February 12, 2024 • 32 mins
In this episode, Karol interviews Neal Pollack. They discuss Neal's books, his writing process, and the enjoyment and challenges of playing poker. They also touch on the possibility of supporting oneself with poker and the desire to make a movie or TV show. They explore societal and cultural problems, particularly the issue of censorship and the importance of freedom of speech. The conversation concludes with Neil's tip for improving lives through yoga. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday. Email Karol at karolmarkowiczshow@gmail.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Last week, the view host Sonny Hoisten did one of
those in depth genealogy shows called Finding Your Roots, and
she discovered she was descended from slave owners.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You can see on her face.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That she's devastated and upset by the news. She really
doesn't know how to react. Media picked up the story
that Sonny's mom cried to learn about the family slave
owning past.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
She was deeply disappointed.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
It's bizarre to me disappointment in your family history. Disappointment
is a failure to meet expectations. You expected everyone in
your family story to be a good person with modern morals.
Maybe it's the Russian in me. I have no such expectations.
But more than this, you cannot change the past. You
(00:57):
can't change where you came from or the people who
came before you. What has always been the glory of
America is you get to start from scratch here. I
lived in Britain for a few years during college in Scotland,
and I was asked with some frequency what my father
did for a living. They wanted to know how to
categorize me. But in America, I never got asked that ever,
(01:22):
and the idea always was that every generation gets to
start anew. The problem is that Sonny had bought into
this idea that we can't shake off the proverbial shackles
of the past. We're supposed to carry all of it
around with us all the time, and we're certainly supposed
to carry the blame of what people who may share
(01:43):
our skin tone did. So now she's tarred by her
slave owner relatives. She brought the shame onto herself. On
this show, we talk about living a better life, and
a lot of that is letting go, letting go of
bad things that happened to you, for example, and moving forward,
but also definitely letting go of things that happened generations
(02:05):
before you were born and over which you have no control.
You cannot be happy if you carry around every mistake
made not only by you, but every one of your lineage.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Who ever lived. Don't be like Sonny.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I enjoyed collecting your stories to help our single friends.
So let's try this again. I'm collecting stories for next
Monday's episode. If you listen to the show, you know
that I ask all of my guests to offer their
best tip on how to improve their lives. Give me
your tip, write to us at Carolmarcowitz Show at gmail
dot com, or tweet at me at.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Carol on X. I'll read some of.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The responses on the show, so definitely tune in.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Thank you. Coming up next and interview with Neil Pollock.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Join us after the break day and welcome back to
the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is
Neil Pollock. Neil is the author of twelve very important
books of fiction and nonfiction, a freelance writer who contributes
to many publications, including most currently The Spectator and Observer,
(03:09):
a three time Jeopardy champion, and the editor in chief
of Book and Film Globe, which you can find at
Book Andfilmglobe dot com.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Hi Neil, how are you well, Carol?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, it's so nice to talk to you.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
We've we've been a social media acquaintances for a long time,
but we've never actually.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Seen yes person.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Thank you so much for coming on. Twelve books. That's
a lot. Which one is your favorite?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I mean, you know.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
There are you know, you have several children, so you
know it's hard, it's hard to favorite. I always I
always tend to like the most recent one, right, but
I'm you know, my most recent one was a like
a sci fi satire of COVID politics, so well, I
do love it, it didn't exactly find a huge audience.
(03:56):
Before that, I wrote a memoir about quitting marijuana, which
I'm quite fond.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I've written several books about yoga.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
But really I think most currently I wrote a book
a few about a decade ago called jew Ball, which
is about Jewish basketball players in Philadelphia in the nineteen
thirties fighting Nazis.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
So that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, so I feel like that one, that one really
rings true to me these days, given you know, the
current political situations, I'll pick Jewball.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I feel like I have to check out some jew Ball.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So what's your like, how long does it take you
to write a book?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I only have the one book. I say.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's my first and last book. So the idea of
twelve books is really crazy to me, and I just
want to know more about it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
When I'm rolling, I can knock one out in about
six months. I you know, I have one. I have
a novel that.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
I've currently been working on for a lot more than
a year, and it's going slowly, largely because I spend
a lot of time playing competitive poker, and that.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Just seems we'll get to that.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
It consumes a.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Lot of my brain space, so I don't my creativity,
you know, doesn't isn't always flowing, but when I'm going good,
and my books most are pretty short when I'm going good.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Though about about interesting?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, it's interesting because I think of poker as a
completely different side of my brain, like more practical, more
like I don't know, just not the artsy, you know,
kind of fiction part of my brain that that I
would need to write fiction books. I see it as
like math more than writing. I don't know, But yet
(05:33):
you say that you it's.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
In your way.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Well, it's like math and it's like sports, right, so
you know, it's an intellectual activity. So I just find
myself thinking about it a lot, and the what, Yeah,
it's different parts of the brain, but you know, I
only have so I have so much brain, so so
if the neurons are firing in that direction, I tend
(05:57):
to get distract.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So we originally connected. I think over the fact that
we both play poker, even though it's unfair and the worst.
What do you actually enjoy about the game.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Well, well, like you said at the outset, I won
some games on Jeopardy, right, so like I had that
feeling of like winning big, you know, of like of
being the champion, of hitting the jackpot.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Because of my mental acuity.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
And you know, poker, while the edges are a lot smaller, right,
Like I'm a really like good competitive trivia player, and
you know, can could be like ninety nine point nine
percent of the population in a trivia competition, whereas in
poker it's like, yeah, it could be fifty two point
three percent of population.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Sometimes.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah, you know, it's like you just there's a lot
more They're a lot more variable. So what I mean
what I I like the idea of like somehow like
just walking into a car room with one hundred bucks
and walking out with four thousand bucks, which happens, but really,
yeah it does. You could also walk in with a
(07:09):
thousand bucks and leave with zero, which also happens. But
I like the I like to win it.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, do you keep track of your wins and losses?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I have a spreadsheet?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, okay, I think that's really important, and I've I've
like put a lot of kind of younger poker players
onto that idea because they've like never even considered tracking it.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You know, it's just like in their pocket that day.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I have a spreadsheet. And I also, like, I'm extremely.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Parsimonious. I guess that's the word. You're really careful with
my money. So you know, I have a poker fund
that I keep in a secret place like.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Kids call that a bank roll a bank like.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I keep it in the wall like Matt Damon and Rounders,
and I pull it out when I have to. And
I other than like occasionally like going to the bank
and getting twenty.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Bucks to pay a fee or like an entry something
I don't.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
I don't use my actual money to play.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
So I have, you know.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
And then I have an online thing where I played
for petties just to kind of get the hand reps in.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You know, how long have you been playing?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I start well, on and off for about twenty years.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
I can only imagine where it was like to play
me in the Commerce casino in LA in two thousand
and fourtant I mean, I was.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Stoned out of my mind. I had no idea what
I was.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Doing, so was everybody else those everybody else, but I
was like playing for I was like buying in these
cash games are like forty bucks and always losing. I've
been playing, I would say, somewhat seriously since about twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Do you think you could support yourself with it if
you had to?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I don't know. It's hard to say.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
It's hard to say because I had a sixty thousand
dollars win in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
You know, I finished second in a six hundred dollars
buying tournament, and you know that's a ton of money.
