00:00:15
Speaker 1: Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're listening to soft web Radio Special Operations, Military Nails on straight talk with the guys in the community.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: Hey, what's going on? This is rad your host for soft Rep Radio. All right, welcome back to another wonderful episode today, and if you're new, thanks for taking the time to click on the link and join me. Obviously you see who my guest is on the title. But before I introduce you to him, let me talk about the merch. So we have soft rep dot com Forward slash merch and you go check out the merch store. Lots of cool items in there that you could pick up. Wear it around town, tag me on social media. I love to reshare it. And if you're you know, a repeat offender of the program, thank you for coming back and being intrigued by us and who we bring on to the show in the way that only we can here at softwap Radio number two, soft rep dot Com Forward slash book hyphen Club. So the book club. We love books. I love to read. We all like to read. I talk to authors all the time. I get book sent and I got to read some of those things I was never a reader, but I've become one, and so it just helps grow my brain to be stronger and a strong muscle in my skull, which is where you know, that's where it matters right up in here. So read a book. Go check out the book club at soft rep dot com, Forward Slash book hyphen Club. Now I have Jack McTavish here, okay, and he is an author. Let's call him that first, former military, Let's call him that second, because it was what he was. Now he is full on author. He's got great art on his books. And I'm going to introduce you to him. Let me read just a little bit about Jack, retired military officer, action adventure and espionage writer. I love it the background on Jack. Jack McTavish is a retired United States Army colonel and the author of high stakes action adventure novels and military and political thrillers. With more than thirty six years of service in the US Army and Army Reserve, his fiction is grounded in real world experience without sacrificing pace, atmosphere, or entertainment. His career spanned airborne special operations, joint environments, including assignments supporting US Army Special Operations Command and US Special Operations Command. His work took him across Afghanistan, Korea, Haiti, Central and South America, and the Middle East. He has also supported missions within the intelligence community as a contractor. And today he brings that world to the page through stories defined by competence, consequence, loyalty, and adventure. And today we're going to just crack out his new book that he's got coming out called Royal Diamonds. And so welcome to the program.
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Speaker 3: Awesome, Hey Rah, how's it going. Thanks, thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.
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Speaker 2: Well. I love that you jumped on and I said, hey, I like to strike fast. You're like, let's get on the show and boom off we go running dude. And so here we are today, you know, becoming friends. I love all the things on the backgrounds. I like the fallout shelter logo that you have on your wall, and I love the warning you know, bonding rangers something, don't cross this path. You have some really cool vibes going on. Welcome to the show.
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Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you very much. It's funny the I mean, I mean, I'm a gen xer. I assume you probably are too. Yeah, the fallout shelter just reminds me of being an elementary.
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Speaker 2: School me junior high. My dad was a Green Beret and he had an armory at the junior high school that he ran, and in that was a fallout shelter, which nobody really saw at school except for me, because I would go in with the guys. We'd go downstairs see the shooting range. The fallout shelter there was always locked off to the regular students. You know, how do they get in there in a fallout?
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Speaker 3: I don't know. I think I remember seeing a clockwork orange or just a little piece of it when I was a kid, and oh my gosh, that was scared.
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Speaker 2: You want to know, you want to know something about Clockwork Orange and me that I have in common. I started a movie with Malcolm McDowell, who is the main character in Clockwork Orange. Yeah, we did a Stephen King movie called fire Starter together and I played the dad Andy McGee to the fire Starter, and so he plays the evil Rainbird in the novel in the in the in the one that we did, there's a first one with Drew Barrymore and David Keith, and then there's a second one, which is me and Malcolm McDowell, and then there's a third one with Zach. He's super high, he's on Baywatch and he's in high school musical. Zach Efron plays, Yeah, so he plays, So I'm in good company. It's me, Zach Efron and David Keith as the dad for fire Starter. I mean, you know what I say. That's so funny you say Clockwork Orange because there's a story that Malcol told me when he If you saw the whole movie Clockwork Orange, he's sitting in the theater and he's being like brainwashed by this movie, and he has his eyes peeled open with this device on his head, and there's an actual optometrist next to him, dripping drops actually in his eyes so they would not dry out from having them stretched open. He told Stanley Kubrick, I would I'm never going to do that again. Yeah, I had no idea. It scratched his retinas, it did all these things to him. And then if you watch Clockwork Orange, there's another take and he had to do it a second time. As you can tell, he's just hate pissed. Yes, he just doesn't want to be in it. In the thing that opens his eyes. So funny you mentioned clockwork orange impacting you. I had to bring that up.
