomplete abortion presents with an open OS and partially expelled products on ultrasound. Nachi: And lastly, we have the septic abortion, which is sort of in a category of its own. A septic abortion presents with either an open or closed OS with essentially any finding on ultrasound in the setting of an intrauterine infection and a fever. Jeff: I’ve only seen this two times, and both women were incredibly sick upon presentation. Such a sad situation. Nachi: For sure. Before we move on to other tests, one quick note on the topic of heterotopic pregnancies: because the risk in the general population is so incredibly low, the finding of an IUP essentially rules out an ectopic pregnancy assuming the patient hasn’t been using assisted reproductive technology. In those that are using assisted reproductive technology, the risk rises to 1 in 100, so finding an IUP, in this case, doesn’t necessarily rule out a heterotopic pregnancy. Jeff: Let’s move on to diagnostic studies for patients with nausea and vomiting. Typically, no studies are indicated beyond whatever you would order to rule out other serious pathology. Checking electrolytes and repleting them should be considered in those with severe symptoms. Nachi: For those with symptoms suggestive of a UTI, a urinalysis and culture should be sent. Even if the urinalysis is negative, the culture may still have growth. Treat asymptomatic bacteriuria and allow the culture growth to guide changes in antibiotic selection. Jeff: It’s worth noting, however, that a 2016 systematic review found no reliable evidence supporting routine screening for asymptomatic bacteriuria, so send a urinalysis and culture only if there is suspicion for a UTI. Nachi: For those with concern for appendicitis, while ultrasound is a viable imaging modality, MRI is gaining favor. Both are specific tests, however one study found US to visualize the appendix only 7% of the time in pregnant patients. Jeff: Even more convincingly, one 2016 meta analysis found MRI to have a sensitivity and specificity of 94 and 97% respectively suggesting that a noncontrast MRI should be the first line imaging modality for potential appendicitis. Nachi: You kind of snuck it in there, but this is specifically a non-contrast MRI. Whereas a review of over a million pregnancies found no associated fetal risk with routine non-contrast MRI, gadolinium-enhanced MRI has been associated with increased rates of stillbirth, neonatal death, and rheumatologic and inflammatory skin conditions. Jeff: CT is also worth mentioning since MRI and even ultrasound may not be available to all of our listeners. If you do find yourself in such a predicament, or you have an inconclusive US without MRI available, a CT scan may be warranted as the delay in diagnosis and subsequent peritonitis has been found to increase the risk of preterm birth 4-fold. Nachi: Right, and a single dose of ionizing radiation actually does not exceed the threshold dose for fetal harm. Jeff: Let’s talk about the Rh status and prevention of alloimmunization. While there are no well-designed studies demonstrating benefit to administering anti-D immune globulin to Rh negative patients, ACOG guidelines state “ whether to administer anti-D immune globulin to a patient with threatened pregnancy loss and a live embryo or fetus at or before 12 weeks of gestation is controversial, and no evidence-based recommendation can be made.” Nachi: Unfortunately, that’s not particularly helpful for us. But if you are going to treat an unsensitized Rh negative female with vaginal bleeding while pregnant with Rh-immune globulin, they should receive 50 mcg IM of Rh-immune globulin within 72 hours, or the 300 mcg dose if that is all that is available. It’s also reasonable to administer Rh(d)-immune globulin to any pregnant female with significant abdominal trauma. Jeff: Moving on to the treatment for miscarriages - sadly there isn’t much to offer here. For those with threatened abortions, the vast majority will go on to a normal pregnancy. Bedrest had been recommended in the past, but there is little data to support this practice. Nachi: For incomplete miscarriages, if visible, products should be removed and you should consider sending those products to pathology for analysis, especially if the patient has had recurrent miscarriages. Jeff: For those with a missed abortion or incomplete miscarriages, options include expectant management, medical management or surgical management, all in consultation with an obstetrician. It’s noteworthy that a 2012 Cochrane review failed to find clear superiority for one strategy over another. This result was for the most part re-confirmed in a 2017 cochrane review. The latter study did find, however, that surgical management in the stable patient resulted in lower rates of incomplete miscarriage, bleeding, and need for transfusion. Nachi: For expectant management, 50-80% will complete their miscarriage within 7-10 days. Jeff: For those choosing medical management, typically with 800 mcg of intravaginal misoprostol, one study found this to be 91% effective in 7 days. This approach is preferred in low-resource settings. Nachi: And lastly, remember that all of these options are only options for stable patients. Surgical management is mandatory for patients with significant hemorrhage or hemodynamic instability. Jeff: Since the best evidence we have doesn’t suggest a crystal clear answer, you should rely on the patient’s own preferences and a discussion with their obstetrician. For this reason and due to the inherent difficulty of losing a pregnancy, having good communication is paramount. Nachi: Expert consensus recommends 6 key aspects of appropriate communication in such a setting: 1 assess the meaning of the pregnancy loss, give the news in a culturally competent and supportive manner, inform the family that grief is to be expected and give them permission to grieve in their own way, learn to be comfortable sharing the products of conception should the woman wish to see them, 5. provide support for whatever path she chooses, 6. and provide resources for grief counselors and support groups. Jeff: All great advice. The next treatment to discuss is that for pregnancy of an unknown location and ectopic pregnancies. Nachi: All unstable patients or those with suspected or proven ectopic or heterotopic pregnancies should be immediately resuscitated and taken for surgical intervention. Jeff: For those that are stable, with normal vitals, and no ultrasound evidence of a ruptured ectopic, with no IUP on ultrasound, -- that is, those with a pregnancy of unknown location, they should be discharged with follow up in 48 hours for repeat betaHCG and ultrasound. Nachi: And while many patients only need a single additional beta check, some may need repeat 48 hour exams until a diagnosis is established. Jeff: For those that are stable with a confirmed tubal ectopic, you again have a variety of treatment options, none being clearly superior. Nachi: Treatment options here include IM methotrexate, or a salpingostomy or salpingectomy. Jeff: Do note, however, that a bHCG over 5000, cardiac activity on US, and inability to follow up are all relative contraindications to methotrexate treatment. Absolute contraindications to methotrexate include cytopenia, active pulmonary disease, active peptic ulcer disease, hepatic or renal dysfunction, and breastfeeding. Nachi: Such decisions, should, of course, be made in conjunction with the obstetrician. Jeff: Always good to make a plan with the ob. Moving on to the treatment of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, ACOG recommends pyridoxine, 10-25 mg orally q8-q6 with or without doxylamine 12.5 mg PO BID or TID. This is a level A recommendation as first-line treatment! Nachi: In addition, ACOG also recommends nonpharmacologic options such as acupressure at the P6 point on the wrist with a wrist band. Ginger is another nonpharmacologic intervention that has been shown to be efficacious - 250 mg by mouth 4 times a day. Jeff: So building an algorithm, step one would be to consider ginger and pressure at the P6 point. Step two would be pyridoxine and doxylamine. If all of these measures fail, step three would be IV medication - with 10 mg IV of metoclopramide being the agent of choice. Nachi: By the way, ondansetron carries a very small risk of fetal cardiac abnormalities, so the other options are of course preferred. Jeff: In terms of fluid choice for the actively vomiting first trimester woman, both D5NS and NS are appropriate choices, with slightly decreased nausea in the group receiving D5NS in one randomized trial of pregnant patients admitted for vomiting to an overnight observation unit. Nachi: Up next for treatment we have asymptomatic bacteriuria. As we stated previously, asymptomatic bacteriuria should be treated. This is due to anatomical and physiologic changes which put these women at higher risk than non-pregnant women. Jeff: And this recommendation comes from the 2005 IDSA guidelines. In one trial, treatment of those with asymptomatic bacteriuria with nitrofurantoin reduced the incidence of developing pyelonephritis from 2.4% to 0.6%. Nachi: And this trial specifically examined the utility of nitrofurantoin. Per a 2010 and 2011 Cochrane review, there is not evidence to recommend one antibiotic over another, so let your local antibiograms guide your treatment. Jeff: In general, amoxicillin or cephalexin for a full 7 day course could also be perfectly appropriate. Nachi: A 2017 ACOG Committee Opinion analyzed nitrofurantoin and sulfonamide antibiotics for association with birth defects. Although safe in the second and third trimester, they recommend use in the first trimester -- only when no other suitable alternatives are available. Jeff: For those, who unfortunately do go on to develop pyelo, 1g IV ceftriaxone should be your drug of choice. Interestingly, groups have examined outpatient care with 2 days of daily IM ceftriaxone vs inpatient IV antibiotic therapy and they found that there may be a higher than acceptable risk in the outpatient setting as several required eventual admission and one developed septic shock in their relatively small trial. Nachi: And the last treatment to discuss is for pregnant patient with acute appendicitis. Despite a potential shift in the standard of care for non pregnant patients towards antibiotics-only as the initial treatment, due to the increased risk of serious complications for pregnant women with an acute appy, the best current evidence supports a surgical pathway. Jeff: Perfect, so that wraps up treatment. We have a few special considerations this month, the first of which revolves around ionizing radiation. Ideally, one should limit the amount of ionizing radiation exposure during pregnancy, however avoiding it all together may lead to missed or delayed diagnoses and subsequently worse outcomes. Nachi: It’s worth noting that the American College of Radiology actually lists several radiographs that are such low exposure that checking a urine pregnancy test isn’t even necessary. These include any imaging of the head and neck, extremity CT, and chest x-ray. Jeff: Of course, an abdomen and pelvis CT carries the greatest potential risk. However, if necessary, it’s certainly appropriate as long as there is a documented discussion of the risk and benefits with the patient. Nachi: And regarding iodinated contrast for CT -- it appears to present no known harm to the fetus, but this is based on limited data. ACOG recommends using contrast only if “absolutely required”. Jeff: Right and that’s for iodinated contrasts. Gadolinium should always be avoided. Let me repeat that Gadolinium should always be avoided Nachi: Let’s also briefly touch on a controversial topic -- that of using qualitative urine point of care tests with blood instead of urine. In short, some devices are fda-approved for serum, but not whole blood. Clinicians really just need to know the equipment and characteristics at their own site. It is worth noting that there have been studies on determining whether time can be saved by using point of care blood testing instead of urine for the patient who is unable to provide a prompt sample. Initial study conclusions are promising. But again, you need to know the characteristics of the test at your ER. Jeff: One more controversy in this issue is that of expectant management for ectopic pregnancy. A 2015 randomized trial found similar outcomes for IM methotrexate compared to placebo for tubal ectopics. Inclusion criteria included hemodynamic stability, initial b hcg < 2000, declining b hcg titers 48 hours prior to treatment, and visible tubal pregnancy on trans vaginal ultrasound. Another 2017 multicenter randomized trial found similar results. Nachi: But of course all of these decisions should be made in conjunction with your obstetrician colleagues. Jeff: Let’s move on to disposition. HDS patients who are well-appearing with a pregnancy of undetermined location should be discharged with a 48h beta hcg recheck and ultrasound. All hemodynamically unstable patients, should of course be admitted and likely taken directly to the OR. Nachi: Also, all pregnant patients with acute pyelonephritis require admission. Outpatient tx could be considered in consultation with ob. Jeff: Patient with hyperemesis gravidarum who do not improve despite treatment in the ED should also be admitted. Nachi: Before we close out the episode, let’s go over some key points and clinical pearls... J Overall, roughly 25% of pregnant women will experience vaginal bleeding and 7-27% of pregnant women will experience a miscarriage 2. Becoming pregnant with an IUD significantly raises the risk of ectopic pregnancy. 3. Ovarian stimulation as part of assisted reproductive technology places pregnant women at increased risk of ovarian torsion. 4. Due to anatomical and physiologic changes in the genitourinary tract, asymptomatic bacteriuria places pregnant women at higher risk for pyelonephritis. As such, treat asymptomatic bacteriuria according to local antibiograms. 5. A pelvic exam in the setting of first trimester bleeding is only warranted if you suspect it might change management. 6. Unstable patients with vaginal bleeding and no IUP should be assumed to have an ectopic pregnancy until proven otherwise. 7. If you are to use a discriminatory zone, ACOG recommends a beta-hCG cutoff of 3500. 8. The beta-hCG typically doubles within 48 hours during the first trimester. It should definitely rise by a minimum of 53%. 9. For patients using assisted reproductive technology, the risk of heterotopic pregnancy becomes much higher. Finding an IUP does not necessarily rule out a heterotopic pregnancy. N. Send a urine culture for patients complaining of UTI symptoms even if the urinalysis is negative. J. The most common surgical problem in pregnancy is appendicitis. N, If MRI is not available and ultrasound was inconclusive, CT may be warranted for assessing appendicitis. The risk of missing or delaying the diagnosis may outweigh the risk of radiation. J. ACOG recommends using iodinated contrast only if absolutely required. N. For stable patients with a pregnancy of unknown location, plan for discharge with follow up in 48 hours for a repeat beta-hCG and ultrasound. J For nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, try nonpharmacologic treatments like acupressure at the P6 point on the wrist or ginger supplementation. First line pharmacologic treatment is pyridoxine. Doxylamine can be added. Ondansetron may increase risk of fetal cardiac abnormalities N So that wraps up episode 24 - First Trimester Pregnancy Emergencies: Recognition and Management. J: Additional materials are available on our website for Emergency Medicine Practice subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber, consider joining today. You can find out more at www.ebmedicine.net/subscribe. Subscribers get in-depth articles on hundreds of emergency medicine topics, concise summaries of the articles, calculators and risk scores, and CME credit. You’ll also get enhanced access to the podcast, including the images and tables mentioned. You can find everything you need to know at ebmedicine.net/subscribe. N: And the address for this month’s credit is ebmedicine.net/E0119, so head over there to get your CME credit. As always, the you heard throughout the episode corresponds to the answers to the CME questions. Lastly, be sure to find us on iTunes and rate us or leave comments there. You can also email us directly at emplify@ebmedicine.net with any comments or suggestions. Talk to you next month!  

It’s time for Toby Mathis and Jeff Webb of Anderson Advisors to answer your questions about taxes, the IRS, and much more. Do you have a tax question for them? Submit it to Webinar@andersonadvisors.com. Highlights/Topics: What is Nexus? Why do I care? Nexus is a state’s right to tax your income; different types (tax and physical), state laws, and throwback rule - how they affect you Does IRS reimburse me for corporate expenses? Misconception about reimbursement from the client’s company or IRS; IRS doesn’t give you money, but let’s you write it off How do I qualify for a real estate professional status? Requires 750 hours as #1 use of personal professional time; know importance of passive activity loss and logging time What are self-dealing rules for non-profits, IRAs, QRPs? Particular entities can’t interact with a disqualified person - can’t sell them anything; but self-dealing exceptions exist Am I dealer or investor? What’s the difference? Investor is passively involved, dealer is actively buying/selling real estate; can depend on the intent and timeframe Why set up an LLC that does flipping as a C or S Corp instead of a partnership? Because it’s taxed as ordinary income and subject to self-employment tax What is UBIT? Unrelated business income tax is when a plan/non-profit isn’t doing what it’s set up to do; can have passive activity until it competes with active businesses I hold rental property in a self-directed IRA. What can I do? There’s things you can/can’t do, especially add value to a property, so find a property manager and IRA custodian My wife’s previous employer’s stock options were exercised and have peaked. If we cash in, what’ll be the tax consequences/burden? Long-term capital gain and opportunity zone I’m helping a friend with a crowdfunding project. What are tax consequences with no deductions? Does he pay tax on donated money? No tax for less than $15,000 per donor How to aggregate all properties? Disadvantages? Election form that your print with your tax return to identify properties; doesn’t free up large losses tied up If real estate investing part time, are you considered a part-time investor? You’d be a part-time investor, not real estate professional; determining factor is to document time How do I get the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt? Use the 1023 application How do you create an LLC in an IRA? IRA custodian enters into a contract with a company to create an LLC, or set up a 401(k) to roll the IRA into it without a custodian Investing in LLC for holding rental property. How do you avail to a 1031 exchange? Need a 1031 exchange facilitator and LLC must buy or sell the next property within 180 days If I receive social security benefits at 62 and not currently employed, but do receive interest income. Will it affect my SS benefits? Can be isolated into its own taxable entity My wife and I are the only shareholders and both take a ⅓ salary. Is that the right amount? You should take a ⅓ of the net profit as salary instead How do you put an LLC on hold? Do nothing with it or pay the state; file non-activity return Will real estate holding LLC taxes partnership qualify for 20% pass-through deduction? Yes, if not triple net property For all questions/answers discussed, sign up to be a Platinum member to view the replay! Resources Anderson Advisors Tax and Asset Prevention Event Toby Mathis Anderson Advisors U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Long Standing Law On Collection Of Sales Taxes Northwest Energetic Services LLC vs. California Franchise Tax Board Throwback Rule SALT Limit After 24 years, wealthy inventor gets his day in tax court – and wins 10 Tax Deductions That Will Disappear Next Year Passive Activity Losses - Real Estate Tax Tips Real Estate Professional Status - Becoming More Important - Very Hard To Prove Acts of self-dealing by private foundation Unrelated Business Income Tax Opportunity Zones Frequently Asked Questions About Form 1099-INT | Internal Revenue Service Exemption Requirements - 501(c)(3) Organizations Form 1023 Taxbot MileIQ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Provision 11 011 Section 199A - Qualified Business Income Deduction FAQs   Full Episode Transcript Toby: Alright, welcome to Tax Tuesday, this is Toby Mathis joined by our tax manager Jeff Webb. Jeff: How do you do? Toby: We're going to get jumping on here. We're just going to jump right in. no time like the present to just get business done. So first off, happy Tuesday. Second off, let's jump into a bunch of questions that are giving us a steady feed from folks even before we got started. I'm sure I'll be more happy than to answer your questions. I also got emails in from folks that I may be trying to make sure I answer all of those and we'll just make sure that we're getting through each and every question to the extent humanly possible within this hour. So the first one is, what is Nexus and why do I care. Second one is going to be, does the IRS reimburse me for my corporate expenses. Third one is, how do I qualify for real estate professionals, technically real estate professional status. What are self doing rules for nonprofits in QRPs. I'm going to throw in IRAs in there as well. Am I a dealer or an investor, what difference does it make. Those are the ones that we're going to hit one after the other in succession. I'm making sure that we're getting through these. So the first one is, what is nexus and why do I care. Jeff, do you want to hit tax nexus because there's different types of nexus. There's physical presence for lawsuits and there's tax nexus for taxation. I'm going to have Jeff hit the tax and then I'll touch base on the physical nexus. Jeff: So when we're talking about tax nexus what we're primarily talking about is a state's right to tax you on your income. For example, you may live in Nevada, have a rental property in California. California has a right to tax any income on that property because you're doing business within California. There are different roles, there have been numerous cases on nexus. Toby: Most recently, our Supreme Court reversed a physical presence test that the error that Amazon, everybody that was an online retailer use to avoid state sales tax and that was just changed. Jeff: Yeah, on that one in particular the Supreme Court as Toby said, gave the states the right to tax online sales in their states. The thing is, the states now have to write tax walls to accomplish this. Most of the states don't have anything that accomplishes this. Toby: A lot of times, ignorance is bliss. People would avoid sales tax like for example, I live in Washington, Florida, Oregon and avoid the sales tax and they ignored Washington's use tax. A lot of states have this. You don't pay sales tax and you go someplace where there is no sales tax, you still owe sales tax on it but they call it use tax because you brought the physical item into your state and you never paid sales tax on it. So then they would say, "Aha." And the really interesting thing – there were actually some interesting cases that were popping up from the nexus, ones that came out of Washington, was Northwest Energetic Services too and that was a case in California where they tried to tax an organization that was registered to do business there that didn't actually do any business in California but they wanted to tax its worldwide revenue. The franchise tax board of the board of equalization lost that one and they had a few others but what you'll find is that this is a continuously active in generating area of tax law and we tend to fall into the category of ask for forgiveness not for permission all the time because if you ask a state whether you should be paying tax, they will gladly say yes even if it's not a legitimate tax. They'll tell you that you have to pay it even though it's made to be unconstitutional, unlawful, you fill in the blank. Even if you don't owe it, they'll oftentimes just answer, "Yes, of course you should." They can't actually be giving you any tax advice anyway so it's the wrong party to be asking. I'm sure Jeff you get to deal with that more than I do. Jeff: Yeah, in a state like California, it used to be an old joke for the CPA's that you could be flying over the state of California, make enough business phone call and California would want to so you have nexus and we can now tax you. They're also a state that's very difficult to leave if you're a resident. We had a case where somebody, NBA player for the Sacramento Kings was traded to Seattle Sonics and moved there. Toby: Yeah, now the Oklahoma City Thunder, I was there when they move, horrible. Jeff: The state of California wanted to say, "No, you're still resident of California, we're still going to be taxing you because you got friends here and you have club ownership, some relationships. California in particular is very tenacious with Nexus. Toby: Yeah, so you're going to see things evolving over the next few years since the Supreme Court decision was literally this last, I think it was just months ago or end of the year last year. You're going to see the states trying to fill in the blanks. So you have some states for example in drop shipping, Pennsylvania would tax you if you drop ship out of their state where it used to not be, other states did before. We were talking earlier before the webinar, Jeff and I were talking about what is like a claw back. Jeff: Yeah, it's called a throwback rule that says if your sales into a state that doesn't have taxes then where it got shipped from can tax instead. Toby: Somebody's asked, what are the worst three states for nexus. It really depends on what you're doing, but I would say just off the top of my head probably New York, Connecticut and California. They're pretty heinous. Look at the states that just filed a lawsuit against the federal government under the SALT limitation which is the State and Local Tax Limitation. You'll see I think there was four states Maryland was one of them, where they try to hit you with so many different taxes. It's not just business, it's on your personal as well. It's just for nexus, for a person, it's really easy to figure out, "Hey, where do you live?" Because when I say it's easy, it can be difficult if you have two residences that you spend time with equally. They're going to add up things like how much utility you use, where your driver's license is. Where your kids go to school, where your vehicles are registered, you're going to look at those types of things. There's Hyatt v. Commissioner Case or what was it, Hyatt versus board of equalization I think is actually what it was. Where a gentleman moved to Nevada and the California franchise tax board sent agents to Nevada they climbed to his garage and break into his apartment to prove that he was actually residing more in California than he was in Nevada because his tax bill would've been so great and when they got caught, they said they're immune. Our Supreme Court and Scully I remember the opinion was scathing on them saying, "No, you're immune in your jurisdiction. When you cross the state lines, don't expect any immunity." They just harassed that poor guy. They were climbing around his house. So let's just narrow it down though. You asked a question what is nexus. There's two sides, there's tax nexus and then there's physical nexus. In the physical nexus again where you reside, it's pretty easy. If you live there, then you have a physical nexus in that state, it's where you have a house. In the business it's no different. In a business, you have to decide where it's going to have its main presence and the courts have held having a bare office and nothing more isn't going to be sufficient. You actually have to do something there. That's when you actually have to have a physical office space. We use virtual office where it's doing more than just maintaining a registered agent. There we're actually giving conference facilities, phone answering, we'll do document prep and things like that for the governance of the company so the company can actually have a physical presence. The reason that you do that is to make sure it has a home. So if somebody's coming after one of its shareholders or members, one of its owners that it does not draw that entity into the state where they're located. So, if I have owners in a company and I have my company set up in Wyoming and they sue me in Nevada and they sue somebody else in Texas and somebody else in Florida, you don't have a choice between the Nevada, Texas and Florida where the shareholder or where the members of the LLC are located, they would actually have to go to Wyoming where the actual entity is located. That's what you're trying to do. So if Anderson does my meeting notes, that's why that's important. We're not talking about Canadian, US the nexus pass. I could tell you a fun one. We had a client that just got nailed by California. It's actually under the FBAR which is Foreign Bank Account Regulations. They had some interest on a bank account that was there for a condo they had in Whistler and they sold the condo in Whistler and they didn't report, I think it was like $70 or $76 worth of interest. Jeff do you know these off the top of your head? How much the penalty is? Jeff: No. Toby: If the IRS catches you, it's 50% of the account balance per year. But if you go under amnesty which they have taken an amnesty was a $38,000 fine which they paid for that $76. Canada is still offshore. Anyway, so what is nexus and why do I care. It gets a little convoluted but the reason you care is you don't want to draw your company into your state, you want to make it very difficult for somebody to get a hold of your assets if they're coming after you. From a tax standpoint, it matters because we want to keep our business activities to the extent possible in the lowest taxing jurisdiction as humanly possible. So that's that one. Jeff this is one of your favorites, I know. Does the IRS reimburse me for my corporate expenses? Jeff: Of course they do. IRS is really giving out money. We get this question more often than you would think. I think it's a misconception that clients are being told that their companies can reimburse them for certain expenses which will reduce our taxes and sometimes the clients are hearing IRS is going to reimburse us. The only time you get back money from IRS is if you pay money into IRS for taxes and you don't owe them any tax or maybe overpaid them. Toby: Yeah. IRS is a policing agency. Your taxes when you pay it, they don't even go to the IRS, it goes to