And I walked out.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
I walked out of the card room in Round Rock.
I live in Austin, Texas, and the Round Rock is
a suburb just north here. I walked out of the
card room at like five in the morning with a
Manila envelope full of Franklin. Greg went home, and I
dumped some one. My wife was sleeping in bed when
I went dumped him on it, and well she did,
although she was like, no, I can never I can
(09:24):
never tell you can't go play poker again. You know,
we you know, we bought a car with it. We
went to we went on vacation to Mexico City. We
were able to do some house repaired stuff we were.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Waiting to do.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
But uh so, yeah, but then since then about even
you know, I'm about five hundred.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
After that, I went on the seven thousand dollars down
swing and then I quit for a while. I started
up again and I won a few thousand. I lost
a few thousand.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
So it's like I would have to like have a
big starter chunk of money in order to even try
to make a living at it.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I like playing tournaments, and that's variance is.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I don't know, I think the only way to I mean,
and I know I know that a lot of poker
players would disagree with this, but to me, the only
way to make a living playing poker would have to
be cash games, because when you're up, you have to
walk away from the table because you've got bills to pay,
and you can't just you know, you can't just ride
it out and see where it goes, like and the
way you would have to in a tournament.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
So well are cash game player because they get real
nervous about money.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So if I get up, then I often blow it
and if I get.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Down and get really depressed, and I just just the
way that people play in cash games is not doesn't
really register with my brain, whereas in tournaments.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I like the sort of ebb and flow of the strategy.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah, and so I just I just prefer that kind
of game, even though the variance is just absurd, right.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
I think the the just emotional rollercoaster of poker is
it is hard to maintain.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I don't know how people do it, but I've done it.
I've done it.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I've been through periods of my life where I supported
myself playing poker, Like I used to work on campaigns,
and in between campaigns, I would play and I was
always like a one two cash game player, which people listening,
that's like the one of the lower levels.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And I never want yeah, and I never wanted to
move up.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I like a lot of people would get really good
at one two and then move up to two five,
and I'd be like, why would I want to play
better players?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Like I want to play the.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
People who are here at the one two table that
I've gotten good at. I never quite understood the need
to move up to higher levels if I've gotten good
at the one that I'm at already.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Yeah, I mean, and I played tournaments because again, like
tournaments is about not about making money as much as
it's about winning trophies and bracelets and rings. And I've
like I've driven up to Oklahoma to play at the
World Series of Poker Circuit events at the Chalk Taw
Casino and like, you know, gotten two couple final tables
and gotten pretty close to those rings, and you know
(12:00):
that that would be that would be really great.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Uh, to accomplish. Just it's like the like the intellectual.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Accomplished and of it, right, and also the money, The
money is.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Good, sure, sure, yeah, I mean I like, I like money. Yeah,
I'm also realistic, you know that the real goal is
just to kind of stay in the game and then
it totally and then if I hit if I hit a.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Jackpot like I did a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Mm hmm, do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 4 (12:30):
You know, that's an interesting question because like I've written
twelve books, and I've I've written for like pretty much
every English language publication under the sun except for The
New Yorker.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I mean, there was a time a few years ago.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Where I had satire columns going simultaneously in Salon and
The Federalist. You couldn't, yeah, right, Like you couldn't ask
for like a wider ideological range of publications.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Invanity Fair.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
You know, I was Jeopardy, I was a guest on
The Daily Show back when, like my writing career was
really booming twenty years ago. So I've really kind of
like accomplished most of what I set out to do
in life.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You know, Let's say, you haven't managed to ban kids
from restaurants, which I know is one of your big,
you know, big issues that you care about.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah, I just I don't have the time and patience
to set up a foundation, you know what I mean.
I would like to see that happen, So no, so yes,
So of course I have disappointments like that.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
So yes.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
In some ways, like I've pretty much accomplished at all.
And if I were to die tomorrow, which I'm not
going to do, more more than likely, I think, you know,
you could say that it's kind of been complete, right,
But on the other hand, like I find myself thinking, like, well, shit,
you know, I haven't done that. I haven't you know,
(13:53):
I've never gotten to make a TV show or a
movie my career. While it's I'm still in the game
amazingly enough, considering that you know, the just attrition in
this business.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
I'm still in the game, but you know I was.
I was much I had a higher.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Status let's say, fifteen twenty years ago than I do now,
you know, I'm not. Just kind of like a guy
who's still kind of playing around in the ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
So sometimes I have those disappointments. So it's like, yes,
I've made it. On the other hand, and maybe I'm not.
I could. I'd like to get back to where I
was in some.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Way to So what kind of movie or TV show
are you looking to make?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Probably something in the realm of comedy would be good,
you know I would. Yeah, right, you know. So what
was it?
Speaker 4 (14:51):
It was about, well, not quite twenty years ago, I
had this book called Alternadad about being a hipster parent,
which was a thing among gen xers.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Uh back back in the day.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
There is this there is a sort of a when
gen X started to reproduce, I was obsessed with making
sure that my son was cool and was into cool
gen X things, which I think was a sentiment that
a lot of people of my age in general sociological
background shared, And so I wrote a comic memoir about it,
(15:26):
and it got some press attention. You know, I w
I did the Tory Circuit and I uh, it was
optioned by Hollywood, and so, you know, we moved to
Los Angeles to try to turn it into a movie
or you know, we like we sold our house and
because like it was looking good, right, and so I
had you know, there were moments where it looked like
(15:48):
it was going to get made into something and.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It just it just kind of fell apart on me
and then we had to we lost all our money.
