Hey, welcome to my home, my apartment, my couch.
It's Wednesday night.
It's Book Bub.
It's Wednesday Night Book Bub.
I'm your host, Andy Rice.
This is my home.
You're here.
We're going to talk about books, but with me, who's not here every time, this is a rare
treat, but I love it.
It's my good friend, Austin Farrell.
Check me out in the Bible.
I love it.
You better.
I'm going to do religious books for this one.
Perfect.
There's so many.
So, this week we are covering the, I guess, I don't know what category to put this in,
but it's called Running the Light by Sam Talent.
It came out in 2020, and it is about a standup comic who is over the hill and past giving
a fuck, a road comic who's just living alcohol and drug to alcohol and drugs, traveling city
to city.
His apartment is just a place that he sleeps occasionally.
He lives on the road.
He's kind of a piece of shit.
He did something questionable when he was younger and sort of threw his whole career
away.
He was an up and coming guy.
Could have made it big.
Didn't.
It's sad life.
We see a week of this dude's life, and his name is Billy Ray Schaefer.
Austin, what was your thoughts on this?
Because you're a standup comic like myself.
We are on a team called Mojave Comedy.
We perform all over the place, and we're both, I think we're both competent comedians.
We write material, our jokes land, people laugh, we know what we're doing.
We're not well known, right?
But I've been reached out to for a show, Just Me, by myself, which is very flattering.
And I'm like, oh, you guys are dumb.
I need at least a host and an opener.
I need like three other guys to make money, not just me.
I'm like, oh, we can get one seventh of them and only have to pay them one seventh of the
pay.
Oh, is it a pay issue?
We do shit for free a lot of the time.
We do canned food runs.
I know we're so great.
Have you ever met us?
We're great.
Yeah, we're the best.
But this book, it felt good to read a book about someone who is a standup written by
someone who is a great standup.
Sometimes so fucking funny.
His special The Toad's Morale, which I have hilarious.
Haven't watched it.
I've only seen him from Kill Tony and he's my favorite Kill Tony guest.
Yeah, he's great.
He knows when to fucking pipe in and he knows when not to.
And his jokes are so fucking funny.
His retorts is on the spot, like timing.
Everything's great.
He's so great.
This is also the first novel he's ever written.
And it's it I would say it's very well written.
And it has a lot of references and like things that you as a comedian would understand and
feel and like relate to the character in a sense.
Like in the beginning, I think it's like Monday or Tuesday.
He's doing the show at the VFW, kind of like how we did over like halfway to Kingman over
here and it's like the wood paneling on the walls and like he's describing everything
and you're like, holy shit, you're like, yeah, this is exactly the mood.
It really sets the mood like you feel like you're there and you're doing the show.
And Billy Ray is just a vessel that you're in, kind of minus the divorce and the minus
canceled.
Also minus the completely negative outlook on things like I know that you and I are heavy
drug users and we're not drinking ourselves into fucking oblivion.
I used to show.
But I mean, sure.
But this guy is way older than us and he's still doing it.
You know, like he never hit that point of I used to.
He's still doing it.
He's still going hard.
So I don't think that he's a very good protagonist as far as like, oh, he's not a great guy at
all.
Not a great guy.
I'm not a fan of him as as who he is.
He's very funny.
One of the best jokes in this entire book was also I got to put that I made a point
to you and I didn't mean to hurt your feelings about it, but you said you hate spoilers and
I pointed out that like, well, your whole book club is just spoiling the book for people
who didn't read it, but for that case, if you have not read this book, go read it and
then come back and watch this with us because it's an amazing book.
You won't want to miss it.
I just got to put that out there because I fucking love this book and just Billy Billy
Ray.
The fact that there's it's it's a fictional story, but it is set in our real world that
we live in.
He just kind of etches out this little history for Billy Ray in it.
There's like comedians, names, real comedians, stories.
There's like a whole section where he talks about other comedians talking about him, like
the real quotes from real interviews.
And that's because Sam Talent knows all these people and had a bunch of comedians contributed
to this.
So that's where.
OK, so this is where we differ.
You read the book.
I read it.
I listened to the audiobook.
Now the audiobook is narrated by a lot of people.