the US treasury. So the IRS is merely, pay my boss, is all they are. So they don't give any money out whatsoever so the IRS does not reimburse you for your corporate expenses. What the IRS does is it enforced the laws which is the United States code and issues regulations interpreting that code and is basically the enforcement arm for the US department of treasury. What ends up happening for corporation is they're allowed to reimburse shareholders many expenses that are not included on the shareholder's personal tax returns. So it sometimes seems like they're giving you money when in all reality, they're allowing you to not pay tax on your expenses which is always the battle because there's lots of rules out there that say things are not deductible. Nothing more telling them what we just had happened in this tax change where they eliminated all miscellaneous itemized deductions. All of them are gone in case you've been sleeping. In 2018, you do not get to write them off anymore. Jeff: Now that's your union dues, your tax preparation fees. Toby: Any unreimbursed business expense if you're a teacher and you're providing stuff for your classroom, you don't get to write it off. Jeff: If you're paying substantial amounts to your broker for advisory fees. Toby: That's a huge one. We're going to see that one come back and bite people in their touché. Jeff: That's no longer deductible. Toby: So it's horrible. So no, the IRS does not reimburse you for your corporate expenses. Your corporation reimburses you for your corporate expenses and the IRS lets you write it off. How do I qualify for real estate professional status. Jeff do you want to play with this one or do you want me to handle it? Jeff: I'll do a little and then you can correct me. So real estate professional has a hours commitment. I believe it's 750 hours a year. Toby: So it's a minimum of 750 hours. There's a second part to that too, you know that. Jeff: And the 750 hours can be earned by you or your spouse. What's your second one? Toby: The second one is it has to be the number one use of your personal professional time. Jeff: Oh, correct. Toby: The way I always explain this is if you did 1001 hours doing bicycle repair and you did 1000 hours of real estate, you do not qualify as a real estate professional. But if it's reversed and you did 1000 hours of bicycle repair you did 1001 hours of real estate activities, then you do. And the reason this is important is because ordinarily, your real estate expenses are offset your real estate income and you can only take losses from real estate. In other words, the excess depreciation, or repairs, or whatever, your losses are limited to $3000 a year against your other active income. So that's called the passive activity loss rule. Jeff: $25,000. Toby: If you materially participate and then you have $100,000 to $150,000 scale up. There's some little nuances which don't bring your head with. At the end of the day, there are restrictions on taking passive activity loss. Real estate professional status removes that restriction. The other thing that's really important about real estate professional status is it is per property. So if you have three properties, you'd have to meet it for each of the three unless you elect to aggregate all your properties on your tax return. We have seen this missed by accountants who don't do real estate. They don't aggregate and there are actually cases on the book where people had to fight and they literally had tons of properties they easily met the 750 if you aggregate it but their accountants miss the aggregation election. Jeff: And the sum of 750 hours is not just for your rental properties. Toby: Any real estate. Jeff: Any real estate activity. Toby: Yeah. Jeff was actually right when he said your spouse could qualify, either you or your spouse if you're filing jointly. Jeff: So if you have a full time job and you're getting a W2, I can guarantee you that you will not legally qualify. Under audit, you're going to lose. However, if you have a full time job and your wife does not or your husband does not, they can qualify to be that real estate professional. Toby: We had a fun one. A good friend of ours and a colleague in Georgia was making somewhere between $2 million and $3 million a year in his professional practice. His wife qualified as a real estate professional and he quite literally bought enough commercial property and did something called cost segregation where you're rapidly depreciating it where he generated enough loss off the real estate to offset his income. The IRS audited it, he is self represented because he knew the rule. It withheld, he stood up. His wife just did their real estate activities and he did their practice and at the end of the day, she met the requirement for the real estate professional status and the rule is pretty straightforward. IRS didn’t like the outcome but that's not their job. So they picked a fight and lost the audit which is not uncommon. All right, so how do I qualify for a real estate professional. Keep a log of your time and make sure that you're aggregating all of your real estate activities. Even if it's for a closely held company, it's still going to match, it's still going to work. Next one, what are the self dealing rules for nonprofits in QRPs. I'm going to add in there IRAs as well since when we talk about a qualified retirement plan, we're really talking about 401K and 401A. This is going to dovetail in with one of our other questions that came in off the internet as well. But here's how it works. If you are in a particular type of entity where it says you cannot interact and engage in business with a disqualified person, you could not sell them a $1 million building for $1. It is an absolute prohibition against self dealing. The most important first step is determining whether or not you're within one of those rules. Then if you are, then you look and say are there any exceptions to that rule. So for nonprofits, nonprofits are going to fall into broad categories foundations, private foundations are one. These are nonprofits that aggregate money and give money to other nonprofits, they don't do anything. And in that one, you have an absolute bar from self dealing. The next one is an operating nonprofit that is doing something and in that case, you just have to use arm's length transactions. So we look at that, that's our step number one. So let's go back to the first one, private foundations then you look and say, are there any exceptions. The only exception is reasonable compensation, it can always be reasonably compensated. But other than that, no more transactions. So for nonprofits 501(c)(3) you can enter into transactions as long as it's an operating nonprofit. It can give you benefits, it can pay you and it can engage in sales and other transactions between you and the agencies so long as they are arm's length. And the way you make sure it is arm's length is you have non-interested parties looking at it saying, "Hey, that looks okay to me." somebody who doesn't have a dog in the fight. Now we go to QRPs and IRAs. In either one of those, you have absolute prohibitions against self dealing with disqualified parties and disqualified parties are lineal descendants which would be grandparents, children and their spouses, great children and their spouses. It does not include your siblings. So what's interesting is you could actually engage in transactions with your IRA for example, loan money to your brother. You cannot loan money to your mother. You could not loan money to your kids or your grandkids, you could not do a second on their house, you could not do anything between the company. You could not buy a house from them. That is an absolute bar that's called, disqualified party. Jeff: The way I kind of look at it as to whether you may be violating self dealing rules is, are you benefitting from a transaction between you and the nonprofit or the QRP or the IRA. That's really what they're out to prevent. And unfortunately the rules are pretty severe for violations of the self dealing. Toby: If you self-deal, you're just going to disqualify your IRA. If you're using a QRP and you're using a 401K, then we have different rules, and in that particular case, it would just disqualify the money that you actually were utilizing. Their far more lenient. Jeff: I had a client who had a QRP, it was actually defined benefit plan, who had a required minimum distribution to make and the plan was not funded at the time. The client had to make a loan to the QRP, which is a self-dealing but unfortunately there's an exception for that that one was quickly repaid. There was no profit or interest earned on it. Toby: Was it within the 60 days? Jeff: I believe it was within 60 days. Toby: There's some more fun stuff. Then we go into the 401Ks and this is where you get into people acting on behalf of the company. I know that there were some questions, that were already posed in the chat feature here. You're not supposed to be getting any personal benefit or using those funds at all when you have an IRA or a 401K. In an IRA, it's much more severe because you have a custodian. So if a renter for example is paying you money and they pay it to you individually, technically you have a violation of the self dealing rules because you just received money. Even if you go ahead and put it right back in the IRA, you're going to have an issue because technically you weren't supposed to receive the money, the custodian was supposed to be receiving the money. So you should actually have rental money going to your custodian if you’re using an IRA. If you’re using a 401K or 401A, which the profit sharing plan or 401K, then you are the trustee and you're able to accept the money and endorse it right into the account and make sure that the money goes to the right place. IRA's are a little more difficult. To get around this, a lot of people with IRA's will set up an LLC which you can be the manager of. Actually, the IRA is technically the member— you're in non compensated role and we have to make sure that the LLC agreement says that if we drafted it, then we make sure that we're putting in the non-prohibitionals. You cannot personally benefit from these activities. It has to all go back to the retirement plan. People will do the LLC and they will be all right, now I can go ahead and accept the funds through the LLC, that's how they do with an IRA. If you're doing with the 401K, we're going to suggest that you still set up an LLC anytime you have real estate, just because we don't want the liability to flow through to you. But there, now, you don't need the custodian. You could technically do it inside the 401K directly though you should still have the LLC and it's the same scenario where you're able to accept the proceeds. That's not going to be a technical violation because you're acting on behalf of the plan. And that is not a violation of the self dealing rules. So the biggest takeaway from all this, is that you can act on behalf of the plan. The second a just qualified person starts to get personal benefit, you have violated the rules and if it's an IRA, the whole thing is violating—considered a taxable event, which should be that 10% penalty plus income tax on it for the entire amount if it's at 401K or 401A, it would just be the portion that you violated. We tend to be very bullish on using 401Ks and 401A's, profit sharing plans around here also known as QRP. And this is why, because they're far more forgiving and they have a less moving pieces. I hope that explains that. We're going to have—I know there's a couple more questions that are in here, that are going to be relevant to this section as well. Let me jump on to something. The questions, this is something you can ask detailed questions via our email. I will answer them, Jeff or Tony, whoever's from the tax department here. We will answer these on the tax Tuesday. We will also more likely be responding back out to you directly as well because we want to make sure you get your questions answered, but just jot down that address, webinar@andersonadvisors.com and feel free to shoot them in. Since our last one, Tax Tuesday, we had a couple of questions and I want to go through these. Number one was from Karen out of Alaska, "I have a revocable trust in Alaska that owns and sells real property, does the trust to pay income taxes on the profit or does the profit end up on my personal tax return? Is it taxed at the same rate as everything else? So the most important word she used in her question was revocable, because trust come in two flavors, revocable are irrevocable. If they're irrevocable, then we have two choices, we don't have to worry about the irrevocable.. Since it's revocable, it's a grand tour trust is ignored, it's you, for tax purposes until your dead. So you're good, sorry, sometimes I'm blunt. So if you're buying and selling real estate, real property it's taxed no differently than if you're on the real property. Now here's the rub, it also gives you know asset protection. So revocable trust is giving you know asset protection with that real property, so I would really strongly suggest that the revocable trust actually be the owner of an LLC that is buying and selling the real estate and depending on how quickly you are turning this, will depend on whether that say, S or a C-Corp., if it's a flip versus if it is a long-term holds, then we just put it as an LLC. It would either be disregarded or taxed as a partnership. We want it to flow under our return. Those are kind of our choices. There was a question, I don't know if I got to that. I'm going to skip back to our slides. There's something about—Am I a dealer or an investor? So I want to make sure that I'm getting this one right here. Because this is relevant to one of these questions. A dealer and an investor is something that we talk about in real estate, you want to hit on this? Jeff: No, you're doing fine. Toby: An investor is someone who's passively involved, a dealer is somebody who is actively buying and selling real estate. So if you buy real estate with the intent to hold it for its long term appreciation cash flow, then you are an investor. If you buy real estate with the intent to sell it, then you are a dealer. The easiest way to conceptualize this is if I am an investor, I am passive. If I am a dealer, then I am a supermarket with inventory. And I'm putting my real estate on a shelf and it's constantly for sale. Just like at your grocery store, it may take a couple years for something to sell. I'm just imagining the items that are on the shelf. Jeff: Your durable goods. Toby: Right, so you sell something, I used to do liquidation. We would grab all the expired items we would sell them but let's say, it doesn't matter how long you held them. A lot of people think, well if I held it over a year, I can't be a dealer. That's not the case, we actually have cases on the book where they held it over 10 years. What matters is what your intent was when you buy it. And the difference it makes is active income versus passive income. The difference is an investor can 1031 exchange and defer all other taxes. An investor can get long-term capital gains, an investor can do installment sales, an investor can spread out the tax liability over a long period of time. Whereas a dealer is active. It's subject to social security taxes, it's taxable immediately even if you don't receive the money. It is active ordinary income, it's no difference than I just sold that box of Cheerios on the shelf that I've been waiting to sell. It makes a huge difference. Dealer activity we're going to isolate inside of an S-Corp or a C-Corp. Investor activity, we're going to make sure it flows on your personal return either by using a disregarded LLC or a partnership LLC, one of the two. Jeff: Intent has really made a difference in a couple of cases. One, where somebody bought a property that they go allow their child to live in, something end up happening then they sold it after a short time. They were considered to be an investor not a dealer. Toby: It doesn't even matter. It does not matter whether you ever rented it, there's plenty of cases where somebody tried to rent it and they were going to use it as a long term hold and then things change and they sold it. Just know that if you buy or sell within a year, the presumption is going to be that you're a dealer. If you hold for over a year, the presumption is going to be that you're an investor but it's not a guarantee. We're going to get back to these questions. How does Flip LLC income flow into S-Corp and then what will be distributions of the seller? So, we talked a little bit about this last week but I'm going to go and we're going to hit this. When you set up an LLC, it doesn't exist to the IRS. So when you say how does the Flip LLC flow into S-Corp, it doesn't. A Flip LLC is an S-Corp if you elect to have it be treated that way with the IRS. The income is just going into an S-Corp. Then you have to decide what your salary will be because if you know anything about an escort S-Corp, you want to make sure you pay yourself a reasonable salary if it's making money. The rule of thumb to use is, one third of your net income should be paid out as salary. That's just a rule of thumb but it's all in all reality the IRS has this funky test where you're supposed to say, "Hey, what would it be? What could it be paid?" they never tell us exactly. So I'll just say this, pay a third, don't worry about it. If you get too much money, if you start making over $300,000, then we're going to have a chat but where you're going to be on our radar anyway, we're going to be making sure you're paying a reasonable salary anyway. The reason this is important is because the salary is subject to old age death and survivors in Medicare also known as FICA or social security and the distributions are not. So what you would do is you'd be cutting your social security tax by about two thirds if you did it that way. I hope that explains it. So it makes its money and it pays it out. We do need to make sure that if you're flipping, that the money goes into the LLC. Jeff: A quick comment on distributions on an S-Corporation. Distributions are typically the money that's already been taxed are in you're just pulling the cash out. What you don't want to do is go out and get a bank loan in S-Corporation and take distributions from that for several reasons. One, you don't have basis in those distributions. Two, it gets into the whole finance distribution issues and things of that nature. So you really only want to be pulling money out of the company that you’ve already been taxed on. Toby: Fair enough and then if you don't pull any money out of an LLC that's taxed as an S-Corp, you don't technically have to pay yourself a salary. You just let it sit in there and keep growing which your accountant is not going to tell you because they don't know that. The reason I know that is because I have spoken to probably 100 accountants that missed that one. It says, why do you want the LLC that does flipping set up as an S-Corp or C-Corp instead of a partnership? Mark, we were just talking about that because it's taxed as ordinary income as subject to self employment tax. So the reason we want that in an SRC is so that you do not get classified as a dealer because then all of your real estate is dealer real estate and you could lose all your long-term capital gains, you to lose your 1031, you could lose your installment sale. So we want it to be a separate taxpayer from you so the IRS notes clearly who the investor is and who the dealers is and then you can reduce the amount of tax hit by using the S-Corp that will reduce your self-employment tax significantly, if you add a 401K to it, you could eliminate your tax or defer it out into the future. If you use a C-Corp, then depending on what your expenses are, we can also eliminate all your tax or at least reduce it significantly. So that's why we use that. All right, we have a whole bunch of questions to go through so I'll go through this. What is UBIT and UBITA. UBIT is unrelated business income tax and the easiest way to understand this is when you have a tax deferred entity or tax, it's not actually a tax rates, it can be tax rate if it's a Roth but when you have a qualified plan or a nonprofit and it is not doing what it's set up to do, so let's say in an IRA or a 401K or a 401A, or a nonprofit, they're all set up to do certain things. They're allowed to have a passive activity which is rents, royalties, dividends, interest, even capital gains and it can have those and you don’t have to worry about it at all. But once it starts competing with other businesses, active businesses, now you have an issue and that's what's called—let's say that you have these ordinary businesses. Then they would be taxed, generally speaking it's going to be the highest rate at 37% I believe is what it's going to be as kind of a disincentive to engage in traditional businesses inside those exempt organizations. The easiest way to look at this, let's say you set up an IRA and it runs a mini mart, you're going to pay tax on those profits just like anybody else would. The exception is if that IRA owns a corporation that does not pay out the profits directly. It would have to own C-Corp and then it would only receive dividends and then those are considered passive. So it gets funny and a little bit difficult. The other one is let's say you set up a nonprofit, that's for—what's a good one? Helping Vet and then it sets up a pizza business on the side and starts competing, it buys a bunch a Domino's franchises. It's going to pay tax on the Domino's franchise. It doesn't get a big huge competitive advantage selling pizzas because it's a nonprofit. It would have to be for its charitable purpose and that's UBIT. Jeff: One place we see a lot is like hospitals, they're usually tax exempt but they may have a gift shop which they have to pay the business income tax on because it's not directly supporting them but it is a business. Toby: But you're allowed to do that for like what is it, Salvation Army and some these other thrift stores. They'll let you have one for a church and whatnot. If it's ancillary, if it's completely ancillary and it's just being used like thrift stores I think are one of the few exceptions, gift shop absolutely, you're head to head. Here's another one and I think that this may be what Diane was looking at, it's debt financed income. What that is, is if I'm using the leverage, then there's an exception for IRA's where it cannot use loans to generate income, it's considered an unrelated debt financed income. It will be taxable That is not the case for 401Ks and for 401As, which is what—if you've ever been to one of our events, you hear us railing on the idea that if you are going to finance real estate, real estate is considered passive and it's considered okay not UBIT. The only way you make it taxable is if you leverage it inside of an IRA, so don't do that. If you're going to leverage it, make sure your rolling that IRA into a 401K or profit sharing plan which is the 401A. So there, that's my two cents. I figure that maybe they had a funky—UBITA, I have no idea what that is, but it looks neat. I think they were probably referring to get financed income, since those things usually go side by side. All right, we have a ton of questions that have been posed and this is so much fun, we have like literally a jillion questions, if that's the number. All right, so here's the first one, if I cash out refinance or borrow an equity loan from my primary residence, use the money to do private lending by rental property, can I deduct the interest expense as an investment expense beyond $750,000 amount? They're throwing some things in here. This is actually a really long question, I'm giving you the thumbnail sketch of it. Hey guys email those types of questions in, because nobody's going to be out to follow this, but here's what here's what they're saying, we now have a restriction on your mortgage interest, it's $750,000. If you borrow on your house, and by the way it's $750,000 now, if you had a loan on it up to $1 million, you're grandfathered in, if those prior to what was it, 12/15/2017, you're good or if you got your long before April 15th and you already started the process before December 15, don't you make my head hurt. Long and short of it is, let's say $750,000, but your house is worth $1.5 million. You borrow money out of your house. You will not be writing that off personally, you are capped at $750,000 and that's on your schedule A. Whether or not you're getting any benefit out of that is to be seen because you have your standard deduction. I imagine it's going to be above the standard deduction if you're borrowing up to $750,000. Let's just say we have our $750,000 and we borrowed an extra $500,000, it can't go on your schedule A, but it can go someplace else. The someplace else would be, for example, if I put it into my schedule E, because I'm using it to buy rental property. Then I can use the income of the rental property and I can use the interest being paid as a separate expense, it's just going on a different tax form. The other route that you can go is, if I give that $500,000 and I loan it to a corporation and the corporation re-loans, in the words the corporation is going out loaning its money out and it's reimbursing my interest, then in all reality the loan is really to the corp, and I'm not getting any tax benefit but the corporation is reducing its income by reimbursing me the right to use basically my line of credit. This is no different than if you do this with your credit card. It's reimbursing you, so you make no money on it, but you don't pay tax on it, it such a fancy work around. That's number one. Next question, I hold rental property in a self directed IRA. I do tenant screening, manage the rental, hire vendors to do the repair work and I don't physically work on the house. Good, because you can't physically work on the house, you can do everything else, you can hire, do screening. I would actually have a property manager on it. All income expenses come and goes to the same self directed IRA account, hopefully that's with the custodian or you have an LLC, disregarded to the IRA. Somebody asked this, the IRA custodian sets up the LLC, you can't do it. You shouldn't be going out and doing it yourself, paying your money, you should actually have the IRA do it to keep it clean. Is it allowed? Yes, some people say, "If only I don't work on the house myself, that's okay," and they're correct. Some people say, even screening, collecting rent is not allowed, can you please clarify? You should not receive the money, the IRA should receive the money, you can direct you to the custodian though. You can even get the check and hand it to the custodian, forward it to the custodian, whatever, as long as what you're doing is not adding value to the property. That's the big no, no. Don't go get a paint brush and start painting the house because you're increasing the value to your personal efforts. Next question, my wife's previous employer stock options were exercised and we feel have peaked, cost basis 132, market value 280, if we cash in, what will be the tax consequences and how can we reduce the tax burden? We need to pull the trigger shortly. Aziz, this is you, there's two ways you can do this. First off, you're going to end up with long term capital gains, so it's not horrible. Secondly, there's something called an opportunity zone which just enacted at the end of the year and the just published out all these zones. If you reinvest the money in a opportunity zone, you defer to the tax. In the opportunity zones, there's tons of them. It's any neighborhood that is considered—that needs public support and there's a laundry list. I would actually encourage you to go Google, opportunity zone, tax and you'll find a big old list. But the communities in your area that are typically low to moderate income house. If you took your entire amount of increase, so let's say that we have $150,000 of taxable capital gains, you could buy $150,000 of opportunity zone properties and pay zero tax. Now, the question is, what happens when I sell? So there's holding periods and the minimum holding period, I believe, is you're going to be looking at five years, where then you're going to not have to pay tax on 15%, I'm going off of memory. So you'll have to excuse me if I'm not spot on, but it's 15% then it jumps up. At 10 years, the entire $150,000 is no longer taxable. And I believe that you're not going to be paying tax on the gain in the opportunity zone, it's kind of a two pronged, are you familiar with that one, Jeff? Jeff: Somewhat, I know that you replaced the old enterprise some number of years back. Toby: Something to look at, but would be it. The last way to avoid tax is give them, before you exercise it, is give that to your non-profit, if you have one and you would get a $280,000 deduction. And then the nonprofit can sell it zero tax. You'd get a monster tax and you could have these too, you could say, "Hey, I really need to offset a bunch of the tax, so I'm going to make a contribution," it doesn't matter what your basis is, it only matters, the fair market value of those assets and if you transferred let's say $140,000, half of it, let's see transferred $140,000 worth of stock, you would get $140,000 tax deduction and it can offset your income up to 60%. In either case, if you're pretty confident that we can mitigate or eliminate that tax bill if you wanted to. If you keep it out of state, somebody says, if you keep it as state for 36 months, can it be avoided? I am helping a friend with crowdfunding project and due to medical needs, we'll need a large sum, maybe $100 million what would his tax consequences be if he has no deductions? Does he have to pay tax on donated money? Fred, generally speaking, if you're getting these little gifts, as long as they're less than $15,000 there's no tax and when I say $15,000 that's per donor. So if I do a crowdfunding and everybody gives $100, there's no tax to the recipient. So go ahead and raise them a bunch of money. Jeff: Keep in mind when you're doing this crowdfunding, if you're contributing to a crowd funding, it is a gift, it's not a donation. Toby: And it's not a tax deductible donation. In 2017, I sold a rental house and took a $40,000 note. In 2017, I received $944 in interest but have not issued a 1099-INT. I did report the amount on my personal 2017. What should my next step be? Wait until 2019 or file now. So he's the one who holds the note, he was paid interest. What do you have to say? Jeff: This is kind of a darn if you do and darn if you don't. There is a penalty for not issuing the 1099. You did the right thing by reporting the amount of interest. However, there's a penalty for not following the 1099. There's a penalty for filing them late. Toby: What's the penalty like? Jeff: I think it's $50 or $75. I think it's $50 up to $99. Toby: So what you're saying is do it next year? Jeff: I didn’t