We had to move back to Austin in.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Shame, and you know, so that was that was kind
of rough. And then since then, there hasn't been a
lot of opportunities. I am sort of vaguely thinking that
it would be interesting to make something funny about poker.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
M hm.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Poker does occasionally pop up in in uh in film
and TV, but there hasn't There haven't been a it
hasn't been a good There hasn't been a good show
or movie about like contemporary poker. I guess there was
that Jessica Chastain Molly's Game thing.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, that was good, but it wasn't funny.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
It was fun to watch the Poker. I went back
and I watched it again.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Like the poker there's a whole subplot with that, like
the rag at the commerce casino who got bluffed by
an idiot in a home game and then lost his
mind and died.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I was like, well, yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Seen that was was that the guy who folded the nuts,
which is the nuts is the best possible second nuts? No,
I think there was also a hand like where somebody
folds the actual nuts like something.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
I think what happened He had these second nuts and
there's this idiot who always blot who doesn't know what
he's doing, had absolutely nothing, and this good poker player
folded and lost one hundred thousand dollars or something in
a hand and then like that sent him on some
kind of spiral anyway, So that that's you know that
that game, that game, that movie was was good, but
(17:13):
it was like there's also a lot of scenes of
Jessica Chesska skiing, So so I don't want to make
a so I'd like, I'd like to try something in
that realm maybe. And also I've been for years these
screenwriters and I have been had these two novels.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
About a a l a private eye who was also
a yoga teacher, and we've been sending fusing with that
and seeing if we can adapt that into a show.
You know, I feel like.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yoga, the yoga world is is always right for satire,
something mockery, mockery, mockery and also but also like I
practice yoga so mockery.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
And you do I have. I've been practicing now more
than twenty years.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
That's really interesting. I would not have imagined that.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, I'm a certified Ashtanga Vignyasa instructure. In twenty ten,
I moved to Colorado for a month and I studied
with this I guess you call him a man. He's
more modeled in that it's like a yoga master. And
I went to his intensive workshop and studied with.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Like it was like serious but chanting in Sanskrit. Wow,
and like anatomy.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
And I mean we did a lot of physical stuff,
but I took a Buddhist meditation course at the Shambala
Center and Boulder and so like.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
You know, so there's a I mean, I take yoga seriously,
but it's also quiet.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Markowitz Show. A question I ask
all of my guests is what do you consider the
largest societal or cultural problem and do you think it's solvable.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Well, we talked about this a lot on Book and
Film Globe. I think that we have there's a censorial
attitude in our culture that, uh, I think is really damaging.
I feel like, you know, on the left, for instance,
in England, they're like Vodable Rising, PG Woadehouse, Rdyard Kipling, other,
(19:11):
Agatha Christie, other sort of classic authors rolled all and
they're they're there have these sensitivity readers that they're change,
They're like changing the books in certain small ways.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I just think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
And then you know, during COVID especially, you saw how
intolerant liberals, specifically liberals I would even say the left.
The liberals were about ideas that they didn't agree with.
You know, there were there was a lot of there
were a lot of That's what the whole Twitter files.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Thing was about. There are a lot of efforts.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
To just shut down dialogue and uh and just control
the discoorse.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I didn't like that.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
And I will say I know you, I know you
lean towards the conservative end of things. I will say
that there there's also that attitude to some extent on
the right, particularly what do I think, Well, in Texas recently,
right where I live, the state tried to get bookstores
to bookstores, not not middle school libraries. It's one thing
(20:09):
if you're like, well, maybe a middle school library shouldn't
be putting comic books about gender transition on the shelves.
I kind of feel like anything's fare game. But I
can understand that point of view. But they were saying
that bookstores, like independent bookstores, had to put like warning
labels on books that had like sexual content in them,
and I'm like, that's just that's just like Tipper Gore,
(20:31):
you know, trying to you know, band run DMC or
whatever from the eighties. That's just that's just such a
moral majority crap. So I don't have any time for
that either. So I feel like people just need to
like stop censoring and stop thinking that censoring anything is
a solution, you know, with like this country, the society
(20:51):
is it is built.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
On the foundations of the First Amendment.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
It is sacred and it is inviolable, and I feel
like people just need to if something defends them, you
have to forage.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
They have they have to deal with it like adults, right.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah. It used to be getting offended was just part
of life. Now it's like something we need to like curtail.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Well, you know, there's always been this puritanical strain in
American culture.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I mean there's there was the Hayes Code in Hollywood,
There's the Comics Code. You know, there were there were,
there's more majority of the eighties that, like I said,
Tipper Gore trying to put warning labels on records. There's
always this strain, but it doesn't ever seem to go away.
And so if you think something is too sexual tough,
(21:39):
if you think something isn't woke enough tough, expression is
is fine, you know, I mean even you know, I
mean I remember when the A c L.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Remember the seventies, the A c L.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
You defended Nazi Nazis marching in scope of Illinois. Yeah,
that's not They wouldn't do that now they would try
to know, they wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
They were trying to ban it up. I don't I'm Jewish.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I don't want to see Nazis, right, I mean, I'm.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Horrified that like the anti Jewish sentiment in the culture
right now, it just drives me, striving me crazy. But
I would never for a moment say don't let them
express it. We have to let all the we have
to air out all all that stuff. So anyway, yeah,
so that's our to me, that's our. Look, there's a
lot of problems in society, but that, to me, that's
(22:29):
that's the one that I feel like is the most
easily solvable.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Interesting, easily solvable.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Well, I mean easily solvable if everyone would just stop
censoring or thinking that censoring was good. I mean, you know,
because because the law, the First Amendment is there, it
hasn't been repealed.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
You know, it's like it's right there, so just right there. Yeah,
it's not it's not like it has to. It's not
like we have to.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
It's not like we have to you know, institute, freedom
of speech is a new value in our society. Literally
is the fact owning value of America and possibly America's
greatest contribution to the history of world culture. Right.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
But I would say that it's become at least, you know,
the kind of bigger problem that I've seen with this
in the last you know, decade. I'm sure you've seen
the same is that people get targeted for their kind
of mainstream sometimes opinion that people just don't like and
they get fired. And you know the story of Jennifer's, say,
getting fired from Levi's or you know, being forced out
(23:30):
at Levi's for saying that.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Schools should be opened during you.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Know, COVID is just the classic story of that for me,
which is, you know, it's not First Amendment, right, It's
not like it was more, but it wasn't the government
shutting down her speech. It was like being targeted for
thinking the wrong thing. And that's like a scarier and
more difficult thing to solve.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
I think, right, it's not a government problem, but it's
still it's the same principle, right. And I know Jennifer say,
I'm part of a group, like a COVID, this sort
of COVID.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Skepuy, don't talk about the group, Neil.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
I know her like a check okay to talk about that, there's.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Like no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It's like you know,
it's bike club, you know, talk about it.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I know her and like, you know, and I experienced
the same thing during COVID. I mean I didn't have it.
