Welcome to this curated educational transcript of the Joe Rogan Experience. In this session, we provide a deep-dive examination of the critical perspectives and historical dialogues presented in Episode #1942. Our mission is to offer a high-fidelity, searchable research resource for students of cultural history, emerging technology, and global discourse. This transcript has been specifically optimized for academic reference, linguistic study, and archival preservation regarding Contemporary Espionage Literature, Global Security Dynamics, and Military Intelligence Narratives. Joe Rogan Podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan
Experience. Train by day. Joe Rogan Podcast by
night. All day. What's up, Mark? How are you?
Nice to meet you, man. It's very nice to meet
you. I'm on the 11th book of yours now. So the
whole Gray Man series. I'm on Sierra 6. Yeah.
The new one comes out? immediately so yeah 12
they sent me the new one good yeah so i have
a copy of it that's awesome i appreciate your
reading it's uh you write some fucked up books
man you seem like such a normal guy i was always
wondering i'm like how does someone write like
this and not be a total psycho like the fact
that you have those thoughts in your mind and
you can Envision and create these scenarios in
your brain. Yeah, that pops into my head a lot
when I'm talking to people. Aunt who's passed
away, but she was 93. And, you know, it's like,
hey, Dorothy, here's my book about sex trafficking.
I hope you enjoy it. You know, she read it because
she would my aunt. If I joined the Taliban, she'd
be like, well, you know, they have some nice
clothing or something. She'd never find a positive.
She'd find a positive. So she never complained
about anything. But, yeah, I do run into people
all the time, you know. kids parents or you know
on my soccer team my kids soccer team or whatever
and and i'm like i wonder what they think of
me because whatever they know yeah like how many
of them have read your book yeah it's the ones
that say they've read my books and then i kind
of feel like ah crap yeah i get that with parents
when they say they've listened to my podcast
i really love your podcast i'm like shit yeah
i'm like what kind of psycho stuff do we have
to talk about now but but you're Your books are
so violent. They're so – it's like for me, it's
– I really – I listen to them on audio when I'm
in the sauna all the time. Oh, great. Because
the sauna is so torturous because I keep it at
190 degrees and I'm in there for 25 minutes.
It's fucking rough. Yeah. And it's like that
kind of like – the kind of insane narratives
that you create, the kind of – you know, situations
that you create in your mind. They're very good
when you're suffering. Yeah. Yeah. I have a blue
collar like philosophy about writing. Like I
like generating a product that people can use
if their flights delayed or, you know, they're
snowed in or whatever. And I get people emailing
me all the time. It's like, hey, I read your
book when my mom was sick and I was in the hospital.
And, you know, I like that, you know, that it
serves a sort of physical purpose. You know,
like it's a it's an it's an instrument. It's
not just an idea. It's a great instrument of
escapism. Yeah. Because. because it's so compelling
and because the books are so interesting. And
by the way, shout out to Jack Carr because Jack
Carr is the guy who turned me on. That's fantastic.
Because I had read his first book and I was like,
this is great. Do you have any other authors
that you recommend? Like who are you into? And
then he told me about you. Yeah, yeah. We've
been friends before his first book came out.
We were connected with one another through a
guy in the firearms industry. And I was like,
yeah, I think this guy, I read his book. I was
like, yeah, he's going somewhere. Little did
I know, I think he'd already had it optioned.
Yeah, for... TV. Yeah, he's just an awesome person,
too. Just a really great guy. I met him a few
years back in elk hunting camp. That's actually
where I met him, in Utah. I didn't know who he
was. I hadn't read any of his books. He gave
me a copy of his book. Just seemed like a really
nice guy. I'm like, this book is fucking great.
He did great with the series, too. I was impressed
with it. I was really impressed. I enjoyed the
Gray Man movie. But it was not as good as your
book. Thank you for saying that. It just wasn't
the same story. Like they Hollywoodized it. Absolutely.
You know, I liked it. And what I say, and I don't
know how this makes me sound, it's like the movie
is the best possible commercial for my writing.
And if you're a writer, you want eyeballs on
your work. And so I love the movie. And, you
know, there's bits of dialogue in there and things
they did with the plot that I really liked. But,
you know, it's not as gritty. Not nearly. Yeah.
And they do things that they have to do shorthand
in a movie. I get 100 ,000 words to write a book
or 150 ,000 words to write a book. So I have
some luxuries that they don't have putting something
on the screen. But I like the fact that they're
different because. There's still a reason to
read my book. If you saw the movie and enjoyed
it, hopefully it turns you on to the book and
then you see something different in there. No,
I definitely think there's that element to it
because it is – it's for sure a Hollywoodized
version of these gritty books that you write.
But it's also good. Like if you didn't know about
the book and you just saw the movie, it's good.
Yeah. They're two different things. But the book
is so much fucking nastier. Thank you. And also
– I said thank you. you i don't know if that's
what i should say but court gentry in your books
is just so much different than ryan in the movies
it's just like yeah i mean they did a lot without
dialogue which i appreciated and i liked you
know he'd do a lot with a look but i mean when
you in a book you're able to get into the characters
had quite a bit quite a bit more so it's a different
experience if you could pick a person like an
actor if you could start from scratch no disrespect
to it's ryan reynolds or right Gosling. Why do
I always fuck that up? I always fuck that up.
I couldn't pick either one of them out of a fucking
lineup to save my life. Gosling. Ryan Gosling.
I really like the guy, too, by the way. Who would
you pick if you could just say any actor? Who
do you think you would go with? You know, that's
a tough question because that thing has been
in Hollywood. The Gray Man's been in Hollywood
since two months before the little paperback
came out in 2009. So it's been bouncing around.
And I've heard every actor. At one point, Brad
Pitt was signed on to it. Really? Yeah, yeah,
like back 2011 or something. And then it fell
apart and it came back. And each time they would
send me a script or whoever was doing it. Darren
wanted to do it. What? Yeah, they rewrote the
whole script. She wanted to be the girl? No,
she wanted to be Court Gentry. Oh, my God. So
they wrote a script for it, and it was good screenwriters.
And I remember reading the script going like...
Was it the gray woman or the gray non -binary
person? It was still the gray man. Her name was
still Court Gentry. What? But everything was
different. They never really explained, is that
short for Courtney or something? Oh, my God.
But it was just a completely different plot.
Thank God they didn't do that. I thought if they
changed, you know, like... And I love her because
she had just done Fury Road. So, I mean, I'd
love to write something for her to be in. I didn't
see Fury Road. Oh, the Mad Max. Oh, Mad Max.
Yeah. OK. She was so good. But as an author,
you couldn't put out the Gray Man novel with
her face on it. And they opened the book and
it has nothing to do with a woman. And as much
as I love her, like I was like, well, this isn't
going to, you know. sell books or get eyes in
my work the screenplay was actually really good
but i remember thinking if i went to the theater
and saw it and had a different title i would
not even know there'd be like one scene where
i'm like oh yeah i did a thing on a plane too
you know it was so different it was a completely
different plot it was good i wish they'd make
it and call it something else yeah make it and
call it something else you don't call it the
gray man That's such a weird choice. Yeah, yeah.
At one point, like real early on when it first
got optioned, people were asking me who should
play the character. And I thought it would be
somebody who's not like Rambo or anything like
that. So I was saying like Casey Affleck or somebody
like that. Oh, interesting. That you wouldn't
expect in a big action film. But wouldn't you
need someone who's like physically formidable?
You know. The thing is I've written 12 books,
and I've never once had him working out. I've
never shown him working out or even really training.
You talked a couple of times about him doing
calisthenics or something. Yeah, I've thrown
it in a little bit because I'm like, all right,
how does this possibly happen? How does he keep
these perishable skills and his fitness up? But
there's actors that I really like, like Max Martini.
I don't know if you know who that is. I don't
know who that is. If you saw him, he's he he
was in 13 hours. It was a really good movie.
And the Michael Bay film. Wow. Look at that.
That's amazing. And so he's you know, he's like
a formidable dude and a really good actor. But
there's you know, he doesn't. I like the physical
presence of him. Yeah, he might be good, too,
because even though he's kind of recognizable,
it's not Brad Pitt. Like every time Brad Pitt's
in a movie, it's Brad Pitt. If that guy's in
a movie, you could say, oh, I think I've seen
that guy in something before. But he's court
gentry. Yeah, exactly. Well, I got a ton of people
mad that Ryan Gosling was in it before it came
out. And they were like, you need to get some
unknown guy because nobody recognizes the great
man. And I'm like. You probably don't understand
how $200 million movies work. They don't. What
we're going to do is we're going to get this
guy out, you know, find the guy at the mall and
make him, you know, it's just not how it works.
It's too bad because I don't really know if it
makes a difference. I think they think it makes
a difference. But I think if you have a movie
that has an amazing plot and a great. like trailer
and it looks wild and like people i think people
get sucked into it anyway yeah and and honestly
like one of the best films i've ever seen in
my life which is an action film it's a korean
film called the man from nowhere and it's also
and fortunately it came out after the gray man
did otherwise people would think i'd ripped off
the gray man um because it's about A former assassin
who's trying to lay low and he ends up having
to rescue this girl. Well, the book, though,
came so much earlier than the movie. Like, how
many years was it between you writing the book
and then the film coming out? I wrote the book
in 2007. It came out in 2009 and the film came
out in 22. And so it's like 13 years. I was still
lucky. You know, everybody's like, I bet you
hate that you had to wait this long. And I'm
like. If I was an 85 -year -old man and they
made a film out of one of my books, I'd be thrilled.
Yeah, it's a rare thing, right? For sure. Especially
a big blockbuster film with Ryan Gosling. You're
getting it. Gosling. There it is. There we go.
Chris Evans is great in that, too. Yeah, he was
terrific. Yeah, he really played an awesome version
of the character you wrote in the book. Yeah,
and that's an example of a difference in the
film that I liked. Yes. in the book is not like
a physical presence he's more of like the asshole
master mastermind of the whole thing. Right.
But I mean, obviously, if they can get Chris
Evans in their film, they're going to beef up
his role and make it a more mano a mano thing.
And I thought that was fabulous. Yeah. And Chris
Evans just really nailed it. He played the perfect
douchebag, asshole, cocky, confident psychopath.
Yeah. It looks like he was having fun. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It was great. It was great. You've
written a lot of books, man. And, you know, like
you're super prolific with these books. It's
very impressive. You're basically banging out
one, what is it, every 10 or 11 months? Yeah,
almost two a year, but not quite. So my first
book came out in 2009, and Burner, my new one,
is my 23rd book. 23 books in 12 years, something
like that. That's incredible. It's because they've
asked me to do it. And, you know, I have these
opportunities. It took me 20 years to get published.
And so I've been trying to catch up. I didn't
get published until I was 42 years old. And so
I'm desperately trying to, like, you know, make
up for lost time, I guess. So what were you writing
in all those years when you were a publisher?
Were you just trying and just? Yeah, I mean.
Honestly, I was lazy. I never believed anything
could happen from it, but I like to write and
I like to think about books and stuff. So I spent
15 years writing my first novel. I started it
literally in 1990 and finished it in 05. Wow.
And never showed it to anybody. I mean, you know,
like three friends probably read it. And I put
that aside, and I wrote my second book in seven
months because it's like there's something about
– I always say everything in this world is cheapened
by my ability to do it. It's like I always wanted
to learn a foreign language, and I'm not super
fluent in any foreign languages, but I speak
some German and some Spanish. And it's like once
I – Learn to do it. I'm like, oh, it's not that
impressive because I can frickin do it, you know.
Right. And writing a book was the same way for
15 years. It was this big albatross, you know,
just hanging on me. And I didn't know that I
could ever do it. And and once I finished it,
I was like, yeah, how hard did I really work?
That was mostly talking about, you know, writing
a book and not actually writing books. So then
I went out and wrote a book. And Gray Man was
actually my fourth completed novel. Really? So
all those years of 15 years, it was you. just
sort of not being fully committed to writing?
Yes, that's it in a nutshell. 15 years for that
first book. And then I got some momentum. Like
once I finished it and I thought, hey, you know,
the internet was invented while I was writing
the damn thing. So I like looked up like, how
do you get published? Because I never even looked
at that, you know? Right. And then everything
I'd done in the book was wrong as far as like,
it was too big. There were too many characters.
You know, there were just... things they'd recommend
against. So I, um, you know, I tried to write
something a little bit more mainstream and I
got that in front of an agent and he said it
wasn't mainstream enough, but I was a good writer.
So keep trying. So it was this continually falling
on my face, but falling forward, you know, and,
and there was, I've had very few epiphanies in
my life. I'm not one of those navel gazing people,
but, but I had this epiphany one day that like,
okay, nothing. I was in my late 30s. I was not
successful in my job. I worked in a cubicle and
I was destined to do that for the rest of my
life. And I was frustrated about not going anywhere.
And there was just this point where I said, I
like to write. I like to, you know, walk down
the street and think about, you know, some espionage
theme or something. And I like to do research
and I like to type stuff out and fix it up. And
it's like, OK, nothing's going to come of this.
But. The thing that's going to come of this is
you're doing something you enjoy to do. And honestly,
that just let a lot of steam out of the kettle.
And suddenly I wasn't like, I'm a 39 year old
man who's, you know, has no success. And I just
became this guy. It's like, oh, you know, I like
writing books and I think each one's getting
a little better and maybe something will happen
someday. And really quickly I got, I mean, you
know, within a couple of years I was published.
That's amazing. So what was your job? I worked
for a company called Medtronic. It was a medical
device. company. And it wasn't a dead end job,
but I was making it a dead end job just because
it wasn't really where I wanted to be. I wanted
to be a writer. And what were you doing for them?
I worked in international customer care. So we
had subsidiaries. It's a medical device company.
We had subsidiaries in other countries. And I
would sort of get the. the supplies to the subsidiaries
and go to trade shows and that sort of thing.
So, and so when you left that job, did you say,
Hey guys, I'm a published author. Got to go.
Yeah. So there's a story to that, that it's,
it's my dad had passed away in 2005 and my dad.
He had a kind of a white collar job. He ran the
NBC affiliate in Memphis where I'm from. But
he was a very blue collar mindset and you had
to have a job. And there was no way my dad would
have let me quit my job, even though my first
book was just a paperback, mass market paperback.
It wasn't a big release. It was Gray Man. It
turned into something. But when it first came
out, it was not a big deal other than the fact
that Hollywood was interested. But I had this.
You know, it wasn't quit your job money at all.
And then they asked me to write two more books
and make a series out of it, which I never even
had considered. I was just trying to hold something
in my hand with my name on it and a title and
a cover. I wanted to be that level of a published
author. I had no higher ambition. And they asked
me to continue it as a series. And I said yes.
And then I realized it's like, oh, my God, I've
got to crank out three books in the next whatever
number of months. It's like I have to quit my
job. And it wasn't quit your job money, as I
said. And this was before the Hollywood money
came in. So I went to my boss. I'd been at the
company for like nine and a half years. I went
to my boss and I put my notice in on a Wednesday.
And the next Monday, they brought everybody in
to the auditorium for a meeting, you know, 800
people there. And they're like, hey, listen,
like sales are down or the economy, you know,
since 2000. So, you know, the economy is not
doing well or whatever. So we're offering voluntary
separation. If you quit your job right now, we
will give you a month's pay for every year you've
worked here. We will give you insurance for a
year. We will do this, this and this. I quit
my job four days before. And so you think like,
oh, my gosh, there's this black cloud over me.
And I was scared about quitting my job, obviously.
And I remember my boss came into my cubicle right
afterwards. She's like, I'm going to talk to
HR and see if they will. allow you to come in
i'm like why the hell would they do that i'm
like i'm the best thing that's happened to hr
in a while you know this dummy quits three days
before they offer you a ton of money to quit
so so for about six months i just felt like i
had this cloud over my head and i'd done the
stupidest thing in the world and then the the
film Film rights got optioned for Gray Man and
it still wasn't quit your job money, but it was
like I can eat for a year money. And, you know,
within a couple of years I was working with Tom
Clancy and things started to really go in the
right direction. Wow. That's an amazing story,
man. I love it. It could have gone either way.
But isn't that like always how it works with
some of the best stories? Yeah. They could have
gone either way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a
sad version of that story, too, and I'm lucky
that I didn't have to experience it. That's my
problem when people start talking about manifesting
your reality and the secret and stuff like that.
Talk to people that win, and they'll tell you
that story, that I knew it was going to happen,
I made it happen, I had a vision board. Talk
to people that tried and failed and are homeless,
and they have a different version of this manifesting
reality story. And I've fallen on my face in
so many ways in my life that, like, I recognize
how lucky this is. And I would not, you know,
grab some kid and go like, quit your job, be
a writer. Man, it's going to, you know, just
because it worked for me in that one instance
doesn't mean it would, you know, work in any
instance. Yeah, I think the best inspiration
you could give to someone is just your own success.
For you to tell people to do what you did, it's
almost irresponsible. Right, right, right. Yeah.
And I feel like everything I've learned. I've
learned by doing it wrong a few times. I'm not
like Yoda. I'm not this guy on a mountain telling
them it's like, yeah, no, I've done a lot wrong.
And what I might tell you could be totally wrong.
But learning how to do stuff, that's a part of
the process. You do stuff wrong. Yeah, absolutely.
You can't be scared to do things wrong. Right.
You just self -correct and keep self -correcting.
And hopefully something good happens before you
die. Yeah, it's a tricky process and it doesn't
always work out. But the problem is you're only
hearing from the people. people where it does
work out sure yeah you know when and some people
look there's a hard reality about talent too
like some people just don't have talent and some
people just aren't good writers yeah there's
a lot of people that go like you know if it's
your dream never quit blah blah blah it's like
i'd love to be a formula one driver i would not
ever be a formula one driver you know it's like
i think you sort of have to like play into your
and obviously work hard and get better. But it's
not just, you know, follow your wishes. It's
a balance. Like everything in life is a balance.
Yeah. It's not fair and it's very tricky. Yeah.
And the idea that all you have to do is just
like want it bad enough. Yeah. Yeah. And I used
to sort of give advice to people. based on my
own problems, you know, like earlier in my career.