hear anything. Toby: Hey do it next year unless they start digging in. I've had that, we actually went through a super audit here once and they went through every—they let you fix it. So I just wouldn't do it. I would just do it next year and say, "Hey, oops." How to aggregate all properties. What are the disadvantages to doing. You file an aggregation election, is it a form or you just check in the box? Jeff: It's an election. It prints out a form with your tax return. It says exactly what properties or investments you're aggregating together. The only real disadvantage is. Once you aggregated these properties, let's say you have two houses and one has significant passive losses. When you become a real estate professional, those passive losses gets stuck in there. Normally they get freed up when you sell that property but once you aggregator properties, it's all considered one property. So it doesn't free up those if you have a large losses tied up, it doesn't free them up until you get rid of all your aggregated properties. Toby: Cool. Nicely put. Are the purchase and sale of mortgage notes considered real estate for real estate professional status I'm assuming. Jeff: This is my gut feeling, I would say no. it's more of a lending, more of an investment in the notes. Toby: Depends on whether you're ending up with the properties. It depends on what your intent is and if your intent is just to buy and sell mortgage notes, then you're dealing with lending. In order to be real estate, it's really got to be focused in on the purchase and sale of real estate. Jeff: So we kind of run into the same thing with construction companies and such that they meet the test for certain things but not for other test. There are some input to it so real estate broker is kind of the same thing. Toby: Here's the thing, so this is Dean. Dean, if I am in your shoes, I am documenting the time I'm spending in real estate. so even though I may be going after a note, if the reason that you're going after the note is with the intent that possibly end up with that property and you do the research and you can back it up, then you add it into the real estate column as far as your time and you aggregate all your time. The only time this is going to come up is if somebody audits you in goes through all of your records that thoroughly which is rare that that happens. But let's say that it does, then you're the one who's tracking all of your expenses and your time. Then it would be up to the IRS to sit there and say, "Hey, that was actually for the mortgage." and so the old adage is pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. You don't take all of it but you aggregate that a little bit. Jeff: Can I bring up a pet peeve? I hear on the radio frequently about all these auditors that IRS has hired and they haven't had a real hiring since 2010. Toby: They're so toast right now. Jeff: The last big hiring they did most recently was to deal with Obamacare for that audit purposes. But really, they're dealing with almost a skeleton crew anymore. Toby: We just got proposed tax forms for 2018. We don't even know, we just had proposed regulations issued on the tax changes two weeks ago, three weeks ago. They're way behind the eight ball and sometimes we put ourselves in a disadvantage. Don't be crazy about it, but you can be pretty aggressive and especially if it's the truth. If what you're spending your time on is real estate, count it towards real estate. So if you're doing real estate investing part time, can you be considered a part time investor? Yeah, you'd be a part time investor but you wouldn't be a real estate professional. So the biggest important thing and this is for Darlene and Ken, is to document your time and if you go over 750 hours and it's more than you spend than anything else, then you're going to be a real estate professional. Otherwise, you're just an investor, unless you are buying properties to sell. So when you say investing, that means you're going to hold on to them, you're letting them depreciate a little bit but you get the cash flow. Does time spent lending money on real estate for real estate qualifiers and real estate professional. No investing, didn’t we just answer that one? It depends on your real intent of investing in the note. A lot of people are buying notes to end up with a real estate in which case then I'd say probably. Jeff: No, what if she's gap funding? Toby: If you're gap funding then I would say no, then you're lending. So you really have to take a look at the totality of the circumstances. I wish I could say yes or no. what we want is a yes and there's a way to get there. So it's making sure that you're documenting things to support your position. We could dig into that a little bit more, if you want to shoot us the email then let us dig into it. Then the next tax Tuesday, I can answer that one and Jeff can answer that one with a little bit of research behind it. Nexus question, "I'm a resident in California, I'm moving to Arizona. I plan to keep a single family rental in California. The California houses and the land trust is owned by Wyoming LLC, does California have the right to tax my pension income after I move in addition to my income in California rental." Shelly the answer is, it depends on where the rental was earned and whether you're taking out over a 10 year period then the answer is, no. and my guess is that you're going to be a big no. They will be able to tax technically the rental income that is being derived from California but for the most part, that's going to be zero. Jeff: A really important number to remember when you have a property in more than one state is 183. That's typically the number of days you need to spend in a state to be a resident in that state. Toby: "How do I get the 501(c)(3) tax exempt?" Marie, that’s the 1023 application. Yes, it's the 1023 application. So with a nonprofit, I always look at these things in threes, we file with the state which is a corporation. We document it to make sure there's no shareholders which is for private parties, and then we file with the feds and we're telling them we want to be an exempted organization and that exemption is done via 1023. So we go through that process. When we set them up, we set up about 3,000 of them successfully. "How do you create an LLC and an IRA?" Darlene and Ken, what you do is you have the IRA custodian internal contract with a company like us and we create the LLC, or we set up a 401K, roll the IRA into it and then we'd let you do it so you don't need a custodian. "Is this recorded and will a replay be sent out?" Robin, it's made available to anybody who's platinum and then I'm cutting out a bunch of the Q&As and will throw them all over the internet. The recording, yes we record them. Join platinum, it's fun. "If I sell a partial note to a family member from my QRP, is that disqualified?" it depends on the type of family members. When they're your kids, yes. If it's to a brother or sister, no. then you can do it. When you make a contribution and that's just the whole disqualified person argument we had earlier. So you can always ask again, ask the question specific to your situation, we'll give you a very specific answer. But just know that if you sell a partial note out of your QRP, it depends on the relationship of the family member. If it's lineal, you have a problem. Which means kids, parents, grandparents you have a problem. If it's horizontal, siblings, not a problem. If it's the spouses of the disqualified person, you're going to have a problem. "Investing in LLC for holding rental property, how does one avail to a 1031 exchange?" Here's how it works, so I'm not going to worry about this. The 1031 exchange, you have to have a 1031 exchange facilitator. The LLC has to buy the next property. So you sell one and buy one within 180 days and there's some other roles in there about when you identify it or you do a reverse exchange where you buy the replacement property then sell the other property within 180 days. But neither cases, in the name of the LLC, you don't have to do anything else. "I should be able to still qualify as an investor and still be active in real estate by investing more than 750 hours." yes, but in actually is a full time job. So if you have a full time job as a real estate professional, then you're good. But remember, your activity as a real estate investor has to exceed your activities of any other profit making activity. So if you work and you work 1,500 hours, even if you did 1400 hours as real estate, you are not a real estate professional, still below that 1,500. Investment in LLC for holding rental property, how does or somebody asked that. If you in invest funds to have an equity in a project, oh my god, this one's going to kill me, built by someone else, I'm trying to think what this is. So you're investing funds for a piece of an LLC in which you are passive and they are a builder, are you a dealer? So Judith, no, you are a passive investor in an active business, is what you are. I see what you're saying, what she's asking is, "Hey, I have Bob the builder come up to me and says, 'Hey, we're going to build this big apartment complex, we're going to develop and everything. You put in $100,000 everybody else puts on $100,000.'" You are passive. You are not considered the dealer. Here's a fun one, did you already read this one? Jeff: No, I haven’t read this one. Toby: Okay, I am planning to receive social security benefits at 62, and currently not employed. I do private lending to real estate investors through promissory notes. So I do receive interest income in the amount of $40,000 to $50,000. Will this affect my social security benefits? At what point to social security benefits are taxable? So Joe, the answer is that there are certain types of income that are exempt from calculations, social security, Jeff you know off the top of your head? Jeff: If you're receiving earned income and that's all social securities could ever know about, so we're talking about self employment income, W-2 wages, that's going to affect your social security benefits. Toby: But if you're just receiving interest income, is it going to affect it? Jeff: Well, here's the thing, if you're in the business of lending money, we would typically set you up as a business, either on schedule C or through an S-Corp or something. That interest you receive wouldn't be, interest income, it would be business income. You'd be able to deduct certain expenses from that income… Toby: We got to look at it, because usually you're going to want to be treated as active, in this particular case you're not going to outdo yourself. Jeff: The downside of this is, any money, any net income you have from this business of lending money is going to affect security until you're 65, or 67, full retirement age. Toby: Joe, the answer is, we may one isolated into its own taxable entity, so that it doesn't affect you. We may. Jeff: I kind of feel like this would be in a great place for an S-Corporation. It's not earning income flowing through to them. Toby: Would he have to take a salary? Jeff: Yeah there we go. Toby: I'm going to take a look. Joe, that's a great question, could you submit it to the webinars at Anderson Advisors, so we can research it. In that way we can hit it in two weeks, to get you a much more thoroughly research, because you're asking a very complicated question. That’s just not going to be at the top of our head. We're going to make sure that we don't step on a landmine. Jeff: So the answer's, maybe. Toby: My wife and I are the only shareholders and we both take a one third salary. No, you should take about one third of the net profit as salary, total between the owners. So greater than 2% shareholders or you and your spouse, so you could each take, I'll throw numbers out, let's say you made $100,000, you could each take up to $18,500. If you're under 50 and immediately dump it into a 401K and not pay any tax. So, "Hey we like that." We have a medical coding business, perfect, yeah, so that's when we want to take a look at. "This is so much fun, really appreciate it," I hope that's not sarcastic, Al. "I opened a couple of LLC, I'm going to use to purchase flipping, can I put them on hold until I do? Do I have to do tax returns?" It all depends on what you're doing with those, the answer is, yes you could put them on ice. "Thanks for the answer on UBIT." Diane, no problem. See we actually do answer questions here. "What are the legal benefits of incorporating in Puerto Rico, if any compared to Nevada?" If you live there, I think they give you 4% tax rate, but you actually have to reside there. There's legal benefits, not really any, other than the tax benefits and the fact of the matter is Puerto Rico has Spanish law, which means they could probably take your company from you. But you can still go down there and Jeff… Jeff: Well, I mean, there are certain industries that have great tax benefits pharmaceutical companies was always a big one. Some of those old laws have sunsetted but might be a good opportunity. Toby: Cool, look at all these questions. All right, some people are saying nice things, great. I like nice things better than, "You guys are jerks." In 2017, I was self employed under my LLC, I have not filed my taxes yet and not considering retirement. Would I still be able to do that? What is best options?" Casey, are you under—self employment under my LLC. So it depends on whether—it was an S-Corp. Did you file an extension because you would be able to do a retirement plan either a sub-IRA or if you already had the 401K then you can make a contribution from the company for it. It would either be a 401A or a 401K. or sub-IRA, I think those are going to be your... Jeff: And if you do extension, you have 11 days to get it done. Toby: Yeah, you have 11 days. Casey, get off your butt. All right, Brian wants advice with the start up pre revenue, he is offering 10% stock, "Not sure I want ownership that subject to capital calls, expectation, potential—is it better to take an offshore [inaudible 01:06:53] until there's more value in the company?" It really depends, so Clark, nice to see you. Awesome. I know Clark's brother very well, studs, nice family. All right, friends, if I was going to have a piece, the whole thing is, if I'm putting money into an endeavor, it's going to be, "What am I going to get out?" It would really depend on the agreement, I don't want to be subject to having to put more money in, nor do I want my interest necessarily being diluted by somebody who is. So one of the one of the ways you can do it, is sometimes do it is a convertible note where you loan the money, so you know you can at least get it back, but it's convertible into equity at the fair market value at that time. You guys can actually agreed to this ahead of time. So that if you decide you want to contribute it, you see they're doing what you want but then you convert it into equity. Otherwise it just remains a note that they pay you on. Clark, that's probably the route I would go. Jeff: But the assumption here is, this is a C-Corporation he's talking about. Toby: I don't even care… Jeff: Well if it's an S-Corporation that we wouldn’t be able to have all these secondary notes and stuff. Toby: If it's an S, I could so convert it. Jeff: Could you? Toby: Yep. Jeff: As long as it converts into the same… Toby: Yep. The risk is I don't want to have a convertible debt to anything other than an individual that would qualify for S.. Jeff: Okay. Toby: But I don't see S-Corps raising money this way. It's almost always C-Corps with partnerships. So the ones that I've been personally involved in, we did three levels of financing this exact way with Vegas Tax fund. That's the little Tony Hseih group and they dumped a bunch of money to a company called Role Tech. You can look them up online, because we exited that wanted with the sale to Brunswick. In a way they did all their money was purely—that was a C-Corp, but it was purely through convertible notes. All right, "What are the best tools you can recommend for tracking time mileage and expenses for real estate investors? My desire to be paperless and get everything out…" People use Taxbot for mileage, it's mileage IQ, MileIQ, I think it's the one that I use, but if you're tracking time, it's just using—sometimes is just using your calendar or spreadsheet. Let's see, "Is full time realtor, a real estate professional?" Chances are, you're going to aggregate and all that. "I understand and agree." I'm not sure I understand that. "I executed a 1031 exchange where trust all the owned property, sold it, and took title of the up leg property in the trust using 1031 exchange. But now I want to transfer up leg property into an LLC." Diane, there is no time restriction that you have to hold it as long as you are the one and still the end beneficiary. If you extend loan through an LLC owned by Roth IRA, they want to transfer, sell the remainder, but then season it out to a lower interest rate. Can Roth continue to receive the full payment from the borrower and the relay the portion?" Yes, as lines is non-convertible, same as you do in an S-Corp. "Is the answer the same best self administer S 401K? So what they're asking is," If you extend a loan through—we're just going to call it the Roth IRA, because the LLC looks right into it from a tax standpoint. And then you sell the remainder of that then season notes. So you start collecting and then you sell the note because it's doing really well and you say, "Hey does anybody want to pay me for this?" I know a guy that that's what he does. He puts the notes together and he sells his notes out and so he can get the money to go to another one and he aggregates them altogether, they call it flying in flocks. The lenders flock together and together they do a loan and he sells his portion. Yeah, you could sell it and then you can continue to receive it and keep a portion of it. the only issue you have is if it's a convertible note then you wouldn’t want to do a convertible note because boom, that Roth IRA depending on the type of entity if it's an S-Corp you'd kill the S-Corp's status of it. How do you put an LLC on hold? You get quite literally do nothing with it or you just pay the state and then you file a non activity return. You say it's not doing anything. So you're allowed to do that or you just do nothing. Which is what I tend to do. It just depends on your state. If there's not much penalty then I just kind of sit it and then two years later I might reactivate it. Will real estate holding LLC taxes partnership qualify for the 20% passed through deduction? Yes, it will. Here's the deal, as long as it's not triple net property. What she's asking is, "Hey, I have a whole bunch of LLCs and they all receive rental income and there's a net income amount." let's say it comes through with $50,000 there's something called a 199A deduction that was enacted by the 2017 tax cut and jobs act. And it gives you a 20% deduction off that amount or 20% of your taxable income whichever one is less/ but if you earn over a certain amount so for individuals it's over, $100,575 if it's a married couple it's $315,000 which is going to make your head hurt I'm going to suffer memory here. Then you scale up and then you have a new test it's 50% of the W2 income that's being paid on that particular busine

Jeff:  Welcome back to Emplify, the podcast corollary to EB Medicine’s Emergency Medicine Practice. I’m Jeff Nusbaum, and I’m back with my co-host, Nachi Gupta and we’ll be taking you through the September 2018 issue of Emergency Medicine Practice - Emergency Department Management of North American Snake envenomations. Nachi: Although this isn’t something we encountered too frequently – it does seem like I’ve been hearing more about snake bites in the recent months. Jeff: I actually flew someone just the other day because the local ED ran out of CroFab after an envenomation in Western PA. Nachi: Yeah, this is definitely more than “just a boards topic,” and it’s really important to know about in those rare circumstances. In terms of incidence, there are actually about 10,000 ED visits in the US for snake bites each year, and 1/3 of these involve venomous species. Jeff:  That’s a good teaser, so let’s start by recognizing this month’s team – the two authors, Dr. Sheikh, a medical toxicologist, and Patrick Leffers, a pharmD, and emergency medicine and clinical toxicology fellow. Both are at the University of Florida Jacksonville, and they reviewed a total of 120 articles from 2006-2017, in addition to reviews from both Cochrane and Dare. Nachi: And don’t forget our peer reviewers this month, Dr. Daniel Sessions, a medical toxicologist working at the South Texas Poison Center, and our very own editor-in-chief, Dr. Andy Jagoda, who is also Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Jeff: What a team! But, let’s get back to the snakes. As some background, from 2006-2015 there were almost 66,000 reported snake exposures and 31 deaths from snake envenomation in the US.  Of course, this number likely underestimates the true total. Nachi: And there are two key subfamilies of venomous snakes to be aware of – the Crotalinae – or pit vipers – which includes rattlesnakes, copperheads, and water moccasins; and the Elapidae – of which you really only need to know about the coral snake. Jeff:  And while those are the only two NATIVE snake subfamilies to be acutely aware of, don’t forget that exotic snakes, which are shockingly popular pets -- they can also cause significant morbidity and mortality. Nachi:  Oh, and one other quick note before we get into the epidemiology – most of the recommendations this month come from expert opinion, as high quality RCTs are obviously difficult.  In addition, many of the studies were based in other countries, where the snakes, the anti-venoms and their availability, and the general healthcare systems are different from those that most of us work in. Jeff:  Unless we have listeners abroad? Do we have listeners in other countries? Nachi: Oh we definitely do... but we are going to be a bit biased towards US envenomation today. In any case, venomous snake bites occur most frequently in men aged 18 to 49 during warmer months with provoked bites occurring more frequently in the upper extremities and unprovoked bites in the lower extremities. Jeff:  In one study of poison center data from the last decade, nearly half of all victims of snake bites were victims of unknown type snakes.  However, of those that were known, copperheads were the most common, while rattlesnakes caused the most fatalities – 19 of 31 in this dataset. Nachi:  In a separate study of snake bites in the early 2000s, 32% of exposures were from venomous snakes and 59% of those resulted in admission. That’s remarkably high. Jeff:  Snake bite severity depends on several key factors: the amount of venom, the composition of the venom, the body size of the bite victim, the victim's clothing, the size of the bite, comorbid conditions, and the timing and quality of medical care the victim receives. Nachi:  To be a bit more specific - First, the amount of venom will depend on the species of snake, with variations even occurring within the same species.  Secondly, while there is a correlation between rattlesnake size and bite severity, there is much more at play.  Some snakes can even vary the amount of venom based on threat risk – with defensive bites having different profiles than bites to strike prey. Jeff: I found it pretty interesting that  an estimated 10-25% of pit viper bites are considered dry bites, that is, ones in which no venom is released. Nachi:  Right, this is just one reason why all victims shouldn’t immediately get anti-venom, but we’ll get there. Jeff:  We definitely will.  As we already stated – venom composition varies greatly.  Pit vipers produce a predominantly hemotoxic venom.  Systemic effects include tachycardia, tachypnea, hypotension, nausea, vomiting, weakness, and diaphoresis.  Neurotoxicity is rare and is usually due to inter-breeding between species. Nachi:  While rattlesnake bites are associated with higher morbidity and mortality, the more common copperhead bites typically only cause local tissue effects.  More serious systemic findings such as coagulopathy and respiratory failure have been reported though. Jeff:  So that’s a solid background to get us started.  Let’s talk about the individual snakes.  Why don’t you start with the crotalinae family – aka the pit vipers. Nachi:  Sure – the crotalinae includes rattlesnakes, cottonmouths (also known as water moccasins), and copperheads.  These make up the vast majority of reports to the poison centers.  They can be identified by their heat sensing pits located behind their nostrils (hence pit vipers).  As a general rule, you can also identify the venomous snakes by their triangular or spade-like head, elliptical pupils, and hollow retractable fangs. Jeff:  wait, so you want me to walk up to the snake and ask to see if their fangs retract… yea, no thanks. Nachi: Haha, of course not, I’m just giving you some of the general principles here. In contrast, non-venomous pit vipers have rounded heads, round pupils, a double row of vertical scales, and they lack fangs. Jeff: In terms of location, rattlesnakes are found in all states but Hawaii, and cottonmouths and copperheads are distributed mostly throughout the southern and southeastern states, with copperheads also extending further north, even into Massachusetts. Nachi: Moving on to the Elapidae –  there are 3 species of coral snakes, only two of which you need to know about, Micrurus fulvius fulvius or the eastern coral snake and Micrurus tener or the Texas coral snake.  Of the two, the eastern or Micrurus fulvius fulvius produces more potent venom. Jeff:  As you may have guessed by their names, the eastern coral snake is found in the southeastern united states, specifically, east of the Mississippi -- whereas the Texas coral snake lives west of the Mississippi. Nachi:  Venomous North American coral snakes can be recognized by the red and yellow bands around their bodies whereas their nonvenomous counterparts can be recognized by their characteristic black band between the red and yellow bands. I’m sure you’ve heard the popular mnemonic for this… Red touch yellow kill a fellow, red touch black, venom lack. Jeff:  I have heard that one, and it’s not a bad mnemonic. Just remember that this is more of a guideline than a rule, as it doesn’t always hold true. Nachi: Coral snakes also tend to chew rather than bite thanks to their short, fixed, hollow fangs.  Locally, bites can lead to muscle destruction thanks to a certain myotoxin.  Systemic signs of infection include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and dizziness.  Jeff: The venom also contains a neurotoxin which can lead to diplopia, difficulty swallowing and speaking and generalized weakness. Nachi: Complicating matters even further, the onset of these symptoms may be delayed for many hours. Jeff:  Alright, so I think that about wraps up the background.  Let’s move on to the meat and potatoes of this article, starting with the differential. Nachi:  For differential this month, we are really focusing on differentiating a venomous snake from a non-venomous one. Jeff: Oh yeah, this is where you want us to ask the snake if it can retract its fangs, right? Nachi: Ha very funny – Although the type of snake may be obvious if the patient owns the snake, for most cases you see in the ED, the type of snake won’t be clear. Try to get a description of the snake and consider your local geography. Some patients may even bring the snake in with them. Jeff: yea, no thanks. As for prehospital care, it’s actually pretty interesting stuff as recommendations have changed many times.  You may have heard of the recommendations for incision / excision, use of venom extraction devices, tourniquets, chill methods and even electroshock therapy – well these methods are all OUT. Nachi:  Not only are they out, they actually worsen outcomes, so definitely don’t pursue any of them.  Instead,  since no treatment has been shown to improve outcome, you should prioritize prompt transport. Jeff: And while we definitely don’t want to encourage ill-advised attempts at capturing the snake, taking pictures at a distance may be helpful in identifying it.  Oh and the authors do note- pretty terrifying stuff coming up here so brace yourself - even if the snake is dead the bite reflex is still intact… Nachi: And that’s why I work in city hospitals… Jeff:  There’s also a bit of controversy here with regards to pressure immobilization, which is definitely something I thought we were supposed to do in the prehospital setting. Apparently in other countries, like Australia, prehospital providers frequently employ pressure immobilization – that is, wrapping bandages proximally up a splinted limb to impede lymphatic toxin spread. Nachi:  Right, but in Australia, not only are the snakes more venomous but the hospital transport distances are much longer, so, basically they sacrifice the limb to potentially save a life.  In the US, with our current indigenous snake population and the relatively short transport distances, this isn’t justified at all! Jeff:  Take home: based on the current literature, the American College of Medical Toxicology, other experts, and Drs. Sheikh and Leffers recommend against pressure immobilization in lieu of prompt patient transport to definitive treatment. Nachi:  Good to know – alright so now we have the patient in the emergency department, let’s begin ED care.  As always – IV, O2, Monitor including end tidal CO2 if you suspect a neurotoxic or exotic snake bite.  Of course, avoid using the affected limbs for vitals… Jeff: If not done already, remove any constrictive clothing or jewelry and mark the leading edge of pain, edema, and erythema both above and below the bite.  If EMS has placed bandages, leave them in place until antivenom and resuscitative equipment is ready. Nachi:  And definitely involve the poison control center or a medical toxicology service early as they are an amazing resource. It’s an easy number to remember.. 1-800-222-1222. If you just type “poison control center” into google, that number will come up immediately. Jeff: Hypotension should be treated with isotonic fluids and, as usual, anaphylaxis should be treated with the usual cocktail of antihistamines and epinephrine at first IM and then via infusion if refractory. Note that antivenom will NOT reverse anaphylaxis on its own. Nachi:  When eliciting a history, there are a number of important factors to look out for, including – time and location of the bite, description of the snake, tetanus status, comorbid conditions, medications and allergies, any systemic or neurologic symptoms, muscle cramps, perioral tingling or numbness, metallic taste, history of previous snakebites and any reactions to previous envenomation or antivenom treatment. Jeff: Moving on to the physical exam, when examining the wound, look specifically for local tissue effects which occur in over 90% of patients after pit viper envenomations.  