I'm I'm not getting getting.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Fired from my job by my boss for talking for
saying that movie theaters should be open. That was my
during COVID, is like movie theaters should be open. You're
not getting in movie theaters.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I went on and on and on.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
You know, I have lost some contributors to my side
for over those opinions, and I you know, I lost
some marginal friends.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, and I have to admit that I remember you
going to the movies, and I was very anti COVID
regulations and all that, but I was still like, ew,
I would never go to the movies right now, Well,
the movies.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I definitely remember thinking like that does not seem like
a good idea.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
It was fine, it.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Was no, it was fine. Obviously it was fine.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
But I was say, like, even me who was opposed
to all the regulations, I remember thinking like I wouldn't
go play poker because poker is always like the grossest,
you know, place in the whole casino. And I just
you know, and I wouldn't go to like various conferences
like Seapack is a conference I go to a lot
and everybody always comes homestick from the seapack, And I
was like, no way am I going during COVID and
(25:20):
movie theaters. I just thought, you know, they're kind of
always a little gross. And I I am a germa phobe,
I'll admit. So I remember you go to the movies,
and I remember thinking, I remember thinking, like, I wouldn't
do that.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I'm not a German. Stuff off the kitchen counter that's
been sitting there.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
But yeah, so I wasn't My wife wouldn't let me
go play poker at the card room until after I
got vaccinatede whatever.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I mean, I really didn't care. Like I was out
in about. I went to I went to parties, I
went to bars.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Any if I knew anyone who was willing to do anything, Yeah,
I did it during COVID. And so I was living
living in Austin, and you know Greg Abbott like reopened
the state before COVID even got here, ye May first.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
He you know, he's got like a he doesn't have
the the he didn't have the guts of like DeSantis
and Florida to like actually channel the politics. And he
he did. He reopened and including reopened movie theater.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
So they opened some movie theater at an entertainment complict
in Kyle, Texas.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
It was like twenty miles south of my house, and
I was running this website about film and books.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
So I got in.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
My car and twenty miles. That told me about ten
minutes that day because there was no there were no
other cars on the road right, And I went to
see Vin Diesel in Bloodshot.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
How was that? Had?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Not great?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
But it's like everything else that was playing I'd already
seen before before they started shutting shuit down.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
So I it was me as I walk in, I'm
wearing a mask, I have.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
To, and there are all the signs, the six signs,
and everything's under plexiglass, and like there's a photographer from
the Austin American Statesman taking photos like like I'm like
like like a refugee, like arriving on the shores, and
I'm like, don't, don't take my picture.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I'm working here. And so I went.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I went to the movie with my little box of
Junior Mints that I bought at Walgreens, and I was
like lifting my mask down and surreptitiously nervously putting the
mints enough. And then there are like four working class
Mexican guys in the back round, not wearing mask, eating popcorn,
not not giving a shit.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
You know, they hadn't heard about COVID.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Whatever respect to them. And then and then I didn't.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Die, and you not dying was a big step forward
for people like doing stuff Again, I feel.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Like it's true. I agree in a small I mean
in a small way. It's not like it was front
page news or anything. Right, So so that I kept going,
Like there.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Was that weird Russell Crowe movie, that revenge movie Unhinged
that came out that they debuted that I went to
see that, Like there were three other people in the
theater I went to. So they did a revival of
Blade Runner at the Paramount Theater down I'm kind of
going to see Blade Runner on a summer night in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
That was that was about. Its just in an empty downtown.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
That's what It's just tooking as you can get it with,
you know, Tenant all that, and I just kept going
to movies and I went to see There's a Freaky
Friday horror remakes darring Vince Vaughn who like swung bodies
with a cheerleader.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
I went to see that, and I wrote about that.
People got fear, We're furious at you. I was just
fuck it, I want to go to the movies. I'm
going to keep going.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
You were you were the hero we needed at the time.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
We just didn't know it.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
We didn't know it then.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah, and no one remembers now. But it's okay, I remember,
right man. I appreciate that care.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
So end here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Well, let's circle back, you know stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, let's circle back. Let I would say, look, if
I can do yoga, me like a.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Middle aged schmuck you know in suburban Texas can do
yoga every day for twenty years. I mean, you can
do yoga too. It's it's you know, I practiced yesterday.
My legs are sore today, but I feel good.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
And I woke up.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
You know, I'm fifty almost fifty four years old. I
woke up feeling not a day over fifty one.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Yeah, So you know it's really good just for sort
of maintaining a baseline of mental health, insanity, and just
physical fitness.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
You're you're not gonna get like ripped unless you're doing
it all day, every day.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
It's some it's some cult in Los Angeles, but you're
it will help you.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Like get through the day with a calmness and a clarity,
will help your sleep, it'll help you your digestion, all
that stuff. So I would I would recommend to yoga. Yoga.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yoga practice is really good, you know, and you don't
have to It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
You know, hippy dippy religion. You know you don't feel
you know, you don't, there's no need for any of that.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
You can go that route if you want, and I
have occasionally gone that route just to the part of
the world, but.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
You don't have to.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
It can be very practical, and there are lots of
examples of people who have lived very long and healthy
live just by doing yoga and not eating that craft
all the time.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
So interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
You're my Yeah, you're my second unlikely guest to have
been into yoga.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Kevin McCullough was the first.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
And it's just it's very interesting because I really would
not have guessed it with either one of you.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
So I like that it's not you know, yoga gets
this bad rap as being like something that like rich,
dumb coastal liberals do right, and.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
It does well for a good reason because they do
a lot. But they're also all of those people are
very physically healthy.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
They are, yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And maybe insane, but mentally you know, so you know
there's a reason for that because of their practice. So
it's like, but yoga itself does not like, it's not
about politics.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
You know. It's like there's lots of right wing Indian
people who do yoga.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
No India is run by it right wing populous, you know,
and so you know, it's so it's not there's no
there's no require, there's no age requirement, there's no politics requiredment,
there's no idiot.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
It's not about an ideology.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
It's really just about like focusing on your breath and
like doing basic movements and like, you know, not not
stealing from people, unless you're playing poker, in which.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Case the last one seems like you might have just
added that on.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
But there's one of the one of the presents, all right,
not being a huge, huge.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Ass like that, that's a good that's a you know,
that's a really good ending there.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, don't be a huge ass.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Thank you all right, Thank you so much, Neil. It
was really nice having you on. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Let's let's do this in for sometimes.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Thanks so much for joining us on The Carol Markowitz Show.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Last week, the view host Sonny Hoisten did one of
those in depth genealogy shows called Finding Your Roots, and
she discovered she was descended from slave owners.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You can see on her face.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That she's devastated and upset by the news. She really
doesn't know how to react. Media picked up the story
that Sonny's mom cried to learn about the family slave
owning past.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
She was deeply disappointed.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
It's bizarre to me disappointment in your family history. Disappointment
is a failure to meet expectations. You expected everyone in
your family story to be a good person with modern morals.