So like a young person will be like, what do
I need to do? And I was like, I wish I believe
in myself more because I was very half -assed
about everything because it's like, I never thought
anything would come from it, but I wanted to
write a book. So I'd pick here and pick at it
here and there. So I used to tell people, you
know, believe in yourself, believe in yourself.
And then you start learning a little more about
these people. And it's like. Yeah. Self -confidence
is not this person's problem. It's lack of talent.
It's writing or it's editing or it's something
like that. It's like they're very, very confident.
So, you know, there's not one one size fits all
for like helping people. Well, there's also confidence
versus confidence that's based on an understanding
of your competence. Yeah. And your work ethic
and confidence that's built up over time with
effort versus delusional confidence. Absolutely.
And my work ethic came slowly, but by necessity.
And it's good now. And, you know, I am a prolific
writer. It has to be as much as you're writing
these long -ass books. Yeah, although I don't
do much else. Although I have a family now. But,
yeah, it's... But there's so much that I've learned
along the way that's made me a little bit more
disciplined because it's like, OK, if I don't
average 1 ,200 words a day or something, I'm
going to be really far behind by July and the
books due August 1st. So, you know, it's like
I got to go bust it out. Yeah. The first time
you gave someone one of your books to read, like,
were they all like the gray man, like the early
book? Yeah, always the same genre, different
variations of the same genre. So is this something
that you've been interested in in terms of the
way you read? Yeah, 100%. I mean, I was just
a reader. I don't have military experience. I'm
not Jack Carr or Brad Taylor or any of these
other guys. You know, I bartended till I was
like 31 and I had other jobs, you know, like
I always had a couple of jobs. I got my degree
in international relations and political science,
but didn't do anything with it for 20 something
years, you know, other than 10 bar with it, I
guess. Wow. So I read, but I read every espionage
novel, military stuff, fiction. I actually tried
to get in the Air Force at one point and didn't
get in. was sort of fascinated by that world.
And I'd read The Economist when I was 17 years
old. I had a subscription to The Economist and
U .S. News and World Report and would read all
this. I was just interested in that, foreign
policy and that sort of thing. So I loved it.
And I loved thinking up, you know, kind of like
wild, crazy stories and big action set pieces
and geopolitical this and that. So Clancy, the
first book I ever bought in my life was, or thriller
I've ever bought was... Patriot Games, which
was a Tom Clancy novel. I was like 19 years old.
How wild is it for you now to be writing that?
A quarter century later, he and I were, you know,
I'm in his house, you know, sitting there in
his office talking to him. Isn't that crazy?
Yeah, yeah. It probably could have happened faster
if I worked a little bit, if I worked harder.
But maybe you wouldn't because I think some of
what comes out in your writing is actual life
experience. A hundred percent. You need some
of that. A hundred percent. That's what I keep
telling myself so I don't get depressed about
not getting published at 25. Well, how can you
get depressed? You're very successful now. It's
funny how people are, right? Yeah, exactly. Always
looking at the things that are wrong with what
you've done. What could have been, but now it's
worked out really well. It's really interesting
to me because you seem to be a very mild -mannered
sort of a guy, and you write for such a psychopath.
Yeah. Do you know about Robert E. Howard? Robert
E. Howard is the guy who wrote the Conan books.
Oh, yeah. And he was kind of like a real quiet
guy who lived with his mom and committed suicide
in his early 30s. But he wrote the most savage
fantasy novels about Conan the Barbarian. you
know, all of them while he was this sort of quiet,
soft -spoken guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's
not necessarily a correlation, you know, between
one or the other. I know, you know, guys that
were Delta Force, and they're as mild -mannered
as possible. I mean, they weren't then, I'm sure,
when they were downrange. But you just never
know. And then as far as writers go, you know,
there's guys that write pretty. accurate military
or stuff like that. What's different about my
character to some degree, I think, is, like,
he's a very empathetic guy. I don't want to make
him, like, this square -jawed, you know, like,
total badass. He definitely has a screw loose.
His moral compass, you know, doesn't point true
north or whatever, but he wants to do the right
thing at the end of the day. And he's empathetic
and he's vulnerable in some ways that some of
the other characters aren't. And I think that's
helped the series over the years. Yeah, no, I
think so, too. I mean, he's got a compass. and
it's it's kind of a fucked up compass but yeah
yeah yeah in one of the books uh i think it was
uh gunmetal gray it was the sixth book i i remember
near the end i was like I'm going to have him
do something that makes sense to him. But it's
actually the readers. It's not what the readers
are going to want him to do. And and that had
never come up before. And I was like, OK, this
like if I'm reading this book, I'm going like,
don't be an idiot. Don't you know, don't do it
that way. Don't do you know, it's basically the
outcome of the story, what he was going to do
with this this guy that he rescued. And I was
like, but it makes sense to him. So am I OK with
having a bunch of. readers mad at me and i'm
like you kind of have to go with your gut and
i was and i said all right i'm gonna have him
do what what makes sense in the story for the
this character the way that i built him up over
six books and um and i never really got much
negative pushback from that at all so i guess
i guess that was the right decision no i like
that one yeah it's it's just it's always interesting
when you're reading is so fascinating to me reading
fiction because Someone is creating this world
and you're trusting them with all these people
in this world for it to not mess with your –
it doesn't – you know, there's a suspension of
disbelief that's involved in any, you know, reading
literature or watching a movie or anything like
that. And you just don't want – to mess with
it to the point where someone's reading it going,
ah, come on. You don't want an ah, come on moment.
And you do a great job of avoiding ah, come on
moments while you're navigating this impossible
world of this elite assassin who somehow or another
never gets killed. Yeah. Thanks for saying that.
And I really know where that came from. It came
from a very specific place. So I had an agent
interested in me. He turned me down on a couple
books, but he kept saying, you know, you're good.
Write me something else. And I wrote the opening
for The Gray Man, and it's a sniper thing, and
an American helicopter gets shot down, and this
guy that has nothing to do with the operation
with the American soldiers is just trying to
get out of the kill zone where he's killed somebody,
and he takes a sniper shot and kills some of
the people that killed the Americans. And so
I gave that agent. the first 50 pages of the
book. I'm still an unpublished author. I'm like,
will you tell me what you think? He's like, uh,
yeah, it's great. The shooting those guys from
my way. That's really bad -ass, but he needs
to save somebody. And I'm like, wait, how's he
going to save somebody? He's a mile away. And
it's like Al Qaeda, you know, since 2007. And,
um, and he's like, I don't know. I'm not the
writer, but he needs to save somebody. So I went
back into the story and I was like, well, shit,
that doesn't really, you know, that that's so
implausible. But then I'm like, all right, I
guess it's my job to sell that. And, The whole
series was informed by that early thing, because
what I do is I create pretty outlandish things
and then work my ass off to to sell them to the
reader, you know, put in put in the real world
stuff, the geopolitical stuff, put in all these,
you know, explain the hows and the whys to the
best of you can. And then at some point. You
know, the bad guys have to miss their shots a
lot more than the good guys miss their shots.
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's it is. It's fanciful.
Some people call it gun porn, but at the same
time. Yeah, that's what they call it. But but
at the same time, you know, there's there's like
a heart to the story and all that. And I'm trying
to, like, pull the pull the reader into where
they don't go. This is just way too out of left
field. What is your writing process like? Do
you have ideas before you sit down and write
them? Do you have little notes of maybe that
would be fun or maybe he could do this and then
sit down and try to piece them all together?
How do you do it? Yeah, I write sort of by the
seat of my pants, but I do come up with some
little, even if it's three pages of what the
story is about. This book is about artificial
intelligence and robotics and the bad guy wants
to... destroy america or whatever and then you
flesh that out a little more and a little more
and then at some point and this is what i always
recommend to writers is just sit down and start
writing and you'll figure what your story's about
and if you if you don't have any blueprint then
i think you're going to get yourself in trouble
but i mean everybody's different i know some
authors that they have every chapter completely
plotted out and everything. And then they just
go and write a chapter a day because they've
spent months plotting it out. And I kind of have
to find the story in the story. So I'm writing
and, you know, the dialogue, two characters talking
to each other. And I'm like, well, there's no
tension here. I have to create some tension.
And you come up with some reason there's tension
between these two people. And then that informs
another part of the story. And then sooner or
later, you've got a book. Every book, I'm not
a super confident writer. So every book, you
know, Spring, early summer is the biggest piece
of crap in the world. And then somehow by August,
I get it turned in and edited by October. And
I'm happy with it. I'm proud of it. My friend
Ari has a little piece of paper on his laptop.
It's a quote by Ernest Hemingway. It says, every
first draft is shit. Yeah. I have said, that's
good. I've said, if I died when one of my books
is like 98 % done, it's unusable. They wouldn't
be able to fix it. I don't know if that's true
or not. As the writer, you know where all the
bodies are buried in a 160 ,000 -word book. And
it's like, oh, that doesn't make sense. And this
connection here isn't there. And so it kind of
weighs on you until you get everything cleaned
up to the best you can. Yeah, Stephen King said
that he doesn't really have an outline. Yeah,
I believe it. He just sits down and starts writing.
Yeah, he's amazing. He is just another species.
Yeah. I'm so impressed with that guy. Well, certainly
in the early days of his career, right? The early
days of his career, to me— It's the most interesting.
And this is not to disparage people that are
clean and sober. It's not to disparage the idea
of getting clean and sober. You definitely should
do that. Your health is more important than anything.
But when that guy was fucked up, he was writing
some amazing shit. Yeah, yeah. he didn't create
a genre but he created a genre basically yeah
you know it's like i did and he did the output
was so much but even in his later years i don't
know if you've ever read 11 22 63 no oh my god
it's a magnificent book it's really yeah it's
about a high school teacher who goes back in
time to stop the kennedy assassination but you
know Chaos ensues. It's a Stephen King novel,
so you can imagine. And it's probably 700 or
800 pages. Really? It's really fascinating. It's
a recent book. Yeah, it's been like eight or
nine years. They actually made a TV series, I
think on Hulu, with James Franco. Really? Which
was actually really good. But, yeah, that book
is fabulous. The series is good, too. No, I mean,
some of his early stuff, like The Shining or
Cujo or Pet Sematary or The Tommy Knockers. Yeah,
yeah. Like, my God. Yeah. I remember getting
late to the theater for Pet Sematary and sitting
in the front row and just regretting that decision.
It was, like, so intense. But, yeah, Cujo and
Carrie. He said he doesn't even remember writing
Cujo. Because it was so fucked up. Was it cocaine?
booze yeah just getting lit his his book on writing
is is really inspirational yeah because he he
didn't have instant success even though he got
published when he was really young he's trying
really hard for a long time and then you know
he had to feed a family and all that stuff too
so yeah the story about when he got the first
check like how crazy that was yeah yeah he realized
oh my god yeah i have uh incredible respect for
him because you know a lot of authors um have
co -authors and whatever as they get older and
um You know, it's just harder to come up with
new stuff, something you haven't done before.
Well, as you get older, too, you lose your juice.
Yeah. You know, you lose your physical juice.
You lose your vitality. You lose your energy.
Sadly. Yeah, sadly. My concentration levels at
this point in my life is not what it was 15 years
ago when the only thing competing with me writing
my book was my Xbox, you know, when I was off
work or whatever. And, you know, now it's kids
and dogs and, you know, travel. you know other
obligations and so when I do have like a three
-hour pocket of time to write it's real easy
to kind of lose focus. And I'm like, wow, I remember
going to Starbucks at 8 .30 in the morning on
a Saturday and staying until 9 at night. And
it's like, I can't do that anymore. I wish I
could. If I did that for a couple of weeks, I'd
have a book now. Yeah, you just don't really
have that. My friend Steve Rinella talks about
this as well. He was at the peak of his writing
when he was a single man before he had a family.
When he was alone, he could do whatever he wanted
to. He could just literally sit in front of a
computer for 16 hours in a day and just drink
coffee and just get it done. Yeah, I mean, that
was me. You know, I lived alone. I didn't get,
I've been married on my second marriage, but
I didn't get married the first time until I was
47. So, you know, I was in my, I was published.
several books out before I got married. So the
first marriage, you were 47? Yeah, yeah. You
look like you're 45 now. How long ago was this?
How old are you? I'll be 56 in July. Really?
You look fucking great, man. Thanks, man. I appreciate
that. How do you look so young? What are you
doing? It's probably because I didn't have kids
in my life until about two years ago. I have
three wonderful stepkids. What am I doing? I
don't know. I mean, I think a lot of it's genetic.
I mean, I exercise. I don't do dairy or gluten,
but that's pretty recent. Well, whatever it is,
you're on to a good thing, or you've got great
genes. So what is your process like? Do you have
a daily routine where you start every day? Do
you go for walks before you write? I know a lot
of people do things like that to charge the brain
up. Yeah, I like to start writing as soon as
I possibly can when I wake up, which used to
be 5 in the morning. first book you know when
i when i had a full -time job and i wrote it
between like 5 30 and 7 30 at starbucks over
a six month period. Now, you know, there might
be carpool or something else where I don't get
started, but I have a detached, we have like
a pool house. That's my office and my house.
And so it's 30 steps out my back door and it's
a completely different experience. It's just
like being in, you know, it's like being somewhere
else and nobody bugs me or whatever. And so I
like to get in there as, as quickly as possible,
look at as few emails as possible. I mean, you've
kind of look and see if things are. You know,
there's chaos that you need to attend to, but
if there's not and I like to start writing and
I will write in the mornings. It's only when
I'm like way on deadline and I'm going to be
overdue where I will write in the afternoons,
too. So I try to write. seven or eight till noon
or something like that. And then that's done.
I'm done with my writing for the day. I'll do
other stuff. I'll take the dogs to the park.
And I think about the books when I'm doing that.
And I'm always jotting stuff down and files for
the book. So, you know, there's a lot of, you
ask anybody in my family, there's times where
I'm just sort of not a hundred percent there
at the dinner table for a minute, because I'm
thinking about, well, wait, what if, what if
that all happened in Singapore? You know? So
my brain, resides there even when i'm not working
but i i try and like right now my writing goal
is 1500 words a day um didn't hit it today yet
um but that's gonna get me a book by the summer
and i have two books to write this year so then
the next book Should be done by December. And
that's hopefully that works. And so a lot of
guys do that same thing that you're talking about.
Like there's a process after you're done writing
where you're thinking about the writing of the
day and then you just sort of jot stuff down.
Yeah. And a lot of guys like to, like I said,
go for walks or you like to take the dogs to
the park. Yeah. We have a big hundred acre off
leash dog park where I live a few minutes from
my house. And those 40 minutes or so where I've
got the dogs out there. If I'm by myself, I will
usually be like really focused on the book or
doing some sort of like audio book research for
the book or something like that. Yeah. And then
you're always thinking of the next book you have
to write. So I have another book to write this
year. And so I'm trying to plot that out just
in my head for now, not write anything down.
In the downtime when I'm not thinking about the
book that I'm writing now. Do you drink coffee?
I drink a lot of coffee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That
helps. I had a buddy of mine who started snorting
Adderall to write, and his wife was like, what
the fuck are you doing? Does it work? He's like,
I got to get this done. Look at me. I'm like,
does it work? Apparently it does. I don't know,
but his wife had a real problem with it. Yeah,
I guess. It was the snorting, I think. He just
took the Adderall, but he's like, I want it to
work quick. Yeah, I've tried Adderall because...
Some people told me it was, you know, I got a
prescription for it. And it just made me feel
kind of wacky. And I remember one time I took
Adderall. I'm like, yeah, I was really focused.
I took all of my fire logs. off the fire log
holder and swept that thing up and put all the
fire logs back. It's like, meanwhile, I've got
to write a book. Yeah, people say it makes you
clean. Yeah, it makes you want to clean things.
That's what it made me do. And so it was not,
I'm always looking for something, you know, like
B vitamins. I've tried that. And, you know, I'm
always trying to, something that'll kind of keep
me in the game a little bit more. You ever try
marijuana? No, no. No, it might help your creativity.
Really? Yeah, oh, it puts you in a wild state
of mind. Yeah, but for this kind of book, the
only time I've ever really had it, this is kind
of embarrassing, I don't know why I'm saying
this in front of so many people, was when it
was like... Put in like lime squares and nobody
told me. Oh, no. I ate like half a tray of lime
squares. I had the paranoia thing, like an absolute
freak out paranoia. You don't want that. I didn't
want that. First of all, that's a different drug.
When you're eating it, it's very different than
when you're smoking. When you're eating it, your
body produces something called 11 -hydroxy metabolite.
It's like five times more psychoactive than THC.
So it's processed by your liver. It's called
a one pass. And when that happens, you trip balls.
Yeah. Like that's why when people eat. eat edibles,
they're like, I think it's laced. That's why
they think that. It's because it's a completely
different drug than smoking it. When you're smoking
it, you're getting THC. But when you're eating
it, like the 11 -hydroxy metabolite, you don't
get it from smoking it. So it's a totally different
experience. That's wild. Yeah, that was my only
experience. That's not a good experience. It
wasn't a good one. I was down in Florida at the
time, and I'd gotten jellyfish that day, like
in the leg, and went back to the room and ate
all these lime squares that somebody else had
made. And then I was like, oh, my God, I'm going
to die from a jellyfish sting because I felt
like I was dying. All night. I mean, it lasted
like hours and hours and hours. Can jellyfish
kill you in America? Do we have jellyfish that
can kill you? I don't think so. But I wasn't
working on good information at the time. I know
when I was in Australia, they'll warn you. They're
like, that box jellyfish will fucking kill you.
I bet there are. There's those blue bottles in
Hawaii. They won't kill you, but it's so... They
have this string that's like five or six feet
long. And I was in Hawaii, and I had one wrapped
around my leg and my arm. And it hurt so bad.
Yeah, my daughter, when she was really young,
got stung in Costa Rica. We were swimming in
Costa Rica, and she got. What do we got here?
Box jellyfish can kill a person within minutes.
Yes, but I don't think they're in the United
States, are they? It says Florida. Some jellyfish
from Florida. No shit. Wow. Florida has several
species, including those pictures that stink.