In such cases, you would expect pain, erythema, swelling, tenderness, and myonecrosis beginning at the wound site and then spreading via the lymphatic system. Nachi:  In addition, specifically with pit viper envenomations, monitor the patient for possible compartment syndrome as the venom can lead to local tissue destruction, increased cell permeability, third spacing of fluids, and bleeding.  And remember that while the local compartment may be hypertensive, the patient may also have systemic hypotension. Jeff: Just to reiterate what I said before – hypotension may indicate severe anaphylaxis and its not necessarily just due to third spacing.  Regardless, the treatment is the same – epinephrine. Nachi:  Good point, but let’s focus on compartment syndrome for a minute.  True compartment syndrome is actually quite rare --- its really subcutaneous hypertension with preservation of otherwise normal compartment pressures that you’re most likely to see.  Compartment syndrome should therefore only be diagnosed by actual compartment measurements and not just the exam.  However, if you are dealing with compartments that can’t be measured, like in the fingers, you’re only choice is to be guided by the exam… Jeff:  Risk factors for compartment syndrome in the setting of a snake bite include envenomations in small children, involvement of digits, application of ice or cold packs, and delayed or inadequate antivenom administration. Nachi: In terms of respiratory effects of envenomations – they aren’t common.  Both bites to the head or neck and neurotoxin containing venom are potential causes. In the setting of respiratory failure, be prepared with advanced airway maneuvers like nasotracheal intubation or cricothyroidotomy. Antivenom will not reverse respiratory failure. Jeff: Neurologic effects may be present upon arrival but may also be delayed up to 12 hours in the case of eastern coral snake bites. Nachi: It’s noteworthy that in one study of almost 400 eastern coral snake exposures, the onset of systemic symptoms occurred on average 5.6 hours after the bite.  So definitely remember that repeat exams and observation will be tremendously important. Jeff:  The actual neurologic symptoms to look for depend on the snake.  Coral snake venom can produce a descending flaccid paralysis characterized by motor weakness, especially of the cranial nerves.  Similarly pit vipers, especially the Mojave rattlesnake, have also been associated with muscular weakness of the cranial nerves and even respiratory insufficiency. Nachi:  Pit viper envenomation can also lead to myokymia which is repetitive small muscle fasciculations.  Unfortunately, this myokymia may not respond to antivenom administration and myokymia of the chest well and torso can necessitate intubation in extreme cases.  Both myokymia and myonecrosis may lead to rhabdo in the case of significant envenomations. Jeff:  Pit viper envenomation can also cause hematologic effects.  Fibrinolysis and platelet consumption at the bit site can lead to decreased fibrinogen and thrombocytopenia.  In severe cases this can lead to systemic bleeding and even hemorrhagic shock.  Those on anticoagulants and anti-platelet agents are at increased risk. Nachi:  Dermal effects such as edema, ecchymosis, bullae, and bleeding are not uncommon, but up to 50% of coral snake bite victims may have none of these. Jeff:  And to round out this section – just be aware that rare effects such as osteonecrosis, ischemic stroke, massive PE, and septic shock have all been reported. Nachi: Let’s move on to diagnostic studies.  Most patients require a CBC, coags, and a fibrinogen concentration.  Those with systemic toxicity should also have their electroyltes, CPK, creatinine, glucose, and urine tested. Jeff:  And while the data is somewhat mixed, one study suggests that all patients with pit viper envenomations need their coags checked, not just those with severe symptoms as in one series nearly 90% of patients had missed coagulation abnormalities.  The clinical consequences of this aren’t clearly explained, so the authors don’t make a specific recommendation. Nachi:  In terms of imaging, a chest x-ray should be obtained in those with respiratory symptoms and ultrasound may even have an expanding role here for tracking edema, looking for fluid collections, and assessing deep muscle compartments and vascular flow. Jeff: I feel like we should get some entry music for every ultrasound reference because it seems to make its way into just about every episode. Nachi: What would it sound like? You bring this up every month. I’ll look into something for a future episode. If any of our listeners have a suggestion, shoot us an e-mail at emplify@ebmedicine.net. In terms of monitoring and observation, this is important, ALL patients with suspected pit viper envenomations should be observed for 8-12 hours with the leading edge marked every 15-30 minutes. Jeff:  In addition, serial diagnostic testing may also be needed as such changes will be used to guide treatment.  In those with systemic symptoms, lab testing will be required every 4-6 hours prior to discharge. Nachi:  Before we move onto treatment – let me quickly mention grading.  There is no universal grading system.  The snakebite severity score, the minimum-moderate-severe score, and grade 1-4 score which consider symptoms, exam findings, and lab abnormalities have all been studied.  None have been validated and none track changes, so the authors recommend relying on severity of symptoms and progression of symptoms to guide treatment. Jeff:  The crux of treatment for pit viper envenomations is with supportive care and anti-venom. Nachi:  FabAV or CroFab is the antivenom of choice for pit viper envenomations.  This antivenom is made from extracting the Fab portion of anti-venom antibodies from envenomated sheep and processing them with papain. Jeff:  Since the sheep are injected with venom from the western diamondback, eastern diamondback and Mojave rattlesnake as well as the cottonmouth, the FabAV is most effective against venom from these snakes, however it does have cross reactivity to other immunologically similar venoms. Nachi:  Indications for FabAV include a more than minimal local swelling, rapid progression of swelling, swelling crossing a major joint, evidence of hemotoxicity, signs of systemic toxicity including hemodynamic compromise, neuromuscular toxicity, and late or recurrent new-onset coagulopathy. Jeff:  Initially, dose FabAV as a bolus of 4-6 vials, IV.  With life threatening envenomations or those with cardiovascular collapse, double the starting dose to 8-12 vials.  The goal is arresting progression, improvement in coagulation abnormalities, and resolution of systemic symptoms. Nachi: Although FabAV will reduce the duration and severity of symptoms and lab abnormalities, it will not reverse tissue necrosis and may not reverse neurologic effects. Jeff:  Once the symptoms have been controlled after the bolus dose or a second bolus dose, maintenance dosing of 2 vials every 6 hours for 3 doses is recommended to prevent recurrence. Nachi:  So to reiterate.  4-6 vial bolus to start, doubled in severe cases and then 2 vials every 6 hours for 18 hours after that. Jeff:  You got it. Nachi:  And like most, maybe all medicines, there are side effects and contraindications to be aware of.  Hypersensitivity reactions and serum sickness to FabAV have been reported as 8% and 13% respectively.   Most are mild and can be treated with your standard bundle of steroids, antihistamines, fluids and epi. Jeff:  Risk factors for developing allergic reactions to FabAV include  a known allergy to papaya, papain, chymopapin, pineapple enzyme bromelain, and previous allergic reaction to FabAV. Nachi:  Although FabAV isn’t produced using copperhead venom, it may be effective in severe envenomations and in one study, FabAV reduced limb disability compared to placebo. Jeff:  Therefore, the authors very reasonably advise that you should use the patient’s clinical picture and individual factors rather than the snake species to guide your treatment. Nachi:  Interestingly, compartment syndrome should be treated with the initial 4-6 vial dose of antivenom and not necessarily a fasciotomy.  Fasciotomies have not been shown to improve outcomes and are reserved only for those failing anti-venom treatment. Jeff:  The reason for this is that antivenom may reduce tissue pressures obviating the need for fasciotomy.  In addition, fasciotomy wouldn’t affect muscle necrosis that is occurring so fascia removal really doesn’t solve anything. Nachi:  And just as anti-venom can be used to treat elevated compartment pressures, it can also be used to treat coagulopathy. Jeff:  Blood products should be used for those who are actively bleeding or severely anemic as venom does not discriminate and will destroy whatever blood it comes across. Nachi:  Recurrent and late onset coagulopathy after FabAV treatment has also been well described.   Although not exactly clear why, some speculate that it occurs for one of 4 reasons. 1) because the half life of FabAV is shorter than that of the venom, or 2) because the venom is initially stored in the soft tissues and then slowly released over time or 3) because the venom has a late onset component, or lastly, 4) there is delayed dissociation of the venom-antivenom complexes.  Regardless of the mechanism, late onset coagulopathy can be treated with FabAV. Jeff:  Luckily, bleeding associated with coagulopathy and bleeding associated with late onset coagulopathy are both extremely rare.   Nachi:  Moving on to coral snakes.  Coral snake bites should be treated with NACSA or North American Coral Snake anti-venom.  This antivenom halts or at least limits the progression of muscle paralysis and shortens the clinical course. Jeff:  Most experts recommend NACSA treatment with the first signs of systemic toxicity and not for all comers.  This recommendation is backed by the literature as in one observational study those treated with prophylactic NACSA did less favorably as compared to those who got it only after symptoms onset.  This is probably because NACSA doesn’t reverse neuromuscular weakness and only limits progression. Nachi:  And it’s not like you are just sitting by and watching while doing nothing – focus your initial treatment on wound care, pain control, and then observation for the development of systemic symptoms.  The exact length of observation will depend on the snake, but should be somewhere between 8 and 24h. Jeff:  As for dosing – the initial NACSA dose is 3-5 vials IV for both peds and adults with a repeat dose if the initial symptoms don’t improve. Nachi: Side effects and adverse reactions occur somewhere between 8-11% of the time with dermal reactions being most common and anaphylaxis being the most severe. Jeff: There is also one last anti-venom to be aware of – Coralmyn, for coral snake envenomations.  Coralmyn is a polyclonal antivenom F(ab’)2 coral snake antivenom, developed because the current lot of NACSA has technically expired although the date has been extended numerous times.  It’s currently in a phase 3 trial, so keep your eyes out. Nachi:  Other non-antivenom treatments that have been tested include acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and trypsin at the bite site – both should be considered experimental at this point. Jeff:  To wrap up the treatment section, let’s talk exotic snakes.  You may recall from the intro that these have a higher morbidity and mortality compared to native species. Nachi:  You will have to rely on your local poison control center or toxicologist for advice and you may even need to turn to the zoo or aquarium for antivenom, if it exists at all.  Patients with bites from exotic snakes should be monitored, likely in the ICU, for up to 24 hours as toxicity from some venom may have a delayed onset of up to 20 hours. Jeff:  Scary stuff, hopefully the patient knows which type of exotic snake they own and you don’t have to sort through a million google images to try to get to the bottom of this.  Anyway, there are 3 special populations to discuss.  First are pregnant patients. Nachi:  The authors cite a 1.4% incidence of snake bites in pregnant patients.  They note that this is low, but from my perspective, this seems shockingly high – why would a pregnant person ever get anywhere near a snake, seems just ill advised… Jeff:  haha, true.   But regardless, treatment is the same with antivenom as needed for all the same indications.  With fetal demise rates as high as 30%, in addition to maternal monitoring, the fetus should also be monitored. Nachi:  That number may seem high, but keep in mind that that’s from studies in other countries with more venomous snakes, so it’s likely to be lower in the US.  But the point remains, that antivenom is generally recommended to be given if the mother has indications for treatment, as poor fetal outcome is tied directly to the severity of envenomation in the mother. Jeff: Continuing right along, the next special population to discuss are pediatric patients.  Because dosing is based on the amount of venom delivered and not on patient specific factors, dosing is the same for peds and adults. Nachi:  How rare – so few meds seem to be the same for peds and adults.  The last population to discuss are anticoagulated patients.  Patients on antiplatelet or anti-coagulants are at increased risk of bleeding after pit viper envenomations and therefore should have their coags checked every 2 days following the last dose of FabAV. Jeff:  I think we’ve at least mentioned most of this months controversies, but it’s probably worth quickly reviewing them since they mostly dispel common myths. Nachi:  Good idea.  Incision and suction of snake bites is nearly universally not recommended. Jeff:  In the absence of ischemia, fasciotomy for snake bites is not recommended, even with elevated compartment pressures.  Instead treat compartment syndrome with anti-venom and save the fasciotomy for true cases of ischemia refractory to antivenom. Nachi:  With a known or suspected coral snake envenomation, due to shortages of NACSA, wait until the patient develops symptoms instead of empirically treating all bite victims. Jeff:  Maintenance dosing of FabAV continues to be debated.  The manufacturer recommends 2 doses every 6 hours for 3 doses while some experts recommend only maintenance dosing as needed.  It’s therefore probably safest to punt this to whatever poison control center or toxicologist you speak with. Nachi:  I feel like we are plugging the poison center a lot, but it’s such a good free, and usually very nice consult to have on your team. Jeff: Nice consultant – what a win!  Moving on to the cutting edge.  There is a new Crotalidae antivenom called Crotalidae Immune F(ab’)2 or, more simply, Anavip.  It should be available in the next few months.  The dosing will be 10 vials up front over 60 minutes followed by an additional 10 vials if the symptoms having been controlled.  4 more vials may be given for symptom recurrence.  Patients must be observed for a minimum of 18 hours after initial control of symptoms. Nachi: This would be a really nice development as Anavip has a longer half life and therefore should reduce the rates of late coagulopathy and decrease the need for maintenance dosing, follow up, and repeating coags. Jeff:  And finally, like we mentioned before, injection of the trypsin has been tried as a bridge to antivenom, as has carbon monoxide, which may mediate degradation of fibrinogen dependent coagulation. Nachi:  Alright, so let’s talk about the disposition next. Victims of pit viper envenomations should be monitored for 8-12 hours from the time of the bite.  They will need baseline labs and repeat testing ever 4-6 hours.  IF there is no progression of the symptoms and repeat testing is normal, the patient can be discharged. Jeff: Victims of coral snake bites should be admitted and observed for 12-24 hours regardless of symptoms. Nachi: Victims of rattle snake envenomations who initially develop hematologic abnormalities and are treated with FabAV should have repeat testing done in 2-4 days and 5-7 days. Jeff:  Wounds should also be closely followed to avoid complications and long term disfigurement and disability.  PT/OT may be necessary as well. Nachi:  Perfect, let’s round this episodes out with a review of the key points and clinical pearls from this month’s issue. There are about 10,000 ED visits in the US for snake bites each year, and 1/3 of these involve venomous species. Pit vipers produce a predominantly hemotoxic venom. Both local and systemic effects can occur. Systemic effects include tachycardia, tachypnea, hypotension, nausea, vomiting, weakness, and diaphoresis. In general, venomous snakes have a triangular or spade-like head, elliptical pupils, and hollow retractable fangs. In contrast, non-venomous snakes have a rounded head, round pupils, lack fangs, and can have a double row of vertical scales on the tail. Venomous North American coral snakes often have adjacent red and yellow bands, whereas their nonvenomous counterparts usually have a characteristic black band between the red and yellow bands. For prehospital care in the US, the following strategies are not recommended: incision or excision, use of venom extraction devices, tourniquets, chill methods, and electroshock therapy -- and they can all actually worsen outcomes.  Prehospital providers should focus on rapid transport. Be cognizant of compartment syndrome, but measure compartments when possible, as some envenomations present similarly but have only subcutaneous hypertension. Neurologic effects can be delayed up to 12 hours after coral snake envenomations. Symptoms can include a descending paralysis. For diagnostic testing, consider a CBC, coags, fibrinogen level, electrolytes, cpk, creatine, glucose, and urine studies.  All patients with envenomation should be observed for at least 8 hours. Mark the site of envenomation circumferentially to monitor for changes. Management of patients with snake bites should be treated with supportive care, pain control, and specific antivenom when indicated. FabAV or CroFab is the antivenom of choice for pit viper envenomations. Although FabAV will reduce the duration and severity of symptoms and lab abnormalities, it will not reverse tissue necrosis and may not reverse neurologic effects. Be aware of the possibility for a hypersensitivity reaction or serum sickness to FabAV. Treat with steroids, antihistamine, IV fluids, and epinephrine as appropriate. Coral snake envenomations can be treated with NACSA, which halts or at least limits the progression of muscle paralysis and shortens the clinical course.  Side effects to NACSA include dermal reaction as the most common -- and anaphylaxis as the most severe. Patients with bites from exotic snakes should be monitored, likely in the ICU, for up to 24 hours as toxicity from some venom may have a delayed onset of up to 20 hours. You may have to turn to your local zoo for help with anti-venoms here. Management of pregnant patients is the same as nonpregnant patients with regards to snake envenomations. Dosing of antivenom is based on the amount of venom. Dosing is the same regardless of the age of the patient. All patients requiring antivenom or with suspected envenomation should be admitted.  Seek consultation with your regional poison center and local toxicologist Jeff: So that wraps up the September 2018 episode of Emplify. Nachi: As always - the address for this month’s credit is ebmedicine.net/E0918, so head over there right away to get your credit.  Remember that the  you heard throughout the episode corresponds to the answers to the CME questions. Jeff: And don’t forget to grab your free issue of Synthetic Drug Intoxication in Children at ebmedicine.net/drugs specifically for emplify listeners. Feel free to share the link with your colleagues or through social media too. Next month we are talking sepsis and the ever frequently changing guidelines so it’s not something you want to miss.  Talk to you soon   Most Important References 4. *Lavonas EJ, Ruha AM, Banner W, et al. Unified treatment algorithm for the management of crotaline snakebite in the United States: results of an evidence-informed consensus workshop. BMC Emerg Med. 2011;11:2-227X-11-2. (Consensus panel) 6. *Bush SP, Ruha AM, Seifert SA, et al. Comparison of F(ab’)2 versus Fab antivenom for pit viper envenomation: a prospec­tive, blinded, multicenter, randomized clinical trial. Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2015;53(1):37-45. (Randomized controlled trial; 121 patients) 7. *Gerardo CJ, Vissoci JR, Brown MW, et al. Coagulation parameters in copperhead compared to other Crotalinae envenomation: secondary analysis of the F(ab’)2 versus Fab antivenom trial. Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2017;55(2):109-114. (Ran­domized controlled trial; 121 patients) 8. *American College of Medical Toxicology, American Acad­emy of Clinical Toxicology, American Association of Poison Control Centers, European Association of Poison Control Centres and Clinical Toxicologists, International Society on Toxinology, Asia Pacific Association of Medical Toxicology. Pressure immobilization after North American Crotalinae snake envenomation. Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2011;49(10):881-882. (Position statement) 10. *Wood A, Schauben J, Thundiyil J, et al. Review of eastern coral snake (Micrurus fulvius fulvius) exposures managed by the Florida Poison Information Center Network: 1998-2010. Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2013;51(8):783-788. (Retrospective; 387 patients) 48. *Cumpston KL. Is there a role for fasciotomy in Crotalinae envenomations in North America? Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2011;49(5):351-365. (Review) 75. *Walker JP, Morrison RL. Current management of copper­head snakebite. J Am Coll Surg. 2011;212(4):470-474. (Retro­spective; 142 patients) 81. *Kitchens C, Eskin T. Fatality in a case of envenomation by Crotalus adamanteus initially successfully treated with polyvalent ovine antivenom followed by recurrence of defibrinogenation syndrome. J Med Toxicol. 2008;4(3):180-183. (Case report) 118. *Hwang CW, Flach FE. Recurrent coagulopathy after rattle­snake bite requiring continuous intravenous dosing of anti­venom. Case Rep Emerg Med. 2015;2015:719302. (Case report)

That Blind Tech Show Rolls Again. Bryan brings Allison and Jeff back to the sho to talk about some of the latest Tech news, gidgets and gadgets and the latest from Sonos. We are proud to announce that Twitterrific for the Mac is Back, Downcast just got an update and AOL Messenger is no longer. Jeff gives us an update on the fire that hit Enchanted Hills Camp above Napa, CA and how we can all contribute and support #RebuildEHC. Be sure to check the links below to learn more about what the heck we were talking about. :) Check out the Twitterrific Blog and Subscribe to keep up with the latest from iConFactory Google Bought Apple or Did they! Twitterrfic for Mac is here How to get apps back in iTunes 10 Safari Long Press Shortcut Gestures. Do you remember to ever long press? Read more about Enchanted hills Camp #RebuildEHCand contribute what you can and lend your support. Give by phone: Call Jennifer Sachs at 415-694-7333   See Transcription below.   Thank you for listening. Send us Feedback via email Follow us on Twitter @BlindTechShow   That Blind Tech Show is produced in part by Blind Abilities Network.   You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Transcription: That Blind Tech Show: Twifferrific on the Mac and Downcast is Back andSonos Gets 1 Bigger. (Transcription provided) [Music] Alison: Sonos One's which are the newest iteration of the play one, are the ones that have Lady A built-in. [Music] Alison: I did put the Eyes Free Fitness app on my phone and I'm hoping that you know buying some of the workouts for that, I will literally have no excuse not to, not to do it because my phone is always with me no matter where I go. Bryan: Somebody in New Zealand had something about unboxing one very early before the rest of the world which..... Alison: Oh yes Jonathan was very very happy that you know when he get, when these items come out he gets them a day ahead everyone else because New Zealand is a day ahead. Bryan: He should let people know that. [Laughter] Alison: He really doesn't gloat about that enough, but yeah. Jeff: So Alison you use your phone on a daily basis. [Laughter] Alison: The face ID, I'm still, I find myself still kind of getting used to this new thing called face ID. Jeff: I want to see the Grinch again this year. Bryan: So you want me to come visit? [Laughter] Big smiles okay, three, two one, welcome back to yet another episode of that blind tech show. I know it's been a very long time since we've been here in fact you've probably heard a lot of us on other great technology podcasts. I know our friend Allison Hartley recorded one of her regular tech doctor podcasts as well as she was on with the great people over at main menu. And you may have heard Jeff Thompson on with AT Banter and I believe he's got another podcast coming out with the good folks over at Mystic Access and you may have heard me on Blind Bargains but we finally got the band back together again and we're here to talk you through some of the holidays and the goings on now, so I'm going to go ahead and say yeah how you doing over there Allison. Alison: I'm doing okay, it's the day three of a four-day weekend so I'm just kind of milking the the time off work for all it's worth, I've been reading good books that I'll talk about later and eating lots of food, lots of pie, so much pie. Bryan: There's never such a thing as too much pie. Alison: No never. Bryan: What about you Jeff, how has your Thanksgiving holiday been? Jeff: Well pie is a continuum. Alison: Yep. Jeff: It's been great here, I've been bacheloring it, the family's been gone, and I'm living it here with the dogs, happy Thanksgiving, it's Thanksgiving everyday now. Bryan: I'm actually down in Florida still recording you see, we're all about bringing you the show. Holidays don't stop us. One thing I was very excited though on the plane ride down here, I was very excited some of you might have heard about therapy pigs getting kicked off planes. [Pig noises] I'm happy to report there was no therapy pig on my plane down here, just get old Nash in me. How about you Allison, have you ever been on a plane with a therapy Pig? Alison: I have never been on the plane with anything more exciting than another guide dog, I have to say. Bryan: What about you Jeff have you ever traveled with any pigs? Jeff: No but it, it would wouldn't be that bad if it was therapy bacon. Alison: Oh yeah. Bryan: That is true, that is true and for those of you not hear about that story it's actually not the first time a therapy pig has gotten kicked off a plane so, go ahead and check that out, it was one of the more humorous stories and, you know, it's great that they stand up for our rights as guide dog service dog users, but seriously, therapy pigs. [Pig noises] Now Allison, I think you're probably the only disappointed one because I'm hearing the Soup Nazi said no soup for you, no home pod for you this year? Alison: Yeah I mean I have really no reason to be disappointed. I have speakers coming out of my ears. [Spring noise and laughter] Alison: Quite literally right now cuz I'm wearing headphones but, I am, I am still interested in getting the home pod when it comes out, home pods I should say, cuz I want to get a stereo pair. I have my Lady A controlled Sonos speakers now, and I'm finding that that is honestly filling a lot of my needs in terms of playing satellite radio and playing any song that I could possibly think of. I do still want to get the home pods because I hear that the sound quality is gonna be even that much better than the Sonos speakers, but I'm not, I'm not tearing my hair out, if these new Sonos hadn't come out I might have been a bit more disappointed, but I'm okay. Jeff: Now you said they're gonna be better sounding than the Sonos? Alison: They are, they're going to have more tweeters and better far-field microphones for understanding you, the only limitation in my opinion it's gonna be Siri, I know this is a controversial subject on an Apple themed podcast but, Siri is terrible. Bryan: You will get no argument out of me, Siri and I, we're not even dating anymore, the relationship is over and.... Unfortunately this is not surprising news, Apple you know when they used to meet their deadlines, we talked about it this summer, it was a little odd that Apple was talking about this, it almost reminds me of you know back 10 years ago when they used to say there's an attack coming, it's not coming today, it's not coming tomorrow, but it's coming, and I kind of feel that's the same thing with (inaudible) Alison: Yeah. Bryan: Apple pod, they're not gonna be out today, they're not gonna be out tomorrow, but they will be out, probably around the same time that the Amazon app comes to the Apple TV. Alison: I would, I would say you're probably right there, and I would say that when they do come out they're gonna be a couple of years behind all of the other smart speakers with better AI. It's really, it's kind of gonna be sad almost. I really I want to see Apple push forward in this arena, but unfortunately you know, I, I've played now with Google assistant, I've had a Lady A in my life, I have been playing even with Bixby on a, on a Samsung phone, and yes you give something up in terms of your data, and in terms of your privacy, but when you're putting security above all, the AI, and the assistance itself becomes very limited in what it can do, and it's really starting to show in Siri when there are so many more worthy competitors. Bryan: Yeah, the Apple really missed the boat on the the home assistant and you know, Tim Cook was wishy-washy on it for several years and now it's just gonna be a speaker, I really have no interest, I mean I'm very happy with my Echo devices, heck, I got a small apartment you know, I've got one in the living room. They're $30.00 now over you know, the weekend... Alison: God Yeah. Bryan: I just don't have, I'm like, well do I really need another one, and I'm like, I've got one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and I don't spend much time in the kitchen so you know it's, there's no point really in getting another one but I, you just can't say no at that price and, how was the Google assistant, did you like it? Alison: I do, I actually I have a Google home speaker that I don't have plugged in at this point but on the Galaxy I mean it's just, you can just ask random questions and instead of saying, let me check the web for that, here's what I found, it actually just gives you the answer to your flipping question. Bryan: Yeah. Alison: It's really amazing and then you can ask like follow-up questions and it jives with what you were talking about and it answers intelligently. I just, you know maybe the home pod