Maybe it's the Russian in me. I have no such expectations.
But more than this, you cannot change the past. You
(00:57):
can't change where you came from or the people who
came before you. What has always been the glory of
America is you get to start from scratch here. I
lived in Britain for a few years during college in Scotland,
and I was asked with some frequency what my father
did for a living. They wanted to know how to
categorize me. But in America, I never got asked that ever,
(01:22):
and the idea always was that every generation gets to
start anew. The problem is that Sonny had bought into
this idea that we can't shake off the proverbial shackles
of the past. We're supposed to carry all of it
around with us all the time, and we're certainly supposed
to carry the blame of what people who may share
(01:43):
our skin tone did. So now she's tarred by her
slave owner relatives. She brought the shame onto herself. On
this show, we talk about living a better life, and
a lot of that is letting go, letting go of
bad things that happened to you, for example, and moving forward,
but also definitely letting go of things that happened generations
(02:05):
before you were born and over which you have no control.
You cannot be happy if you carry around every mistake
made not only by you, but every one of your lineage.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Who ever lived. Don't be like Sonny.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I enjoyed collecting your stories to help our single friends.
So let's try this again. I'm collecting stories for next
Monday's episode. If you listen to the show, you know
that I ask all of my guests to offer their
best tip on how to improve their lives. Give me
your tip, write to us at Carolmarcowitz Show at gmail
dot com, or tweet at me at.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Carol on X. I'll read some of.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The responses on the show, so definitely tune in.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Thank you. Coming up next and interview with Neil Pollock.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Join us after the break day and welcome back to
the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is
Neil Pollock. Neil is the author of twelve very important
books of fiction and nonfiction, a freelance writer who contributes
to many publications, including most currently The Spectator and Observer,
(03:09):
a three time Jeopardy champion, and the editor in chief
of Book and Film Globe, which you can find at
Book Andfilmglobe dot com.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Hi Neil, how are you well, Carol?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, it's so nice to talk to you.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
We've we've been a social media acquaintances for a long time,
but we've never actually.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Seen yes person.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Thank you so much for coming on. Twelve books. That's
a lot. Which one is your favorite?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I mean, you know.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
There are you know, you have several children, so you
know it's hard, it's hard to favorite. I always I
always tend to like the most recent one, right, but
I'm you know, my most recent one was a like
a sci fi satire of COVID politics, so well, I
do love it, it didn't exactly find a huge audience.
(03:56):
Before that, I wrote a memoir about quitting marijuana, which
I'm quite fond.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I've written several books about yoga.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
But really I think most currently I wrote a book
a few about a decade ago called jew Ball, which
is about Jewish basketball players in Philadelphia in the nineteen
thirties fighting Nazis.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
So that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, so I feel like that one, that one really
rings true to me these days, given you know, the
current political situations, I'll pick Jewball.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I feel like I have to check out some jew Ball.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So what's your like, how long does it take you
to write a book?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I only have the one book. I say.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's my first and last book. So the idea of
twelve books is really crazy to me, and I just
want to know more about it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
When I'm rolling, I can knock one out in about
six months. I you know, I have one. I have
a novel that.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
I've currently been working on for a lot more than
a year, and it's going slowly, largely because I spend
a lot of time playing competitive poker, and that.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Just seems we'll get to that.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
It consumes a.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Lot of my brain space, so I don't my creativity,
you know, doesn't isn't always flowing, but when I'm going good,
and my books most are pretty short when I'm going good.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Though about about interesting?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, it's interesting because I think of poker as a
completely different side of my brain, like more practical, more
like I don't know, just not the artsy, you know,
kind of fiction part of my brain that that I
would need to write fiction books. I see it as
like math more than writing. I don't know, But yet
(05:33):
you say that you it's.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
In your way.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Well, it's like math and it's like sports, right, so
you know, it's an intellectual activity. So I just find
myself thinking about it a lot, and the what, Yeah,
it's different parts of the brain, but you know, I
only have so I have so much brain, so so
if the neurons are firing in that direction, I tend
(05:57):
to get distract.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So we originally connected. I think over the fact that
we both play poker, even though it's unfair and the worst.
What do you actually enjoy about the game.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Well, well, like you said at the outset, I won
some games on Jeopardy, right, so like I had that
feeling of like winning big, you know, of like of
being the champion, of hitting the jackpot.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Because of my mental acuity.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
And you know, poker, while the edges are a lot smaller, right,
Like I'm a really like good competitive trivia player, and
you know, can could be like ninety nine point nine
percent of the population in a trivia competition, whereas in
poker it's like, yeah, it could be fifty two point
three percent of population.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Sometimes.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah, you know, it's like you just there's a lot
more They're a lot more variable. So what I mean
what I I like the idea of like somehow like
just walking into a car room with one hundred bucks
and walking out with four thousand bucks, which happens, but really,
yeah it does. You could also walk in with a
(07:09):
thousand bucks and leave with zero, which also happens. But
I like the I like to win it.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, do you keep track of your wins and losses?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I have a spreadsheet?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, okay, I think that's really important, and I've I've
like put a lot of kind of younger poker players
onto that idea because they've like never even considered tracking it.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You know, it's just like in their pocket that day.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I have a spreadsheet. And I also, like, I'm extremely.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Parsimonious. I guess that's the word. You're really careful with
my money. So you know, I have a poker fund
that I keep in a secret place like.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Kids call that a bank roll a bank like.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I keep it in the wall like Matt Damon and Rounders,
and I pull it out when I have to. And
I other than like occasionally like going to the bank
and getting twenty.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Bucks to pay a fee or like an entry something
I don't.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
I don't use my actual money to play.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
So I have, you know.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
And then I have an online thing where I played
for petties just to kind of get the hand reps in.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You know, how long have you been playing?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I start well, on and off for about twenty years.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
I can only imagine where it was like to play
me in the Commerce casino in LA in two thousand
and fourtant I mean, I was.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Stoned out of my mind. I had no idea what
I was.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Doing, so was everybody else those everybody else, but I
was like playing for I was like buying in these
cash games are like forty bucks and always losing. I've
been playing, I would say, somewhat seriously since about twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Do you think you could support yourself with it if
you had to?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I don't know. It's hard to say.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
It's hard to say because I had a sixty thousand
dollars win in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
You know, I finished second in a six hundred dollars
buying tournament, and you know that's a ton of money.