Yeah, but. Breathing difficulties, shock, and
even death. Oh, jellyfish in Florida can kill
you. I need to use that in the book. So maybe
you were almost dying. Maybe it wasn't the lime
squares. Really? Like it was probably the lime
squares and the poison that was in your system.
Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that Florida jellyfish
can kill. How many people die? Let's Google how
many people die a year from jellyfish in Florida.
It's probably only Florida, right? You're going
to ruin my family vacation. I'm going to guess
three. Three people a year. I've got to get Florida.
It's not showing Florida. Three people die from
jellyfish in the United States. I think it's
100 overall. In the country? I don't even know
if it's the country. 100 people overall die from
jellyfish? Yeah, I don't think it's that common.
That's more than sharks, you know. Right. My
wife is totally, I scuba dive, and I got two
of my kids certified, and my wife is deathly
afraid of sharks. I'm like, I swim with sharks
all the time. I mean, there's certain sharks
that if it appeared next to me, I'd... Crapped
my pants. My buddy Duncan was in Hawaii, and
the week he was there, a woman got killed by
a shark. Yeah, this year. Yeah, right? Yeah.
Yeah, the guy and his wife were scuba diving,
and apparently a guy pops up for air. They were
snorkeling. A guy pops up for air, and they're
yelling, get out of the water, get out of the
water. So he runs to get out of the water, and
then realizes it was his wife. Oh, my God. Yeah,
and looks back, and apparently they saw just
blood in the water and thrashing, and they never
found her body. No body. Yeah, they found part
of her bathing suit or something, I think. It's
horrible. But it's so rare, you know. Fuck rare.
If you found out that there were werewolves,
that werewolves were real, would you ever go
in the woods at night, even when it wasn't a
full moon? You'd be like, fuck that. But meanwhile,
sharks are real, and everybody's like, whoa,
it's so rare. Yeah, well, I mean, a dog can kill
you, but I'm not afraid of dogs. I don't know.
That's true. I haven't seen the right shark,
maybe. You know, I've been around a bunch of...
You know, like reef sharks and mostly stuff like
that. I feel like you can give a dog your arm
and then cut its neck. You could kill a dog.
Yeah, yeah. You know, you'll get fucked up, but
you can kill a dog. Yeah, shark, you're on their
territory. So you are limited. My dog's got a
collar. I'm going to strangle him. Yeah. But
if it's a... Shark, you can't even move good.
Yeah. First time I went diving on an actual shark
feed and I was, I'd only had 15 dives or whatever.
Everybody else was a lot more experienced than
me that I was just on a dive boat with. And right
before that, they were like, okay, you know,
sharks are fine. Just don't provoke them. I'm
like, cool. I jump in the water and you're down
underwater where you can't talk to anybody and
ask any questions. And I was like, I should have
asked if eye contact was a provocation. It's
like, I wish I could get back up there and ask
that. question but i was not making eye contact
i think sharks are so simple -minded i don't
even think they understand what eye contact is
i think they're just like they're zombies man
yeah they scare the out of me yeah Because they're
just feeding machines. That's all they're doing
is just the cleanup crew of the ocean. Anything
weak, anything that's fucked up, anything that's
slipping, time to go. Anything that dies. You're
down there at one of those shark feeds where
they have all this chum and a big ball and, like,
hundreds of sharks. And there's times where,
like, they're above you and there's the boat
and then there's, like, 50 sharks and you're
kind of down at the ocean floor going, like,
I'll wait for them to, you know, move on. We
played a video the other day, Jamie pulled up,
of this guy that's in one of those shark... Yeah.
And this great white just bursts through the
bottom of it. Hangs through it. Literally almost
takes his leg off. Yeah. I have no plans to dive
in South Africa or wherever those things. Those
people are crazy. Those are some big, big sharks.
I know you like thrills, but please. One of the
cool things about sharks, though, is you get
your picture in the water with a shark, and you
can't tell if the shark, if it's behind you,
you can't tell if it's three feet long. Right.
It still looks like, you know, this big, massive
thing. Yeah. It could be a three -foot -long
shark. It's like, Jesus. Yeah. Mark's so brave.
Exactly. So do you do anything else that's like
kind of psycho like that? No. I train with firearms
a lot. Have you always done that? No. That was
really to get involved with the writing. Yeah,
to learn about the writing. And I started training
probably in 2000. five, four, five, something
like that. Where do you train? Do you train at
like a tactical place? Yeah, it's been at different
places, but I've done most of my training at
a place in middle Tennessee called Tactical Response.
And, you know, back at that point, they were
training a lot of civilian contractors. And so
I took a, you know, you take pistol and advanced
pistol and rifle and advanced rifle and this
and that. And then there's these things called
like, you know. HRCC high risk civilian contractor
classes. And I took a bunch of those and they're
like a week long and you stay in the bunkhouse
or the team rooms with the guys. And I, and I
learned really quick that like, it's cool to
learn about the guns and the gear and stuff for
your books, but it's so much more impactful to
sit there in the team room and drink scotch with,
you know, SWAT guys or fifth special forces group
dude or, or whatever, you know, it's just like,
he's been there, done that, that guy's contractors,
Blackwater guys, um, back then. And, uh, and
so, I feel like I kind of became a mascot of
that school. I probably took 50 classes. I probably
spent close to a couple hundred days there in
Tennessee. And I've done some other training.
I own a bunch of the firearms that are in the
books and like to train when I can. It's less
and less as you get older and busier and more
family and all that kind of stuff. But I really
do want to get back into it even more. So when
you were talking to these Special Forces guys,
did you let them know that you're writing, that
you write The Gray Man? Yeah, yeah. Early on,
I mean, I actually heard the term the gray man
at one of these classes from a guy. I think it
was a contractor, which is just they would say,
you know, be the gray man, which is like not
wear the tactical gear and the 511 pants and
the YLAX glasses and the Luminox watches or whatever,
because they're traveling into the Middle East
and, you know, the airport in Dubai or something
like that. Al Qaeda would have like watchers
there, you know, seeing who was coming in and
things like that. And if you're there with Solomon
boots on looking. Yeah, exactly. You got your
Solomon's on. Black rifle coffee t -shirt. Yeah,
exactly. You're kind of self -identifying. Yeah.
So it's all about like not doing that. And that's
kind of my character. It's expanded to where
he basically, you know, invisible man. Yeah.
Yeah. Balancing the. incredulity like balancing
the the plausible Is that difficult? Because
you've got a guy who's constantly involved in
gunfights and knife fights and people are throwing
knives at him. He's jumping out of fucking buildings.
There's so much chaos. Yeah. There always has
to be a kernel of some reality in it. In Sierra
Six, the book that you're writing now, there's
a big scene that takes place on scaffolding.
I got through that already. Yeah. you know, Hong
Kong. I wasn't in India where it took place because
this was pre -COVID. I was in Hong Kong researching
a Clancy novel. And I saw the scaffolding and
I went up to it and I climbed up on part of it
and I looked around, you know, and I was like,
okay, if you cut this, then this ought to do
this. Now, I wouldn't do it, you know, because
it's six stories. But in the first Gray Man book,
he has to have basically surgery or he has to
get sutured up while he's driving, get his gut
sutured up. And I talked to, you know, special
forces medic and talked about doing that and
the plausibility of that and going into shock
and all these other things. And a lot of people
kind of complained about it and said, that's
so impossible. That's so impossible. And I'm
like, yeah, but if you read the book again, he
passes out while it happens and crashes the car.
It's like, it was not perfectly successful. You
know, it was like, he didn't come out. It wasn't
like, he's just like, yeah, sew me up while I
drive. People can do wild shit under pressure.
Like to say that that's not possible. I read
about a guy, I believe it was in Antarctica,
who was a doctor who had to take his own appendix
out. Unbelievable. And I think he might. have
done it with no anesthesia i don't find out that
because there's video of it or photos of it of
this doctor like literally on the operating table
cutting himself the man who cut out his own appendix
so unbelievable yeah so there's photos of this
gentleman on the operating table doing his own
append there right there like look at that unbelievable
I like how he gave himself a mask. Like, hey,
bro, it's you. That's a good point. He intended
to use a mirror to help him operate, but he found
that it's inverted view too much of a hindrance,
so he ended up working by touch without gloves.
How crazy is that? I feel like I'd talk somebody
else through it before I do it myself, but I
don't know. I mean, I guess he didn't trust anybody
else. I wonder what finally here it is, the cursed
appendage. Wow. With horror, I noticed a dark
stain at its base. That means just a day longer
and it would have burst. My heart seized up and
noticeably slowed. My hands felt like rubber.
Well, I thought, it's going to end badly, and
all that was left was removing the appendix.
Wow. For a two -hour operation. Down to the final
stitch. Tom Clancy had a saying that the difference
between fiction and nonfiction is... fiction
has to make sense. If I'd written that in a book,
people would just laugh me off. There was a Navy
SEAL that was shot 18 times and survived. If
I had my hero shot 18 times and survived, no
one would ever read it again. Wasn't Tupac shot
like nine times? Yeah. Oh, no. 50 Cent. Tupac
was two. He was shot a bunch of times, but he
died. Not from that time. He survived one of
those shootings. Right, but he wasn't shot like
nine times. Both are correct, I believe. There
was a guy, I think, in New York that was shot
20 times by the police with .40 caliber pistols.
Jesus. And he survived. They used .40s in New
York? They were then. Wow. Isn't it funny? There's
some talk on that, why they use such a high caliber.
Are you trying to shoot somebody or not? I don't
understand. Do you want to give the cops all
.22s? What are you saying? With .22s, I'm going
to shoot them 12 times. What do you want? It's
the same amount of lead. You're trying to stop
a threat, whatever tool you need. Do you get
people that are upset that you are doing gun
porn or that you're doing these? Yes. Sometimes,
yes. You know, just people that read the book
and say, you know, it's too violent, blah, blah,
blah. And it's just not what they were looking
for. And so I'm always kind of scratching my
head at these reviews. I'm like, why did you
spend 300? Why did you read 350 pages of a book
that was not what you liked? You know, I might
not want to read a book about butterflies. I
wouldn't be like 293 pages going. I'm going to
write a scathing review about a book I don't
want to read. That is a problem with people that
write reviews on almost anything. Because. When
someone enjoys something and they want to go
see that something, that's their genre. That's
the thing they're interested in. Then they're
going to write a review based on someone who
actually enjoys the genre. But you get a lot
of reviewers who are just reviewing things that
they have no interest in at all. And they write
these horrible negative reviews. And it's like,
who are you trying to convince? People that think
exactly like you weren't going to like it anyway.
It's such a weird way to write things. Jack Carr
and I had this. conversation with his podcast
once where we were talking about the viewer reviews
of our shows, Terminalist and Gray Man, and then
the professional reviews or whatever. And the
people that watched it... loved it overall the
reviewers hated it but i mean they're gonna hate
stuff like that of course i mean to a large degree
not not everything you know there's some things
that that you know somehow universally love but
i but i said to jack i was like which would you
rather have the 23 reviewers all love it or the
you know 100 million people that watch it watch
it yeah 100 yeah that's a great way to look at
it you know who's a good example of that is that
adam sandler adam sandler's movies all get destroyed
by the critics yeah yeah but i think they're
fucking great i love is they're so silly and
i love that i watch them with my kids yeah and
they're like they're easy to digest like even
the zohan which is like a little racy hilarious
yeah yeah gets torn apart by the critics yeah
and i think his stuff does really well and of
course it does and and he's just doing something
different than what the critics i remember uh
david lee roth once said the reason that um you
know, like critics all hated. and they all loved
Elvis Costello's because all the critics look
like Elvis Costello, which I don't know if that's
true. Well, that is a part of it, right? Elvis
Costello was like the nerdy guy with the glasses,
and he wasn't the good -looking guy who had all
the chicks with him with his open shirt. David
Lee Roth was the stud who was doing karate kicks
on stage. Yeah, there's sour grapes involved
in certain places. People can hate my books for
a million different reasons, and that doesn't
make them wrong. But it's also the narrative
of the critics. was always so much more important
than it is now because now the narrative of the
critic gets drowned out by the narrative of the
fans. Yeah, absolutely, for better or worse.
I think it's for better because you get people
that aren't professional critics, you just get
informed readers who enjoy it or don't enjoy
it, and then they share that. Whenever I go to
an Amazon book review and I click on the reviews,
I just read the reviews. Some of them are remarkably
well -written. Oh, yeah. You see people that
are passionate about it, even if they're criticizing
something. Always had this philosophy. It's like
if you read my book, if you if you spend the
12 hours to read that book or whatever it takes,
it's like you get to you get to share your opinion
with whoever you want. You know, it's like I
can't begrudge that. Sometimes I'll disagree
with what they say. Sometimes I'll agree with
it. The worst negative reviews are the ones where
it's like, oh, this guy, this guy. He's got it.
He's right. I like it when they're just assholes.
They're just like, oh, this guy's nobody. But
then sometimes you're going like, oh, he sees
me. He sees the dark underbelly. But those guys
are really good because if someone who can really
see it and they expose something that makes you
uncomfortable, that gives you an opportunity
to get better. Yeah, yeah, to think about it.
That does happen to me for sure. I feel like
the – Real problem with critics is that most
critics wish they were writers, but they just
don't have anything to contribute. They're just
not good. And so they try to tear down other
people's work, whether it's film critics or movie
critics or even stand -up comedy critics. They
don't have anything to contribute, so they're
bitter and negative. They don't want to be critics.
Nobody sits out and says, like, I really want
to be a critic of other people's work. No, most
people... that are critics like when you're writing
an article a criticism article or writing an
editorial you are a creative you're being creative
but the predominant creativity involved in criticism
is like this negative bitchy, creative energy
that's not attractive if you're trying to make
something. It's only attractive when you're tearing
something down. So the energy that these people
have, this bitter, shitty energy, it sucks for
writing something unique and creative, like coming
up with your own book. But it's good for tearing
apart other people's stuff in a really snarky
way. Yeah, I've been saying that for years and
years, but never as eloquently. I'm going to
watch this later and write down what you just
said. I have said, like, you'll read a review,
and just to make the review a better little piece
of writing for them, they basically change the
story. You know, there's basically really disingenuous
stuff in there. Right. Not every review, obviously.
But that happens sometimes. And I'm going like,
oh, OK, as a writer, I know how you wanted to
make these two paragraphs like like really impactful
here. So you just told some bullshit about my
story that is not even in the story. Right. Yeah.
They're just not good. Yeah. It's what it is.
You're you're you're getting it's it's like non
athletes talking shit about athletes. Yeah. Like
you get that in the sports world. Yeah. You get
like these basketball commentators online and
then like doing podcasts. and doing these shows
where they're just talking crazy shit about these
players, and they can't fucking play. They're
not players. You get that in the fighting world,
too. You get these people that are talking shit
about fighters. I'm like, you can't fight. Shut
the fuck up. Yeah, they can be proved wrong a
lot faster than somebody could prove a critic
wrong about writing. Yeah, the writing thing,
though, it's... It's a human nature thing. It's
a tall poppy thing. It's crabs in a bucket, tearing
down people that are more successful than you.
Especially if you're a critic, you are a writer.
You're involved in the genre of writing. Don't
tell me you don't want to write something unique
and creative because you certainly do. I remember
Roger Ebert. um well who's you know siskel and
ebert classic yeah he wrote one of the worst
fucking screenplays like really it's so bad and
so crazy that you read it you're like oh wow
okay yeah Now I get it. Now I know why you're
a critic. You're this, like, frustrated creative
type who didn't have the juice to write something
that was actually good. What is the screenplay
that Roger Ebert wrote? It's really weird. I
read, like, many pages of it. I'm like, this
is crazy. And you can just sort of discount everything
that he says after that. It's horrible. It's
so bad. It says he co -wrote Beyond the Valley
of the Dolls, which I don't. Yeah, but what did
he write? He wrote something by himself. I mean,
I wrote Robert Jude Ebert screenplay. It says
there's a couple screenplays. Yeah. Why don't
you Google Robert Ebert terrible screenplay?
I mean, this says it gave me four answers. Beyond
the Valley of the Dolls. Up. Who Killed Bambi.
Softcore sex comedy. Maybe that's it. There's
one of them that's kind of perverted. Well, I
mean. That would be it. That's probably it. Yeah.
A man named Adolf Schwartz, Adolf Hitler in hiding.
This is it. Oh, my God. Was living in a Bavarian
-style castle in Northern California after an
orgy in the dungeon with three women and a man.
He is murdered when someone places a ravenous
piranha fish in his bathtub. This is a fucking
dumb. A voluptuous woman named Margo Winchester
appears later in the town. in the nearby town
Miranda and is spotted by local sheriff Homer
Johnson. He tries to make advances, but Margo
rejects flirtatiously. At this point, after that,
she is picked up by Leonard Box, a known troublemaker
and son of a sawmill operator. An argument breaks
out, the result that Leonard subdues and rapes
the unconscious Margo after she accidentally
kills him. What? Sounds... Oh, okay. Based on
an original idea by... yeah he's out of his fucking
mind he was out of his fucking it was apparently
it's so bad like the people that have read it
and like what the fuck is wrong with you yeah
but it makes you understand like oh yeah okay
this is why you're so snarky you have a chip
on your shoulder yeah yeah yeah it was it's a
It's a strange thing to be a critic of stuff
because it's like it is a kind of unfocused energy.
Yeah, and it's – so much stuff is subjective.
I mean that doesn't mean I don't have – we all
have opinions, right? So it's like even though
something is subjective, I can go, wow, I don't
like that at all. But I don't – it's not that
I objectively don't like it. It's not like it's
like these four words should not be – usually
if you're published, you're able to write a sentence.