speakers will come out and something about Siri will blow us out of the water or something out of the speakers, about the speakers will blow everything else out of the water because they've had a little bit more time, but I'm starting to get a little impatient with Apple's obsession with, I know they want to get it right, and I know they want to have a really polished user experience, but that user experience is starting to suffer because of that need to be so meticulous, and so perfect. Jeff: Well I think they've actually, having it come out next year might be a good plan for their stocks in a way because people are buying the eight, or the ten, those are big items, and you're talking about $349.00 here. It's hard to comBryan when everybody else is you know flooding the market with these $29.00 minis, and dots, and Amazon, what do they have seven different items now in this department? The Look, the Show, the Tap. Alison: Now Google has three, I mean, it's a lot. Bryan: And, I'm hearing about headphones, Bose, I think there is a set of Bose headphones which you know, I couldn't afford those, but that have the Google Home built into them so we're starting to see more and more even headphones with these kind of assistants built into them and, I think Apple, you know, they've just been left behind and, not every company needs a home assistant so, I really don't see what the marketplace unless you are a big music listener, you know, or have capitol to spend, I really don't see the point to it, I guess I don't have a fine ear for music because I think the Echo speaker sounds fantastic and everybody I know that's into music says, "Are you kidding?" Alison: Oh no, oh God, no no no no no. Especially the Dot. The Dot is barely passable for spoken word, but even the big Echo, drives me crazy because it tries to simulate fake stereo, but it doesn't quite get it right on the one speaker so, it's, it drives me nuts. Bryan: What's the opposite of perfect pitch? Because that's what I have. [Laughter] Jeff: Either you have it, or you don't. Alison: Yeah. [Laughter] Jeff: So with the Sonos, you have two of them, that's the Sonos one you have two of them. Alison: Yep. Jeff: That does perfect stereo? Alison: It does, yeah I have them equal distant from each other on a table, and the stereo separation is amazing, it's really beautiful. Jeff: Oh that's great. Bryan: Are there multiple different kinds of Sonos? I've just heard phenomenal things about Sonos speakers, or is there one product line or are there different kind of product lines for the Sonos speakers. Alison: There are in the non smart, non Lady A connected Sonos products, there are three, well four technically different tiers of Sonos products, and it all depends on the number of tweeters that are in each speaker, and with all of them you can pair to get a stereo pair with the Play Ones, Play Threes, and Play Fives, but they become very expensive, and they have a sound bar, and they have a subwoofer for the television, but you couldn't pair Lady A with a skill now, to make all of your Sonos products somewhat controllable via Lady A, but the Sonos One's which are the newest iteration of the Play One, they look exactly the same except they have microphones, are the ones that have Lady A built-in. Bryan: Yeah well everything, everything seems to be getting smarter except Apple News, which you know, I often go through Apple news and my subscriptions when I'm putting this show together and, lately I've been noticing there's about two articles and then everything goes back six weeks, and they just don't seem to be coming out with a lot of content and as Jeff and I were talking about, a lot of ads you'll see an article, title of an article, title of an article, then an advertisement, and then a bunch of text, this is something about Apple and an ad and everything. Jeff have you been using Apple News, and have you noticed how down hill it seems to have gone? Jeff: I've noticed it's changing a little bit at first, the ads you can't even read the ads because that, all it does is give you description of it, and you have to skip over it, so they're not trying to sell to the blind. The thing that I noticed about Apple News is Apple shuts down at about four o'clock on Friday, there's no new news, they just kind of rehash the same stuff until Monday, and it's just like looking for an app update. If I get one on on Saturday/Sunday, someone paid extra to have that pushed out. Bryan: Yeah maybe I should go back to Newsify and actually reading my RSS feed for technology news. I'm not seeing that much content coming through there, I was I was really excited when Apple news came out because I thought it was gonna be great and I enjoyed it at first, I was using it all the time, but now I'm seeing less and less content and a lot of that content, there's nothing worse than when you're reading an article and like a paragraph into the article, all of a sudden advertisement is starts being read to you... Alison: Yep. Bryan: It drives me absolutely bonkers, and Jeff you actually said, and I'm curious because I read a lot of television recaps in Safari, where I'll say, Arrow episode, season six episode three recap, and it will, I'll find an article that will describe the action and a lot of times these articles, a paragraph in it starts reading an ad to me, you just got a pop-up blocker, now do you think those pop-ups might block those in article advertisements, or just really block pop-ups. Jeff: Actually it's not a pop-up blocker, that is native to the Safari app where you can turn that on or off and it blocks pop-ups. Now some colleges, if you're a college student, they use pop-up so you might want to beware that you might be shutting off something and not being able to gain access to so, try it out. What I got was Purify and that's P U R I F Y, it's a content blocker, and when you get that you, you purchase it, and I got it for a dollar ninety nine, I don't know if that was a Black Friday deal or a special over the holidays but, a dollar ninety-nine, it's very popular app according to Nick, my buddy up in Canada, and what it does is it works on your browser. So what you do is you purchase it and then you have to go into your Safari app settings, go down and just below pop-up blocker, you're gonna find content blocker, and then you have to enable it by turning it on. Bryan: Allison, have you ever used any kind of pop-up or ad blockers or anything? Alison: I do also use Purify and I find that that eliminates a lot of the ads on the websites that I use. What I love now also is reader mode for specific websites in iOS11, if you activate reader now, it's an actionable item and you can go to Auto reader and you can tell it that I either want reader to be active on this website all the time or, all the time for everything, so I have some very specific websites for which I just have reader all the time and I never have to worry about any extra crap on the webpage. Bryan: Where is that setting where you could set it specifically for an individual website? Alison: When you actually turn on reader and you've got reader selected, then there's an actions available, it might even be available for you to select it, and one of the actions is automatic reader when you flick down. You double tap that and then it comes up with a message that says do you want to enable reader for all websites or just on this domain and, you could turn it on for just on this website, and so like 9 to 5 Mac for example and a couple of other more the, more of the busy Apple news sites, I have since I do so much Twitter reading on my phone, I've got automatic reader turned on and it's changed everything. Bryan: Yeah that's something I'll have to, you know I I use the reader all the time, but I, and I remember hearing about, that you know, you hear, about so many new settings but I've never played around with it so, that's something I'm really gonna have to make use of, and by the way if you're out there and if you know of any specific ad popup blocker that might work in individual apps, let us know, you could tweet us in at BlindTechShow or shoot us in an email at thatblindtechshow@ gmail.com, let us know about that. This next thing is really interesting because I was down here listening, I have an app where I'm able to get any NFL audio feeds and everything, and the one thing that drives me bonkers because my dad's a little older so sometimes he forgets is I'm watching the Washington Redskins game here on Thanksgiving with him and I'm listening to the Redskins radio, the only problem is streaming audio is a good minute and a half to two minutes behind real time, and he keeps commenting about what's on TV and it's just driving me insane, I'm like Dad, remember it hasn't happened again you know, so, one thing that would be nice is if FM radio actually just worked on your iPhone which supposedly it could according to this article, we'll put in the show notes that it's built into the phone but Apple just will not activate it. Have you guys been following this story? I know it's been in the news a lot lately. Alison: I've heard two things about this, I've heard that Apple for whatever reason has just decided not to activate it but then I've also heard that the newer modems actually don't have the FM radio so it's a moot point. Bryan: Mmm okay, what about you Jeff if you've been following along to this? Jeff: Yeah I have but, you know it's to me it's like, is it, is it, am I dying for it, I don't know, I really don't know. Bryan: I think it'd be nice, just, you know to be in real time. I don't understand why they can't get streaming audio to be at least maybe you know a second or two behind. I mean it's just such a significance difference, I've got it put on do not disturb, otherwise I'll get notifications about a score in a game, you know, before it happened. The fascinating thing is during the, the Yankees playoff run, I went to my local bar with a pair of my head with the headphones with FM radio, and sure enough FM radio would get it like 30 seconds before television would. [Laughter] Alison: So there's no perfect solution. Bryan: No, there's not, I'd be like, I'd yell out "damn it" and people were like "What are you talking about, they've yet to throw the pitch". [Laughter] So yeah, there's there's no perfect solution. Jeff: I like tuneIn radio, I like stuff like that. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: If there's an emergency or something we got those alarms that go off and everything. I don't see myself turning it on, I don't know, it's just, it so interesting, there's so many resources, so many different avenues that I can get information that, just one more to be on the phone and then, where's my antenna. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: You know it's, now that we're Bluetooth everything so, do we have to wrap it in tinfoil? I don't know. Bryan: You just hold it up in the air while you're walking down the street like an umbrella. [Laughter] Am I getting a signal now? Damn it, the signal is better over here. You know it's funny because the one thing my headphones don't get is AM radio. Jeff: I think it's just as important to think about this. Now do we really want that on there because everyone was so excited when like your Amazon device could make phone calls. As soon as you make that phone call you're standing there for about two minutes going I can't walk away. Alison: Yeah, yeah. Jeff: It's not fun. Bryan: No no no, like I've said for a very long time, the worst app on the iPhone is the phone, and it's also my least used app. I wonder if I could take it out of the dock and put it on like page nine. [Laughter] Alison: You could yeah. Bryan: Yeah, you know it's funny yeah I've been down here in Florida like I said for a week and everything, so I've been in a lot of automobiles which in New York City you know I'm not in cars a lot, and I've noticed my phone still thinks I'm driving sometimes. Alison: My phone thinks I'm driving when I'm not even in a car, like I'll be laying in bed and all of a sudden that do not disturb while driving thing will pop up and I'll be like I'm just reading a book, can you go away? [Laughter] Bryan: But do you have a waterbed so maybe you're moving. [Laughter] Jeff: Too much coffee. Alison: Unfortunately no waterbed, but it's crazy I wish, I have it set on activate manually, so it should not be popping up at all, but it's driving me nuts. Bryan: Real quick for a millennial crowd, water beds were beds with water in them in the 1980s. [Laughter] Look them up. Jeff: California has regulations on waterbeds. Alison: Yeah. [Laughter] Right. Jeff: The other thing is someone told me about the notifications you know that, while you're in a car if you turn it to what is that the Bluetooth setting in your car mode, that that's supposed to trigger it, I don't know sometimes that some things are on, some things are off, I don't know. Bryan: Yeah, and I've got mine set the manual where I'm supposed to be able to turn it on, I have read in a lot of places and I think we may all be running different versions of betas, or some people may be having this problem, others may not and supposedly some people claim it's fixed in a certain beta. I don't even know if I'm running that beta, I think I'm one update behind, you know there's been so many betas out that I can't keep up with them, and a lot of updates coming out too, I notice all the time I seem to have like 80 to 90 updates every few days cuz, I self update, what about you? I know you guys self-medicate, do you self update? Alison: Well I'm constantly working on self improvement, self updating, oh oh you mean apps, yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: The apps, I like to make sure tha,t I like to read those little release notes, and the worst is we update our app fairly regularly, we're not going to tell you what we're doing. Alison: Nope. Jeff: If you get a self-improvement app, would that be self defeating? [Laughter] Bryan: I don't know, you know what, email us and let us know what you think. You know a lot of people are big fans of the Star Wars saga, but have you guys been following the blindfold game saga. Alison: It's been it's been rather epic. Bryan: It has, there's been multiple parts you know. We had, we even had my favorite was Blindfold game Strikes Back you know. Alison: And they did to their credit. Bryan: They did, they struck back hard. I'm a, you know I am a big fan of the games. Blindfold Uno, I've bought plenty of them, I know some people don't like them, I think Marty does a phenomenal job and, God I love the trivia games, and there's nothing like when you've got a, you're sitting in the store you got a few minutes to kill. I've actually set my Blindfold Uno to unlimited scoring so I've got like thirty thousand points in there, it just keeps... [Laughter] Every time the computer gets within ten thousand points of me I think it's cheating you know, but, he really does a great job with a lot of those games. Marty is a businessman and he makes these games you know, out of his love of making games for the community as well as to make money and... Alison: Sure why not. Bryan: I couldn't believe what, when Apple was telling him he needed to roll them into tab less apps in the App Store. It really seemed like Apple didn't know what they were talking about I, you know you could Google Marty's website, I'm not sure the exact site but blindfoldgames.com probably, or just google it, and he's got a blog that'll explain everything that happened if you're not aware of it but, I was really shocked at the stance Apple took against him starting out. Alison: I can summarize briefly if you'd like. Bryan: Sure. Alison: I've been fairly involved in reading about it. So essentially what happened was, and there's a whole detailed timeline on the website. Bryan: Start with episode 1. Alison: In episode one Apple was going through the review process for some iOS11 related updates for Marty's games and they noticed that a lot of the games used the same template. Now Apple technically has a rule that apps cannot be clones of one another, and not looking at the content of the games which are all different decided that these games are too similar and so we're going to have to reject these updates because they have the templates are too similar and you have to make the the gameplay different. Well the whole beauty of the blindfold games is once you know how to play one, you can pretty much figure out you know, several more, so Marty defended himself and said look while these templates are all very similar, the content within them is very different, but Apple didn't want to hear it, they heard, they're like 80 apps is too much. You have to compile them into less. Bryan: A handful, yeah. Alison: Amounts of apps. So Marty's stance, with which I agree, is that then that would make the apps too large to download because they all contain different voice files, and sound effects, so they're already you know pretty sizable downloads anyway, and it would hurt discoverability. For example if all the card games were in one app, somebody might only play one or two, and that might hurt his chances at making more revenue, and the man has got to be able to make some sort of money off it. Bryan: Sure. Alison: I get it. So eventually it came down to a lot of members of the community myself included, advocating with Apple to make them understand that this is a different type of situation than just the average you know, Yahoo up there trying to clone a bunch of flappy bird apps for example. And it worked, they understood, they eventually understood and had a conversation with Marty about, hey we understand that these games are different and now it's it's okay, when the review was passed and Marty at one point he was going to be taking down the games because he just didn't have the resources, either financial, or time wise to do the rewrites that Apple was starting with, so I'm really glad that this ended up, ending happily, and I got into some, some real Twitter spats with a couple of people who really think that, that oh, it's just blind people whining. No, it's, it's people advocating for games, which are truly different in the App Store, and yes blindness does have a little bit to do with it because we have a shortage of accessible games as it is, so don't take our choices away. Bryan: Would you summarize saying basically that Marty basically after the the Clone Wars beat the Empire? Alison: He did. Bryan: Yes. Yes. [Laughter] A Star Wars theme, yeah, no, not to make light of it, it was great that Apple reversed it's course and, Jeff, any comments? Where you following along on the Blindfold saga? Jeff: I was more or less following Allison on Twitter, I'm stalking again Allison. Alison: Oh no. Jeff: But Jonathon Mosan wrote a letter, other people in the community got going on, it was nice to see everybody come together for that you know, like some people were pretty negative, they were saying like "oh yeah, they come together this, but not for jobs" Alison: Some people were jerk faces about it, and I will call them out for that. Jeff: Other people were saying like "Oh Apple, they played the blind card to Apple" it's not that, it's like Allison just explained, it's more like that. It is kind of neat to sit back and watch how different people rise up to certain things and other people take sides, you know the bottom line is the guy is doing something. he has to make money. If he bundles them all up, and you only like one of them, you're not going to buy 8 you know, it makes sense, business sense for him, and I'm glad Apple saw it that way. Bryan: I think he's got a great price plan, because you know, yes, he's got a ton of games you know, nobody buy them all. You could test them out, you know he gives you a free amount of games with each one which I think is fantastic. How many mainstream games out there allow you to test it out before buying it? Alison: It's true. Bryan: So basically what we are saying Marty, "Stay Strong!" Jeff: And may the Force be with you. Bryan: You know something that just came to the app store new and I, I've gotta actually take a look at this, because I haven't exercised since last millennium, The Eyes Free Fit, you know Blind Alive some of you may know it as, I looked up Blind Alive, i couldn't find anything related to exercising. But if you look it up under Eyes Free Fitness, and this just came to the app store last week, and I looked through it, you gotta buy the programs, but it looks like they got a ton of different exercises in there, and I know they've been around for quite a while and on a lot of podcasts. Have either of you guys ever done any of their exercise programs? Alison: A long time ago I bought Cardio Level 1, and it is really great, and really descriptive. I did it a couple of times, I'm really bad with sticking with exercise routines no matter how accessable they are. So, it's really a motivation issue, its not an issue with the workouts themselves, but now I did put the Eyes Free Fitness app on my phone and I am hoping that, you know buying some of the workouts through that, i will literally have no excuse not to do it because my phone is always with me no matter where I go. Bryan: Yeah. How about yourself Jeff? You're an outdoor mountain man, have you ever indoor exercised? Jeff: I was actually testing her website with her so I got to get a few of those and she was next to me in the booth at ACB in 2016. It was in Minneapolis, it was really fun, it's really great that she's taken it to this level now that, you can even hook it up to your health app inside your phone too so.... Bryan: Wait a minute, there's a health app in the phone? [Laughter] Jeff: Page 9 Brian, Page 9. Alison: Page 11 yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: It's next to all of my pizza services. [Laughter] Jeff: So I suggest if people want it, it's Eyes Free Fitness, it's well described, that's the whole intent of it. She uses people who are professionally trained to come up with these exercise routines, but then there's also some stretching ones, and all that stuff. So it's pretty versatile, and they got some Yoga stuff in there, and then there's.... Alison: Pilates. Jeff: Yeah, lots of good stuff in there. Bryan: Yeah, yeah, my only complaint about this app and what she does, is she makes the rest of us look lazy. [Laughter] Can I set a New Years resolution in November, where that's my plan is to, exercise and, you know, a lot of people say they want to get in better shape. I would just like to get into a shape so.... [Funny sound effect and laughter] Alison: See it's a good time for me to get back into this because now I'm walking everyday with Gary with our neighborhood in Napa being so walkable that I actually am in a little bit better shape, so I feel like these exercises would be really great, you know especially if on the weekends when we walk less, it would really help me to get in even better shape. I'm still a far cry off from where I want to be and I still eat to much, but that'll never change. [Laughter] Bryan: I don't even eat that much, I just eat all of the wrong things, I've learned if I like it, it's bad for you. Alison: Yeah, that's kinda where I'm at too, I don't find that I eat these ginormous portions, I mean although I do like a healthy portion of food, but yeah, it's not the good things. It's a little light on the leafy green vegetables and such, although I like fruit. Jeff: You know one of the main things about exercise and all this stuff that we're talking about is the mindset and it takes a while to get your mind wrapped around it. I've been using a trainer for, it'll be coming up on a year and I finally got my mind wrapped around it after 10 months. I mean, it really takes something, I used to be in really good shape, I used to do a lot of stuff, I used to run and all sorts of stuff. But I am not being chased anymore so... you know. Bryan: It's may favorite line, "Do you still run?" "Only when chased" [Laughter] Jeff: Yeah, I think people who want to get back into it sometimes it takes a little commitment. You can buy these from $19.00 to $25.00 or something like that, but you have it, you can do it in the privacy of your own home, it's accessible, and it describes all of the stances, all the positions, well described steps, so if that's what it takes to get your mindset involved in it, it might be a good start for you. Alison: Yeah. Yeah can get as of out of breath or sweaty as you want, as quickly as, however quickly it takes and it doesn't matter because it's just you and yeah. Jeff: But make sure you have your phone notifications for driving set right. [Laughter] Bryan: Either that or in my kind of condition make sure you have 911 on speed dial. [Laughter] I got a good work out there, you know we're recording this the day after Black Friday, it's not even Cyber Monday yet but you'll hear this after Cyber Monday, and it was a low tech Black Friday for me because I got some clothes and everything, no technology but I wanted to ask you guys, what about yourself Allison was it a techie Black Friday Cyber Monday for you or no? Alison: No cuz I, I bought what I want throughout the year, I don't, I don't have the the impulse control to wait three months for something to go on sale on Black Friday, I just buy it when I, when I have the money and what I want it / need it. So Black Friday / Cyber Monday are always kind of a bit of a letdown for me cuz I'm like, oh this thing's on sale, oh wait, I already have it, this thing's on sale, wait I already have it. ]Laughter] Bryan: Got it got it got it got it got it need it you know. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: I just went shopping at Allison's place, I just walk to her house. [Laughter] I'll take that, that, that. [Laughter] Ain't got it, ain't got it, ain't got it. Bryan: You know it's not a big tech year for me because I'm not upgrading, I do need to get a new key chain cuz I have one of those key chains with the Lightning charger and for some reason the Lightning charger broke off of the key chain so, one of the things I heard somebody talking about was you know I've got all these kind of what I call lipstick chargers where you have to plug the cord into the charger. I heard they now got a charger out there that has the lightning charger built into it as well as a USB built into it and I think I'm gonna probably get something like that. Alison: Send me that when you find it. Because, send me the link, yeah because that is something, you know, I love my anchor batteries. I have the ones that are like even 20 thousand milliamps witch are a little bit bigger but I just put them in my purse, but yeah you've got to have the little the cables for your Apple watch and for your micro USB devices and your, your lightning cables all together and it's just it's a little bit much, it gets to be a little bit much to carry around. Jeff: Jack really makes a couple of these. One is a six thousand, one is a ten thousand fifty claiming that X needs more power so they made that one. They do have two cords, one is the Lightning port cord and the other is for all the Android stuff, your mini USB plug, and there's a third you can plug a USB into it so you technically you can actually have three by both outputs going at one time. My concern since their dedicated cables on there, are you committed to that if, what if the cable goes bad you know, I, I don't know but it does get a 4.5 out of 5 ratings on Amazon. Myself I like the big ones. Alison: Oh yes send me that one. Jeff: Cuz size does matter. Alison: It does. [Laughter] Bryan: Hey hey, this is a PG podcast. [Laughter] Alison: What, we're talking about, we're talking about batteries. Bryan: Oh. Jeff: I must admit I like big batteries. Bryan: I've heard that about you. Now Allison you've had the iPhone for a while now what are your thoughts? Alison: I basically really like it, it's nice and fast, I like the size, I have it in a leather case because it's glass on both sides and I do not trust myself with glass on both sides and I have dropped it and the leather case has saved me a couple of times. The face ID I'm still, I find myself still kind of getting used to this new thing called face ID. I find that it's very accurate. I find that even when it doesn't get your face it learns from the experience and it has been consistently doing better but it's not as fast as touch ID, the gestures for bringing up home and app switcher are pretty fluid and elegant I think. Bryan: Are you used to doing those after having the press on the home button for so long or does it take a little training yourself? Alison: I'm used to it now, I've had the thing now for a couple of weeks so I've gotten it back into my, into my muscle memory now that this is just what you have to do because there's no home button and luckily I'm not using any other older devices to confuse me, that's convenient but yeah it's it's never going to be as fast I don't think. Jeff: So Alison you use your phone on a daily basis? [Laughter] Alison: Pretty much almost every minute of every day. Bryan: Are you happy with the purchase, are you happy with the upgrade? Alison: I am because I wanted, I wanted the latest and greatest technology and now I've got it and I realized that sometimes that comes with some caveats so I am happy with it, there are some times though when I have just become resigned to entering in my passcode. For example if I'm laying in bed and I want to unlock my phone, I don't want to have to sit up put the phone all the way in front of my face, get face ID to authenticate me, wake up the husband, wake up the dog, so I just enter in the passcode and it's that's even become a little bit faster. Bryan: My dad was having trouble with his phone recently and I finally found out what the problem was. Alison: Yeah. Bryan: He's running an iPhone 4. [Laughter] Alison: Oh for goodness sakes. Bryan: Yeah, I said.... Jeff: Wait, you, you said it's running. Bryan: Yeah, barely, yeah he can make phone calls that's about it, I said no wonder you're having so many issues with everything else and yeah, he's getting ready to get a new one because my mom did order the iPhone 10 and he's gonna get the hand-me-down. I guess he's gonna move up to a 6 which is all he really needs. Alison: Yeah. Oh that'll be quite an upgrade for him. Bryan: Oh yeah, yeah, so but, my mom's got the 10 coming, she's got the, she ordered it online and has the two to three week wait so, I will not, not get to play around with it while I'm down here and everything but I've been you know listening to you on with Dr. Robert Carter not to be confused with Dr. Richard Kimble. Not that anybody but me. Alison: Not to be confused with John Kimble yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: I thought of Richard Kimble immediately but I'm probably the only one that did that so but you know you guys had a great walkthrough of the iPhone 10 and somebody in New Zealand had something about unboxing one very early before the rest of the world which... Alison: Oh yes Jonathan was very