And I walked out.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
I walked out of the card room in Round Rock.
I live in Austin, Texas, and the Round Rock is
a suburb just north here. I walked out of the
card room at like five in the morning with a
Manila envelope full of Franklin. Greg went home, and I
dumped some one. My wife was sleeping in bed when
I went dumped him on it, and well she did,
although she was like, no, I can never I can
(09:24):
never tell you can't go play poker again. You know,
we you know, we bought a car with it. We
went to we went on vacation to Mexico City. We
were able to do some house repaired stuff we were.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Waiting to do.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
But uh so, yeah, but then since then about even
you know, I'm about five hundred.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
After that, I went on the seven thousand dollars down
swing and then I quit for a while. I started
up again and I won a few thousand. I lost
a few thousand.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
So it's like I would have to like have a
big starter chunk of money in order to even try
to make a living at it.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I like playing tournaments, and that's variance is.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I don't know, I think the only way to I mean,
and I know I know that a lot of poker
players would disagree with this, but to me, the only
way to make a living playing poker would have to
be cash games, because when you're up, you have to
walk away from the table because you've got bills to pay,
and you can't just you know, you can't just ride
it out and see where it goes, like and the
way you would have to in a tournament.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
So well are cash game player because they get real
nervous about money.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So if I get up, then I often blow it
and if I get.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Down and get really depressed, and I just just the
way that people play in cash games is not doesn't
really register with my brain, whereas in tournaments.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I like the sort of ebb and flow of the strategy.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah, and so I just I just prefer that kind
of game, even though the variance is just absurd, right.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
I think the the just emotional rollercoaster of poker is
it is hard to maintain.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I don't know how people do it, but I've done it.
I've done it.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I've been through periods of my life where I supported
myself playing poker, Like I used to work on campaigns,
and in between campaigns, I would play and I was
always like a one two cash game player, which people listening,
that's like the one of the lower levels.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And I never want yeah, and I never wanted to
move up.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I like a lot of people would get really good
at one two and then move up to two five,
and I'd be like, why would I want to play
better players?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Like I want to play the.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
People who are here at the one two table that
I've gotten good at. I never quite understood the need
to move up to higher levels if I've gotten good
at the one that I'm at already.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Yeah, I mean, and I played tournaments because again, like
tournaments is about not about making money as much as
it's about winning trophies and bracelets and rings. And I've
like I've driven up to Oklahoma to play at the
World Series of Poker Circuit events at the Chalk Taw
Casino and like, you know, gotten two couple final tables
and gotten pretty close to those rings, and you know
(12:00):
that that would be that would be really great.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Uh, to accomplish. Just it's like the like the intellectual.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Accomplished and of it, right, and also the money, The
money is.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Good, sure, sure, yeah, I mean I like, I like money. Yeah,
I'm also realistic, you know that the real goal is
just to kind of stay in the game and then
it totally and then if I hit if I hit a.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Jackpot like I did a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Mm hmm, do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 4 (12:30):
You know, that's an interesting question because like I've written
twelve books, and I've I've written for like pretty much
every English language publication under the sun except for The
New Yorker.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I mean, there was a time a few years ago.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Where I had satire columns going simultaneously in Salon and
The Federalist. You couldn't, yeah, right, Like you couldn't ask
for like a wider ideological range of publications.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Invanity Fair.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
You know, I was Jeopardy, I was a guest on
The Daily Show back when, like my writing career was
really booming twenty years ago. So I've really kind of
like accomplished most of what I set out to do
in life.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You know, Let's say, you haven't managed to ban kids
from restaurants, which I know is one of your big,
you know, big issues that you care about.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah, I just I don't have the time and patience
to set up a foundation, you know what I mean.
I would like to see that happen, So no, so yes,
So of course I have disappointments like that.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
So yes.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
In some ways, like I've pretty much accomplished at all.
And if I were to die tomorrow, which I'm not
going to do, more more than likely, I think, you know,
you could say that it's kind of been complete, right,
But on the other hand, like I find myself thinking, like, well, shit,
you know, I haven't done that. I haven't you know,
(13:53):
I've never gotten to make a TV show or a
movie my career. While it's I'm still in the game
amazingly enough, considering that you know, the just attrition in
this business.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
I'm still in the game, but you know I was.
I was much I had a higher.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Status let's say, fifteen twenty years ago than I do now,
you know, I'm not. Just kind of like a guy
who's still kind of playing around in the ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
So sometimes I have those disappointments. So it's like, yes,
I've made it. On the other hand, and maybe I'm not.
I could. I'd like to get back to where I
was in some.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Way to So what kind of movie or TV show
are you looking to make?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Probably something in the realm of comedy would be good,
you know I would. Yeah, right, you know. So what
was it?
Speaker 4 (14:51):
It was about, well, not quite twenty years ago, I
had this book called Alternadad about being a hipster parent,
which was a thing among gen xers.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Uh back back in the day.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
There is this there is a sort of a when
gen X started to reproduce, I was obsessed with making
sure that my son was cool and was into cool
gen X things, which I think was a sentiment that
a lot of people of my age in general sociological
background shared, And so I wrote a comic memoir about it,
(15:26):
and it got some press attention. You know, I w
I did the Tory Circuit and I uh, it was
optioned by Hollywood, and so, you know, we moved to
Los Angeles to try to turn it into a movie
or you know, we like we sold our house and
because like it was looking good, right, and so I
had you know, there were moments where it looked like
(15:48):
it was going to get made into something and.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It just it just kind of fell apart on me
and then we had to we lost all our money.