I think people are very much entitled to their
own opinion. Don't get me wrong. But what I think
is that the model of the professional critic,
I think it has so many problems with it. And
I'm sure there's people out there that are professional
critics that are very good. This is not a blanket
statement. But I think we're better served by
the unprofessional. by the actual person who's
just an intelligent person who's a fan of the
work, who reads the book, and then can write
a little Amazon review or some other critique
about it. Or a tweet about it. That's what I
think is more valuable. And in the aggregate,
too. So you say, like, this many people liked
it. Right. And each individual review, you can
sort of, like, maybe... Throw away the top and
the bottom ones. It's like somebody tells me
that I'm the best writer since Frederick Forsyth
or whatever, and I go like, all right, I'm discounting
you. But somebody says, hey, I really loved your
book. It was fun. I'm like, okay, that I'm accepting.
And somebody that says you're the worst thing
that ever lived, I'm like, I can discount you.
But there's levels of criticism where I'm like,
crap, I can't discount that. Yeah. Well, those
are valuable though, right? Yeah, sure. It's
like if you crowdsourced all the opinions. The
problem is you can game that, right? If a person's
problematic, like if you're going to crowdsource
a J .K. Rowling's book today, well, the thing
about the criticisms, it would be overrun by
people who are like trans activists who are angry
at her for her stance on women being women. That
becomes a problem. And I've said that often about
fights, that maybe we should crowdsource the
scoring instead of having these people that are
professional judges because some of them, they
get it so wrong. And some scoring is so – you'll
see like 49 -47, 49 -47, and then you'll see
one that is just like – 50 -45. Watching a different
fight. How are you watching the same fight? You're
so different than everyone else that scored it.
But then the crowd thing is like then you could
game the system and have your fans vote and say
you won the fight when maybe you didn't. And
I'm sure that happens. I have a lady that I won't
go into the whole story but I have a lady that
makes an Amazon review every year when my book
comes out because she hates me. Oh boy. She used
to be like my number one fan. And then she told
another author, it's like, I heard you wrote,
you're writing Mark Graney's books now or whatever.
And then, so I emailed her, I was like, Hey,
uh, I write my own books, and authors don't love
it when people are saying they don't. And she
just came at me with this rage. And this was
seven, eight years ago, and I still hear from
her. And it's F off and die and stuff like that.
She'll send me emails. And she says a one -star
review on every one of my books is from this
woman named Cheryl. And it's just sort of like,
you know, he lives in a mansion now, which I
don't know. And, you know, it's like at one point
in one of the reviews, she's like, I understand
why. His first wife left him, which she didn't.
And you're going like, all right, I guess I'm
always going to be skewed. I mean, you can get
15 ,000 reviews. But, I mean, it's just funny
that this person has a beef with me and they're
going to take it to their grave. He lives in
a mansion now. It's hilarious. What are you supposed
to do when you get successful? Stay in your shitty
fucking apartment. I don't want to hear from
you. Drive that Volvo. Yeah, it's kind of funny
that people just want you to be. Like if you
become too successful, they want you to be out
of touch. Yeah, or they see something in the
book that they think is political, which I don't
think is political at all. One of the Clancy
books, these people, and I think they were like
militia people, started emailing me. And they
kept saying like, you know, you West Coast liberals
don't understand, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like,
I live in Memphis. I'm sitting in a Starbucks
with a gun on my hip and a gun on my ankle. And
it was sort of like you. Libtard, West Coast
liberals don't understand anything. That's hilarious.
And I'm going like, okay, all right. Well, people
want to have a narrative that suits their ideas
of what you are and what you should be and who
they are. It's like you're not going to make
everybody happy. It's absolutely impossible.
And some people will get you totally wrong. They'll
just come up with some complete. Yeah. False
narrative of who you are and what you're doing
and why you're doing it. And the fact that you're
faking it or you're being paid off. Right. Yeah.
You're a propagandist. Oh, yeah. I've gotten
the emails where people are essentially saying
they think I'm in the Illuminati or something.
And I'm like. I barely got through high school.
I went to public school and got crappy grades
and I went to, you know, like State College.
And, you know, it's like I'm not trying to sell
myself out as anything bigger than I am. I'm
just trying to write a little book. The Illuminati.
That's hilarious. That's a big one. You're in
the Illuminati. How do you get in? There's an
inverse correlation between how – well, there's
a positive correlation between how long someone's
email is and how crazy they are. So it's like,
oh, it's a manifesto. Okay. It's like the quick
ones are like, hey, I really enjoyed your book.
But then the non -quick ones are the ones that
are like three pages of like – ipso facto. That's
a good tip off when someone writes that. I've
never used that word in my life, that phrase.
Yeah. Well, you know, it's part of the beauty
of dealing with the general public. You're going
to get a certain amount of crazy people. Yeah.
I appreciate them. Yeah. It's okay. Yeah. Some
people like that, though, if you do somehow or
another get in contact with them and you communicate
with them, they realize, oh, you're just a person.
Yeah. It happens to me all the time. Isn't that
weird? Like, have you met people that were famous
and you freaked out and you, like, weirded out
around them? Yeah. I mean, but, you know. kept
it to myself but it takes a while before like
one of the people that I met that I was like
really weirded out was Anthony Bourdain I'll
never forget this is hilarious because I used
to love that show No Reservations I used to watch
it religiously and my wife was like oh you're
watching your boyfriend she was always joking
around and so I meet him and I'm starstruck right
and I say my wife says you're my boyfriend And
he's like, what the fuck? I'm like, oh, no. He
thinks I'm a fucking idiot. Oh, no. And I eventually
became good friends with him, and it was cool.
It was nice. Yeah, yeah. It was like, you know,
it was one of those things where it was like,
okay. Like, I have a phone that I'm never going
to get rid of because it was like the last phone
that I texted with him on. Wow. He sent me stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just one of those things
where it's like. I had to get over the fact that
it was this guy that I admired. And then here
he is. And now I'm friends with him. Am I eating
with him and stuff? We're drinking. This is crazy.
It's weird. Famous people are weird. It's a strange
thing. But as a famous person, I realized we're
just all the same. We're all just people. It's
just something weird happens when so many people
know about you. Yeah. And what I used to think
before I had any... you know, people knew who
I was. I used to think like the really successful
people turn to assholes because they're not,
they're not as friendly. They don't reach out,
you know, but now it's like, I'll get like, you
know, 90 people a day sending me some sort of
thing on social media or an email or something
like that. And there's people that if I don't
respond to them immediately, they're like, Oh,
you know, I guess you're too good. You know,
you're, you know, and it's not me being an asshole.
You get a little bit protective because, because
one out of a hundred of them, can ruin your life.
Yeah. There's a guy who, who he'll watch this.
So who knows? He'll probably wear my skin as
a suit. Now it'd be all your fault. But now he,
he. thinks that he is the gray man and he tells
me you know about how we had met and he gave
me the idea for the story and it's been going
on for years and I don't I replied to him the
first couple times like yeah I don't think we
met but he he saw something I said publicly about
where I got the idea for the story and I was
down in El Salvador and when I got the idea and
he's like I met you at a bar in El Salvador it's
like right out of an interview you know and he's
been doing it for years and I'm I'm not sure
like he's like I don't want money I just want
you to tell me that you know that it's me or
something Yeah, well, there's a lot of people
that are schizophrenic. I mean, there's a certain
percentage of the population, I think it's like
1 % or something like that, that is just schizophrenic,
period, no matter what you do. It's just the
wiring of the brain. I had a guy call my then
90 -year -old aunt at 5 in the morning looking
for my number because she was in the phone book
in Memphis and I wasn't in the phone book in
Memphis. And she's like, I need his number, I
need his number. And so I figured out who it
was because there's a short list of people that
were like... being a little weird and uh and
i figured out who it was and i was like look
man you um you know i'm going to the cops you
do this again and he said instead of him saying
sorry he's like i hope you see that the links
that i went to to reach you uh shows you how
intense i feel about this project that we can
work on together it's like no no i it What I
see is that you called my aunt at five in the
morning and tried to berate her into giving me
a phone call. Well, I think there's also a thing
that people don't understand if they're not doing
what you do, where you are so busy. You're so
involved in your work. And this idea that. Another
person who's not busy, who is obsessed with doing
something with you, somehow or another can talk
you into that. You're like, I don't have the
bandwidth. There's no room for you. There's no
time. There's no nothing. There's no way. I don't
have any time for anything. Yeah. People want,
you know, they're like, oh, I've got a story
for you. You're going to want to write this book.
And it's like, and my pat answer, I don't usually
reply to them now, but my pat answer was like,
just as you are passionate about that idea, I
have ideas of my own about. which I'm passionate,
and that's what I'm working on right now. But
even people, you know, they're like, will you
read my book or whatever? And I blurb people's
books all the time. But I'm like, is it the same
for you where it takes a couple weeks of your
free time to read a book? Are you asking for
a couple weeks of my free time? And it's like
I do things to help people, you know, if there's
some sort of connection or personal, but, like,
you just can't. You can't. I can either be the
guy that publishes 300 ,000 words a year or I
can be the guy that reads the books when people,
you know. have ideas. Well, I don't think anybody
who is not in this sort of public sphere has
any understanding of how many people are coming
at you with projects and ideas on any given day.
Like I can't keep up with the text messages from
people that I know. Yeah. Like your friends.
It's impossible. Yeah. I'm missing out on opportunities
like with people that I've been friends with
my whole life and I feel like a jerk. I don't
even mean opportunities. I mean, I can't respond
to all the text messages I get. And then I have
to. answer emails I can't respond to those yeah
there's fucking too many yeah it's like I don't
have that you would I would literally have to
have another life right to just interact clone
yourself yeah it's like a separate me yeah that
just interacts with people on social media interacts
with people in email interacts with people in
text messages yeah it's just not after a while
it's not possible so I just change my number
every now and again yeah yeah and just lose people
sorry do what you can disappear reach out stay
in contact with the people that you really want
to be in contact with. Yeah, it's not even really
want. Like some of the people I really do want
to be with, but I can't. I just don't have the
time. It's like you get to a certain, there's
like a certain number of interactions that are
just untenable. Yeah. And it just gets to this.
And it's not that I'm more important than anybody
else. No, I'm not. I was just as important when
I was working at Burger King, you know, a long,
long time ago. It's just literally hours in the
day. And, you know, it's like I have, they, have
the cover for my book on Amazon for pre -order
before I write the first word of it. So, you
know, it's coming out next. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
I talked to Jack about that. I think it's like,
you know, like he, he's ready to go and he's
like, okay, time to lock myself up. Yeah. Cause
it's just, you have a deadline in this debt.
And then also you want it to be the best fucking
thing you could do because you've done so many
great books already that this has got, you got
to nail it. Yeah. So there's so much pressure
and there's so much, and then I'll, What about
this, Mark? Mark, how about me? What about me,
Mark? Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, I love your
work. Mark, I'm your biggest fan. It makes me
think of Misery. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. Another
Stephen King. Amazing book. Oh, gosh. I mean,
what was the woman's name that played? Kathy
Bates. Kathy Bates is amazing. We went to the
same high school. She's amazing in that movie.
Yeah, she's so good. That was one of those castings
where, oh, my God, she nailed it. Oh, yeah. She
fucking nailed it. Like, her career was made.
She got that role, and she just made a meal out
of it, and it was so good. Yeah, that was great.
That was a great adaptation, and she was perfect,
and James Caan was perfect in it, too. Like,
oh, my God, she's so good. I've got to watch
it again. I've seen it 10 times, and I'm going
to watch it again. She's so good. Yeah. There's
some people that... And Charlize Theron's like
that in Monster. Oh, my God. When she played
Eileen Wuornos, holy shit. She's a different
person. She's so fucking hot. She's hot as the
sun. And then she gets fat and shaves her eyebrows
off, and she looks like this psycho. And you're
like, oh, my God, that's not even prosthetics?
You did that to your body? That's insane. Yeah,
she looked like a killer. And also for a woman
who's a gorgeous woman, who's like this A -list
actress, to do that to her body, and, you know,
probably hard. It's hard to bounce back from
that, too, you know? I bet it was hard. I mean,
look at her. Look at how fucking... Dude. Yeah.
She fucking nailed it. But I wonder if there's
something, like, liberating about, like, totally
changing your identity for something like that.
I bet if you're a sex symbol like her, because,
you know, she's so fucking hot. Like, go to a
picture of her just looking hot as fuck, Jamie.
Go to that one with her, the Oscar, right there.
The one there, the blue dress when she's wearing
it. Yeah, that's perfect right there. Make that
one bigger. Like, come on, son. How are you going
to say that that... Lady's going to be an ugly
serial killer. It's impossible. But she nailed
it, and then she bounced right back. It's crazy.
People like that, that's a rare person. If you
can get that person, like a Christian Bales willing
to starve himself for the machinist, you can
get someone like that to do your role. God damn.
There's a lot of examples of that. Daniel Lewis.
They just become a different human being. But
Kathy Bates, God damn, was she perfect for that
role. She's so good. But that's the fear. fucking
crazy person is completely obsessed with your
book. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, thankfully that had,
you know, in the book, he gets his leg chopped
off in the movie. It's hit with a hammer. Yeah.
But hit, I mean, which is almost more violent.
Right. Like the way that it happens. Yes. And
she's so nonchalant about it or whatever. She's
just kind of like setting it up and he's so helpless.
It was just incredible. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I
guess this comes with the job, right? Yeah. Yeah.
And it's, you know, it's a very small part of
it. Yeah. It's a very small part of it. But when
you finish a book. Is there an apprehension?
What does it feel like when you're done? Do you
feel done? How many times do you have to go over
it after you're done with it? I feel like I ran
out of time. I never feel like this couldn't
be better. And I hate to say I'm a perfectionist
because it sounds like you think you've done
something perfect before, but I'm a perfectionist
in the sense that it's never... at least this
aspect of my life you know it's like it's it's
never right it's never good enough and you just
run out of time so I do go over it you know I'll
turn a first draft into my editor it comes back
to me I'll turn it you know he reads it and gives
me his ideas and I'll do a second draft and then
he'll read it again and then we'll go to a copy
editor and I'll get it. And then we'll go to
a pre -preter and I'll get it. And still there'll
be some mistake and it makes it into the book,
you know, at the end, a hundred last book, a
burner is 165 ,000 words. So I always say like,
yeah, in 160 ,000 words, there's probably five
words I wish I could get a do over on, you know,
when you finish your book, do you read it from
the beginning to the end in the editing process?
Yes. Um, but I mean like once it's turned in
for the final, you know, like, Once I'm the last
one that looks at it before a proofreader goes
and like make or a copy editor goes and fixes
the little things that I and I kind of a bad
reputation at my publishing house for making
a lot of changes at the end. I crammed 14 pages
into into a Clancy book once after Tom had passed
away and I was writing the Jack Ryan books like
literally the last. go around. I was like, you
know, I really feel it needs to be seen. And
they came back to me and they're like, we've
already measured the spine. And I was like, did
not know that was a thing. But to their credit,
they made changes and they got it in there. I
never read the books again. I do listen to the
audio books or at least part of the audio books
because I think I have a good audio narrator.
That gentleman, Ray, what is his name? Ray Porter
is fantastic. This is Jay. Jay Snyder is the
guy that does. Oh, the Tom Clancy books. No,
the gray man is Jay Snyder. Ray Porter does Jack
Carr. Oh, that's right. He does. That's right.
He does Don Winslow and he does a lot of really,
really cool. So Jay Porter. No. No, Jay Snyder.
Jay Snyder. Jay Snyder's very good. Yeah. Ray
Porter, Jay Snyder. Yeah. Yeah. They're both
fantastic. They're both very good. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's such a hard job to do the audio. I can't
imagine. Because you have to do girl voices.
Yeah. And then you have to do accents. And your
books have a lot of accents. Sure. Yeah. Gosh,
Ray Porter. And Jay Snyder's probably my favorite,
but Ray Porter's right up there. He did the Don
Winslow cartel series. Oh, I've never heard those.
There's one called The Border. I think it's The
Cartel, The Power of the Dog. It's three books.
They're fantastic. And I've listened to the Ray
Porter thing, and there's like six female Mexican.
you know, women in the story and I could tell
them all apart. And I'm like, how do you do that?
I wonder if they do it. Like, do they, can they
really go from character to character as they're
doing it? Or do they have to like set up for
each individual character and like practice the
voice a little bit before they read the dialogue?
Like, I wonder how they do that. I do too, because
there must be some sort of cues to where they
can, because, you know, sometimes in writing,
you don't identify who's speaking until after
the sentence or whatever. So somehow. they reverse
engineer that to do an audio the worst at it
unfortunately is stephen king He's the worst
at reading his own books. Oh, he's done it already?
They're terrible. Oh, no. It's terrible. Don't
ever get an audio. I don't want to say this because
I love Stephen King, but he's just not good at
writing. He's great at writing, but when he reads
it, it's like he's reading it. It's not like
he's acting it. Yeah. Whereas like Ray Porter,
it's like he's acting out or Jay Snyder. Yeah.
I mean, if I'm Stephen King, I've got enough
to do. I know. I don't understand why he did
it. I would form that out to somebody else. I
think he did The Gunslinger. He's done some of
them, and I start listening to them. I'm like,
I'm just going to read this. I can't do this.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Like nonfiction books, a lot of
times the narrator is the guy that wrote it.
Yes. And it's really good. I love that. Did you
read the Rob O 'Neill, the Navy SEAL guy? No,
I didn't. Is it called The Operator? It's a Navy
SEAL book, and he read it, and I was like. This
guy could be a professional audiobook guy because
there's an intensity to him and all that. It
just totally worked for the story. That's great.
Yeah, I love it when an author reads their own
book, especially when it's someone who has done
a lot of podcasts and knows how to communicate.
He's already got a distinctive, recognizable
voice like a Malcolm Gladwell or someone like
that. I love when they read their own stuff.
Yeah, same. Yeah. It's such a tricky world though.
I mean, to hire a person to read your fiction
audio book, like you got very lucky. Yeah. Having
an amazing guy do it, but it's gotta be like
a. Like to read someone, bring your characters
to life. Like when you first heard the voice
of the Gray Man, what did you think? So they
did a tryout. I got to choose Jay Snyder, but
I only got to choose between two audiobook narrators.
And I actually liked them both. It was really
cool. Last year I did... Audible original audio
drama. So it's not a gray man story. This other
book that I have called Armored. And I wrote
an audio play. So they have sound effects and
music and actual actors instead of narrators.