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Speaker 3: It's kind of funny. And I don't want to give too much into movies, but did you did you see the recent show that talked about the making of the Godfather.
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Speaker 2: No, I haven't.
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Speaker 3: It's fantastic, dude. I think it's on I think it's on Amazon. I love The Godfather. And heads up because two books from now it is going to be Cuba, the Cia, and the Mafia.
00:06:08
Speaker 2: I saw that on your website.
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Speaker 3: So stoked about that. But the scene where Michael reaches up behind that old look, that old fashioned toilet to find a gun to shoot the mobster of getting in the crooked Irish cop, they had shifted around the gun. He didn't know where it was. So when he's like fumbling around her, that's real. He's like, shit, where's the gun. So and I just saw that scene on TV again the other night, and I was like, oh wow, it's cool. Movie stuff asson me.
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Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, a little little little easter eggs like that, right, it's like test, you know. Yeah. And and and fire Starter. I was filming it and the girl that's my daughter, she blows everything up and the director's like, hey, Rad, I'm all, what's that Rob. He's like, we need you to slap her in this scene, right, And she's like eight and nine years old, maybe ten sky and I was like, I looked at her. She's like, I can take it. I was like, I looked at the director. I looked at her again, and I was like, well, we'll just we'll mock it, you know. But she's like, go ahead, slap me across the face. I was like. We both looked at each other like for a moment, maybe I should for realism, but that no, so we blocked it out. It looks great. You see me in the movie and go go watch fire Starter. I know this is all about me today. No no, no, no, no, it's about Jack. Jack. So many years my father's name was Jack. What a great name. Jack is also the name of the guy in Cloak and Dagger who I looked up to as also my dad because he had a beret and the silhouette of him walking out of the fire at the end of the movie of Cloak and Dagger. Jack. He's such a great name. Colonel just I want you to know that, mad respect.
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Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:07:46
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, Yes, sir, So when you were joining the military, let's just crack you open. You were how old when you decided, Hey, this is my goal.
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Speaker 3: I was seventeen and six weeks.
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Speaker 2: And you enlisted as a young man in high.
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Speaker 3: School or what I did. So I went to my parents signed the papers for me. I joined the Maryland National Guard, first the twenty ninth Late Infantry Division Light and I joined initially as a medic, which is honestly the best thing I ever did. But I was probably one of the youngest guys in my basic training class.
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Speaker 2: I'm sure. Yeah. When I was in I was twenty one and I met a seventeen year old and I said, how did you know to be so driven at seventeen. I'm an older dude at this point, and I was called grandpa.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I love looking, you know, at fifty seven. I love looking back at that. Something happened forty years ago now, and you know it was weird as nineteen eighty six. It was the Cold War. My drill sergeant Staff Sergeant HEROLDO Padro Moore. You know, I still I wish I could meet the guy today and say this is what I ended up doing. It's interesting. I actually took care of my infantry company commander, or sorry, my basic training company commander retired as a colonel as well, and I actually ended up taking care of his daughter as a patient A bunch of years later. I think I was I think I was a lieutenant colonel then, but I was like, I saw the name and I was like, is your dad so and so? And she's like, oh yeah. I'm like, oh my gosh, she was my Basic Training company commander. But it was just it was a great experience, and it you know, my family has a large military history. My dad's a marine, My youngest brother's a marine, My youngest nephew is marine. My oldest nephew is getting ready to be a naval intelligence officer. My middle brother is a paratrooper. I spent thirty six years, all of my uncles, everybody spends time as the military. Nobody other than me makes it a career, but or at least chapter one of her career, because hopefully I'll have a long, long writing career. Yeah, but it it's just kind of part of what the family does. It's part of the family business. And man, you know, I got off the bus at for Dick's New Jersey. Funny story. I went back as a colonel to help run an exercise, probably half a dozen years ago, maybe longer. And I go to the I'm like, well, let me drive around, because now I can drive around and I'm not a private. You won. And I found the old reception station and I looked across the field and that's where my basic training place was. But as a young private, they loaded my bud on a cattle car, drove me around for like, you know, an hour or two hours whatever. It was all around for Dicks, and I was like, holy cow, this is the biggest place I've ever seen. This place is a ginormous And then in my fifties, I go back and I look into my reception Ah shit, there's where I went to basic training. Across the field, right. They just made you have the story and it was crazy.