We had to move back to Austin in.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Shame, and you know, so that was that was kind
of rough. And then since then, there hasn't been a
lot of opportunities. I am sort of vaguely thinking that
it would be interesting to make something funny about poker.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
M hm.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Poker does occasionally pop up in in uh in film
and TV, but there hasn't There haven't been a it
hasn't been a good There hasn't been a good show
or movie about like contemporary poker. I guess there was
that Jessica Chastain Molly's Game thing.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, that was good, but it wasn't funny.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
It was fun to watch the Poker. I went back
and I watched it again.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Like the poker there's a whole subplot with that, like
the rag at the commerce casino who got bluffed by
an idiot in a home game and then lost his
mind and died.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I was like, well, yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Seen that was was that the guy who folded the nuts,
which is the nuts is the best possible second nuts? No,
I think there was also a hand like where somebody
folds the actual nuts like something.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
I think what happened He had these second nuts and
there's this idiot who always blot who doesn't know what
he's doing, had absolutely nothing, and this good poker player
folded and lost one hundred thousand dollars or something in
a hand and then like that sent him on some
kind of spiral anyway, So that that's you know that
that game, that game, that movie was was good, but
(17:13):
it was like there's also a lot of scenes of
Jessica Chesska skiing, So so I don't want to make
a so I'd like, I'd like to try something in
that realm maybe. And also I've been for years these
screenwriters and I have been had these two novels.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
About a a l a private eye who was also
a yoga teacher, and we've been sending fusing with that
and seeing if we can adapt that into a show.
You know, I feel like.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yoga, the yoga world is is always right for satire,
something mockery, mockery, mockery and also but also like I
practice yoga so mockery.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
And you do I have. I've been practicing now more
than twenty years.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
That's really interesting. I would not have imagined that.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, I'm a certified Ashtanga Vignyasa instructure. In twenty ten,
I moved to Colorado for a month and I studied
with this I guess you call him a man. He's
more modeled in that it's like a yoga master. And
I went to his intensive workshop and studied with.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Like it was like serious but chanting in Sanskrit. Wow,
and like anatomy.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
And I mean we did a lot of physical stuff,
but I took a Buddhist meditation course at the Shambala
Center and Boulder and so like.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
You know, so there's a I mean, I take yoga seriously,
but it's also quiet.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Markowitz Show. A question I ask
all of my guests is what do you consider the
largest societal or cultural problem and do you think it's solvable.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Well, we talked about this a lot on Book and
Film Globe. I think that we have there's a censorial
attitude in our culture that, uh, I think is really damaging.
I feel like, you know, on the left, for instance,
in England, they're like Vodable Rising, PG Woadehouse, Rdyard Kipling, other,
(19:11):
Agatha Christie, other sort of classic authors rolled all and
they're they're there have these sensitivity readers that they're change,
They're like changing the books in certain small ways.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I just think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
And then you know, during COVID especially, you saw how
intolerant liberals, specifically liberals I would even say the left.
The liberals were about ideas that they didn't agree with.
You know, there were there was a lot of there
were a lot of That's what the whole Twitter files.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Thing was about. There are a lot of efforts.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
To just shut down dialogue and uh and just control
the discoorse.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I didn't like that.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
And I will say I know you, I know you
lean towards the conservative end of things. I will say
that there there's also that attitude to some extent on
the right, particularly what do I think, Well, in Texas recently,
right where I live, the state tried to get bookstores
to bookstores, not not middle school libraries. It's one thing
(20:09):
if you're like, well, maybe a middle school library shouldn't
be putting comic books about gender transition on the shelves.
I kind of feel like anything's fare game. But I
can understand that point of view. But they were saying
that bookstores, like independent bookstores, had to put like warning
labels on books that had like sexual content in them,
and I'm like, that's just that's just like Tipper Gore,
(20:31):
you know, trying to you know, band run DMC or
whatever from the eighties. That's just that's just such a
moral majority crap. So I don't have any time for
that either. So I feel like people just need to
like stop censoring and stop thinking that censoring anything is
a solution, you know, with like this country, the society
(20:51):
is it is built.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
On the foundations of the First Amendment.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
It is sacred and it is inviolable, and I feel
like people just need to if something defends them, you
have to forage.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
They have they have to deal with it like adults, right.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah. It used to be getting offended was just part
of life. Now it's like something we need to like curtail.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Well, you know, there's always been this puritanical strain in
American culture.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I mean there's there was the Hayes Code in Hollywood,
There's the Comics Code. You know, there were there were,
there's more majority of the eighties that, like I said,
Tipper Gore trying to put warning labels on records. There's
always this strain, but it doesn't ever seem to go away.
And so if you think something is too sexual tough,
(21:39):
if you think something isn't woke enough tough, expression is
is fine, you know, I mean even you know, I
mean I remember when the A c L.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Remember the seventies, the A c L.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
You defended Nazi Nazis marching in scope of Illinois. Yeah,
that's not They wouldn't do that now they would try
to know, they wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
They were trying to ban it up. I don't I'm Jewish.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I don't want to see Nazis, right, I mean, I'm.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Horrified that like the anti Jewish sentiment in the culture
right now, it just drives me, striving me crazy. But
I would never for a moment say don't let them
express it. We have to let all the we have
to air out all all that stuff. So anyway, yeah,
so that's our to me, that's our. Look, there's a
lot of problems in society, but that, to me, that's
(22:29):
that's the one that I feel like is the most
easily solvable.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Interesting, easily solvable.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Well, I mean easily solvable if everyone would just stop
censoring or thinking that censoring was good. I mean, you know,
because because the law, the First Amendment is there, it
hasn't been repealed.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
You know, it's like it's right there, so just right there. Yeah,
it's not it's not like it has to. It's not
like we have to.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
It's not like we have to you know, institute, freedom
of speech is a new value in our society. Literally
is the fact owning value of America and possibly America's
greatest contribution to the history of world culture. Right.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
But I would say that it's become at least, you know,
the kind of bigger problem that I've seen with this
in the last you know, decade. I'm sure you've seen
the same is that people get targeted for their kind
of mainstream sometimes opinion that people just don't like and
they get fired. And you know the story of Jennifer's, say,
getting fired from Levi's or you know, being forced out
(23:30):
at Levi's for saying that.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Schools should be opened during you.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Know, COVID is just the classic story of that for me,
which is, you know, it's not First Amendment, right, It's
not like it was more, but it wasn't the government
shutting down her speech. It was like being targeted for
thinking the wrong thing. And that's like a scarier and
more difficult thing to solve.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
I think, right, it's not a government problem, but it's
still it's the same principle, right. And I know Jennifer say,
I'm part of a group, like a COVID, this sort
of COVID.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Skepuy, don't talk about the group, Neil.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
I know her like a check okay to talk about that, there's.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Like no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It's like you know,
it's bike club, you know, talk about it.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I know her and like, you know, and I experienced
the same thing during COVID. I mean I didn't have it.