Bert Kreischer, Cockney, all these people.
And you made me really when you described it to me, you made me really glad that I just
read it.
Yeah, because here's the thing.
I would argue that of the let's say that there's 12 or 15 narrators in total, maybe maybe it's
just eight or nine or 10.
But of them, 30 percent, 40 percent of the time, 50 percent of the time, maybe it sounds
like a legit audiobook.
The other times it's a comedian that shouldn't be reading audiobooks, reading an audiobook,
just not doing a great job like Bert Kreischer.
I don't think did a very great job.
It's like I wouldn't want to listen to him do a whole book.
I wouldn't want to listen to Ari Shaffir do a whole book.
And I for fucking sure would not want whoever the chick was at the last chapter who recorded
in her fucking bathroom with a snowball mic while her fan was on.
Like just the worst quality fucking audio I've ever heard that audibles ever put out
for an audiobook.
I fucking was so disappointed.
You got to think that maybe that was intentional for some kind of reason.
No, I think it's he reached out to a comedian chick and she literally didn't think it was
worth her fucking time to buy a proper mic.
And she went into her bathroom when she wanted to get away from her kids, turn the fan on
and started talking into her.
Probably her phone speaker is what it sounded like and then just recorded that.
It wasn't even like good quality.
I'm telling you, the last chapter is fucking god awful.
I'll play you a sample on my.
All right, maybe you'll change my mind.
It's the same thing.
I don't mean to reference another book.
Here's a tangent in the book club.
But I read Nick Offerman's book, Where the Deer and Antelope Play.
Okay.
Because it was him talking about going into nature and I read the back and I was just
really into it.
Cool.
Is it going to be a bunch of him?
And it was that in the first half or the first third of it, then two thirds in, it just cuts
off and it starts this whole political covid like talking about all this, like all this
stuff.
And then the third part of it is like it goes back into that and reading it in the moment,
I was like, I fucking why?
This is not why I'm here.
I don't fucking.
And then later I was thinking about it more and I was like, oh, that's because that stuff
is like stressful and you don't want to think about it.
And the nature kind of brings you back into it.
So he's kind of, you know what I mean?
He's putting you.
I want to go back into the nature where the deer and antelope play kind of thing is inserted
all that in the middle.
And it made me mad.
But then I was like, oh, OK, that was really starts off nice and peaceful and outdoorsy.
So I want to hit you with the fucking real life bullshit that sucks.
And you want to go back and it goes back.
And he's like, this is where it all makes sense.
And that's that's what I maybe that's maybe you're right.
But maybe that's what the whole girl recorded in the audiobook of running the light at the
very end.
Maybe there was some kind of thing like that.
But maybe maybe you're right.
Maybe it sounds fucking awful.
It's awful.
I don't know.
I don't.
I mean, if look, everyone in the fucking audiobook in the audible comments of the reviews, I
guess, a lot of them called out that last chapter.
I think that's what's keeping it from getting like a more high score is it's it's breaking
it like a four out of five right now as opposed to like a four and a half or five.
But I will say this.
Sam talent is great as far as first first novels go.
This is one of this is a top first novel.
But it's it's definitely a first novel.
And you could tell a lot of his imagery, you know, like it sounds it almost sounds like
almost too much.
You know, it's like I get you're trying to paint a picture, but like not everything has
to be a poem.
Not every sentence has to be a poem to describe a scene.
And he did a lot of that, a lot of prose, a lot of love, you know, like and I just for
me, he could have I like a book I like good I like descriptions.
His I guess it was just a little there's not it's his first novel, though.
I mean, you got to give him you got to say, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
As far as first novels go.
Like if you look at the first novel of the butcher, the Jim Butcher's Dresden Files,
which is a book about a private eye wizard in modern day, sort of like an adult rated
are Harry Potter.
It's pretty great.
And the first book, though, is fucking awful.
I read it.
I enjoyed it when I read it.
And then I read the rest of the books that he wrote.
I was just like, oh, I ever reread the series.
I will not reread.
It's like he took a limitless pill for the rest of it.
Yes, it is like that.
So maybe if he writes another one, I mean, I would definitely I'm definitely going to
pick up another book.
I will, too.