00:10:56
Speaker 2: They just drove you around, seen year old kid.
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Speaker 3: I was like, my gosh, the army is huge. It was. It was it was an interesting mind game.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: I just remember the orange lights in San Antonio. It was like foggy orange lights. You're getting off the bus and you're just like humidity and I'm like, this is where mold grows. Like, yeah, it was.
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Speaker 3: It was cool. I mean, you know so, I mean I finished, I went to boot camp between a junior and senior years of high school, and then came back and finished high school, came back to football camp, and like the best shape that I probably could have done that at that point, which is great. You know, finished high school, graduated high school, went down to the medic course at for Sam, came back, joined my unit. It was a light infantry company in the second Battalion, one fifteenth Infantry the Maryland National Guard, and I just loved it. I mean initially I started out as just you know, like a regular rifle platoon medic and then very quickly like they're like, hey, this kid's okay, we'll let them work with the scouts. So I ended up being a scalplotoon medic and you know, and very quickly I was like, you know, this is cool. And I made PFC and I made specialist and you know, I thought I was the you know all that, and got into ROTC and I mean from there, you know, my love kicked up. You know, I mean, next next thing, you know, I'm going to jump school when Aerossault School and went to Northern Warfare School as a cadet, and you know, I just loved it, and then very quickly got commissioned and headed off down to the eighty second.
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Speaker 2: What was your degree medical? Was it a medical degree as well?
00:12:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my my undergraduate degree is in respiratory therapy, okay, and so but I never really did it. And my undergraduate degree in college should have been pre army because most of the time I was doing ROTC stuff. And then, uh, you know, I graduated uh college, went off to the eighty second, spent about three years down there, and decided that I wanted to practice medicine. So and at the time, you know, I didn't think I was smart enough I am, but ended up decided to go to physician assistant school. So I went to PA school with wake Forest and graduated from there and done a lot of emergency medicine and emergency general surgery since then, and that's great, and a bunch of other stuff.
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Speaker 2: You know. I had a friend he passed away a little bit ago. His name's Jim Johnson. He was a general and he was over the eighty second airboard I think, yeah, during those Yeah, we'd email all the time up until it was passing, and he'd always listened to the show and be like, Ran, I love your show today, and I'm like, hey, I thanks, General.
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Speaker 3: I think Jim Johnson was the division commander. I think he was the division commander. And now I'm drawing a blank when his name started with an S. He ended up being Chairman of the Joint cy Staff and I can't I'm so embarrassed. I can't remember his name.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: Happens all the time I interviewed hundreds of people.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he was. He was the commander. I think a couple of commanders for my time in the eighty seconds.
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Speaker 2: So that's very cool, very cool and uh and cool legacy to go through the eighty second. Right, I'm all American, absolutely, you know aa lt w right, Yeah, I love that. Well airborne to you, that's awesome. Hey, do you have a close call being airborne? Like jumping out? Was there ever like a static line that went almost upside down on you?
00:14:24
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I did get a concussion on the jump once it was out on nine Megan drop zone.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: I was.
00:14:32
Speaker 3: I had gone to jump Master school, was a second lieutenant and uh, you know and it became like my additional duty. I was jump mastering all the time, but I don't know what happened. I did a feat butt head PLF and swhacked the back of my head and it was like a little man went like I felt like the shock and it was like a little man like went from my fingertips all the way after my brain turning off all the ways one by one, and it was just kind of closed in. And the next thing I know, I'm waking up and some dudes coming by on the next pass like yelling down at me, Hey, dude, are you okay? I mean, that was like crazy. So I kind of shook it off back to my parachute, stood up and walk back. And then I wondered, this is before I went, you know, to grad school. I was like, I never went and got a checked in. I was like, why the hell do I have this headache? For the next six weeks, I had had a postconcussion post concustom headache.