Oh, wow. And it was like 600 pages, 618 pages
for the five and a half hour, I think, audio
play. And it was so fascinating to hear these
things that you write, you know, like audio cue.
It's like M249. going cyclic you know and this
guy says this and this and that was that came
out before the film too uh came out like six
months before the movie came out and so that
was the first time i like i heard actors like
acting out something that i'd written and it
was it was just mind -blowing that's a really
interesting way to do it to have audio in it
yeah like gunfire car screeching yeah it's like
an old -time radio play if you think about it
and i think it worked pretty well i ended up
writing it as 150 ,000 word book so there's things
in the book that aren't in the in the audio play
but i think it's a fun way to spend five hours
you know listening while you're doing something
else well i really enjoy fiction um like i said
it's specifically in the sauna when i'm suffering
because it's just it's a nice escape i can just
concentrate on the characters and just deal with
the suffering yeah but it's um it's a such a
unique way to uh express yourself to create these
scenarios and scenes and things that just they're
not real yeah you're making a world you're making
like a whole little environment but with you
this environment is a very specific genre so
do you have to be careful of not like overusing
tropes not reusing ideas not like and keeping
it fresh like how do you stimulate your creativity
in terms of like that one particular genre yeah
you're exactly right the first few books you're
pulling off the low -hanging fruit you have your
whole life to think of these cool ideas and these
interesting scenarios and then you you get a
little bit more and a little bit more and then
you get to a point where it's like okay i've
i've taken all the parts off of the cars that
i have in the back of my house you know and so
But you just have to go out and get more information,
go to go to other places. I think I've been to
like 38 countries doing research and talk to
a lot of people, read a lot and try and bring
stuff in the macro level. I'm great. I've got
ideas for 20 more books, probably the micro level.
It's like, OK, this guy has got to get on a private
jet and fly to Malta. It's like. OK, I've done
that. How does he do it differently? Or this
guy's following another guy down a street or,
you know, this woman is, you know, going to kill
her husband or whatever. It's like those things
that you've done. And I used to joke. I'm like,
you know, there's going to be a point where I'm
going to be writing like a knife fight in a hot
tub and go like, oh, this is my third knife fight
in a hot tub. You know, it's like how many times
can you get away with that? Do you feel like
there's going to come a time where you can't
like it strains credulity? to keep the gray man
operational? I mean, look at James Bond. That's
60 years, you know, and everybody's going like,
how can you get excited in a book where you know
the guy's going to win or survive? It's all superhero
novels. Nobody goes to a James Bond film. thinking
he's going to die eight minutes in and then that
first you know sure and they go for other reasons
and in my books there is other skin in the game
like there's some big geopolitical thing that's
really happening in the world a burner involves
russia and ukraine um none of it takes place
in ukraine it's not about the war but it's about
russian foreign intelligence and um so i had
to do a year ago when i was writing the book
i had to really sort of prognosticate where we
would be a year from now to get all that so it
took a lot of work and a lot of research and
it will there will be a time where you know America
doesn't have that many peer enemies. You know,
obviously there's China and there are near peer
enemies, China and Russia and North Korea's nukes.
Otherwise they would be on anybody's radar. So
when I was doing the Clancy books, I was going
like, all right, who's left? You know, we can't
bring in people from outer space. You know, it's
like, what are we going to do? But there's just
there's different ways to skin a cat. But I mean,
I think, yeah, ultimately. it's going to just
get harder and harder to do. It's harder to write
my 24th book than it was to write my fifth book.
Really? Yeah, way, way, way harder. That's crazy
because you've covered so much of the ground.
Exactly. One of the things to me that's been
interesting about your books is going from the
original Gray Man to Sierra Six, where I'm at
now, where you... You have to deal with the new
technology and you have to deal with new surveillance
technology. You have to deal with the internet.
You have to deal with the fact that someone's
going to be a known factor. Yeah. When you've
got a guy like the gray man that's been involved
in so many operations and so many different missions,
like at a certain point in time. People are aware
of him. They're going to be able to recognize
him. Yeah. Yeah. If you if you look at it literally.
But I'll go back to James Bond. He'd walk into
a place and say, my name is James Bond or Bond,
James Bond. I'm like, he actually uses real name.
That's kind of funny. You know, it's like I'm
an MI6 guy using my real name out there in the
field. And yeah, you know, you just try and sell
it as best you can. The Gray Man really hasn't
aged in the past 10 years or so. He aged maybe
in the first couple of books. But I didn't know
it was going to be a series. I had no idea. And
so there's Daniel Silva. I don't know if you've
read him. He's a fantastic thriller author. He
actually ages his character, Gabriel Alon, who's
an Israeli former Mossad guy. And his books are
fantastic. I mean, I look up to him very much.
But that's not what I'm doing. I mean, my guy's
going to need to be able to climb that fence.
Right. jump off that scaffold and, you know,
land on a tuk -tuk or something. You know, it's
like that's not going to go away as long as I'm
writing the series. So if each story on its own
stands on its own and is fun and is exciting
and has something, some kernel out of what's
really going on in the world, hopefully to make
it, you know, current, then I'm probably okay.
As long as I can keep doing that. I don't ever
want to phone it in. Like my career, my ambition
isn't. anything other than writing a good book.
And if I'm not writing a good book, you know,
I will do something else. Do you feel like there's
going to come a time when you have to come up
with a new gray man? I have another series. It's
Josh Duffy series, which is only one book right
now, but I'm working on the other one today.
So I like bouncing around, but you know, as far
as exchanging the gray man out in a story, like
someone. younger comes and takes a role probably
not because i'm really not aging him you know
it's like right i i mentally i'm going like all
right so he'd be he'd probably be by this story
he'd probably be about 46 now or something like
that so he could still do a lot of the stuff
and a lot of the stuff he couldn't do um yeah
i remember you know when i wrote the first gray
man like the the older guy Who, you know, was
like his boss, Hanley, I think was like 44 or
45 or something. I was like, yeah, it's this
old fart, you know, and now I'm 55 and you're
going like, God, what an asshole. But yeah, it's
I think it's I think that the books are always
going to sort of stand. On their own and stand
alone like a Mac Bowman, like James Bond or something
like that. And I want there to be story arcs
and I want there to be psychology of interpersonal
relationships and all these things in the story.
But I'm not looking to make the reality, you
know, and have anything to do with time. Right.
That's tricky. Yeah, it is tricky. It's tricky
when you're dealing with someone who's physical
too, right? Yeah, yeah. That's the big issue.
you know, in Iraq or something. And I'm like,
yeah, yeah, I did. Wish I didn't. If you'd like
to buy the new book, I'd love to sell it to you.
But if not. Shuffle on. But you're going to have
to forget about that part. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
That's tricky. That's why I was saying, like,
is there going to come a time where you have
to phase them out? Yeah. Because, like, if you're
doing these things in chronological order and
we get to 10 years from now, you're dealing with
a 58 -year -old gray man. Unless you're still
saying he's 37. Right. And people are able to
– they'll either buy it or they won't, you know.
That's tricky. I mean, I guess James Bond would
be about 150. because the first books came out
in the late 50s. Right. That's interesting. I
didn't think about it that way, right? But I
think we're dealing with a totally different
James Bond every time, just like we're dealing
with a totally different Spider -Man. A few,
yeah. I mean, that's true. That's true. They
reboot. Yeah. And that was a thing that didn't
used to happen, but now it happens and it works.
Well, they've rebooted Spider -Man like five
times. Yeah, I know. How many times? I don't
know. How many Spider -Mans have there been?
At least four, right? Yeah. Yeah. They're making
a new one. Are they a new Spider -Man? Spider
-Man Noir. It's like a TV show. It has nothing
to do with this. It's been set in the 1930s.
Oh, wow. My favorite was the animated one when
they did the Spider -Verse. They just completely
changed the world and made it a multiverse thing
and had a young kid do it. It was great. Yeah,
it's clever. I love that one because also with
animation, you can get away with so much more.
Physically, it makes sense. You can enjoy it.
The suspension of disbelief is so much easier.
Yeah, and you're not trying to look through the
CGI and see if it's legit or not legit. Yeah,
exactly. I saw an early version of the Gray Man
film. And they hadn't finished all the CGI. And
it was really, I mean, it was fascinating. I
didn't know what I was looking at. Basically,
it turns to like a cartoon for like a couple
of seconds almost, you know, with the characters.
And it's like that aha video take on me. Like
it sort of looks like that to a degree. Just
for like a second, you're like, what just happened?
Yeah, the process of watching your work become
a film has got to be very weird. Yeah, I wasn't
closely involved with it. I went out and met
the Russo brothers when they... We're going to
write the script and spend a few days with them
talking about the story and where the future
story, because they wanted it to be a franchise
from the beginning. But I wasn't involved in
the day to day, but I was sent scripts. Joe sent
me the script that he wrote. And then I saw the
shooting script like right when they were shooting.
So that was my involvement with it. And then
I would be on Twitter and I'd see Ryan Gosling
dressed up as a gray man on Twitter. You know,
I didn't see it any way anybody else would have.
I've seen it. Are they doing a series? Are they
going to continue? They're doing a second one,
yeah. Really? Interesting. And they're writing
a spinoff series, which I know nothing about.
But the guy who wrote Deadpool, Rhett Reese,
I think it is. They're writing a spinoff based
on who? Someone in the series. And I really don't
know. I'm not being cagey. Really? Yeah. I just
know that that's happening. That's even weirder.
So now someone's like taking your world and it's
almost like the Spider -Man thing. Yeah. I mean,
it depends on what they do. If they take a character
that like Zoya, who's this Russian, former Russian.
foreign intelligence officer. I love that character.
Thank you. Thanks. You know, if they did something
with her, that would be cool. If they did something
with Zach Hightower, who's kind of like his on
and off again sidekick, you know, that would
be cool, but I don't know what it is. But they
are doing a sequel with Ryan Gosling in the role.
Have they started that yet? They're writing the
script, or Steve McFeely's writing the script,
one of the screenwriters on Greyman. And is it
based on any of your books? It's going to be
based on one of the books. Which book? You don't
want to tell? No, I don't know. I didn't ask
permission. If you're allowed. I didn't ask permission.
I get it. My whole point in coming here today
was to walk out of here and not go, oh, my God,
I can't believe I just said that. I think we're
good so far. That was close. Well, you know,
you did a good job. You navigated it. Is it a
weird thing to watch someone change your script
and to change the plot and change how the characters
interact? It is really weird. I think I went
into it with the right mindset that, you know,
this was a film representation. And I know that
the directors are like really creative people
and the screenwriters and cinematographers and
actors. And they don't look at it as their job
that they're engineers that are going to take
a piece of. paper and turn it into celluloid
with everyone doing exactly the same thing. So
I never expected that. There are places in there
where I think I really like what they did. And
there's places in there where it's like, I think
my line landed a little bit better. And that
actually made me happy. I wasn't mad that they
didn't do it my way. It's more like, OK, I think
I have something to offer still instead of all
these big shots with all this money come and
make something so like. vastly superior to the
little paperback that I wrote. I think there's
places where my stuff holds up and there's stuff
in there that I think is fantastic too. But it
is really strange. The toughest thing is the
complaints from fans that aren't happy because
of the changes. So people just pigeonhole me
all the time at a conference or something and
they'll be like, in the movie they did this and
in the book they did this. And I was like, yeah,
I wrote the book and I saw the movie. So this
whole interaction is like, I don't know what
to tell you. I can't speak for them. And people
will email me and they're like, you've screwed
up. You gave it away. You know, it was all for
the money or whatever. And you're like, I didn't
have any creative control. I'm not Stephen King
or John Grosham or one of these guys. You know,
I had this little paperback that I got a little
bit of money advanced to put out and they offered.
you know, to option it into Hollywood. And my
answer was yes. It wasn't like, let me look at
page 94 of the contract where I'm going to come
back and say, I want creative control and I want
to play the gray man in the movie or whatever.
It's like, that's how you don't get a movie made.
Well, Stephen King famously didn't like The Shining.
Which is wild, right? Because it's Stanley Kubrick
and it's Jack Nicholson and it's an amazing movie.
But the movie was very different than his book.
In his book, the character, Jack, it takes a
long time before he goes crazy. And he starts
out sane. He starts out just a troubled former
alcoholic who's trying to get his life together
and do right by his family. And he gets this
opportunity to look over this hotel and he's
going to write this book. And then along the
way, he goes nuts. That's the difference between
a book and a movie. I like that added stuff.
I think Tom Clancy didn't like Harrison Ford
in the Jack Ryan films. I think it was just an
age thing because in his head he was pretty literal
about at this stage when I wrote this book, he's
a young CIA analyst or whatever and I think Harrison
Ford was older. I'm not 100 % sure about that.
I do know that – I've read places. Tom never
told me this, but that he wasn't a big fan of
those, and I think those are the best ones. I
don't know. Red October was good. I never saw
any of his – what ones were his – Patriot Games,
Clear and Present Danger. And those were all
Harrison Ford? Yeah, yeah. No kidding. Yeah,
yeah. And I think he did a good – they did a
great job. Alec Baldwin was great in Red October.
Yeah. Too bad he didn't stick with it. I forgot
about Red October. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about
Patriot Games, too. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's so
interesting when you get a known commodity, like
a famous celebrity that comes in and takes over
a role that you've created. Yeah. Yeah, I was
happy with Ryan Gosling. As I described the gray
man, the look is pretty similar. And he didn't
overbake it. I feel like the scenes with the
girl. that he's protecting could have turned
schmaltzy and cheesy and they didn't. And I like
that in my book, I like it a little bit better
because the, the girl actually has some agency
in her own rescue. She does some things to help
herself. Whereas this one, she's just sort of
like protected, you know, by, by Gentry. I mean,
she, she kind of saves the day to some degree
too. You know, you can pick little things. The
very first scene in the movie. Billy Bob Thornton
is a CIA guy sitting in a prison with a dude
saying, here's the name of our secret CIA program
and here's what it does. Would you like to join?
That's how that works. You know, and there's
the funniest part was that there's a scene, a
big action scene in Prague. It takes place in
Prague and Gray Man is handcuffed to a. to a
bench and he's shooting bad guys and he can't
get away. And there's cops and dead cops around
him. And then the bad guys, Chris Evans sending
the bad guys in from all directions. And at one
point he reaches over to this cop and pulls a
frag grenade off the guy's utility belt. And
I'm like, the cops in Prague carry frags. That's
some hardcore cops. He throws it, blows something
up. And I'm like, but it works in the movie.
You know, it's like nobody's spending that much
time looking at it unless you're the idiot that
wrote it. Well, that is the problem because you're
the guy writing. Exactly, exactly. That's why
it's got to be weird, I would imagine. Do you
have any ambitions to completely change genres,
to do something that's outside of the realm of
success that you found yourself in? Yeah, I've
been asked that a lot, and I do have a bunch
of ideas for books. They're mostly in the genre.
There's some stuff that are a little bit pushing
away. There's kind of a romantic suspense. story
but it involves CIA that I'm working on working
on it slowly amidst other things and just kind
of like plotting out and someday I'm like someday
I'm going to write this book you know and but
it's still it's still a thriller it's still sort
of brushes against espionage but it's it's more
it's got like a romance angle that my stuff doesn't
really have is that what you've always gravitated
towards like what you consume the kind of books
you read no i mean the kind of books i read are
the kind of books i write and i i wrote a military
thriller co -authored a military thriller in
2019 called red metal with an then active duty
marine lieutenant colonel um a good friend of
mine rip rawlings and uh Because I always, even
though I wasn't in the military, Tom Clancy wasn't
in the military. It's like I always thought that
I had one of those in me, like a big military
thriller, like an old Tom Clancy one. And so
I wanted to do it forever. And I met Rip at the
Pentagon when I was researching a Clancy book.
And he wanted to be a writer. He was a writer,
but he hadn't been published. And he and I became
friends. And for like four years, we would just
bounce ideas off each other. And one day I just
said, hey, Rip, I think I could go to my. editor
or my agent and i can get us a book deal if you
want to do this together so we did and we went
he and i went to poland and to germany and to
um he went to france and we went to nellis air
force base and we did research and research and
this book came out in 2019 it was like russia
war with nato and it did really well it hit the
times list and we're doing a sequel um but the
idea was i wanted to do something that was a
little bit out of the spite novel thing this
is big troop movements and uh you know aircraft
and all this stuff and i wanted to write something
big like that and i did it and i was really happy
with the experience it was a ton of work but
it was also really fulfilling so i'm i i made
Get a little bit afield in what I write. It's
not always going to be like the assassin walking
down the street chasing a guy. But I probably
won't go that wide. I'm not going to be writing
a Bollywood script or anything like that. Do
you have time in between books where you just
read or just research and just try to like? to
fuel your creativity? Yeah, I didn't, but now
I realize how important it is. And so last year
I had two books come out and the film came out.
So I had all these things that didn't involve
writing a book. And I wrote Burner, which I went
to several countries to research and took probably
eight months to write the book. And I was supposed
to write something else last year. And both my
agent and my editor, who are both great guys,
they both said. Why don't you just take the rest
of the year off? Because you've really been burning
the candle at both ends and and start fresh next
year. And so it was hard, you know, to get up
one day and not feel like you have to be on your
laptop in four minutes, you know. But but I use
that time to kind of come up with this year's
book to where I have it. pretty more fleshed
out outline than I usually do significantly more
but yeah it was just it was just days of like
going to the park or working out and have a little
home gym and and listening to podcasts about
stuff that would be you know in in the next book
or reading stuff and um slowly taking notes and
i i don't really have the luxury of doing that
every time and when i finish the new gray man
book i've got to get right into the second armored
book which is the one that will come out next
year and i better have a plot i have to figure
it out on the plane you know you know as i'm
on book tour or something is that good to have
that kind of pressure If I didn't have it, I'd
probably still be writing my second book, honestly.