Yeah.
Maybe he'll look at all the reviews and like, OK, I'll continue that and the other Billy
Ray Schafer story, though.
No, you can't.
No, no.
Unfortunately, I warned you about the spoilers were nine minutes in.
I already told everyone.
But yeah, he he kind of gets redeemed or he makes everyone else good.
And his life still sucks.
And then he dies.
I don't think there's any redemption.
Really?
He reaches out to his son and he gets sort of a half.
He hangs out with his son.
But then he finds out he thought his other son hates him all the time.
But he's like, oh, yeah, you know, he still sends me clips of yours, like good clips of
yours and stuff.
And then the whole thing, you got to hang out with the son, hug him, say goodbye and
everything.
And then he cries in his car and then he leaves.
He goes meets sees his ex wife and he lets her just completely unload all the years of
stress and everything onto him.
And then he leaves and died.
So like he kind of made good with everyone.
As far as his life goes, it's not a bad way to end the fucking ended.
And he had a big crazy show, two pages of his set, his whole set where he just goes
off the last show he does with Norm MacDonald.
Yeah, that was great.
It filled to like I think two and a half pages of just him fucking going off.
I love there's a few jokes.
There's one that stuck out with me that I think is just a funny, well written joke,
but there's two gay guys having sex and the house catches on fire.
Who gets out first, the top or the bottom, the bottom because the shit's already packed.
That was one of the best, just a well written fucking joke, dude.
So yeah, it's very funny.
His like jokes that he put into this book as jokes for for Billy Ray to say, Sam Talent
still writes fucking bangers like like some of his set were great.
I feel like whatever he puts himself like into, like he's doing this travel show now
where like him and his buddies go around the world.
I think he said they're going to like China, Japan or maybe Indonesia.
I'm not sure.
I got to go watch it, but he's been talking about it and it sounds that sounds like it's
going to be a fun deal.
I feel like I'm just plugging all the shit for him, but he deserves it.
Why not?
Yeah, I wonder if it's a if it's an American version of Travelman because Travelman is
a successful British show about a comedian who a comedian who takes his friends to different
countries to like go see what they're all about and shit.
Is that not?
I think it's just I think they're just I don't know what they're doing exactly, but yeah,
your Sam Talent travel show worldwide or wide world.
There it is.
OK, cool.
Tokyo, Tokyo Ritz.
Oh, yeah, maybe they are going and doing comedy everywhere.
Yeah, it looks that looks like fun.
I'm going to watch that.
That looks cool.
Here's a here's here's what the audiobook sounds like, by the way.
Oh, God, here we go.
The final person doesn't do justice that it's recorded on a phone being played off of a
phone.
It's a listen.
It's not even that bad or it's not even a it's trust me, that doesn't make it worse.
That sounds great.
Here, let's get to here's Bert Kreischer.
Hold on.
Let me take it off.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Jesus Christ.
Well, listen to how slow it is for crush.
OK, so yeah, they worked with Bert.
He had some good editing there.
You could tell where they they clipped it after a sentence or two.
Who the hell is that?
Oh yeah, that sounds as they say who it is.
And he saw that she had been crying.
Nora Linton streaks down her dusty cheeks.
I love you.
God, you can hear that.
You see what I'm talking about?
She's fucking here on her phone.
You're a cat meowing in the background.
That's just awful.
I was not.
So that's that you kind of read it the hard way.
I did for the first time ever.
I slow it down for that one.
No, I kept it at full speed.
I wanted to get through her chapter as quick as possible.
But fuck, dude.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I would say audiobook wise, this is one of the lower ranked audiobooks for
me.
But as far as story wise go, I think it's great, especially if you're fucking comic.
Let's talk about the whole Norm McDonald's thing.
I believe he wrote this after he passed.
Oh, I think so.
And he said in an interview that he studied everything Norman's ever written or done or
been in featured in whatever and then just made a character.
So it's almost like a human made AI version of Mark.
It felt like a real did I say Mark Norman?
No, no, no, no.
I think you said Norm McDonald.
I think you might have just fucked up once.
Norm McDonald.
Yeah, it felt like an AI version of him.
It felt like a good like real lived in version of Norm McDonald.