I'm I'm not getting getting.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Fired from my job by my boss for talking for
saying that movie theaters should be open. That was my
during COVID, is like movie theaters should be open. You're
not getting in movie theaters.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I went on and on and on.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
You know, I have lost some contributors to my side
for over those opinions, and I you know, I lost
some marginal friends.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, and I have to admit that I remember you
going to the movies, and I was very anti COVID
regulations and all that, but I was still like, ew,
I would never go to the movies right now, Well,
the movies.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I definitely remember thinking like that does not seem like
a good idea.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
It was fine, it.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Was no, it was fine. Obviously it was fine.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
But I was say, like, even me who was opposed
to all the regulations, I remember thinking like I wouldn't
go play poker because poker is always like the grossest,
you know, place in the whole casino. And I just
you know, and I wouldn't go to like various conferences
like Seapack is a conference I go to a lot
and everybody always comes homestick from the seapack, And I
was like, no way am I going during COVID and
(25:20):
movie theaters. I just thought, you know, they're kind of
always a little gross. And I I am a germa phobe,
I'll admit. So I remember you go to the movies,
and I remember thinking, I remember thinking, like, I wouldn't
do that.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I'm not a German. Stuff off the kitchen counter that's
been sitting there.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
But yeah, so I wasn't My wife wouldn't let me
go play poker at the card room until after I
got vaccinatede whatever.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I mean, I really didn't care. Like I was out
in about. I went to I went to parties, I
went to bars.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Any if I knew anyone who was willing to do anything, Yeah,
I did it during COVID. And so I was living
living in Austin, and you know Greg Abbott like reopened
the state before COVID even got here, ye May first.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
He you know, he's got like a he doesn't have
the the he didn't have the guts of like DeSantis
and Florida to like actually channel the politics. And he
he did. He reopened and including reopened movie theater.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
So they opened some movie theater at an entertainment complict
in Kyle, Texas.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
It was like twenty miles south of my house, and
I was running this website about film and books.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
So I got in.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
My car and twenty miles. That told me about ten
minutes that day because there was no there were no
other cars on the road right, And I went to
see Vin Diesel in Bloodshot.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
How was that? Had?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Not great?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
But it's like everything else that was playing I'd already
seen before before they started shutting shuit down.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
So I it was me as I walk in, I'm
wearing a mask, I have.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
To, and there are all the signs, the six signs,
and everything's under plexiglass, and like there's a photographer from
the Austin American Statesman taking photos like like I'm like
like like a refugee, like arriving on the shores, and
I'm like, don't, don't take my picture.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I'm working here. And so I went.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I went to the movie with my little box of
Junior Mints that I bought at Walgreens, and I was
like lifting my mask down and surreptitiously nervously putting the
mints enough. And then there are like four working class
Mexican guys in the back round, not wearing mask, eating popcorn,
not not giving a shit.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
You know, they hadn't heard about COVID.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Whatever respect to them. And then and then I didn't.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Die, and you not dying was a big step forward
for people like doing stuff Again, I feel.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Like it's true. I agree in a small I mean
in a small way. It's not like it was front
page news or anything. Right, So so that I kept going,
Like there.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Was that weird Russell Crowe movie, that revenge movie Unhinged
that came out that they debuted that I went to
see that, Like there were three other people in the
theater I went to. So they did a revival of
Blade Runner at the Paramount Theater down I'm kind of
going to see Blade Runner on a summer night in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
That was that was about. Its just in an empty downtown.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
That's what It's just tooking as you can get it with,
you know, Tenant all that, and I just kept going
to movies and I went to see There's a Freaky
Friday horror remakes darring Vince Vaughn who like swung bodies
with a cheerleader.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
I went to see that, and I wrote about that.
People got fear, We're furious at you. I was just
fuck it, I want to go to the movies. I'm
going to keep going.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
You were you were the hero we needed at the time.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
We just didn't know it.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
We didn't know it then.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah, and no one remembers now. But it's okay, I remember,
right man. I appreciate that care.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
So end here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Well, let's circle back, you know stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, let's circle back. Let I would say, look, if
I can do yoga, me like a.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Middle aged schmuck you know in suburban Texas can do
yoga every day for twenty years. I mean, you can
do yoga too. It's it's you know, I practiced yesterday.
My legs are sore today, but I feel good.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
And I woke up.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
You know, I'm fifty almost fifty four years old. I
woke up feeling not a day over fifty one.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Yeah, So you know it's really good just for sort
of maintaining a baseline of mental health, insanity, and just
physical fitness.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
You're you're not gonna get like ripped unless you're doing
it all day, every day.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
It's some it's some cult in Los Angeles, but you're
it will help you.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Like get through the day with a calmness and a clarity,
will help your sleep, it'll help you your digestion, all
that stuff. So I would I would recommend to yoga. Yoga.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yoga practice is really good, you know, and you don't
have to It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
You know, hippy dippy religion. You know you don't feel
you know, you don't, there's no need for any of that.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
You can go that route if you want, and I
have occasionally gone that route just to the part of
the world, but.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
You don't have to.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
It can be very practical, and there are lots of
examples of people who have lived very long and healthy
live just by doing yoga and not eating that craft
all the time.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
So interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
You're my Yeah, you're my second unlikely guest to have
been into yoga.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Kevin McCullough was the first.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
And it's just it's very interesting because I really would
not have guessed it with either one of you.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
So I like that it's not you know, yoga gets
this bad rap as being like something that like rich,
dumb coastal liberals do right, and.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
It does well for a good reason because they do
a lot. But they're also all of those people are
very physically healthy.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
They are, yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And maybe insane, but mentally you know, so you know
there's a reason for that because of their practice. So
it's like, but yoga itself does not like, it's not
about politics.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
You know. It's like there's lots of right wing Indian
people who do yoga.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
No India is run by it right wing populous, you know,
and so you know, it's so it's not there's no
there's no require, there's no age requirement, there's no politics requiredment,
there's no idiot.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
It's not about an ideology.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
It's really just about like focusing on your breath and
like doing basic movements and like, you know, not not
stealing from people, unless you're playing poker, in which.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Case the last one seems like you might have just
added that on.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
But there's one of the one of the presents, all right,
not being a huge, huge.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Ass like that, that's a good that's a you know,
that's a really good ending there.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, don't be a huge ass.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Thank you all right, Thank you so much, Neil. It
was really nice having you on. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Let's let's do this in for sometimes.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Thanks so much for joining us on The Carol Markowitz Show.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Karol Markowicz
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