I hate it, but I need it. I've never been able
to straighten out my work -life balance the way
I would like to. I'm insecure as a writer, so
I hate what I'm doing 95 % of the way through
it. And then tweak, tweak, tweak. My wife could
tell you the last couple years. You know, it's
like I hate the book in July and then beginning
of August, I'm like, well, I mean, there's something
in there. There is a heart to this thing. I just
got a lot of mistakes. And then by the end of
August, you know, it's kind of like, all right,
I think this one's actually OK. And then. By
the time it comes out, it's like, all right,
this is done. It's as good as I can make it.
I'm proud of it. Let's get it out. I think that
feeling of never having a good balance is like
part of the creative process. Yeah. I've never
met anybody who does great work who's like really
happy with the whole process. Yeah, but it's
fun to fantasize about just like getting up in
the morning with a big smile on your face and
going like, man, I'm kicking ass. Right. It's
always like I'm just flailing. Yeah, I have really
bad imposter syndrome and I always have and I
guess I always will. And so, you know, it's this
whole like I hope they don't find me out. I'm
glad you said that because I think everybody
who's good has imposter syndrome. I've talked
to great comics. I've talked to great musicians.
I've talked to great writers. And almost all
of them have this thing like, oh, they're going
to find me out. Yeah, exactly. You're like, why
am I here? Right. And I've even – I used to have
really, really bad social anxiety. when I was
trying to get published, like I literally had
appointments to talk to agents and I never left
my hotel room cause I just chickened out, you
know, and that happened. And then, so once I
got published, it was still sort of like this,
I don't belong here thing. And, um, and now,
you know, like. When I first was asked to write
with Clancy, I was like, oh, my God, why are
they asking me this? It's like, oh, crap. It's
like, how do I get out of this? Especially Clancy,
right? Yeah, exactly. Because you're such a huge
fan. Yeah, and I was like, can't I go to the
next level above me and not way up there? That's
scary up there. But then I was – after we did
three – he passed away right after we – I mean,
days after we finished the third book together.
And then his family asked me to – continue the
Jack Ryan series. And if they'd asked anybody
else, I'd have been really upset. Like by then
I felt like I was the right guy for the job.
And it was the first time in my career I felt
like I was, you know, I was like, why are they
letting me write for a living? I get to go to
other countries and talk to people and then write
fun stuff about shit blowing up. You know, it's
like, how cool is this? And it took me a few
years to where it's like, okay, there's something
I bring to the table here. Oh, you most certainly
do. Yeah, that's great. I'm really proud of you,
for you. Thank you. If I was your friend, I'd
be proud of you. Let's be friends. Let's be friends.
But I think that's an amazing story, to go from
a guy who's a giant Tom Clancy fan to be writing
those novels. Yeah. That's amazing. It's great.
And to know the language and to know the characters
and to keep it true to the original work. Yeah,
so I'd only had a couple of paperback books out
when they asked me if I was interested in being
his co -author, but we had the same editor. Did
he know your work? Was he a fan of your work?
I don't know. I mean, I think ultimately, yes.
I mean, like we met. But when they first reached
out to me, it wasn't a job offer. It was more
like, would you be interested? Do you want us
to put your hat in the ring for this? And there
was this kind of back and forth where no decisions
were being made. And as scared as I was at first,
I also knew enough about the publishing world
to know that that book was going to be due whenever
I started writing it, that the due date wasn't
going to change. So it's like beginning of February
2011, they asked me if I was interested. End
of February, I still didn't have it, the job.
And we're into March, and I still didn't have
the job. And I was like, I bet this book is due
on a certain date no matter what. So finally
I said, listen, I am. I'm a huge Clancy fan.
I know these characters. I know these people.
Let me write 50 pages as if I was writing a Tom
Clancy novel and do that as a tryout. And so
I don't think anybody else did that. And so I
just wrote 50 pages like in the middle of a book
that never existed. You know, it was just like
I didn't worry about plot. And I was just like,
there's a scene. I gave them that, and then they
had me go up to Baltimore and meet Tom, and then
I had the job. Wow. It was amazing. I was terrified
to meet Clancy. Why did they want someone to
collaborate with Tom? Do I even know the answer?
I really don't know the answer to that. It happens
with authors as they get older. I mean, I already
don't have the focus. We were talking earlier.
It's like I used to be able to write. 6, 8, 10,
12 hours. Do you take any nootropics? I don't
know what that is. Really? Interesting. I'll
get you some. Do you have any? Yeah, I do. Oh,
I was kidding. I do have some. I was kidding.
I have some right here. Can we take it on camera
and see what happens? Yeah. See if I get more
interesting? It'll take a few hours for this
to kick in. This is AlphaBrain Black Label. This
is my favorite. But I take a bunch of different
nootropics. What they are is essentially building
blocks for human neurotransmitters. It's just
nutrients. Okay. Take six. Is it legal in all
50 states? Yes. All right. 100 % legal. You buy
it on - Here, take six of these. Thanks, man.
There you go. I appreciate it. I'll take them,
too, so you know I'm not poisoning you. You take
all six? Yeah, I take all six. Seriously? Yeah,
it's not going to mess with you. All right, here
we go. Here we go. But I take a bunch of different
ones. They started taking a new one that they
sent me called Magic Mind, and it's nootropics
along with... lion's mane, and a bunch of functional
mushrooms. Wow. And I like that one, too. There's
another one. I got found out about nootropics
because of Bill Romanosky. He was a former football
player, great football player, and developed
some, obviously, some... neural issues post concussions
and impacts and stuff like that so we created
something called neuro one and i really like
that i started taking neuro one because uh there
was a show called uh allison no name um is that
allison oil it was on san francisco it was the
morning radio show and there was a the dude they
would call him no name um and his um His trainer
was Bill Romanowski, and Bill Romanowski got
him on this stuff. This was quite a few years
ago. And I go, what is it? And he's like, it's
nutrients that help you think better. I was like,
well, what do you do? And he gave me some. And
I started taking them. It's interesting. It helps
you form sentences better. It helps your verbal
memory. And that's one of the things we've done
with AlphaBrain. because this is a company that
I owned, we sent a bunch of it and we funded
two double -blind placebo -controlled studies
at the Boston Center for Memory. And they showed
increase in verbal memory, increase in reaction
time, increase in peak alpha flow state. So it's...
It enhances your ability to think. And that's
the thing. It's not going to make you smarter.
But what it does is it provides your brain with
the nutrients it needs to function at its best.
There is nothing I need more. Last year I was
worrying that I was having some kind of cognitive
decline because I was forgetting things. And
it's like, wait, did I just do that or was I
about to do that? And I think it was because
I was just really overloaded, just busy and family
and stuff. And, you know, it's like going from.
no two dogs and no family to three step kids
and four dogs and um you know the movie's out
and two book came out and i had to write a book
and i just really felt like like something was
going on in my head and yeah and once i turned
that book in and took a couple months off or
whatever and things have Recharge. Recharge to
some degree. But as you get older, you need that.
Well, there's also a thing with the vitality
of your body. Like the more vitality you have,
the more robust your body is, the more you can
function at a high energy level for longer periods
of time, which is I think cardio is very important
for anybody who's creative. I mean there's a
lot of like brilliant creative people that never
work out ever. And 100 % you can do it. I know
some brilliant comedians and writers and all
they do is they force themselves to sit. down
they create amazing work yeah but I think if
you looked at it comprehensively the overall
robustness of your physical body the your body's
ability to generate energy function at you know
a really good pace and to just be overall healthy
I think is very important for creativity. Yeah.
And I think cardiovascular fitness in particular
seems to really enhance creativity. I know a
lot of people that get very creative when they
run, very creative when they'll do something
that has a high tax rate on the body like yoga
or CrossFit, something that's like just – it
keeps your body functioning at a very high level.
Yeah. I think that can enhance it too. I've had
the best – I work out. regularly and it started
in 2019 i just got divorced and i lost a ton
of weight and i wasn't sleeping like i was i
still have trouble sleeping but like i was kind
of freaked out so i went to a psychiatrist like
what's wrong with me and talked to him for a
while and he said you are as healthy as anybody's
ever walked through my door you just have these
chemicals firing in your head right now because
of your divorce and how you're feeling and he's
like I could prescribe you some crap, but you
should probably just work out. That's a great
psychiatrist. Oh, he's fantastic. Thank God you
found that guy. And so that was July 1st of 2019.
And so I'm coming up on five years of keeping
my weight. Like, I lost 40 pounds. And I... I
exercise. And when you first start doing it,
it makes you really tired. But when you keep
doing it, it's like it keeps you from being tired.
Yeah. And so I'll work out every afternoon, like
three or four in the afternoon. And I sleep better.
And the next day is better until I do it again.
And if I don't work out for a couple of days,
I feel. really lethargic. Yes. I'm with you 100%.
And for me, I have this thought that I think
that human beings evolved with anxiety and fear
because of actual real threats. Because of threats
of animals, of predators, and of neighboring
tribes invading and war and chaos and violence.
Defense mechanisms. Yes. And then we also carry
that same anxiety today, but there's no threats.
Right. So your body is like, ooh. It's the same
chemicals, as was explained to me, that fire
out through your brain if you're having some
crazy relationships. stuff going on as if a tiger
is chasing you or whatever. It's like your brain
doesn't have different chemicals for different
things. And I think that there's a real physical
requirement of taxing your body that comes with
that sort of anxiety that if you don't meet that
physical requirement, your body's just like,
because it's like, we got to run, man. There's
something going on. There's something attacking
us. We got to get the fuck out of here. And unless
you meet those physical requirements, like wear
your body out. so that it can get back to a normal
baseline. It doesn't burn off all that shit.
I mean, I'm obviously not talking about it like
a scientist, but there's something to that. For
me, in times of peak anxiety and peak stress,
nothing makes me feel better than a hard workout.
A hard workout, hard sauna session, cold plunge,
I'm back. Yeah, I agree with that. I got hurt
playing soccer in my 30s and had a back surgery,
and the surgeon botched it. permanent nerve damage
in my left leg. Oh, no. And I had since then
had four surgeries to try and correct stuff,
and two of those surgeries didn't go well. And
so I've spent an entire year and a half of my
life on crutches or on a knee scooter and not
able to, I mean, barely able to work out. Like,
my gym in my old house was... you know just a
playroom and it was up a wooden staircase and
it's like I'm crawling on my on my calf oh wow
and I was literally just doing like Turkish get
-ups and I'd do like four on each side and be
crippled the next day but that was all the exercise
I could get and I was getting depressed and you
know gaining weight and I just feeling really
just what Just tired and lethargic all the time.
And now that I'm able to do – I wear a little
brace on my ankle. And I'm able to do most anything
that I want to do. And the more active I stay,
just the better I feel in 100 different ways.
Did you get disfused? So I have two levels in
lumbar discs. I have artificial discs. So it
was something that they were – It's approved
in other countries, but it's not FDA approved
in the U .S. for some reason. Or maybe it is
now. I know quite a few people that have artificial
discs in their neck and their back. They do in
their neck. There's a lot in cervical. But lumbar
was, at least then. What year was this? 2004
when I had that surgery. Oh, very early on. Yeah,
yeah. So yours is not an articulating thing.
It is articulating. It is? Yeah. Is it titanium?
It's two levels. Yes. Interesting. Yeah, it's
called a Maverick. Actually, the company I work
for made spinal implants, and it was their device.
Oh, wow. I actually got it, yeah. And it's done
great for me. I still have kind of chronic back
pain, but it's so much less. Did you have stenosis?
Yes. So when they put this in, what were you
experiencing before they put that in? Was it
a bulging disc? Was it herniated? Was it pushing
against nerves? So the first surgeon went in
to clean up. a one -level bulging disc and left
sequestered disc material, so the jelly inside
the jelly donut that is the disc in the foramen,
which is the joint area where the nerve root
goes, and it crushed off my nerve root, my L4
nerve root, which means I can't dorsiflex my
left foot. At all? Uh -uh. Still? Still. But
if it was my L5... nerve root. Another doctor
told me, he's like, look on the bright side.
If it was the L5 nerve root, you'd never be able
to evacuate your bowels or have sex or anything
like that. And I'm like, okay, suddenly, you
know, the glass is half full. And so what have
they done to correct that? Well, so I had a second
surgery to kind of get that disc material out.
And then I had a third surgery because I just
had so much discogenic pain. So just midline
back pain. I was walking with a cane. When I
was 34 and I'd been a soccer amateur, but like
very intense soccer player. And the third surgery,
they went in through my front and they moved
the whole stomach, the whole peritoneum, the
bag that holds the stomach. And they put like
these like shoehorn in there. And then they.
Took out the discs, and then they put in these
joints that look kind of like an Oreo cookie.
So I have two levels of that. And my back pain,
65 % of my back pain went away immediately. And
with therapy, another 20%. I still have. But
then in 2017, I went to have a surgery. to fix
my ankle and give me the dorsiflexion back. They
can move a tendon from the inside of your foot
behind your shin and attach it to the top of
your foot. And after a while, your body learns
how to use that tendon right. And so that surgery
failed. They did it again. It failed again. And
the second time, it got infected. And just a
bad doctor, honestly. And I almost lost a foot.
I had to go and be hospitalized. Was it MRSA?
What does that mean? Staph? Staph infection?
Yeah, it was some kind of a staph. Osteomyelitis.
It was a bone infection. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, so
I had to do this. That's scary. Yeah, I was on
crutches and going through the rain to the infusion
clinic every day. But I had the right mental
attitude. I was like, hey, if I get past this,
I can get past anything. I was like, don't let
yourself get depressed about this. And all the
while you're writing, too. Yeah, I did two books
that year. Yeah, yeah. A Gray Man and a Clancy.
It was about a year and a half process, but I
won't be getting another surgery. But still,
the foot is not functioning properly. Yeah, I
just can't dorsiflex. If I wear the right brace,
I can cram a soccer cleat on and play soccer
with my kids and that sort of stuff, and I can
go to the park for a few hours a day or whatever,
a few miles. And no big deal. But if I'm standing,
just standing there like at a cocktail party
or something like that, it's excruciating. I
have hydrocodone. It's the only thing I do. Wow.
It's excruciating. And I've done all the – anybody
that says you should do physical therapy, it's
like I know all the exercises because I've been
to like 10, 12 bouts of physical therapy and
I do them. And it probably makes it somewhat
better. But, yeah. Have you done any stem cells?
No. I've never done that. You should really look
into that. Yeah, and I haven't even had an MRI
on this back in like 15 years. I mean, it's because
it feels the same. But yeah, I probably should
find a doctor. I'll connect you with some people.
Stem cells. Well, there's some places that you
can go outside of the United States where they
can do some pretty phenomenal stuff with stem
cells because they don't have the same regulations
that we have here because of the FDA. But I know
a bunch of people that have had neurological
issues and some serious injuries that they've
helped recover from. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's cool.
Yeah, I'll connect you when we get out of here.
It's a great parlor trick, though, with my kids.
I've actually gotten a pair of pliers and pinched
my toe, which is not recommended, you know. You
don't feel anything in your foot at all? Not
in that part of my foot. Wow. That's got to be
crazy. Isn't Hulk Hogan say that, that he can't
feel his legs now? I think Hulk Hogan said that
because of his most recent back surgeries. Hulk
Hogan's had a series of back surgeries, and I
guess he can't feel his legs. That's the nerve
roots that go down your legs. Yeah, but back
surgery is a crazy one, and I wish I had known
you before you had gotten it because there's
stuff that you could do with bulging discs now
that you can really repair them with stem cells.
some decompression exercises that they can decompress
the spine. There's a machine called reverse hyper
that's particularly good at the lumbar area.
It was created by this guy, Louis Simmons, who
was a famous power lifter, who fucked his back
up from compression. And they wanted to fuse
his back. And he was like, well, why can't I
figure out a way to decompress it? There's got
to be a way to decompress it. So he invented
this machine called the reverse hyper. And what
the reverse hyper is, we have one out here in
the gym. I'll show it to you after we're done.
But you lay your stomach down on this flat bench
and you hook your ankles. up to this thing that's
sort of like a leg curl, and you lift up. And
then you lift your legs up, which strengthens
the back. And then as you let it down, it swings,
and it's actively decompressing your back. So
it's like traction. This is it right here. Oh,
wow. So that's the machine. I actually use that
today. That's the Rogue version of it, which
I think is the best version of that machine.
Yeah, that would definitely decompress things
down there. Yeah, so as it drops down, you're
pulling the back. So you're strengthening it
on the up. On the concentric and then on the
eccentric, you're lengthening. Yeah. And it allows
the spine to like slowly get stretched and pulled
apart. And it's been amazing for me. Yeah. It
strengthens that area and it's alleviated any
issues that I had. I used to get like the occasional
sciatic pain. I don't get any of that anymore.
Oh, that's fantastic. And my back is all fucked
up. From the top of my neck all the way down
to my lower back, I've had issues from jiu -jitsu.
Jiu -jitsu is the worst. Jiu -jitsu and wrestling.
It's like people are constantly, like, shoving
your neck into the ground. And you're, like,
getting stacked where, like, you know, you're
literally all your weight is on your upper back
and your neck. And someone's got a hold of your
legs. And you're trying to pass. And you're resisting
and moving. And it's so much strain on the spinal
column. And unless you strengthen all the tissue
around that to keep it stable, you're going to
get injuries. Absolutely. So I do something for
my neck. I have this thing called an iron neck
grip. put a halo on and have a bungee cord that's
like 50 pounds of pressure to pull it back. I've
seen that. Yeah. So that's how I keep everything
strong and functional. And there's ways around
the surgery. Yeah. Yeah. For some people, for
some injuries. I mean, it's not for all of them,
but for bulging discs, I had a bulging disc in
my neck to the point where it was causing ulnar
nerve pain, where I'd have this pain in my elbow
and my fingertips were getting numb. Yeah. And
it was pretty fucked. And I fixed all that. Yeah.
No surgery. That's awesome. Yeah, back in 2002,
I basically went to the ER because I blew a disc
playing soccer, and the surgeon was this British
guy who knew all about soccer, and he's like,
you know, you might have to sit out the rest
of this season, but by the fall you'll be able
to play again if we do this surgery. And I'm
like, okay. And I woke up and couldn't feel my
leg. That's the problem with when you're dealing
with nerves. You're dealing with the spine. It's
such a delicate place. It really is. My friend
Boss Rutten, who's the UFC heavyweight champion.