And also, if you love Norm McDonald, it's it almost it's like you get to like live being
his buddy or something.
Yeah.
Mentor in the story.
Billy Ray was Norm's mentor.
So Norm looks out for Billy Ray when Billy Ray comes in to do a set at this club that
his ex wife runs.
Right.
Doesn't know it's it's a oh, so the whole thing with the lady at the club does not like
him because back in his wilder days, he sold her brother some coke and he relapsed like
badly.
So she's always like hated him.
And then what Billy Ray did, which was really bad, is he did he fuck some underage girl?
Yeah, he was in a show in Florida, fucked a waitress that worked there, then found out
later she was all he didn't know that she was 16.
He moved on with his life and then she was pregnant, got an abortion, but she needed her
parents permission.
Her parents were like super Catholic.
So they got it.
They called her.
They called his wife.
Yeah.
And then the whole thing blew open and he was canceled after that.
Yeah.
Big time.
We're talking what's his face from Seinfeld?
Michael Richardson.
You remember what he did, right?
Yeah.
He said the N word a lot on stage.
Not just once.
I mean, he didn't just say the N word.
He screamed the N word about 40 times at his black audience.
Oh, no.
He's like, you think it's a big deal that I say the N word?
And he just started screaming it, dude.
It's fucking bad.
Like that was that was that was cancelable for sure.
But I still he could probably make a comeback now.
I mean, Michael or Mel Gibson's allowed to make movies and he had that anti-Jewish fucking
rant.
You know, as a kid, I thought it was Jerry Seinfeld that said a bunch of horrible things.
And for the longest time, like, how do you get away with that?
No, he says the B movie.
What the fuck?
This guy, the guy that said 20 N words on stage, he's in the B movie.
He's made it good for him.
Maybe Michael Richardson doesn't need to do anything.
He's got all that Seinfeld money.
Yeah.
I mean, he does.
Like, he really doesn't have to do anything.
But I bet he wanted to continue his career after Seinfeld as a stand up comic, as a movie
actor, probably.
Maybe he's lucky he got out early.
He doesn't have to.
He's just a normal guy.
I mean, he's perfectly normal, but he's a good guy.
He's a good guy.
So that's probably why we're going to keep seeing him in something like, what would he
have been?
Back to the future?
Yeah, I was kind of thinking like a new doc.
He could have been a great new doc if they rebooted it.
Maybe he could go back in time and stop himself from saying the N words so many times.
Anyways, Duck Shit Bingo.
Duck Shit Bingo.
That was great.
Following Duck Shit Bingo.
This is where a duck walks in, they overfeed them,
they don't let them shit and then they bring them out
and wherever he shits, whoever's money is in that box
gets to win, it's so great.
It made more money than Billy Ray did
on his night of performing, which was fucking great.
He stole that dude's cocaine, he fucked off into the night.
Let his duck go.
Let his duck.
Free his duck and fucked off.
So great, Billy Ray is such a piece of shit.
It was hard to relate with him.
This is a tough read because a lot of it is just
really fucking rough and depressing and shit.
So.
He's not a hero by any means.
Nothing really goes well for him.
Oh and the whole thing where he finds those people
with an open relationship and he goes,
he fucks the chick and then he wakes up the next morning
and he looks in his boot for his money clip and it's gone.
He goes back there, beats the shit out of this guy.
And then some naked chick.
Naked chick with a gun is like, fuck it, stop,
you left it here by accident.
Holy shit, that was so great.
And then he kept thinking about going back to her house
and letting her finish the job.
Yeah, dark.
Dark.
Also he's like, I'm turned on right now by her,
naked with a gun pointed at me.
I would be too.
Naked chick with a gun, you're about to die.
Fuck yeah.
Also everything that he describes,
all the scenery and what Billy Ray's going through,
it feels like you're suffering with him.
Yeah, it really does.
God damn this sucks.
That's what I'm saying, this is a tough read.
If you read this, you're gonna feel what Billy Ray feels.
You're gonna feel what the people around him feel.
You're gonna feel gross.
It's a gross feeling book.
None of this, it feels great.
It feels like you're watching the protagonist
of the dumpster trying to get out of his trash life
and it doesn't work.