very happy that you know, when these items come out he gets them a day ahead of everyone else because New Zealand is a day ahead. Jeff: He should let people know that. [Laughter] Alison: He really doesn't gloat about that enough no but yeah. Bryan: Allison did I hear you do laundry every now and then? Alison: Every now then, you know I, the house-elves or my husband will not comply and I have to do my own. Bryan: Are you testing out that new GE, was it the GE product that you're testing out? Alison: Yeah so, so I have purchased the GE talking laundry box and actually we were in the market for a new washer and dryer anyway so we got the compatible washer and dryer and I've actually been doing a lot more of my own laundry and enjoying the heck out of it now that we have this talking machine because it's so easy to set all you really have to worry about is the start button and the little knob that controls the settings because the different wash cycles, because it verbalizes everything, you turn the knob, it verbalizes if you're on like cold wash, or towels and sheets, or casual wear, or bulky items, and you press Start and it says starting load on bulky items with an estimated 70 minutes remaining and there's a button on the box that you can press if you need an update of what, of time remaining and the dryer is much the same you just mess with the one knob, you can set your cycle and it just works. Our old washer and dryer we had the little arrows marked, but the one thing would spin, and there was another arrow that you could accidentally move, and Jeremy was really the only person who could set it without getting the other thing to spin, so I'm glad to be able to have some agency over my laundry once again. Bryan: And this works with all GE washer and dryers I believe right? Alison: So on the website it does say that it is, should be compatible with most, it should be compatible with the ones that have the ports in the back, the technician ports, but then it says these are the compatible models and it lists just a couple of different models. Slightly more expensive, that are compatible, I think that you can get this to work with older GE models if it has the port for technicians to hook up, but it's better I think in terms of the software working is optimally as it can if you can buy the the newer ones. Bryan: Yeah full disclaimer if your washer and dryers from 1974 and is GE..... Alison: Probably not going to work. Jeff: I do laundry and the thing on my washer and dryer mostly my washer is, there's that plastic cover that covers things up so you can't really tell the dial, so I took a needlenose pliers, it was excruciating sounds but I got that piece off of there, then I put some little markers on there, so now I just put my finger down there and I just turn it and everyone uses it that way so, yeah I don't recommend anybody to take a needle nose and tear that apart unless you know what you're doing but, yeah that's how I access that. Bryan: Yeah when you're like me and you live in New York it's great because I've got like fluff and fold where they pick it up and deliver it and it's pretty cheap and yeah I'm spoiled like that I think I've mentioned that on the show before. One of the things we did want to mention to the listeners if you do not have knfb reader you're just making your life harder, and it's a phenomenal app, I believe and don't quote me on this but I believe it's on sale at least through Christmas for about 50% off. Normally it's $100.00, I believe now it's $49.95. Go ahead and get that app, you'll make your life a lot easier if you want to read your bills or anything along that. Jeff: I really think if you're a student that that's the app to have. Seeing AI is a good app for a convenience, it's just a quick shuffle through the mail, but if you're gonna do bulk reading or if you want to save it and all sorts of things, you know, that's a workhorse the knfb reader app. Alison: I agree. Bryan: Yeah luckily I think all of us have easy names to pronounce, but I have a friend named Keith Strohak, and every time I tell Siri call Keith Strohak, it says did you mean Keith Sholstrum, did you mean Keith Beyer. It drives me bonkers, I have to go in and manually do it and I will put this link in the show notes. Did you know that you could teach Siri how to save names properly? Jeff: Mm-hmm. Alison: Yeah. Bryan: Okay I was the one who didn't. By the way ask Siri to pronounce Charlize Theron because I heard that's another name that she can't pronounce. Alison: Oh boy. Bryan: Yeah so if you're if you're one of those people and your name is Mustafi Mustafasin or something, go ahead and read this link and you know, maybe you could teach Siri how to read your name and everything. Jeff: The trick about it is that it asks you for the first name and then it asked for the second name, well I didn't know it was doing that so I said Laurie Thompson that's my wife, and then I said Laurie Thompson again. I wondered why it asked me twice, so every time she calls, are you sure you want to call Laurie Thompson Laurie Thompson? I left it I thought it was kind of cute. Alison: That is. Bryan: Now Jeff was a great guy and he posted you know happy holidays to everybody on the Blind Abilities Facebook page and I chimed in with my typical bah humbug and he thought that was you know the happiest he's ever heard me, and that's because he didn't hear how mad I was that my old Grubhub app that I've been running for several years because GrubHub has refused update is now officially dead. I finally had to update it and I don't know what I'm gonna do because this happened shortly before I left New York. I kept getting server error, server error, and I could not do anything so I had to update the app, GrubHub prepare for the barrage because I am gonna be hammering you every day now with fixing your heading navigation. I don't know. Alison: Now that your life depends on it yeah. Bryan: Yeah you know. Jeff: It's time to get that Blind Alive app, get that exercise going. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: Screw GrubHub. Bryan: I still gotta order dinner. I still gotta order dinner and everything. Alison: Try Postmates, try Doordash, you said Eat24 doesn't.... Bryan: Doordash I just heard about so yeah that's one I want to check... Alison: Yeah Postmates is also very good. Unfortunately in Napa our only choice really is Eat24, and that only has a couple of options. Bryan: Yeah you know one of the other things I plan to do when I get back from Florida is, because I've been running my old laptop here my Mac air, and it's so nice because it's running Sierra, and things have been running so smooth, as soon as I get home one of my first acts to do, I'm rolling High Sierra back, have you guys, I know Jeff's been playing High Sierra, Allison, are you still using High Sierra..... Alison: I am and for the limited number of things that I do on my Mac it's absolutely fine, I haven't really had any problems. Bryan: Editing text, when you're working with a lot of text and emails or documents and everything, it just befuddles me and everything, you know sometimes you gotta use the option key, and I did report this to Apple, quick nav does you know, when you use quick nav with words, it does not follow the insertion point, we did test it it is getting kicked up to engineers, there is a navigation problem with quick nav in Hi Sierra. Alison: That's unfortunate. Jeff: Yeah I'm using the beta's and you know it keeps on changing so I don't really complain about it I just keep using it and I know, I know it'll get better, so I just putz with it. Bryan: Yeah well Jeff you said you're running the latest beta and it's, you've noticed an improvement so, maybe it won't be the first thing I do when I get back to New York you know, maybe I'll give it one more update. I am not running the beta so I never run the betas on my computer and the word to the wise if you value productivity do not run those betas. Alison: Yeah, or have a partition on your hard drive or a separate hard drive on which to run them. Jeff: Oh my MacBook Pro [Inaudible] I'm not doing the betas on that so I can always go back to that if I need to but, you know I I usually forget that I'm slowly tweaking my muscle memory like you said Allison, and pretty soon I'm just readjusted. Changes happen and I don't know. Alison: Yep. Bryan: Chit chit chit chit oh wait, do we have to play now to use that song? In a more positive segment, I know we've rolled through some some negativity here, we don't want to be negative all the time but you know these are just some things that were pissing Brian off now because, Brian's been known to get pissed off. I always like to hear you know, what you guys watching, what you're reading, you know especially the holiday time of the year, there's a lot of great content out there. Netflix just seems to be piping everything out. Allison what you watching, what you reading? Alison: Well I'm still trying to work my way through Narcos, I have not had as much time for for Netflix recently, but I've been reading this really great book, I'm not sure if it's available on any of the freebies, unbarred or well book sure it's not free but it's practically free. I got off of Audible it's my Brandon Sanderson it's called "The way of Kings" it's part of the Stormlight archive series, it's an epic fantasy series, long long books, the first book I think is 45 hours long and I'm about 2/3 of the way through it, and it is absolutely amazing it's quite frankly taken over a lot of my life this holiday weekend. [Laughter] But it's amazing. Bryan: Well we're thankful that you were able to fit time in for the podcast. [Laughter] Alison: I did, I did have to interrupt my reading to.... [Laughter] Bryan: That 45 hours, that might take me 4 and 1/2 years to get through. Alison: Well I read at speed, I'm not gonna lie, I cranked it up to 3x and I can understand it just fine, so I'll get through it pretty quickly, but there's then two other main books, and then a little novella in the middle to read so. Bryan: That's a, that's a big.... Alison: It's gonna be ten books so... Bryan: Wow, wow, what about yourself Jeff, you been reading anything, watching anything? I know you've had some time alone there or are you just thinking in the dark? Jeff: I really got nothing, I guess I am thinking in the dark, family's been gone and I've been catching up on a bunch of other things that I hadn't been able to get back t,o and yeah, I got to get back to it so sorry you don't have anything to contribute. Bryan: That's okay Jeff. Jeff: Oh sorry. Bryan: I just finished down here with my parents you know I, they they were very nice and they watched, because their sighted with described video, the second season of Stranger Things, and the first season if you have not seen it as phenomenal I said to myself I don't know how they're gonna do a second season. It was really good so, it was very enjoyable, if you have not checked out Stranger Things on Netflix, you're definitely gonna want to check that out. I know we're gonna watch another series on Netflix that just came out I'm blanking on the name, the guy that was in Dumb and Dumber, not Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels is in it, it's a Western that just came out on Netflix. I'm hearing great things about it of course I'm, like I said, God, Godlessness, or Godless or something, it's a Great Western, and I've heard from other people it's very good and everything and, yeah I've still got the same four books. You know it's so funny I'm one of those people that loads up all the audio digital content to all the devices for the travel and then I end up listening to podcasts that I have on my phone. [Laughter] During the travels so, like I said this is a That Blind Tech Show, we're gonna wrap it up here. We are at Blind Tech Show on Twitter. thatblindtechshow @gmail.com if you want to email us in let us know what you think, let us know what you like. You can download our feed through the Blind Abilities podcast speed of your podcast player of choice, victor reader stream or download the Blind Abilities app. Allison what do you have coming up the next few weeks leading into what's that holiday Christmas? Alison: Just a quiet Christmas at home, gonna take maybe a couple of days off and just probably still be reading the Stormlight archive honestly, although I, although I may do a reread of Harry Potter, I lead such an exciting life. [Laughter] Bryan: Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that. What about yourself Jeff, family coming back or have they given up on you? Jeff: My folks for 17 years they've been going down the Texas but they stayed up this year for the holiday so I got to go to spend time with them Thanksgiving. We were all up there and so they're here so we're gonna have Christmas there and my daughter and grandkids will be coming up mid-December, we try and offset it each year and so yeah, a lot of lot of family holidays and I want to, I want to see the Grinch again this year. Bryan: So you want me to come visit? [Laughter] Yeah I'm not a big holiday person so Thanksgiving I guess is our big holiday and, we just wrapped that up down here and Thanksgiving, I'll be heading back to New York in the next few days and you know, it's funny I'm sitting here in shorts and it's 80 degree weather so it doesn't feel like November, and then I'll go back to the 30 degree weather and, yeah amazingly Nash is not even shedding that much here in Florida, you would think he would get rid of that winter coat, but he is panting like it's August. This is That Blind Tech Show, maybe we'll have one more before the year hopefully, you know, all of our schedules have been so crazy we haven't been on a regular schedule, we plan to hopefully eventually get on it, but for now we are out. When we share what we see through each other's eyes, we can then begin to bridge the gap between limited expectations and the reality of blind abilities. For more podcast with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at BlindAbilities. Download our app from the app store Blind Abilities, or send us an email at info @blindabilities.com, thanks for listening.

Mighty Mike: What's up, Server Nation? This is Mighty Mike, the Podcast Server, and you are listening to www.ProcessServerDaily.com Mighty Mike: You guys, I'm super excited about today's episode. If you have a story that you want to tell, that you're excited about. Maybe a dog chased you, maybe a guy tried to shoot you with his gun, maybe you had a heart-warming story where you helped somebody in need. Guys, I want to hear the story on this show. Go to www.ProcessServerDaily.Com/BeAGuest.html Find some studio time, go to www.ProcessServerDaily.Com/BeAGuest.html Mighty Mike: I look forward to speaking to you and hearing your story! Let's get to the show. Mighty Mike: What's up, Server Nation? You are listening to Process Server Daily, and I am your host, Mighty Mike the Podcast Server. Our guest today has recently appeared on Vice TV where he has been on the hunt for the most notorious Neo-Nazi of our time. He has been in business for 25 years and he owns and operates Encore Delivery Systems located in Columbus, Ohio. Mighty Mike: Jeff Cremeans, welcome to the show. Jeff C.: Pleasure to be here, Mike. Mighty Mike: Awesome, Jeff. I want to hear from you, Jeff! Tell us a little bit about yourself that wasn't in the intro. Take it away. Jeff C.: Sure. My name is Jeff Cremeans. I've been a process server for about 25 years. I started off, giving my age here, back in 1989 working for a law firm in Columbus, Ohio. Started off as a messenger working in the mail room. Did filings at the court house. Started to do the subpoenas, that type of thing. I'll make a long story short. I had an attorney, of the many duties I did in the mail room, wanted me to go get him a hotdog. So I went and got him a hotdog, I brought it back and he yelled at me, he said, "Why wasn't there mustard on it?" I thought, "You know, I'm gonna start my own business and I'm gonna charge this guy 25 bucks to go get his hotdog." Jeff C.: So I started a company out of law firm called City Wide Legal Messenger Service. Took off really well in Columbus, Ohio. There's a need for that type of thing here. I owned that for a few years. I sold that company to another company. I worked there for 11 years and then I've owned Encore since then. So I've had Encore for about 14 years. So ... Mighty Mike: That's awesome. Yeah, when I was watching the show, it's really cool, your office looks really cool. It looks like you got a pretty good size operation going on there. Jeff C.: Yeah, doing good. In any given time, we'll have eight or nine servers out, serving anything from child support papers to foreclosures. I don't get out as much and serve, certainly on this big case I'm helping out on, the Andrew Anglin case. But, yeah, I have a great group of servers. Very hard workers and do a great job. So ... Mighty Mike: Jeff, one of the most important things as process servers, for anybody, actually, is family. You got a family? Jeff C.: Sure do. I have a daughter at Ken State. Freshman at Ken State University. I've a son that's a sophomore. Yeah, they're pretty much my world, so ... Yeah. Mighty Mike: That's awesome. Jeff, there's a reason why you're on my show. You have a lot going on right now. Full of great experiences. But first, tell me about your worst experience working in the field. Jeff C.: You know, I think a lot of the process servers cross and that start talking about bad stories. Everybody's got a lot of bad stories. I think the one that really stood out to me was one, believe it or not, where I wasn't out in the field. Long story short, I'm sitting in my office, I had let everybody go early. I'm in the office by myself, just doing paperwork and in walks four people. I won't put their description out, but they were not very nice-looking people. I said, "Can I help you?" They said, "Yeah. One of your servers have been pounding on the door at my grandmother's house. We're here to see what's going on." Course, they were not so nice about it. I thought, "Well," I looked up and I saw these four guys. They meant business and they were there to do some damage or something. I thought, "Well, gosh, here we go." I can hold my own, but not with four guys. They were really upset that the server ... Now, how they go to where we were, they did some diligence on finding who we were and our address and everything. I got to give 'em that. Jeff C.: Anyway, I'll be honest with you, I was scared for my life. I thought if these guys want to start one me, there's not a whole lot I can do, but I explained to them. I calmed 'em down, I said, "Look, I'm sorry. This is not the way we do business and I apologize that your grandmother was scared," and all this stuff. Turns out that the server that went out, he was a newbie. He was trained and everything, but he had it to where he thought he could pound on doors and maybe even intimidate people, scare people to come to the door. Boy, did I have a long talk with after him that. I told him, "Hey, look, you're gonna go out, you're gonna go looking for trouble. You're gonna get it." Jeff C.: Fortunately, the trouble came to the office and it affected me. Nothing ended up happening. I talked to these guys and they end up not hurting me, which is a good thing. So the moral of the story, and for everybody out there, whether you're training a server or you're serving yourself, you don't have to ... there's times you have to get creative and aggressive. We can talk about that later in the podcast, but the big thing is, I explained to the server, "There was an old lady in there. You were scaring her to death. She had her grandkids come here and threaten me and want to know what's going on. Take it easy, man. You don't have to do that. If they don't answer the door, you don't have to pound on it." The lady wasn't even avoiding servers, so he learned a big lesson. He learned from that and turned out to be a great server. Not so aggressive anymore after that. Mighty Mike: I've recounted an experience that I've had too in a previous podcast about knocking on a door and being really gung-ho, and then realizing it was a 14 year old girl in there, terrified! She's told not to answer the door and it really helped correct my perspective that you never know ... I just had one yesterday. They told me she's an elderly lady and I've been there at all different times during the day. So I decided to come at night. Sure enough, her car was there, but she wasn't answering the door. The neighbors said, "Oh, she's in there." But I thought, "Man, I'm just gonna come back again at night and maybe she won't be in the shower or in the back room or wherever. Whatever she's doing to keep her from answering the door, giving her the benefit of the doubt- Jeff C.: Right. Mighty Mike: That she might actually answer the door if I come in a different time. Jeff C.: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Yeah, what I take from your story is prudence. Have a little bit of prudence when you come to the door. It's one of the most valuable asset in any industry. Mighty Mike: Jeff, tell us about your greatest experience working in the field. Jeff C.: Well, as many as there are bad, there are some good experiences out there. I think one that stands out to me is, and this is back in my City Wide Legal Messenger Service days, I was young and I was just new to the industry and learning, and doing stuff. I got a job to serve a wealthy person in a domestic case. Long story short, I had attempted many times. Pulled out all the tricks. I dressed up for Halloween, did the whole pizza delivery thing. Nothing worked. This guy, he was a dodger and he knew the game. He had been served before. Jeff C.: I pulled up one day, I just happened to be around the neighborhood. I thought, "Let me go try this guy again." I got there and he was out back, washing one of his expensive cars with his brother. I pulled up and he looked at me and started to run. Then he stopped and he's like, "You got me." He put out his hand and he shook my hand. He's like, "Congratulations, man. You played a good game." He was serious, very nice. We ended up talking there for a minute, so it was kind of ... never had that happen before, but it was nice to know that old game of hide and seek, he was not a sore loser, you know? So, yeah, that's kind of a good story. Mighty Mike: That's cool when they're like that. Some people just have a habit of dodging and ducking and hiding under couches, and things like that. Every once in a while, you'll get that guy that's probably like you would be when you're retired or something like that, or if someone else was trying to serve you. Ultimately, you're gonna accept the responsibility for your own problems, but you don't mind giving 'em a little run for his money. Jeff C.: Sure. Mighty Mike: That's a great experience. Mighty Mike: Jeff, tell me what you're working on right now that you're most excited about. Jeff C.: Well, in the past few years, we've gotten accounts with the Children's Services and the child support. It's a lot of work. It's lucrative, but dodging has increased with the child support papers as everybody knows, especially at that end of the stuff that we serve. So I've been able to hire more servers, it's broadened our horizons as far as learning more about the industry and finding people, the skip tracing, that type of thing. Jeff C.: Then, of course, there's the case we're trying to serve, the famous neo-Nazi. That has been the most challenging serve in my career in 25 plus years. So the reason why this case is so challenging to serve, this guy, he's a national, if not worldly-known neo-Nazi. He's got his own website, the Daily Stormer, that's been very controversial, but he has so much help hiding out. I've never seen anybody have so much support in hiding out. Anything from his father with all his property he owns, and people putting him up in places, this type of thing. But, yeah, it's been a very challenging serve. Worked very hard and done all the skip tracing. Done everything we possibly can to this point. Right now, we're relying on tips from a lot of different people that have maybe spotted him or know where he's at. We had a pretty good tip, as you saw in the Vice show. That's probably our best tip and missed him there. But, so, yeah. Jeff C.: There's a lot of things going on, a lot of good things. Growing at a steady pace and, again, I think any processor out there will tell you each case is different, each server's different. You don't want to get too emotionally involved, especially when someone's dodging, but there comes a time where, "Ask us for help," you know. One person can't do everything. If you feel like you've exhausted all your efforts in getting the serve, get somebody else on it. Get a fresh face, that type of thing. So ... Mighty Mike: Yeah, that's good, Jeff. I'll tell you, when I was watching the video, and you were going over the footage in the store where you were watching him with his protein powder, I got this feeling, almost like that's happened to me before where I've seen someone I was hunting for three months. He was a pot farmer up in [inaudible 00:09:36] Creek. Anyone knows you go up there, you gotta go up there with the AKs and [inaudible 00:09:40] dogs, and ready to go. Mighty Mike: I saw him in a park. He was apparently getting visitation with his kids, and I didn't have the papers, so I ran back, I drove back to my house. By the time I got there, he wasn't there. I was so mad at myself. How did you feel when that- Jeff C.: First, it was just shock and awe seeing him there. My son and I were just walking through the store and it was one of those things, when I first saw him, I thought, "Oh, man. That guy looks familiar," and I got closer. As I got closer, I thought, "Oh my gosh, that's him." No doubt in my mind whatsoever. In fact, I submitted a declaration to the court for the attorney's request to explain that I saw him. I got up, I was watching him. I was standing there as you could see in the video, watching him. Very nervous. He was kind of looking behind his shoulders and just kind of looked really, really paranoid, that type of thing. I thought, "You know, I don't have the papers. They're not even in my car. They're at home. By the time I get it and do that, it's not gonna happen." Plus, I had my son with me. It was really not a whole lot I could have done, like I couldn't leave him there. Jeff C.: As he was checking out, I proceeded to go through the store, past self check out lines. I looked over and I just thought, "You know, I gotta say something to him. I gotta go talk to him. I just can't" ... So as he was walking out, I pulled up right in front of him with my car. My exact words to him was like, "You know, you look like somebody I know. Is your name Andrew?" "Nope." He was gone. He was not gonna hang around. It was him, it was definitely him. Now- Jeff: He was not going to hang around, and it was him. It was definitely him. Now, people, especially his attorney ... What are the odds? What are the odds of tracking somebody down for almost a year and you see them at a grocery store? I don't know, but it happened and it was ... Needless to say, I have the papers with me every time. I have them in my briefcase, I have them in my car, I have them at work. I have other people that have them. All my servers have a copy of this stuff [inaudible 00:11:24] just in case something like that were to happen again. Don't think I'll ever get that opportunity again, but you never know. Mighty Mike: Yeah, I actually keep a bucket now, because of that experience that I had. I'll tell you one fun experience. I was in the courthouse and I'd been hunting this ... trying to serve this professor of Chico State University. He was retired. And so, I had served him like three times before and then he moved. We go to court every day to file papers at the courthouse. And so, I was in line at the courthouse and I heard this voice, and I was like, "I know that voice." And I listened and I heard it. He's just shooting it with a couple guys, "Yeah, no, I'm a professor down over at Chico State." And I thought, "That's him." And I didn't have the documents, but I was at the courthouse. So I said ... I looked it up on my phone, and I bought a copy of the paperwork at the courthouse. I checked the box individual and said, "Here you go." Jeff: Oh, nice. Very nice. Mighty Mike: I felt like such a ninja when I did that. It was cool. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: So I mean, if I would have saw him at the store I would have been in trouble. What I wanted to know, and I'm sure other servers are the same, is what's the next step? You can only skip trace them so much, right? Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: You can only- Jeff: Yeah, there's a lot of people looking for this guy for one reason or another. It's not just to serve him papers. As you can imagine, he's made a lot of people upset with his comments and his viewpoints. Hey, you know, I believe in the first amendment. I think everybody can believe in whatever they want to believe in. You believe clowns should make more money when they go to parties? Fine. Just the fact that threaten violence and harass people I don't think bodes well. Jeff: So anyway, with that being said, a lot of people look for him. We're all trying to put feelers out there and we're all going off tips, whether it be the media, reporters, and other process servers. And from here, where do we go? Waiting on a tip. There's been rumor that he claims he's in Cambodia, then he was in Nigeria, then he was in Russia. Personally, my opinion, I think he's right here, whether it be in town or the state of Ohio, at least in the United States. He's not overseas. So it's going to be off a tip. It's going to get lucky. Somebody's going to see him, he's going to show his self somewhere. That's pretty much all we can do right now, just sit back and wait. Mighty Mike: Yeah, you just have got to post somebody up over by the protein powder. That's what you have got to do. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Mighty Mike: Okay. So I hope you get him and when you do get him, maybe we'll have you back on the show or even we'll do a Facebook Live so that'll just be [inaudible 00:13:49]. Jeff: I look forward to the day, believe me. Mighty Mike: Now dreams of the day. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Server Nation, Jeff has been dropping some major value bombs on us today, but prepare yourself, because we are headed into the rapid fire round right after a word from our sponsors. Mighty Mike: Server Nation, I know you're with the times and you want to do whatever you can to have all of the resources for your client. That is why I created 123efile.com. As a process server, attorney, or even an improper you can visit the website and file your documents in any of the Tyler courts in California. With it's easy to use one-page operation, you can have your e-filing done in a matter of minutes and get back to what really matters. If your time is important to you, visit 123efile.com. Mighty Mike: Welcome back to the show. Jeff, are you ready for the rapid fire round? Jeff: I think I am. Mighty Mike: If you could recommend one app, what would it be and why? Jeff: I think Road Warrior's a good app. I'm not a humongous app fan. I kind of do a lot of things old school. I think if you're diligent enough and you really want it bad, you can find the right app and it'll get you where you need to be. Mighty Mike: Very good. Road Warrior is ... I swear by the Road Warrior. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: I mean, if another one came out I would try it, but I haven't found any other app like that. Jeff: Yeah, it's a good app. Mighty Mike: And if you have it set to go straight into the Waze app, it works really good in the city. You can pick different navigators, but yeah, Road Warrior's a great one. What case tracking software would you recommend as the best? I would take you as a Process Server Toolbox guy. Jeff: Yeah, yeah, Process Server's Toolbox or like Serve Manager. Again, I don't even ... To be honest with you, I don't use them. Again, I'm- Mighty Mike: Really? Jeff: Yeah, I'm a firm believer in the old fashioned way of doing things, and my customers seem to like it. I've tried to offer them the different softwares and the Process Server's Tool and everything, and my customers like, you know, "Just use the court's return. We don't want this. We don't want that." And I've just kind of been doing that for years, and it works for me so far. Mighty Mike: No, I'm intrigued, Jeff, because, let me tell you something, there's a beauty in simplicity. So I'm just curious, we don't have to go too far into it, but you have like a service request form? Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: And they fill that out. And is your return or your field sheet, if you were, is that a part of the same form? Jeff: No, that's a different form in fact. And that's the thing, we kind of create our own affidavits and our own returns of service if they want. For anybody that has just your federal district return of service, we'll start off with that. If somebody wants something different, we've created so many different types of affidavits and non-serve affidavits and returns of service. We've had people say, "Yep, we don't want this notarized. You don't have to notarize it," so we'll just make it a simple proof of service. Mighty Mike: Yeah. Jeff: Of course, as you know, in California they have their own and New York wants certain things. A lot of the different states and people want different things. Mighty Mike: Definitely. Jeff: So we kind of have a variety of affidavits and stuff we use. Mighty Mike: That's cool. Yeah, that's cheaper. Jeff: Yeah, it is. It is. Mighty Mike: I tell you, there's beauty in simplicity. When I first started out, I had a form and I thought I was a genius because I had my service request area on top where I gave the customer's info and special instructions, and then at the bottom it had four spots for first attempt, second attempt, third attempt. And I only did four attempts because most of my customers were for unlawful detainers. In our local area, you had to get three attempts for diligence before you could post or subserve. So yeah, there's beauty in simplicity. I appreciate that. Mighty Mike: What is your favorite skip trace tactic? Jeff: I think what's worked for us over the years are the neighbors. Knocking on the doors next to it. I tell you, there's ... We have had more nosy neighbors help us get people served than anything. It's a simple skip tracing tool. There's a lot of ways of skip tracing, but, boy, just I don't know how many times ... And I'm sure a lot of servers have experienced this. The neighbor's out washing the car, you go over, "Hey, is so-and-so here?" "Oh, you know what? No, they're down the street at this park at the baseball game." "Oh, really? Which park is that?" "You know, blah, blah, blah park." You go down there. Now, if somebody's been dodging for a few weeks and you really want to get them served, I don't mind going to a park at a ballgame and getting them served. It may be the only opportunity to get them. So yeah, I think neighbors are very informative, and can be very helpful for getting somebody. Mighty Mike: Yeah, and actually, you can skip trace a specific address, not a person, and it'll give you the people that live in that general area. Or you can go on Google and find out what the nextdoor neighbor's address is and skip trace them and get the phone number. And then call them up, say, "Hi, is this ..." So if you're looking for Jill, you call up the neighbor and say, "Hi, is this Jill?" And then she's going to go, "Oh no, Jill lives nextdoor." "Okay. Oh, sorry about that." You know? Jeff: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mighty Mike: That's a good one that works a lot. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Jeff, what is your favorite tool for defense? Jeff: I think there's weapons and there's this and there's that. I firmly believe in being human with people, talking to them. One thing that taught me about that bad experience, I think if you're there and you're calm and you hear them, and you're honest with them, say, "Hey, look, I got these papers," well I think that's worked more than anything. To be, for lack of a better word, aggressive or cocky or pushy and doing too much, I don't think that's going to help you out. I think really trying to talk to people. And there's a lot of different ways of doing that. Jeff: My biggest thing is somebody that's wanting to avoid service, I try to tell them, "Hey, look, I'm going to come back. I'm going to keep coming back. I'm not going to go away and this is not going to go away." I'm not a lawyer, I can't give them legal advice, but I try to tell them, "Hey, look, you're best off taking this now." So things like that and that nature, that to be me has been the best tool. Call it a tool. Call it whatever you want. I think it's a really good tool to use. Mighty Mike: Yeah, I did a poll on Facebook and, "What was the best tool for defense?" And people came back ... And actually, I gave some options and I gave like a gun, and a knife, and all these things. And then, I gave a few options. It was like common sense ... Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: Those things that are inside of you, like in your brain and in your habits, and the way that you treat people, the way that you talk to people, those are the things that had the most hits. I think one of them had like 64. Common sense had like 64, and the next one had 30. And the actual gun I think only had like 16. We all like to talk about the guns that we own, but the truth is, when you're out there serving, using your gift of gab or your ability to control a situation with your words is way more powerful than a gun. Jeff: Absolutely Mighty Mike: A gun is an immediate ... It's not an answer. It's not a resolution. It's a tragedy if you did have to pull it out. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-gun. I'm just saying I agree with you. That's absolutely correct. Jeff: And yeah, guns can be dangerous and they can promote ... get you into a situation where somebody could get hurt or killed. Again, I'm totally not anti-gun either. I totally believe in that, and a lot of people should have one for their protection. I've never been a really big badge guy. Again, I'm just kind of human, old fashioned way of doing things. Mighty Mike: Yeah, in California it's actually become quite a ... most of the server companies, it's quite anti-badge, because a lot of people are getting convicted and charged, and potentially convicted for impersonating an officer. Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: Throwing around words like, "Officer of the court," and things like that. Jeff: Mm-hmm Mighty Mike: You know, I used to do it when I first started because that's what they said in my training class, and really we're not. Joe down the street could serve papers, but he can't serve more than 10 in California. I know it's different in every state, but ... Jeff: Mm-hmm Mighty Mike: Jeff, what book would you recommend? Jeff: Anything John Grisham. I'm a huge John Grisham fan. In fact, the older I get, I'm doing a lot more reading. And I love to read, it's just like a lot of people, you just don't have the time. But John Grisham, really just the fact ... You know, he's mentioned process servers in his stories and subpoenas being served. I always kind of liked that part of it, but just his work is just I think is amazing. And the legal aspect of it, I'm really interested in that part of it. http://www.jgrisham.com/books/ Mighty Mike: That's really cool. I'm going to have to check it out, John Grisham. I'm actually writing a book. It's going to be done here in about 90 days is my goal. And it's going to be on process server safety and best business practices. It's going to be great! Jeff: That's awesome! Mighty Mike: Yeah, you can get a free copy at www.processserverdaily.com/freebook.html when it comes out. Mighty Mike: Jeff, did you have a mentor? Jeff: I started off at a young age. I’m the second youngest of 10 children. Growing up, it was one of those things where, as you can imagine, you either go off to college or go get a job. You're not going to hang around the house, that type of thing. My mentor was no doubt about it my father. He was a hard-working man, raising 10 kids, him and my mother. To me, they’re the most awesome people in the planet, but nevertheless, he said, “Work hard and be nice and don’t ever give up.” He was always supportive of all my brothers and sisters, whatever road they took. He was so excited for me when I started City Wide Legal Messenger Service. He loaned me $1,000, which I had to pay him back by the way. He wasn’t that nice! Jeff: He was truly my mentor. Did he know anything about filing stuff at the courthouses, doing certain papers? Absolutely not. Just his life lessons taught me, even to this day, I still use them. It has really taught me a lot and just got me far. Mighty Mike: That’s great. You answered one of the questions. What’s the greatest advice you’ve ever received? Jeff: The greatest advice I’ve ever received is definitely from my father. Be humbler. Be nice. Work hard. I taught my own kids that. I’d tell you. If you're nice … Don’t be too nice. You're going to be taken advantage of. I’m not saying that, but I’d say being nice, being compassionate, being humble will get so you much further in life. I truly believe that, and that’s the way I try to live my life and do my work. Mighty Mike: To provide an abundance of value without expectation just as a business practice, but also just as a person. There are many examples of that, whether it’s in your love life or with your family. If you provide value without expectation, it will come back to you. Like you said, don’t be taken advantage of, but sometimes it might feel like it and then the next day, you're like, wow, I didn’t expect you to do all these nice things for me. Jeff: Right. Mighty Mike: That’s the idea. Jeff, what would you do if you woke up today, had all the same skills and knowledge, had no clients, a smartphone, a car and only $100? What would you do in the next week? Jeff: I would definitely do some work reaching out to other people, advertising to a certain extent. I’d tell you. The best thing that I would do is to get out there and do a good job for folks. I think word of mouth advertisement has been a key for me to my success. It’s one thing to go out and say you're a process server or say you're going to do this and do that, but if you do it, it takes that one paralegal that you do a great job for. You communicate the whole time. You're doing everything you need to be doing. That paralegal could be involved in a group that tells another paralegal and so on and so forth. Jeff: I think part of doing that good job is communicating. Somebody sends you a paper. Don’t take three days to get back to them if it’s a rush and what’s going on. Certainly don’t take another week to send them back to return a service, that type of thing because again, that word of mouth could also hurt you too. It could be a very valuable factor. It could also hurt your business. I would pound the pavement and get out there and try to talk to as many people as I could, talk to paralegal groups, bar association, that type of thing. Mighty Mike: That’s good. One of the things that I take from your story is that, from your methods, is that be diligent. Get out there. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little hand-up, not a hand-out, but the truth is in this example, you only have $100. You have a car. You have the knowledge that you already have, and you have a smartphone so you can give the internet … You can search things. Guys, anybody can do this. You get out there and go after it. I say anybody can do it, like anybody who wants to build a business. Some people, they’re not cut out for serving papers, and if that’s the case, build the business; have someone else serve the papers. There’s a lot of really good husband and wife teams out there. Jeff, what is a parting piece of guidance you want to give to the servers out there? Jeff: Again, what we’ve talked about previously. Stay humble. Treat people with kindness. You have a job to do and certainly do it. In doing so, just remember this thing is bigger than you. Don’t go out there thinking you're Captain Bob, the process server and think that you're better than everybody, that type of thing. Just go out and communicate with your customer. Take good care of your customer. Communication is key. Jeff: I touched base on it earlier. I don't know how times I’ve used servers across the nation where they do 75% of the job. What I mean by that is, hey man, I got this rush. I need to serve right away. This is a big customer, blah, blah, blah. By gosh. They went out and they got it served right away, did a great job. A week later, hey, where is my return of service? I got to get this filed. The attorney is screaming at me. They got to get this filed. Follow through on your job. Do what it all right, not just half of it. Definitely get in the network groups. Meeting new guys and get involved with this and NAPPS members and stuff, a great, great tool. It’s great to get advice to people. Jeff: Again, I’ve been doing this for a lot of years. I still seek advice. I’ll call a server that I’ve been dealing with for 20 years and say, “Hey, man. How would you do this? What’s your viewpoint on this?” Never stop learning because I’d tell you. There’s a lot to learn in this industry. Mighty Mike: You're right, Jeff. There is. A big part of the industry for process servers, what I find most often is that they find themselves in a chasm alone by themselves and the way that they think that every other processor is their competition. The truth is that many process servers out there have too much work and they would be more than glad to give you the work if you can give them a discount. Jeff: Absolutely. Mighty Mike: If that’s what you need to get off the ground and to get your business rolling so you can raise your prices and have some more customers, more attorney clients come in, then that’s what you got to do. Jeff: Absolutely. Mighty Mike: I started out making $20 a paper. How about you? Jeff: When I worked at the law firm, I think I made about $4 an hour. Whether that’d be filing at the courthouse or serve a paper even add to that, yeah, it’s … I think then after that, as time went on, I think I was getting $20 a paper at that point. It’s been a long road. I certainly charge more for that these days. Mighty Mike: Jeff, I appreciate your story. I want to personally thank you for being on the show. I’ve been really impressed with your story and the whole situation with the neo-Nazi. That’s just a side thing. Watching the video and seeing your operation going on, it’s definitely worth being excited about. I’m excited to share it with the world. Jeff, what’s the best way that we can connect with you and then we’ll say goodbye? Jeff: Sure. You can reach us via email. Our email address is jeffENCORE@sbcglobal.net. Definitely a phone a call away, (614) 414-0730. Mighty Mike: Excellent. You can get that information in the show notes at www.processserverdaily.com/jeff.html Until next time, server nation, you’ve been served up some awesomeness by Jeff, the Nazi hunter and Mighty Mike, the podcast server. Mighty Mike: Server nation, I know that you know all about directories and that you know the importance of getting yourself on the web in as many places as possible, but it’s more than that, server nation. It’s about putting yourself on the websites that get ranked on Google, Yahoo and Bing. I’m excited about a new program that I’m starting. Really quickly, let me tell you. As a process server, I don’t cover the whole country, right? We send servers out to other process servers and we call that affiliates. My new program is going to incorporate a system. When my customers come on to my website and they do a location search, try to find a process server in a specific location, many times, I do not serve that area and so I might hire an affiliate in another area and manage to serve that way. That takes time and effort away from my local customers and the local efforts that I have here in Northern California. I want to personally invite each and every member of server nation to add themselves to my directory on my website. This is what’s going to happen. My customers who come to me loyally will search a specific location. If I don’t cover a specific location but you do, guess who shows up? You do. How great is that, server nation? I’m going to share something that means so much to me, my customers. I believe that this will benefit my customers because they will have a resource to go to, to find process servers and to get the best rates nationwide. Oh, but there’s a catch, server nation. There’s always a catch... My directory is free for an affiliate to sign up and get the basic affiliate level. If you do not perform when my customers come and they see that it’s not me or one of my employees or contractors and they see that it’s you, they’re going to see a rating next to your name. If your rating falls, you may not get any business. Server nation, give it a shot. Sign up for the free listing, but please, take care of my customers. I love them like they’re family. Visit www.processserverdaily.com/affiliates.html Mighty Mike: Until next time, server nation, stay safe out there!

Job Insights #4: Apps With Productivity in Mind for Education and in the Workplace. Transcript Provided Welcome to the 4th episode of Job Insights with Serina Gilbert and Jef Thompson. We focus on Employment, Careers, enhancing opportunities and bringing you the latest innovations from across the Vocational Rehabilitation field to ensure your choices lead you down the career pathway that you want and succeed in gainful employment. From getting started with services, to assessments, Individual Plan for Employment (IPE) to gaining the skills to succeed and tools for success, Job Insights will be giving you tips and tricks to help your journey to employment and break down the barriers along the way. On this 4th episode of Job Insights Hope Paulos joins Serina Gilbert and Jeff Thompson in the studio and they talk about productivity apps and software. From the classroom to the workplace, these apps are geared towards making your daily challenges a bit more manageable, efficient and productive. Hours Tracker, Black Board, Drafts, Files, SeeingAI, Dictionary Thesaurus Pro, KNFBReader and Bookshare’s Read To Go app are all mentioned with some great discussion about how we use these apps. A great little Scan Stand named Foppidoo makes the scene and a conversation on Lift and Uber gets quite a chat as well. You can check out the Meet Me Accessibly book from Jonathan Mosen and learn about Zoom on the PC. Join the Job Insights crew and download some apps and give them a whirl. Hey, productivity rocks! We hope you enjoy this Job Insights episode and you can send your feedback and suggestions to the Job Insights team by email at JobInsights@BlindAbilities.com Follow the Job Insights team on twitter @JobInsightsVIP Job Insights is part of the Blind Abilities network. A big Thank You goes out to CheeChau for his beautiful music! Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.   Job Insights #4: Apps With Productivity in Mind for Education and in the Workplace. Transcript Provided [Music] Female voice: I feel like I'm getting a lot better education so yeah, I think, I think the online learning is an equalizer. Jeff: Job Insights, a podcast to help you carve out your career pathway and enhance the opportunities for gainful employment. Female Voice: But sometimes I require KNFB Reader when I have more than one page that I want to kind of read continuously. Jeff: Learn about resources for training education and employment opportunities. Female Voice: Blackboard, that is a learning management system and a lot of universities are using them as well for classes. So this particular app is available on Android, iOS, and PC, and Mac of course. Jeff: We will hear from people seeking careers, employment, from professionals in the educational field, teachers, and innovators in this ever-changing world of technology to help you navigate the employment world and give you Job Insights and enhance the opportunities to choose the career you want. Male Voice: Fopydo people sounds good and I actually at that time asked my son, and I, it was actually a play on the on Scooby-doo. Jeff: And you can find the Job Insights podcast on BlindAbilities.com, part of the Blind Abilities Network with hosts Serina Gilbert and myself Jeff Thompson, and you can contact us by email at JobInsights@BlindAbilities.com, leave us some feedback, or suggest some topics that we cover. On Twitter at Job Insights VIP, and check out the Job Insights support group on Facebook where you can learn, share, advise, and interact with the Job Insights community. [Music] Female Voice: Lift also released an update to their service dog policy saying that an allergy or fear of animals is not a valid reason to not pick up an individual with the service animal. Jeff: But hey it's a good learning tool, because it's just repetitious and pretty soon it just starts coming to you, mm-hmm, so I dug right in, when I saw they had flashcards I went Wow! [Music] Jeff: And now please welcome Serina Gilbert and Jeff Thompson with Job Insights. [Music] Jeff: Welcome to Job Insights and this week we're talking about apps, apps that you'll use in school, at the workplace, and these are productivity type of apps, and with me today of course is Serina Gilbert how are you doing? Serina: I'm good Jeff, how are you? Jeff: I'm just doing great and we got a guest today all the way from Maine. Hope Paulos, how are you Hope? Hope: I'm doing great, how are you? Jeff: I'm doing good, we're all doing good, so that's good. Today we're gonna talk about apps, you know some of these apps are mostly productivity type of things, stuff that you'll use to, you know get things done and that's, that's what we're, we're all about here on Job Insights. So Serina, last podcast you said you were holding out on us from what you're gonna tell us, is the cliffhanger over or are you gonna tell us? Serina: Oh we've got a little bit of a wait cuz we have to talk to Hope first, we have a guest. Jeff: How about you Hope, what do you got? Hope: I certainly don't have a cliffhanger. [Laughter] Serina: We set her up there Jeff! Jeff: yeah. Hope: Yeah you did! [Laughter] Jeff: So Hope, how's it going out and Maine? Hope: It's going well, the weather is nice finally, when I talked to you and Pete last time, it was March, and it was in the 20's, 20 degrees. Now we are in about the 60's, 70's, so I am absolutely loving it, birds are chirping, the guide dog is going for walks, he's enjoying it, Jeff: Is he bringing you with? Hope: Oh yeah of course! [Laughter] Jeff: That's great! Serina: But Jeff needs to know if you planted any Apple trees? Hope: No. Serina: Only PC trees? Hope: Only PC trees. [Laughter] Jeff: Oh that's the running joke isn't it? So when it comes to productivity type of apps, Hope what did you bring to the show today? Hope: Sure, so I have a couple of them. I don't use this particular one very much right now because I do work for Apple, and Apple has me on a strict schedule so I don't need this particular one, but for people who are freelancing, the name of the app is called Hours Tracker, it's a free app and basically it allows you to track your hours of course, hence the name, but it also allows you to track your earnings, and it will deduct the taxes as well. So it will tell you how much is deducting for taxes. So it's great for individuals who are freelancing. The second app that I have brought to the show is Blackboard. That is a Learning Management System and a lot of universities are using them as well for classes, so this particular app is available on Android, iOS, and PC, and Mac of course. This will allow you to do your classes online literally anywhere and actually a couple of the blindness organizations were working in tandem to get this particular app accessible. It's extremely accessible, there was only one thing that I commented on a couple weeks ago and I sent feedback in to the iOS developers and they fixed it. They're very very good about fixing issues that people might have. The other app that I brought, that I brought to the show is Learning Ally. This is an app that will allow you to download books and it's also good for individuals who are dyslexic and who have low vision because I believe it will allow you to magnify the print in the actual book so you can read along with the narrator which is quite helpful. That's more University as well, University-type app, Productivity app and of course the last app would be the Bookshare app. The Read2Go, this allows you if you have a membership to Bookshare, which I believe most students can get for free, it allows you to read the books on your phone be it Android or iOS. Jeff: Now on the Hours Tracker, is that what it's called? Hour Tracker? Hope: Hours Tracker yeah. Jeff: Hours Tracker. So when you're doing the setup, your presets, do you put in your wage, and then it just calculates it and are you able to output that anywhere, or is it just something you read? Hope: Absolutely, so this particular program allows you to put in the wage, and it allows you to put in whether or not taxes are withheld, so technically even if you were, you know not freelancing, if you working a job as an employee, a W2, you could use it as well. Basically it allows you to put in your breaks and your lunches and things like that, and it lets you know when to go on the break, and when to go to lunch, and when to clock out, and when to clock in. [Music] App Voice: Sample Job, 0.05H today, 0H button, clock out now or long-press for extras menu, button, next clock out now, button, cause now, button, break now button, break now, sample job 0 H on break 8:10 a.m., 0.02H button, end break or long press for extras menu button, end break. Hope: It also will let you know, like you can, you can set a reminder to have it automatically clock in when you get to work, and yes you can send it, I think it's a CSV file, or CV file, something like that, a database file, and it will put it in an Excel spreadsheet I think as well, so that you can show it to your employer. Jeff: That's kind of neat. Serina: That's pretty cool I like that. Hope: Yeah it's a it's a pretty neat app for sure. Jeff: Intuit the makers of QuickBooks and various tax applications has a program and it might be part of their bundle and I believe you can buy it separately, I believe it's called Self-Employed, but that sells on a monthly subscription for 7 to 8 dollars a month. Hope: Yeah this is free and I think, I'm trying to think if I paid for anything, I think I did just because I was freelancing at the time and I wanted them more, more, so it has a lite version and it has a full-featured version, but even the full-featured version wasn't some really really, you know cheap price. Jeff: A one-time fee? Hope: A one-time fee yeah. Jeff: That makes perfectly good sense, economically I can track that pretty good. [Laughter] [Music] Jeff: You can download Hours Tracker free from the App Store or the Google Play Store. Hourlys Tracker is free for up to 21 days of time entries and if you upgrade to the pro or professional, you get rid of all the ads, unlimited amount of entries that you can make, the only difference between the professional and the personal is you can have unlimited amount of jobs in the professional, and you can upgrade to the professional or the personal in the in-app option. The professional will run you $9.99 and the personal will run you $5.99. Once again, a one-time payment, I was really intrigued when I heard about Hours Tracker, I downloaded to my iPhone, and started using it right away, I named a job, I started the time, and when I was completed I stopped the time. I also had the option to input the time that I wanted it to start or input the time that I wanted to stop, otherwise you could do it in real time and that works out really nice. There's also an option that you can take notes and keep them with that job. I found that the accessibility on Hours Tracker on my iPhone was second to none, all the buttons were labeled and the intuitiveness was what I expected for when I have started logging the job, putting in the hours, getting out of the job, putting notes in, was just exactly how I expected it would work and it did work that way. Another small part of the accessibility, it lets you cancel a pop-up or dismiss the pop-up that comes up, and I really like that because if you've ever had a pop-up pop-up and not be able to get rid of it, that's not good. So after kicking around Hours Tracker on my iPhone for one job, I personally recommend this for anybody who is self-employed or someone who works on projects and just wants to have better records of the time they spend on their projects and jobs. [Music] Jeff: So on the Blackboard, I remember I have not experienced Blackboard yet, but I remember going to college and I was at the mercy of every professor that was experimenting by putting stuff on the web and accessing it through a link they give you, and if it was accessible you got lucky, so Blackboard is a collective effort to make it accessible for everyone. Hope: Absolutely, so it all depends on the type of class you're taking obviously right, if people don't know I'm going back to school to become a teacher of the blind and visually impaired and so all of the courses need to be accessible to me. So the professor's will tag their images so that I can know what's going on, their quizzes are all accessible, obviously the discussion boards are all accessible, and I use a combination of the two apps, so I use the