I've got some of his. his tapes and stuff. He's
great. Boss had his neck fused and one of his
arms shriveled. He had atrophy because of nerve
damage. And so he's got what he calls baby arm.
So his right arm is like half the size of his
left arm. His left arm is this jacked fucking
arm. And it's not fixable? It's a slow recovery
process. Like every year he'll gain like a little
bit more movement, a little bit more strength.
But here he was. Former heavyweight champion
of the world, he couldn't hold up a gallon of
milk. Oh, God. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. I don't know
how long it's been since I've seen him, but he
looked in good shape. I saw him the other day.
He looks better. He's getting better constantly,
but that one particular area because of the fusion.
And he fucked his neck up, believe it or not.
Well, he had fucked his neck up many times in
his career. He actually fought for the heavyweight
title when he—was it the heavyweight title? No.
When he fought Toshiko Saka, which was, I think,
the first fight that he had in the UFC, he couldn't
do any wrestling because his neck was so fucked
up. So he just kind of had to spar and— And get
in shape without doing any wrestling. And he
still won the fight. But then he was doing Sons
of Anarchy. He was doing a stunt scene. And he
fell on his neck in this stunt and just fucked
his neck up and then wound up getting it fused.
But now they're doing these articulating discs
in the neck that have been very successful. In
fact, Aljamain Sterling, who's the UFC bantamweight
champion, he actually had that done. So he had
a disc replacement in his neck where he fought
Piotr Jan, fought for the title, got illegally
kneed in the head, and won the title on a disqualification,
which a lot of people are like, boo. You can't
win a title like that. Then had to get this operation.
So it was a long time before they had the rematch,
and they came in. dominated in the rematch with
a fake disc in his hand. Wow, he went back to
it. Yep, and not only went back to it, went back
to it better than ever. So they can do it now.
If you get the right doctor and it works out
well. So with Aljamain, it's worked out amazing.
But he tried a bunch of different things to try
to heal it without that, and they weren't successful.
But again, you're dealing with a guy who's a
high -level wrestler, a Brazilian jiu -jitsu
black belt, a world champion MMA fighter. I mean,
the kind of pressure and strain. It's on his
body. It's just extraordinary. Yeah. And it works
for him. He's got a fake disc in his neck. It
works. That's awesome. Yeah. Mine and my low
back, definitely better than it was before. My
back's never going to not hurt, I don't guess.
Yeah. But it's a lot better than it was. And
you look at the – I remember feeling sorry for
myself at one point. going at some place to get
fitted for a brace and there was a little child
in there that had no legs and i was like okay
you need to get your brain right you know punch
yourself in the face right now because you you've
got it you're fine yeah this poor kid yeah it's
all perspective yeah that that's so important
it's it's so hard when you get injured because
you just It's amazing how vulnerable the human
body is. It really is extraordinary. And then
when you do difficult stuff and then you put
all these different stresses on, everything seems
okay until one day. And then it's not. Yeah.
And then you're fucked. Yeah. I do squats now
and just on a Smith machine. But like but like
there was, you know, I was walking with a cane
in my 30s. I was like, it's kind of like the
fountain of youth is to be like really fucked
up when you're younger and then and then feel
better. You know, it's like, hey, I've never
felt better. Right. Right. And there's also.
There's this perspective that comes from having
been debilitated, having been really injured,
and then recovering from that where you really
appreciate your ability to move. Totally appreciate
it, yeah. And I told myself with my low back,
you know, it's like if I can just get functional,
I'm going to appreciate every day. And it's been
18, 19 years since the surgery that helped my
back where they went in through the front. so
lucky to have had it. Yeah, it's like the same
thing that happens when you're really sick, right?
When you're really sick, you're like, God, I
can't wait to be healthy again. God, I appreciate
it. But when you're healthy, you're like, yeah,
normal day, whatever, everything's fine. Yeah,
yeah, until you're sick again, and you're going
like, oh, I had it good, and I still sat around
and watched TV or something. It's just so hard
to keep perspective. It's so hard to realize
how fortunate you are. Like when you're saying
you're looking at the child that doesn't have
legs, you can see how lucky you really are. Yeah,
yeah. And that kid is a lot luckier than somebody
else, too. When you're injured like that, does
that sort of aid your writing in a way? Because
a lot of times when you're dealing with characters...
You know, you're dealing with characters that
are involved in combat. Yeah. You know, and especially
the gray man. Yeah. Like he's always injured.
Yeah. I've worked all that stuff in before. I've
done a lot of like sort of like gunshot wound
management and training and stuff like that.
So that that works itself in there. But just
the injuries. At one point he had a hydrocodone
addiction or he had some kind of pill addiction.
Yeah. Some sort of opioid. And I don't. And it's
funny because at the time everybody's like, do
you have do you have. And I'm like, nobody's
asking me if I'm an assassin. You know, they're
only asking me if I'm popping pills. But I can
understand how somebody could get on, you know,
because I was taking them for pain. And when
the pain got, you know, low enough, I didn't
take them regularly. But I still, like, I would
have a panic attack if I didn't have some access
to hydrocodone because when it flares up, I mean.
There's nothing that makes it go away that I
know of. I have a good friend who was an MMA
fighter who had his nose smashed in a fight and
got his nose fixed and, like, crushed all the
bones. And he got hit with an elbow, Brendan
Shaw. And he fought this guy, Mirko Krokop, who's,
like, a legendary assassin, like, one of the
greatest MMA fighters of all time. And he got
his nose smashed. Brendan wound up winning the
fight by KO. But then afterwards, his nose was
fucked. And then he had to get it reconstructed,
like, literally rebuilt. And he got hooked on
pain pills and he didn't even realize it. Yeah.
And he was just popping them all day. And then
finally one of his friends was like, hey, man,
how many fucking pills are you taking? Like,
what are you doing? Yeah. And then they took
the pills away from him. He just went cold turkey
and got off of it. He's never been back since.
Yeah. He said it was scary. He's like, I didn't
even realize I was hooked. But then the fear
is he gets some other injury and he needs, you
know, it's like you hear about these people that
are like, don't give me anything because I'm
addicted. It's like, oh, my God. That's probably
stressful for the doctor, too, to have to do
some procedure without giving somebody. Well,
I'm not addicted to painkillers, but I don't
like them. I had one knee surgery. I've had three
knee surgeries, but I had one of them in 93.
And they gave me, I can't remember if it was
Percocet. But they gave it to me, and I remember
sitting on my couch feeling so stupid. I was
like, oh, my God, I'm never taking this again.
I'd rather be in agony than deal with this. But
that's just me. My chemistry doesn't work with
those things. I don't like it. Yeah. If I'm really
in pain, I don't even really notice I take it.
I just have less pain. But there's been times
where I've been like, all right, I'm going to
be standing for a long time. I'm going to take
one now. preemptively or whatever. And I feel
dopey. And so I do get that dopey feeling. But
when you're really taking it to deal with pain,
somehow it goes to another part of your brain
or something. And I don't feel dopey at all when
I take a hydrocodone unless I take one when I
probably shouldn't. Well, that's very fortunate
that you haven't had problems with addictions
with them because it is pretty common. Yeah.
I mean, I will go six weeks without taking one
and then I'll take. two a day for three weeks
if i hurt myself or whatever and then are you
aware like i've been doing this a lot yeah and
you want to it's funny like i i don't feel like
anything's different but my wife will be like
what's wrong and i'm like nothing and she's like
she got hydrocodone i'm like yeah but i'm sitting
here with this mom you know like everything's
fine and she's just like i guess i just your
frequency is a little different yeah a little
glassy or something i don't even sense it myself
but um yeah no if i've been taking it for a while
it's just kind of like all right really you know
assess whether I need it but yeah it's I probably
take 12 a month or something Do you know Diamond
Dallas Page, the pro wrestler? He had a series
of pretty horrible back injuries. Obviously,
he's doing crazy pro wrestling. Big giant guy.
Other giant guys are smashing him and throwing
him to the ground. And he developed a yoga program
to sort of deal with his pain. And he's got his
entire back is arthritic. But because of the
yoga and because he does it every day, he's pain
-free and super flexible and very agile. Pretty
amazing. And his program, I know a lot of great
people. rappers have utilized his program because
it's very specific to those kind of dynamic movements.
Cool. It's really good. He's got his own kind
of yoga. Every fourth day, I just do stretching.
I don't do weights. But I don't have anything
organized. I'm just doing what I think I should
be doing. Do you do it by yourself? Yeah, yeah.
Do you find you like doing it by yourself because
it's sort of meditative and it sort of helps
you think about the stuff you're writing? Yeah,
I'm usually listening to an audio book or something
like when I work out. I don't even think about
working out when I work out. I'll sort of write
down what I'm going to do and I try and do a
little bit more than I did last time or another
rep or better form or, you know, some little
improvement on the line. And I because I can
see what I did when I did whatever back in biceps
three days ago. But like when I stretch, it's
it is meditative because I don't know, it's kind
of like I hate to use that term me time. But,
you know, it's so like it's so like this. I go
in there and nobody's in there and I'm just kind
of doing my thing and it makes me feel good afterwards.
And I'm happier doing it than not doing it. And
I'm able to, you know, sort of multitask and
get some work done listening to. Yeah, that's
how I feel about it too. I think of it as me
time. I like working out by myself. I've worked
out with trainers before, especially with martial
arts. But when it comes to weight training, especially
because I don't do stuff where I need a spotter.
I don't lift heavy weights. Yeah, same either.
Yeah. Me either. Do you do cold therapy, like
ice bath? You do? Yeah, I do it first thing in
the morning every day. That looks like the hardest
thing of all. It's not. It's not? Nah, you get
used to it. Wow. It's like everything else. I
did it today. But they say it's really good for
you. It's great for you. People that I respect
say, oh my God, you've got to do this. And I'm
kind of like, ugh. You should read or listen
to or watch YouTube videos from Andrew Huberman.
He's a professor out of Stanford who's done a
fantastic job of breaking down the benefits of
cold and heat therapy. Yeah. And it ramps up
your dopamine by like 200 % and it lasts for
hours, reduces inflammation, produces all these
cold shock proteins that are fantastic. Fantastic
for your body. And heat and cold together, the
contrast therapy is also very, very good for
you. But just heat alone, you know, they did
a study out of Finland that showed that four
times a week of the sauna for 20 minutes had
a 40 % decrease in all -cause mortality. Oh,
my gosh. Everything. Strokes, heart attacks,
cancer. Wow. Everything. Because of the heat
shock proteins. Because you're, first of all,
it's a static cardio because you're sitting there
and your heart is jacked. Your heart rate gets
to it. Because the heat, your heart rate goes
up. Yeah. I mean, when I'm in the sauna, I wear
a chest strap. I wear a polar strap so I can
see what's going on. And my heart rate regularly
be in the 150s. Oh, my God. High 140s, 150s.
Yeah. Especially when it gets to like 20 minutes.
Yeah. 25 minutes. Yeah. Because, you know, I've
got it to 190, 195 degrees. And I'm sitting there
sweating. Wow. Just suffering. And I generally
do it. post -training. So I'll go in high heart
rate already, just got done with the workout.
I try to go in when my... I want to go in at
like a 9 ,900 beats per minute as I enter. And
then I enter into this fucking sauna that's just
hell. And it's perfect. It just keeps that heart
rate jacked. Do you have somebody looking out
for you, checking in on you? Nope. No, I'm not
smart. I went in the cold plunge once for 20
minutes with no one around me. Yeah, you need
an ejection seat or something. Well, the cold
plunge is the worst because you can't get out.
Like with the sauna, you can kind of open the
door and just get out of there. But the cold
plunge. You're underwater up to your neck. If
something went wrong and I had to get out of
there, if I blacked out, I'd be kind of fucked.
You're going to Jim Morrison. Yeah, I don't recommend
doing that. But three minutes is nothing. Three
minutes is normal. It's like I don't like it,
which is why I do it. Every morning I'm like,
maybe today I should just not do this on. I'm
like, shut up, pussy. Just get in there. Maybe
today I won't wake up with a cold plunge. Shut
up, pussy. So I have this one part of my brain
that tells my body. what the fuck to do yeah
but my body's like sending all these signals
like today maybe we did maybe today would be
a nice day to relax yeah like i have all those
little games that my brain plays on me i just
don't listen seven days a week with with working
out like but when it's about time to work out
it's like this might be a day you know i'm a
little tired or i can think of nine other things
i need to do and blah blah blah and and and now
i've it takes a while to like discipline is like
a muscle you know you know this and and um because
i wasn't when i you know i wish i worked out
when I was 25, as hard as I do now, I'd probably,
you'd see it differently. You'd be jacked. Yeah,
because it's like, you know, I probably don't
eat enough protein, and, you know, I'm 55, so
it's, but I am definitely, there's definitely
benefits, but every day, it's starting from scratch,
going like, it's like, yeah, this might be the
day, and I'm always happy I did it. I call it
your inner bitch. Yeah, yeah. You gotta conquer
your inner bitch. I have a t -shirt that I sell
that says conquer your inner bitch with a kettlebell
on it. I think that's what it is. It's like there's
a, thing that everybody has and this idea that
these people that are like super disciplined
don't have that feeling like david goggins who's
the most disciplined fucking human being has
ever walked the face of planet earth i love his
book his first book he's amazing second book's
even better he's amazing yeah and david says
sometimes i look at my sneakers for a half hour
put those motherfuckers on like he procrastinates
like he'll think about it because he knows he's
gonna push himself through hell yeah So he'll
be honest about it, but he never lets that inner
bitch win. Yeah. I mean, if he's hearing that
every day, then that's pretty inspiring. This
is how crazy David is. David sent me a photo
of his toe yesterday. I'm going to send this
to you, Jamie, because it's so crazy. Because
he was just telling me, he was just sending me
some stuff about things he's been doing. And
he thinks of it as like he literally says that
it's like he's gaining. knowledge from these
suffer sessions from these you know marathon
runs it'll do on a regular basis and like what
whatever he's getting out of there he's like
i'm getting like like he thinks of it as like
that's his toe oh my god yeah i told michael
bro that belongs in a fucking mummy's mummy's
foot in the zoo any of those other toes would
be or in a museum rather that's like a mummy
yeah like that looks like something in a music
let me see that again jamie That looks like something
on a mummy. Like, that's something in a museum,
right? Or that's something that doesn't look
like a human toe. That looks like something different.
Like, what is that? What is that toe? That's
crazy. And this guy does that to himself all
the time. I mean, he runs on those. His toenails
fall off all the time. Like, he never keeps toenails.
They just fall off. That thing is so disgusting.
How crazy is that? And David doesn't give a fuck.
He's like, tape that bitch up. Keep running.
He just doesn't care. He's so crazy that he had
bone on bone on his knee where it was so bad
that the bone was starting to deform. Oh, my
God. And so you know what he did? What? He went
in for an operation. They literally saw his bone,
cut it down, and move it so it's parallel. Look
at his other toe. His other toe. Insane. How
do you know that's his other foot? Yeah. Look
at it. Insane. Look at his toes. They're insane.
Is that just for miles? I mean, surely he knows
something about footwear. It's just the amount
of hours and miles and the pain. And it's his
mind. It's all in his mind. And that's what he
works on. I mean, what he's doing when he's running
like that is just. He's extracting the maximum
amount of human potential out of what his mind
and his body is capable of doing it, and then
he goes to sleep and does it all. This is probably
back when it started, 2016, when he had almost
a full nail. Well, that's after 70 miles. In
the snow. Minus 5 degrees, 8 inches of snow with
standard running sneakers. Feet pay the price,
obviously. Yeah, I think. He was in a reasonable
position there. Jesus Christ. So that's no nail.
That's his nail fell off there. Yeah, his nails
fall off all the time. And he's doing a photo
shoot. I would be like, give me to the hospital.
Well, he wants everybody to know that this shit
doesn't come free. And the knee, if you see his
knee, find that image of his knee. Do you have
that? I can find it if you don't have it. But
the image of his knee like post -surgery is so
gnarly. And I met him in Vegas. He's walking
around with no limp. And then he pulls up his
pant leg to show his leg. And he can take his
fingers and just – he's got so much edema in
his legs that he can just – look at that. Oh,
that's his handprint. Yeah, that's his handprint.
So he can grab and like smoosh all the tissue
around his shin. So that's what his knee looked
like. Oh, my goodness. Look at all those screws.
So they see that. You could see that line. That
line, they took like a wedge out of his knee
and then had to cut it so that it was parallel.
I see, yeah. Because one side of it had overgrown
because he's just bone on bone. Yeah, osteophytes
is the way the bone grows. That's the mind. I
mean, that's just. The mind forcing the body
to do what the mind wants it to do regardless
of it. It's amazing what humans can do if they
have to. Properly motivated. Yeah. But the thing
is, he doesn't even have to. No, he doesn't have
to. Yeah, he's trained that muscle to an incredible
degree. He's so interesting. He's wealthy, but
he doesn't even have a car. Really? Doesn't even
own a car. Really? Doesn't buy a car. No. It's
like, fuck it. My wife has a car. He just has
all this money from his book. He has like $20
million. Just runs every day. Torches himself.
Lives Spartan. And just can't stop, won't stop.
It's super inspirational for other people. That's
the thing. It's like you don't have to be that
to get benefit from what he's going through.
Exactly. That's the thing. It's like what he's
done is provide. millions of people with this
unstoppable fuel right like this fuel for the
body yeah and for the mind like you see like
if david goggins can do it and he talks openly
about how he used to be 300 pounds and he was
lazy and then became this unstoppable force and
he's just like you he's just like me he's just
a person and he talks about his fears he talks
about his anxieties he talks about his procrastination
just doesn't let it get him doesn't let it get
him keeps going It is amazing what the human
body can do if the mind is on the same page.