And that's what it feels like.
It's just a hard read.
The whole part in between,
when he gets off stage for the last time with Norm,
and then you can kind of visualize that,
he has that whole conversation with Norm
and he's like, I'm leaving.
And then Norm goes on stage,
not realizing that, or kind of realizing
that this is the last time
he's gonna see his friend alive, very sad.
And then he goes on this whole journey,
just going through the night, partying.
I think he fucking smashed some guy's windshield
or something, someone honked at him.
And he fucking flipped out.
Then he goes to, he wants a score now,
so he's going to his old neighborhood,
it's all gentrified now.
He goes to the bar.
He gets in a taxi and he's like,
take me to this neighborhood, right?
To go buy drugs,
because he knew that's where he was supposed to be.
And then he walks up to a black dude.
Yeah, thinking he's a drug dealer.
He's like, the fuck you mean?
And the guy's like, what the fuck?
I ain't no drug dealer.
And he runs after him, trying to beat his ass.
And he's fat.
And then he goes into that bar.
What happens after he goes into that bar?
He goes, he gets so fucking wasted.
He talks to the girl
and has like a nice conversation with her.
And then he's trying to get Coke from the bartender.
Like, where do I get Coke at?
And he's like, you gotta fucking leave.
And then he's running around.
And then he runs into this crackhead, like tweaker dude,
and fucking gets bashed on the head.
Wakes up, everything's gone.
He walks back to his car.
He has to buy Listerine so he can keep drinking.
Takes a bath in a fucking ravine
and some kids make fun of him.
They're like, what the fuck did he,
what did the kids say to him?
He had like a good retort.
He's like, fucking, I don't know.
It was really, I fucking, I gotta go.
I'm gonna reread this book eventually,
but he's like something, your mother's cunt
or something to these little kids.
Your mother's cunt, yeah, yeah, it was something brutal.
It was something that like would make a little kid go,
oh, cry, you know?
So, yeah, dude, this was a...
Yeah, that ending, fucking.
Yeah, him, him, crashing.
I did not see that coming.
There was like a few pages left,
but I think there were blanks,
so I thought there was more to it.
And you just don't see it coming
until like the last paragraph
where he talks about like dropping a cigarette,
swerving, and then the very last two words, he laughed.
Yeah, I had to rewind 30 seconds or whatever
because I was like, wait, what?
What did you say over that bathroom fan?
Yeah, what did he, then he died?
Yeah, exactly.
That's how my final moments was delivered.
It's like, and then he, you know, he laughed.
I was like, oh, fuck, thanks for
not doing a good audio quality.
But yeah, well, let's rate this thing on...
How many days out of seven?
I don't know.
The chapter.
Let's do a seven day rating system
on seven being the highest that you can go,
which is Norm MacDonald in this fictional.
Fictional AI, Norm MacDonald is a seven out of seven.
And a one out of seven would be a Billy Ray Shaper.
As people?
On Saturday night, as people.
So that's your rating system.
And then in between would be like Roseanne Barr in this book.
Who I guess, was it?
I'd say Billy Ray's kid, the one he hangs out with,
because he's just kind of mid.
He's like, yeah, he's in the middle of the road.
So I'm going to give this, if we're going out of seven,
I was going to give it like a 3.9, 3.8,
like close to a four.
So I'll go with a five.
I'm going full Norm MacDonald.
This is a great book.
I hate to disagree with you,
but the way you read it brings it down
and that's understandable.
It's not even that.
It's also the content.
It's as much as an interesting,
as far as my kind of book goes,
it's not normally something that I would read.
Like it's just a little too,
it's a little too dark and grim in the sense that like,
there's no point to any of it.
It's just kind of like a week in the life of that comedian
that everyone knows.
Everyone knows at least one of them or has been him.
If you're a comedian, if you're in that world,
if you're just a regular person in the world then,
and you don't do stand-up comedy,
then this book might not hold a lot of,
like you might not relate to it as much, right?
If you're a hardcore comedy fan, then maybe.
But just a normal person,
you're not gonna put down John Grisham for this.
You're gonna keep reading your mom books.
This was your mom books, look.
At least I took Stephen King out of the mom book.