combination of Blackboard and I use Learning ally to be able to do my classwork, and literally like I said, I can do it anywhere. With the phone if I have a Braille display and/or a Bluetooth keyboard I can do my homework on the beach or in the park you know, so literally anywhere and that's huge compared to when I was going back to school to get my undergrad degree, like you know 2009, that's when I graduated so it's, it's huge it's a huge step up. Serina: Yeah I remember using Blackboard when I was doing my master's degree which would have been gosh, probably around the same time as you are doing your undergrad, so I finished in 2010 and so, I don't know, 2007, 2008, somewhere around there's when I started it and they used Blackboard for everything. My program was pretty much 100% online, we didn't have the app back then, we just had the website, but even back then the website was pretty accessible. I rarely had any difficulties with it and I was going for the rehabilitation counseling so the professors were a little bit more cognizant of accessible media and documents and things like that. I loved using blackboard because it is easy to log on to, you know if I was on a break at work or whatever, or at home trying to get a discussion posted or something like that. Hope: Yeah it is really easy to use extremely easy to use. Jeff: Is that why you opted to do your classes online, not that you're on an island out off the shore of Maine, but..... [Laughter] Hope: Yeah I think, I think it's easier because I've done classes on site to, not having to do as my masters, but having to do with my undergrads degree. I find the digital world to be a lot more accessible, I just remember going to classes on site and didn't have a lot of input from the professor. The professor was teaching to a lecture hall full of I don't know, a hundred students, I just felt like I was kind of left out and wasn't getting all the notes that I needed to get, whereas here taking the classes online and using, again the combination of Blackboard and Learning Ally, I'm able to take the notes that I need, I'm able to contact my professors if I need to. I have peer to peer interaction as well. I feel like I'm getting a lot better education, so yeah I think, I think the online learning is an equalizer. Jeff: Mm-hmm. Hope: Of sorts. Jeff: Yeah that's great because you know everyone has to do what works for them and if you found a good way of doing it that's great, having those two apps makes it all accessible. Hope: For the most part yeah everything is accessible, even from registering for classes, I go to Missouri State University, so using Missouri State's website is accessible. It's just huge, it's what we're able to do as people who are blind and visually impaired with a digital world, it's absolutely huge. Jeff: So is that something you looked for when you were looking for an online course that they did use Blackboard? Hope: Not really, I didn't know what they used, I contacted them, I did ask them in the beginning when I was registering for the program what they used and I could have used Moodle, Moodle was another application, another learning management system that I'm familiar with and either one I would have been fine with. I looked online and and saw the collaboration between the two blindness organizations regarding Blackboard and I'm like okay this is going to be fine, this is gonna be great, I know it's gonna be accessible, I contacted my professors beforehand and gave them my accommodations and all that and said I need extra time and because it's a digital world they can input my time-and-a-half for quizzes and allow me to have that time and you know they can input that in Blackboard and all is good. I can't speak enough good things about accessibility and digital stuff. Jeff: So let's see, there's Learning Ally, we will put that in the show notes, we'll put Blackboard in the show, we'll put all these in the show notes so people can click on them and go right to the App Store or the Google Play Store and we'll have the links there, so back to the cliffhanger. [Laughter] Jeff: Hi Serina. Serina: And I thought of one like while we were sitting here, so even you'll be surprised Jeff. Jeff: Ooo. [Laughter] Serina: My absolute number one favorite app and I see it all over all of the groups like iPhone and iPad apps, and the assistive technology group, all of them, a seeing AI, I don't think it's any surprise there. That app allows me to be a lot less dependent on a human reader to just go through what's in my mailbox that I get at work. Now I can just kind of okay, yeah I need someone to finish reading that to me, or oh, this is just something that needs to go in the file, it's cut down on how much time I have to spend with somebody sitting at my desk with me going through stuff, and it's free, which is amazing to me because I remember reading gosh, I think it was like two years ago when Microsoft had their hackathon and they had released a video about seeing AI and they were showing a demo of it and I was like, well that's cool but it'll never come out and if it does it'll be super expensive. And then all of a sudden there's a link, and it's free, and it works, like amazingly and it, I can't thank Microsoft enough for that, that actually was a big surprise for me. Jeff: Yeah, you just open it up and boom, short text is reading. Serina: Yeah, from across the room right Jeff! [Laughter] Jeff: Yeah, that happened to me and, I shouldn't say it but I was that Orcam demonstration when they were having the little issues, and I was reading the wall that had their sign on it, so I was like wow, this is already talking, just out of the box, just turn it on and there it is. Male Voice: I use seeing AI all of the time to determine what's in my medicine cabinet, for documents you know I use seeing AI for short text. [Music] Female Voice: I use the document reader all the time, not gonna say it's as good as KNFB Reader because it's not. I did a test between reading my mail with it and with KNFB Reader and I found KNFB Reader to be far more stable, but I still like the app, I use it a lot, I'm glad that it's one of the tools in our toolbox. Female voice: For reading and stuff I used to go to KNFB Reader all the time but it just seems like Prizmo go and seeing AI is so much easier that I tend to go to them more. Male Voice: Seeing AI is my main go-to app and I use that, the short text channel mostly if I can't identify an item with that I will switch to the product channel if it has a barcode. A lot of the apps like [Inaudible] and Aipoly Vision and [inaudible], I've deleted most of those off of there because I can accomplish the same thing with seeing AI [Music] Male Voice: Jeffrey I see apps like Aipoly Vision, [Inaudible], Identifee, of course the KNFB Reader, I think seeing AI is becoming the main tool in the toolbox. Jeff: And you know, all the other channels that they have on their to four options but that's the one I use all the time because, you open it up it works. Serina: Yeah there's a handwriting one too that I've tried only a couple of times, but it surprisingly did recognize the handwriting enough for me to figure out at least what the note was generally about cuz sometimes my clients will stop in and I can't see them, and they'll leave a handwritten note at the front desk and obviously it's probably dependent on the individuals handwriting but I was at least able to get the name of the client and know, okay I'll just call them and see what they needed. Jeff: Hmm, well that's good. Serina: That one's in BETA I think. Jeff: Yeah you always wonder when they have a little feature that's in there and they tag the word BETA after it's like, you better use it now because it may not be there! Serina: Or it's like the disclaimer don't trust this feature. It might not work right! Jeff: Mm-hm try it on a doctor's prescription. [Laughter] Serina: Oh gosh. Jeff: That's the to test. Serina: This is totally not productive but when seeing AI first came out, we were playing with it in my office to see how old it thought everyone was. [Laughter] So all of my co-workers were like changing their hairstyles or putting on glasses or taking off glasses to try to trick it to make it think that they were younger. Jeff: That's a great use of state-funded money. [Laughter] Serina: Hey! Jeff: I know everyone's been doing that, it's kind of a novelty thing and that's like artificial intelligence to me when they're built into apps to me, it's like you know when you go to the carnival, you know, they'll guess your age and you win the whistle or something but you know, I'm not into the novelty stuff but that really does work. Serina: Hope, do you use seeing AI for any of your school work, or since it's mostly digital do you not have to use it a lot? Hope: Yeah I use it sometimes, I use it for work actually to find out whether or not my Mac, my work Mac is gonna turn on correctly. We have so many policies in place at Apple that sometimes voice-over doesn't turn on correctly and so I use either seeing AI or I also use AIRA for that, but most of the time I just grab my phone and you seeing AI. Speaking of the, or how old people were, I actually did that last weekend I think it was on my grandmother's 93rd birthday. I went up to her and took a picture of her and had seeing AI tell her how old she was, now again she's 93 right, so it said a 65 year old woman is smiling, or looks happy or something like that and she's like, wait, did it say 65? [Laughter] Hope: Shes like, I like that! So it made her day. Serina: Yeah. Jeff: I actually think for women they do have a built in algorithm that knocks off a couple years just to you know, keep the customers happy. Serina: No it added 10 years to mine, no matter what it says 10 years. Hope: Oh really. That's funny! [Laughter] Jeff: The algorithm breaker! Serina: Gosh. [Laughter] The other one that I use is obviously very similar to seeing AI but sometimes I require KNFB Reader when I have more than one page that I want to kind of read continuously. To my knowledge I don't know that you can scan multiple pages in seeing AI and if you can, somebody let me know, cuz I actually like it a little bit better. But sometimes when I'm working from home and I don't have access to my flatbed scanner but I need to read some printed like medical documents or things like that, I'll take out KNFB Reader and just scan a whole bunch of pages all at once and then read it, through it continuously, so that's very helpful, and then also you can save on KNFB Reader in their file system, and I think I saw on the latest update that now they can sync with Google Drive and Dropbox now to, so that's kind of a really cool feature that they've integrated in there now. Jeff: Yeah I like the KNFB Reader when I have like, I might have 10 pages of something to read and I don't want to take a picture of each of them so I put it on double sheet and then batch mode and when I turn the page it'll sense that, so you know you got the page turning then ch-ch-ch. KNFB Reader Voice: Manual picture button, automatic picture, picture from ste..., alert, please place your device on an empty document stand and align the camera with the aperture, okay, button, flash off, button, multi-page mode off, button, multi-page mode on. [Camera Sound Effect] Serina: Do you have a stand that you use with it? Jeff: Yeah I do, its the Fopydo and it was designed by Thomas Wardega, and here he is. Thomas: Fopydo sounds good, and I actually at that time asked my son, and it was actually a play on the on Scooby Doo. So basically this was designed from the ground up for people who are blind and visually impaired and along that process I learned to work with people who are blind so I went through a couple of revisions of the stand before I even started selling it just to make sure that people are happy with using it and that it fulfills whatever is needed from a scanning stand for people who are blind and visually impaired. [Camera Sound Effect] Jeff: It comes with a set of instructions that you can scan, you can put it together, once you got it together it just folds right up and you can put it in a suitcase, it takes up very little real estate. Serina: Oh I need one, and does it work with any phone or? Jeff: Well back when I talked with him he said it would handle, if you balanced it right, and iPad Mini, so I, I guess your your beast of a phone, your iPhone X may work. [Laughter] Serina: Yeah and put the link in the show notes cuz I've been, I thought, I had somebody looking for one before and they were like $50, I'm like mm-hmm, I'll just hold it up, you know. [Laughter] Jeff: Having the batch mode on the KNFB Reader really makes it viable product for someone that's in school that may have to be scanning a lot of pages. Serina: I definitely need one of those. Jeff: Yeah we'll put the link in the show notes and I believe he sells it on Amazon and if you have Amazon Prime, there you go, ten, twelve bucks. Serina: Primes getting expensive though it's like $120.00 starting this year. Hope: I think there's a discount for students. Serina: It's half off for students cuz I had that for a couple of years, and then they got smart and realized that I'm not a student anymore because my school let me keep my student email address for years, and I don't even think I have it anymore now. Now they make you verify by sending in like a schedule. Hope: Oh really? Serina: Yeah. Hope: Similar to Apple music, they do the same thing. Serina: Yeah, and I think Spotify does the same thing too. Hope: Yep. Serina: They got smart. Jeff: So we'll have to put the link in there for Amazon Prime half off for students, that's good news. Serina: Yeah that's it, and half off of Apple music and Spotify, not that those are, those could be productivity apps because if you need music to stay focused. Hope: Technically yeah, exactly, that works! Jeff: Or books. Hope: Yeah. Jeff: Amazon still sells books. Serina: Who orders books anymore? Jeff: Does anybody use Audible for books? Serina: I do not, I totally looked at it, but every time I looked at it I just can't, like I think it's thirteen ninety-nine a month for so many credits and one, the amount of credits you get for that amount is equal to downloading one book, and I haven't found that it's better than just using BARD, because they usually have especially if it's a best-seller what I want anyway. Jeff: Mm-hmm and the BARD app is totally accessible too. Serina: Yeah it's, it's a little old school sometimes, it has its glitches but it gets the job done. Hope: It can be yeah, exactly. Jeff: But it's, it's something that if you do send in a report and stuff like that they'll fix it? We can hope for the best right Hope? Hope: Yeah exactly, yeah sure, I'll write them, I'll give them a good report! Jeff: There you go. Hope: Sure. [Laughter] Serina: Well and it's hard because I know, I think that's run by the Library of Congress so that probably takes like an act of Congress just to get a glitch fixed you know. Jeff: Oh good one! Serina: I didn't mean it to be all cheesy but it's kind of funny. Jeff: Yeah it is, it is, it's nice when things work and you know, you were talking about seeing AI when you open it up short text just starts. I got an app called Drafts, just like the seeing AI, when you open it up it just works the short text is working, do you open it up and the cursors waiting up in the upper left-hand corner and you can start typing, you don't have to open up a new file. The neat thing is if you're in a meeting and you're taking notes and you can set it for certain increments of minutes that pass by and then next time like you open your phone, say it closed, it'll start a new file automatically. Serina: Well that's cool. Jeff: So you're not adding to your recipe you wrote two days ago that's still sitting there, do you want to save it, you don't know if you should save it, it automatically, so if you set it up for 10 minutes, if 10 minutes goes by, it saves it, and opens up a new one, just ready to go, so it's like a new sheet of scratch pad for you, can actually do some markups on it, yeah share it anywhere you want, it's really cool. I do the cut and paste and then just pop it into an email, bang! Serina: I like that, is that a free up too? Jeff: Yeah Drafts is free, I think it's called Drafts 5, there is a professional upgrade, a pro version and that is $20 a year or two dollars a month, but you can do a lot with just the Drafts app. I just love that because when you just want to take down a note, I don't like going into, I use pages because it syncs up with my apple orchard but when I'm at someplace where the meetings starting and I open up pages, you know it has to load up, it goes to the recent, and it seems like, you know all the gears have to spin around five times before anything happens, but this one opens up just bang, it's ready to go. Serina: I especially have that problem using the native Notes app on the iOS devices. Ever since they made it where you've got some notes on your iPhone, some on iCloud, some on Google Drive, or Dropbox or wherever, it's so hard for me to figure out where my notes are anymore that I just don't use that app anymore. Jeff: And that's my second app that I was going to talk about, it's the files app in iOS platform on the iPhone. Files, if you don't know where it went because it says, oh it's stored on the iCloud, or on the desktop in the iCloud, or on the iCloud Drive or wherever, and you start hunting around, but if you go to files and go to most recent, it'll check all those files, all those different drives, all the different places on your phone and everything, but if you go to recent and then if you click up on top you can go back and actually go specifically only to one area where you think it is, but if you put it on all, its checking all those drives that you have synced up with it and you can usually find it, so when I get lost for a second I just open up files and go to the most recent and there it is. Serina: That's a good tip, I didn't know that. I never really knew the point of the files app. Jeff: Yeah check it out, open it up and just see, and you'll see what you've been doing lately. Seirna: So I have one more that you do not know that is my favorite apps to use, any guesses? Jeff: Hope, what do you think it is? Hope: Hmmm, Uber, no it's not productivity, nevermind. [Laughter] Serina: Well technically it is, I do use Uber and Lyft a lot for work actually because I have to go as part of my job, I have to be at high schools and things like that and I am almost an exclusive Lyft user personally. Jeff: And why Lyft over Uber? Serina: I just have found just with my personal experience in the city that I live in that I've had better luck with Lyft drivers as far as friendliness and I have a service animal so, I've never been rejected on Uber, I'm actually, the only place I was was actually on Lyft. I found that the cars have been cleaner and the drivers just seem friendlier and with Uber I specifically am NOT a fan of the, if we wait more than two minutes, we're gonna charge you policy. Hope: Oh that's not good. Serina: Yeah that's a newer policy, maybe in the last six months and that policy just really bothers me especially when you're visually impaired. Drivers will say they're there and you're like where? You know, and if they're automatically gonna charge you, I think it's, I don't, I guess it's maybe like five dollars, if the driver has to wait I believe it's more than two minutes, like that's stressful, it's already nerve-racking like being like, hey I've got a service animal, are they gonna drive right past me, are they gonna pick me up, and then to know they're also gonna charge me an extra five bucks if I can't find them. And then they also tend to do the walk here and meet your driver thing. Jeff: Oh yeah. Serina: And I've never had that happen with Lyft no matter, I've been in downtown Denver and that's not happened before, but Uber will send you up a random parking lot or something to meet your driver. Hope: Oh wow! No thank you. Serina: Yeah so that's more why I'm Lyft exclusive, and then on the driver side I'm not quite sure how it breaks down, I don't remember how much the drivers get but I know with Uber it's not like a set percentage that the drivers get as far as, like I think it with Lyft the drivers get 75% of the fares With Uber, nobody really knows what percentage of the fare they get because they can, I've had drivers say like, yeah I've done rides Denver to you know, the DIA Airport and sometimes I get 60, sometimes I get a hundred, like there's no, I guess transparency with it. Jeff: Mmm-hm. Serina: And I can only speak to you know what I'm told, but I just personally feel better about using Lyft and for those who don't know, Lyft also released an update to their service dog policy saying that an allergy or a fear of animals is not a valid reason to not pick up an individual with a service animal and I feel like that's a very strong policy, and that's telling you where they stand on that very clearly, and I'm not, I'm not sure if Uber has come out as strong as they did. But that's all for a whole another podcast, you have to use all that when we talk about transportation. [Laughter] Jeff: No that's, that's good information because in my neck of the woods my wife uses Lyft, I use Uber and yet, I've been noticing that at certain peak times the price goes way up and other times it's low, and the waiting time changes, but you know, if it were two minutes, it's sometimes it's as low as thirty seven cents, but other times it's higher, you know, so things, I think it's the area you're in that really has, it makes a difference between which one you use, it is productivity because you got to get places and it's nice to know you can get there. Serina: And on time and on your own time. Jeff: Good. Serina: But that was a really good guess that brought on a whole another discussion, I liked it. [Laughter] Serina: But honestly we're on the app right now. Jeff: Ahh, zoom zoom. [Laughter] Serina: But part of my job is to train other people and to hold conference calls and things like that, and to my knowledge as far as like a true training platform where you can record and share your screen and things like that, I found that Zoom is the most accessible system out there that's also used by like companies all over the place. I know Skype is out there, but I don't know if Skype lets you like record the calls and things like that, I don't, like independently, not by pushing it through a different software but just right in the program recording it and having that access to be able to share your screen and still use your PowerPoint effectively and things like that. Jeff: Mm-hmm, and we're doing a neat thing for the first time here and we didn't know if we could do it but Hope sat beside us waiting patiently for us, but we figured it out and we're recording on two ends right now. Serina: Unless I pushed the wrong button again which is very possible. [Laughter] Jeff: Another cliffhanger, stay tuned next week when we find out! Serina: That will be our opener next week. Guess what I actually did it right! Jeff: You know, I'm starting to like Zoom because it's like I can't even tell you, you guys are here, because typically when we're using Skype in my headphones, I have this hiss when other people aren't talking so there's continuous hisses going on and then in the editing phase. So Zoom's really good and I really like the feature where you can send an email and people can just click on the link and they connect right up. Serina: Yep, it makes it really really easy. Hope: So a question I have, you mentioned sharing your screen, how accessible is that with voiceover? I heard through the grapevine that the voice-over will read actually what's on the screen. I don't know if it's true or not? Serina: So I haven't had a chance to test that because at work we don't use any Max, and then when I'm on a Zoom call and I am a participant I'm not usually on my iPhone. Hope: Right. Serina: So if you are leading the meeting and you're sharing your screen, it's actually pushing through a video of your screen, so it's almost like, I just imagine like a webcam watching your screen or whatever. Hope: Right, so I would assume it's not accessible then. Serine: Correct, but and I don't remember the keystroke, maybe Jeff knows, but I know in the latest major update to the OS on the Macs and iOS, you can have it essentially perform an OCR on the screen like live, with the software on the Mac, but I haven't had a chance to truly test that out just because I'm not usually on Apple devices when I'm participating. The way that I work around that, because I do have to present to individuals that use screen readers as well sometimes, is I usually will send my PowerPoint out ahead of time so that they can follow along while they're listening to the meeting, but then they also have access to the chat panel and everything else, it's just the visual of the video that they're not quite having access to but I, I just send it out ahead of time. Jeff: Yeah I haven't dug too deep into this, but Serina told me about Jonathan Mosen's book, and he did a full fledge book on using Zoom for calls and meetings and stuff like that, and yeah, I believe you can get that on Mosen's consulting on the website, and we'll put a link to that in the show notes. Serina: Yeah the book is called "Meet Me Accessibly" and it's very current based on, because I listen to maybe four or five chapters so far, and it sounds like he recorded it maybe in June of 17 and he does a really good job of letting you hear the screen reader and how it interacts with everything and going through all the different settings and explaining what exactly it is that they all do. Jeff: Yes he does he has quite a few books on Mosen's consulting so when you get there, just look around and he has tutorials on a lot of different topics, he's into the Mac, he's into, no not the Mac as much anymore, but he's into the PC, Microsoft. Serina: All these plugs Jeff, you're going to need to get some royalties! [Laughter] Jeff: Hopefully I get their name right and their website right. Another app that I have that I use and some people laugh at this, I use Dictionary Thesaurus Plus, and if you get the dictionary you can upgrade and you get, its a combination of Dictionary and Thesaurus Plus and I get the word of the day, and I'm just waiting to get that specific word to send Serina because she laughed at me when I talked about this app before. But it's just kind of neat because in there, they have flashcards and I'm on the bottom, they're not labeled but I figured out what two of them are, flashcards, so I took insight today just when I was skipping around there and I made a flashcard so on one side it says insight, on the other side it says the definition, so someone could actually go through there if they have a 10 word list that need to know or learn, like they're in school and they could actually input the word, get the dictionary, and there's also a button that says go to page, so if you want more definition you can just click on it, brings it right to the dictionary page and it's just kind of a neat resource if you're into that you know. If you want to know what words mean. Serina: Well that could you, I mean you just brought up a good point though, that could be a really good study aid for somebody if you're in a class where there's a lot of maybe theories, or specific definitions you need to know, you could load all those in there and while you're on the bus or whatever kind of be going through those, probably a more fun way than just reading the book. Jeff: Yeah and that's why I did it, like when I took Spanish, I made, I made note cards. I took these note cards and I brailled on one side, and then on the other side I had some other Braille, the translation in English to what it was, so I could just go through, and people were like joking with me like, Oh flashcards, it's like it's something for the kids or something, but hey, it's a good learning tool because it's just repetitious and pretty soon it just starts coming to you. Serina: Mmm-hmm. Jeff: So I dug right in when I saw they had flashcards, I went wow! So I really like that and it's, uh I think there's a fee for the upgrade, might be a few dollars but you can get download at all for free and test it and then in the in-app you can upgrade. Serina: Nice! Jeff: Well I think we got a handful of apps here that you know through experience we, we've been trying, we've been using and stuff. Some of these apps if you find them useful click on the show notes, download them, check them out, and if you have any feedback or suggestions on the apps that you want us to do on our next show, give us a jingle, drop us an email at JobInsights@blindabilities.com, on Twitter at Job Insights VIP, and uh, let us know what you think. Serina: What are we talking about next tiem John....John? Wow! Sorry! [Laughter] Jeff: Well Sarah! [Laughter] Jeff: What will our next one be on? Serina: I don't know, we have so many topics, normally I'm like, let's take this, let's let Hope pick the next topic, no pressure! Hope: No pressure yeah right mm-hmm! Let's do transportation since we kind of talked a little bit about it in this one, that would make sense. Serina: Getting to work. Hope: Yeah, absolutely. Serina: Perfect. Jeff: Getting to work, school, college. Hope: Yeah. Jeff: There you go Sarah! Serina: Stop it! [Laughter] Jeff: And if you want to contact Hope, she's on Twitter. Serina: If you want people to have it? Hope: Yeah my Twitter is Fidelco, capital F as in Foxtrot, I, D as in Delta, E, L, C, O, 4, the number four, ever. My email address is hopepaulos@gmail.com, so hopepaulos@gmail.com. Jeff: Well Hope thank you very much for coming on to Job Insights, it's really neat to have you and we're gonna have you back as soon as possible here for our next round table. Hope: Thank you so much Jeff and Serina, it was wonderful being here. I appreciate it! Serina: Yep, you have a great day! Hope: Thank you! Jeff: Do you know it's nearly midnight and you said have a great day? Serina: Well this will come out during the day. [Laughter] [Music] Jeff: It was a real pleasure having Hope Paulos join us on the show today, all the way from Maine, and next week when we're talking about transportation all the way from New York we'll have Joe De Niro, so stay tuned to the next episode of Job Insights. And a big shout-out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music and you can follow him on Twitter at lcheechau, as always thank you for listening, we hope you enjoyed, and until next time bye-bye [Multiple voices] When we share what we see through each other's eyes, We can then begin to bridge the Gap between the limited expectations and the realities of Blind Abilities. Jeff: For more podcast with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on twitter at BlindAbilities, download our app from the app store, Blind Abilities, that's two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com, thanks for listening.