Right. And the fact that those people are out
there, I mean, that kind of understanding of
human potential. Yeah. that's got to fuel your
work too, right? That's got to like fuel your
creativity. Like when you're talking about a
guy like Court Gentry, who's this insanely exceptional
person, knowing that there's insanely exceptional
people that are out there that are just like
one of one, like a David Goggins. Yeah. Yeah,
no, you know, there's... There was a farmer that
a tree fell on his leg and he had cut his leg
off. We're talking about stuff like that earlier
and crawl, you know, like a mile. And you see
these things and you go like, don't don't tell
me what people say that like it's this it's unrealistic.
It's like it's improbable. It's not unreal. You
know, it's not impossible. And, you know, it's
like I don't think there's anything in my books
medically that that doesn't make sense. If you
had the mindset to get through it and even in
the first book, like he's shooting himself up
with with. like veterinary drugs or something,
I can't remember what, to get his heart rate
back up for this final fight, even though it's
going to make him bleed more. It's just like
he's so goal -driven that that's the only thing
that matters. What comes after doesn't matter.
And you get that from seeing people that are
just that committed. And you've read books, I'm
sure you know about, like Hell Week and selection
and assessment at Delta Force and stuff, and
they just put you through. stuff that you know
i couldn't do it but I can talk about it. Yeah.
Is that a weird part of the imposter syndrome?
It's like because you're writing, you're kind
of embodying this character. Yeah. And then you
have to have to kind of compare yourself to who
this human being is. Yeah. And the fact that
I don't have military experience, you know, I
tried to make up for it by like learning specifics
and stuff like that. And honestly, people in
the military love my books, but people on. I've
heard from people on FBI hostage rescue team
that love something when I wrote about them and
I don't know any of them. You know, it's just
like I hear about it after the fact. I think
I was a ghostwriter for a book of a guy that
was a military dude early in my career. And he's
a brilliant guy. And I'm really proud of the
book. But he. He would just be telling me stories.
And the thing that he might have been focused
on in the story wasn't the interesting thing
to me. I'd be like, wait, what did you say about
how you took Makarov's off of a dead Taliban
guy? Or just some little ancillary thing. So
it's kind of like what I bring to the table is,
I mean, fanboy or whatever. It's some sort of
like a buddy of mine who's a SWAT. He was showing
me pictures of some breaching they were doing
and all this other stuff. And then I was like,
wait, why did you blow a hole in that wall there?
He's like, oh, we're just making a gun port because
there was an angle. And then he starts talking
about something else. I was like, go back to
the gun port. Explain that to me. And then it's
just like that works its way into his book because
it's like there's the nugget that I've never
heard of that I need to know details and why
that would do that. And it's like that's what
I want to incorporate in the book. So, you know,
asking the right questions. I got to fly in an
F -18 last year. which was an amazing experience,
obviously very rare for a civilian, but every
little thing about it, you know, like what the
air. smelled and tasted like and you know like
what it felt like i get to fly a little bit and
you know just every little bit of that you know
works its way into the books and you know sometimes
it's mundane stuff but sometimes it's really
cool stuff how difficult it is it how difficult
is it to when you're writing stuff about like
international policy and you're writing stuff
about like how people would be deployed and how
like a special operations group would be deployed
how difficult is it to kind of even get read
of what would go on like some of it is I'm sure
classified a lot of it's classified and so there
is this point where I just make stuff up but
I I try and build with as much detail as possible
I mean I have I have this book called the US
Intelligence Committee it's like onion skin paper
and it's like that thick and it's like every
unit every everything that's not denied or sub
Rosa and What's Sub Rosa? Just denied, you know,
like black ops or, you know, like things that
they don't admit. I don't know why they call
it Sub Rosa, but it's like under the red. I don't
know what that means. But anyway, it's things
that they don't, you know, admit to doing. And,
you know, there's secrecy. Sub Rosa literally
means. Under the Rose in New Latin. Since ancient
times, the rose has often been associated with
secrecy. In ancient mythology, Cupid gave a rose
to Hippocrates, the god of silence, to keep him
from telling about the indiscretions of Venus.
Harpocrates. Interesting. Yeah. It's just a term
they use in the government a lot for something
that's, you know. You have to learn all those
terms, too, which is interesting in Sierra Six,
where court who doesn't have a military background
gets integrated with this group that does. Yeah.
When you go back 12 years. Yeah. And, you know,
he's got to kind of learn all those phrases.
Right. And they're all frustrated that he doesn't
know what the fuck he's talking about. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, he literally doesn't know what
they call the, you know, the mess hall or whatever,
you know, these different names for different
things. Yeah. Because he wouldn't. I wrote him
in the beginning, like the wars were going on
and I knew that, you know, there's going to be
a lot of really good authors writing this stuff
that are downrange right now. And I ain't one
of them, sadly. But, you know, I was like, I
want my guy to be different. Everybody was a
Navy SEAL at that point. And this was before
bin Laden, you know, everybody was a Navy SEAL
and in every book. And I wanted somebody that
not only wasn't a Navy SEAL, didn't even really
have that background. So his backstory is, is
that his father, was a police officer that ran
a firearms training school in florida and uh
and he court as a child was in these shoot houses
with these people and then he you know grew and
grew and grew fired you know tens of thousands
of rounds a month and all this other stuff and
just turned him into something else yeah it's
a very interesting storyline it's a very interesting
origin story thanks you know because it's very
different yeah i just wanted different you know
and um and then i i do think it it narratively
it adds to the story that he's not you know seal
team six and doesn't have a bunch of buddies
you know that are team guys and the guys on his
paramilitary team in Special Activities Division
in Sierra Six. They don't like him at all. They
don't get why he's there. But he's there because
he's been an assassin for the CIA since he was
20 and had done some operations in Russia and
they needed a guy on the ground that had a certain
level of tradecraft abilities that these former
SEALs. Didn't have. So he's forced into the team.
He doesn't want to do it. They don't want him
to do it. But he's also a guy that's not going
to give up. He's going to die before he gives
up. Do you ever run plot lines and things that
you're writing about past people that may know
the way those things are handled and done and
see if you're doing it correctly? Yeah, yeah.
I've talked to CIA guys regularly or military
people. And, you know, I always hear, you know,
here's the nonclassified. or here's what I can
tell you. I've been sitting at the Pentagon and
I've asked a question. You went to the Pentagon?
A few times, yeah. Really? Yeah. So they bring
you in? Yeah, I've been there. Hey, Mark, come
on down. We want to talk to you. Yeah, the first
book I did with Tom Clancy, I wasn't allowed
to say that I was working with Tom Clancy because
they didn't know if the book was going to be
good or come out or whatever. So it was so frustrating
because it's like, I mean, they're going like,
hi, I'd like to talk to somebody about something.
And they just meet with you? I've written these
paperbacks. Yeah, I mean, it's not like I'm talking
to the generals or anything like that. But I
mean, it's, yeah, there's. I've been on, gosh,
I've been at Camp Pendleton in California and
the Navy Base San Diego, got on the destroyer,
got to go out to the A -10 thing at Nellis Air
Force where the warthogs. I've had some really
amazing experiences, and it's all kind of non
-classified. There's public information officers
with each thing in the military, and you go through
them. Or in some examples, I've just known a
guy. My buddy Rip that I wrote the book with,
who now incidentally has his own foundation in
Ukraine and is supporting a battalion of foreign
fighters in Ukraine. He's spent his entire career
as a Marine Corps officer, retired. And then
this war with Russia kicks off and he's over
there trying to support, you know, the war effort.
But, you know, he was just a guy I met at the
Pentagon. Wow. And he came from there. But yeah,
no, I didn't even. How does that conversation
even get, like, how do you get in the Pentagon?
I mean, it's happened a few different ways. I
had a guy, a friend of my brother's was a Marine
at one point, and he put me in contact with a
Marine aviation guy, and he was going to be at
the Pentagon, and I went up there and saw him.
And Rip was a guy that liked my books, and we
were talking, and he just said he worked at the
Pentagon. And I'm like, I'm in D .C. all the
time. You know, I'd love to come up there. And
and we did it that way. So I've met CIA guys,
former CIA guys. I've met people that say there's
something and you kind of figure out after a
while. No, they're not. You know, they're kind
of like, oh, no. Yeah, it's funny. There's a
term for it that a buddy of mine. It's called,
he calls it institutional puffery. It's like
these guys actually are somebody, but they're
making themselves out like, you know, they're
the one that killed bin Laden. They're the, you
know, they're the guy that, you know. Institutional
puffery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that term.
Yeah, Scott Swanson. It's like people that are
legit and they're badass, but they're not badass
enough for themselves for this story, you know.
My buddy Brad Taylor, who's a fantastic thriller
author, a former Delta guy. army special mission
unit guy he he's like you know you never meet
a parachute rigger for delta force like everybody
you meet is a is an operator for delta force
you know it's just like this is a lot of baloney
about what people say um you know he's like yeah
we loved our parachute riggers but no one ever
says they're that's what they did they're always
like yeah isn't delta it is an interesting thing
like the motivation that people have to puff
themselves yeah yeah yeah and i'm i think one
of my Real talents is that I like to be the least
interesting guy in the room because I like to
just learn from from other people. And, you know,
it's just fascinating to me. I don't need anything.
And so if somebody was a parachute rigger for
Delta Force, that would be the most fascinating
person that I could talk to. Probably. It is
interesting. Yeah. It's every job in that regard,
especially. And that space is very interesting.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I have such
respect for the men and women that, you know,
go and serve their country because I've met 20
year old female on a destroyer who her job to
bring the helicopters in, you know, and you're
just like, wow, when I was 20, what was I doing?
I was not doing that. Yeah, I wasn't, you know,
like. responsible for a ship and an airframe
meeting up at the same place at the same time
on a deck, a moving deck. That's one of the things
that the military and special operations in particular
does is it makes extraordinary human beings.
Those people that can do that job and who have
been there, they're just very different than
most people that you meet. They're very unique
and very – they're just strong. They just have
a different kind of character. There's a different
level, a requirement of them that's so different
than the average person that to not know them,
to not know that that's even a thing is – it's
really unfortunate for a lot of people. They
don't know the potential that some humans have
and that they have – oftentimes this potential
only arises out of extreme need. Out of those
kind of jobs and those kind of requirements.
Yeah. I mean, the whole point of Hell Week for
Navy SEALs is to get you to believe because it's
like, you know, we're going to give you every
reason. So what's left are the people that are
like, you can kill me and I'm not going to quit.
And I have such respect for that. I don't think
I could stay awake for five days. That's the
thing that like out of all the stuff they do,
I'm going like, man, I'm tired. I'm tired. But
I mean, you know, it's incredible what they go
through. Yeah. Do you feel like a responsibility
when you're writing to sort of reflect that,
that you have such a deep respect for these people,
that you have to write that in a way that sort
of portrays that in an accurate sense? Yeah,
absolutely. And, you know, I've had villains
who are. U .S. military or U .S. government people
or stuff like that and I've had people like complain
about that you know like they they want all the
bad guys to have accents you know like can't
be Americans but I mean it's just like you know
there's there's there are all walks of life all
over the place you know there's but I I do feel
a responsibility to again it's sort of the fanboy
in me it's like I have such respect for for these
people and what they do and And, you know, the
responsibility they have often at very young
ages, you know, and it's a fascinating thing
to me to write about and to talk about. And again,
it's just I like to build stories around reality
and then at some point go off, you know, where
the guy's jumping off of. airplane and without
a parachute and finding a way down. When you're
researching villains and corruption, have you
met with people that are corrupt? Have you met
with real villains? Are you just getting this
from your imagination? No, I haven't. A lot of
reading. My new book involves russian mafia slash
russian government which are one in the same
in my opinion and um and so i was i'm looking
at real cases i actually had finished the book
and it involves americans who are being influenced
by russia or taking money from russian foreign
intelligence and um americans in government and
um just a couple weeks ago this guy in fbi guy
in new york who's like headed counterterrorism
at one point, but he was also involved in the
sanctions, Russian sanctions. He just got indicted
for taking money from Oleg Deribovsky, which
is one of the oligarchs that, you know, Putin
supports or supports Putin or both. you know,
these things happen. And they just caught a Russian
GRU guy that was about to intern at the International
Criminal Court in The Hague. And they just caught
a German BND, the German Foreign Intelligence,
Bundesnachrichtendienst, guy who had been spying
for the Russians for a long time. And, like,
all that stuff's really fascinating to me. So
I want to learn about it as much as I can and
then write a fictional, You know, version of
it. And I'd actually written this book before
these three things came out. But I mean, the
Russians have been doing stuff like that for
a while. Yeah, it's disturbing when you find
someone like that. You know, like there was is
this the same guy, the guy that was a part of
going after Trump for Russiagate, where it turned
out that he was actually and he got indicted
for conspiring with Russia. The American guy?
Yeah, do you know that guy? Yeah, yeah. The most
recent one? Yeah, not Manafort. Jamie, see if
we can find that guy. Do you know what I'm talking
about? You know it. I'm not quite sure what you
said. There was a gentleman that was involved
in Russiagate, involved in going after Trump
for his ties with Russia, and it turns out that
he was colluding with Russia and that he was.
either colluding with oligarchs or there was
something involved and he was recently indicted.
That might be the same guy because it was an
oligarch connection. Yeah, probably the same
guy. That's the people that have the money outside
of the U .S. I mean outside of Russia. So those
are the people that are going to be paying you
off. Yeah, that was one of the more wild things
about the beginning of the Ukraine war where
they were going after the oligarchs and taking
their yachts. Yeah, yeah. I was like, well, that's
fascinating. Well, my book, Burner, opens with
Cort blowing up Russian yachts just as something
to do, just as a side gig. And then he gets pulled
into the main part of the story. Yeah, I was
down in St. Lucia researching it, and these people
came ashore in some kind of a tender from a big
yacht. They were all Russian. I don't know anything
about their story. They could have been totally
on the up and up, but I'm like, that's fascinating.
The war had been going on for a few months. But
those boats are still out there. Well, the Russian
thing is so fascinating in general, right? You
have Putin, who's this former KGB guy who's in
charge of the entire country, and all the oligarchs
have to be with him. Yeah, they're 100 % with
him. They hold his money, and he allows them
to do what they do, and they allow him to do
what he does. And, you know, the war isn't affecting
their children or anything like that. The stands
are, you know, like somewhere out in Siberia.
Those are the ones that are getting thrown into
the meat grinder or prisoners or things like
that that they're doing. And so, you know, Putin
knows how to protect his, you know, the people
that support him and he supports. And it's, you
know, it's a mafia. It's a kleptocracy. He's
an autocratic, you know, kleptocrat. And it's
just it's a criminal enterprise. And he doesn't
care how many people. You know, he will continue.
They're just putting waves of people through
with no training. They had this mobilization
last fall, and tens of thousands of them are
just running across fields getting killed. It's
World War I stuff. It's awful. Not only that,
they have a crematorium, a traveling crematorium.
So they're literally just throwing these bodies
into the burner, and they're not giving any sort
of an account of how many losses. There's a report
that some Wagner troops were stacking their dead
guys up as basically sandbags. And, you know,
that's pretty awful if you think about it. This
is a horrible war. Putin really miscalculated.
People in FSB told him what he wanted to hear,
and they were supposed to be setting up influence
operations in Ukraine for years and years, but
they've been stealing the money. And then when
he said, you know, is this now the right time
to do it? They basically said, sure it is. And
things went really bad. Their fifth service in
FSB does the foreign stuff. I think really dropped
the ball and not dropped the ball. I'm glad they
dropped the ball. But I mean, they they told
him what he wanted to hear. I mean, if you're
an autocrat like that, you value loyalty over
competence and you've got to have loyalty. People
don't have to be competent, but they've got to
be loyal for you to survive. And so as these
incompetent people that were all stealing from
the government and they were also. telling him.
It was kind of this feedback loop. He was hearing
what he wanted to hear. That's part of the problem,
too, right, that they're hearing what they want
to hear because people are terrified to tell
them bad news. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't want
to go to Putin and say, yeah, we can't do this.
They say it's the same thing with Xi Jinping,
that nobody wants to tell him the bad news, so
he doesn't even find out about things that went
wrong until quite a while later. Yeah, and I
imagine that's... Throughout history has always
been the case for those type of leaders, sadly.
When you're writing about all this stuff, it's
I mean, it's such a complex and nuanced landscape
that you're interacting with. Like how that's
got to be one of the most difficult parts of
the job is like incorporating these fictional
narratives in with this sort of very realistic
world of espionage and crime. Yeah. Finding out
what to use and what to leave out is really,
really hard because I will be very fascinated
with something. And I'm like, it really doesn't
push the narrative forward. And early in my career,
I would read these like really dry government
documents about this thing. And I wanted to prove
that I read it by throwing stuff into the story.
And my editor would save me from that. Now I'm
now I'm self -correcting in that matter. But,
yeah, you do. There's so much information. But
what really makes me enjoy my books is while
I'm doing the research by myself, I come across
something and I go like, holy shit, people need
to know about this. And I'm not trying to preach.
I'm not trying to give anybody a political view
or anything. But it's like this happened. And
so I'm going to do a version of this. And I've
actually had. People complain about my books,
and they'll be like, well, there's no way a liberal
female lawyer would support an al -Qaeda guy
in prison. And I'm like, okay, here's a picture
of her. I changed her name. I changed a couple
of details, but the actual real person that was
doing that is now in prison. So I like to take
as much from reality as I can because that's
all interesting to me, and then, again, fictionalize
it. get wacko with it at some point and then
try and rein it back in a little. Well, Mark,
you do a great job. They're very captivating
books. I enjoy them very much. And I just want
to say thank you for coming in here. Congratulations
on all your success. Thank you. Looking forward
to your next books. I appreciate it. This is
a great opportunity for me. My pleasure. My pleasure.
So anybody who wants to get these, they're all
available. How many books do you have now that
are Gray Man books? The 12th. This is the 12th
one, and it comes out? It comes out February
21st. Oh, so real close. Next week? Yep. Oh,
nice. And so I got an advance copy. And you're
probably already working on the next one? Yeah.
How deep are you in the next one? I'm about 40
,000 words into the next one. Wow. Yeah. Wow.
Thank you for coming. Well, again, congratulations,
and thanks for coming, man. I really appreciate
you being here. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.
My pleasure. All right. Bye, everybody.