Which I appreciate.
I've gone by Goodwill and all I see
are just a million copies of James Patterson books
and John Grisham, but hard to find Stephen King in there.
Cause everyone buys them up, right when they drop.
I know Grisham,
he's known for dog stuff.
Like he-
Oh, whoa.
Yeah, I know.
Please clarify.
Yeah, he writes books that have dogs in it.
He has a book series that I think stars
a fictionalized version of his dog
with like maybe superpowers.
And all of the proceeds that he gets from that book
go towards like animal charities.
That's nice.
So like he writes an entire series
that just makes money for charities.
And he, there's one book called,
I think The Watcher or Watchers.
And it's somewhat next, relatively soon
on my list of things to read.
And it's about like a dog with powers.
And I remember maybe 20 years ago,
my mom handing me a copy and being like,
this is one of her favorite things that she's read.
And my mom, she reads, you know, a book a day.
You know, she like, she'll just pick up a book
and she gets through it in a day.
She'll just start in the morning, in the afternoon.
She's not just fast reader.
And she reads her, we had to build her an entire
like room of shelves for her books.
And yeah, I'm getting started on mine pretty much.
But I still think, look, I love the feel of a classic book,
but Kindle, if you've got Kindle,
you can literally put all the books in the world
on fucking Kindle.
I just don't like doing the audio book thing.
I don't want, I like reading.
I like reading it myself
and visualizing the voice and everything.
Yeah, but I'm talking about Kindle's reading it
on your own.
Okay, that's good.
That's like a book reader.
It's like a, you know, it's the size of a book,
but it's digital.
And what's cool about that is people go like,
oh, but I don't know if I want to just read black ink
on a white screen for the whole time.
They have options.
They have like a sepia tone
to make it kind of look like paper, you know?
You can adjust the font.
So it's actually a little easier to read
for a lot of people because let's face it,
the book size of the font is the only size you have.
You'd have to get like a magnifying glass
to make a figure of glasses, right?
It's digital.
I'm a big fan of Kindle.
I do have like 20 books I gotta read
that I've just been buying like crazy.
Why not get a library card and save the money?
I like having a physical copy.
That's what the library has, a ton of them.
To keep on a shelf is like a conquest, you know?
Oh.
I romanticize book reading newly.
Yeah, no.
Advancing that bookmark, closing it,
and you're like, fuck, I made it that far?
Hey, I've got some hot takes here.
I'm talking about Kindle versus regular books,
and I prefer Kindle,
and I listen to audiobooks all the time.
Trust me, I'm not the one people are rooting for
in this conversation.
They're all for you and your love for the feel of a book.
I listen to a lot of music.
I listen to a lot of podcasts.
And so adding audiobooks onto that,
that's a lot of different audio I'm consuming.
Fair enough.
So I'd like a nice physical.
Maybe your ears will break.
Well, let's rate this thing.
Oh, we already did.
So I did a five, you did a seven.
So perfect.
It's gonna get a six, six out of seven.
Six out of seven days.
Days, six out of seven days.
Great.
Business week.
And then next week,
I'm not sure what the book is gonna be just yet.
It could be The Fellowship of the Ring.
Because I'm-
You know, we could do a Scanner Darkly.
It could be.
If you want.
Oh wait, did you read it yet?
No, not yet.
Oh, okay, so.
No, not yet.
We'll see what next week is.
It could be anything.
Keep your eyes peeled.
It could be Fellowship of the Ring.
Could be Scanner Darkly.
It could be some sort of a sci-fi book.
Is that sort of what I've been typing into Audible
to see what to read?
I haven't got any suggestions from our voicemail yet.
So go check out friedrisepodcast.com
and go to our voicemail and give us a call
and tell me what book to read.
And I will.
Austin, thank you so much for joining me.
In my apartment.
This Wednesday Night Book Club.
I'm Andy Rice.
This has been Austin Farrell.
The book was, what did we read?
Running the Light by Sam Talent.
Go to Sam Talent's website.
Go see his shows.
Watch his show, Wide World.
What's his special called again?
The Toad's Morale.
Perfect.
Check him out on Kill Tony as well.
He's really funny.
All right everyone, have a great night.