00:15:21
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, TB. I that's a call that a TBI. Yeah, great, traumatic brain injury. Yeah. So, and definitely, especially when you're coming down landing. A PLF is a prepared landing fall parachuting parachute landing fall, so you have to go feet knees and then you roll with it and flop over.
00:15:37
Speaker 3: But you would also the feet cats, plodocks, push up muscle, you know, if you if you're being chim master dogmatic about.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: It, but you missed those middle parts and just went like feet button head, Yes, exactly.
00:15:50
Speaker 3: No.
00:15:50
Speaker 2: I saw a guy get picked up at one of my dad's jumps. He was a Halo guy, just a small uh, you know, small dude on the team, a little dude, and he was all coming down, everyone was all watching him, and then all of a sudden, he it's almost like twenty feet off the ground and the wind picked him up and just dropped him right onto his I saw my dad and his guys run out onto the tarmac so fast. I just that's a normal day growing up with you know, the guys on the teams in my life. It's like, yeah, you know, being able to get tot along and jump off picnic tables with him. We would be like, oh, get up there, a little rad here, go ahead, jump off the picnic table with us. I'm like, yeah, can you put me in your backpack your rucksack? Yeah, So my dad would always take a baseball because I love baseball and he loved to train me, and he would always take a baseball wherever he went on deployment. So I have baseballs and ziplock bags that are all shlacked with him written on him, like jump nineteen eighty six, jumped into Florida swamps. Yeah, things like that. Yeah, I love, yes, love that. Did you ever do anything like that?
00:16:48
Speaker 3: I've got a I have a flag. It's actually on the other side of the room in my little retirement shadow box. But it was my it was my uncle Charles. My uncle Charles, Uncle Chuck was a it was almost like a certain strong man. That dude was strong. But he was in World War Two in Italy. And I don't know how it came into my possession, but it did. And I took it to Afghanistan with me. I think I took it to Haiti like in the early nineties when they're a steam you got put back in power. I've taken it like on every trip with me, everywhere, and I've kind of written in on it, you know, in black Shark. I love that you know where all it's going and and it's got I mean, it's dirty and messy and it's got rips in it, but it's folded up and it's when I retired. I retired it and put it in the shadow box.
00:17:37
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that. That's awesome, and so I love that you can write your novels based off of all of these types of experiences. I mean, you know what it's like to hook up and shuffle up and do this honk honk, and you know, you do the whole door everything, and you know a lot of booty slapping going on there, you know, like get out the door. So you can bring that to your books. Yeah, I love that. My dad would love those books. He loved Tom Clancy because of the detail of the Navy ships and stuff. You know, my dad was Navy before he went Green Beret, and so he would read it with He liked the detail and like knowing that.
00:18:13
Speaker 3: You know that, I've got a first edition Naval Press Hunt for Red October behind me.
00:18:19
Speaker 2: On the bookshelf. Totally, we're just talking gen x, okay. I mean Dad would read that in bed, going to sleep at night. And then the movie came out with Sean Connery. We went and saw it and he left the theater. I thought it was great. I was like, oh yeah, you know Alet Balldwin Sean Connery, he's a Russian, you know, talks like a Spaniard from Highlander. But at the end of the day, I'm like, that's how a Spaniard talks, Dad Russian. So I mean he was kind of sad that it wasn't exactly how he thought in his mind. But you know, when you read a book, it takes you away, it takes you into what you wanted to kind of you know, how is the sunset in your mind? You know on the beach when the guy rides into the sunset, you know, in a book, but when you see somebody say, oh, well, I think the sunsets caught and candy, like, well, mine is more orange and blood red, you know.
00:19:08
Speaker 3: Like that has been one of the hardest things that I've had to learn as a writer. You know, I don't have an English degree, but far and I you know, as I've worked with you, I've worked with an editor, and I learned a lot. I feel like it's almost like another graduate degree, right, So, learning how to trust the reader and let them form their own like like I don't need to tell you, this guy's pissed off. I need to show it to you through action and learning how to do that has been one of the hardest things and I still struggle with it as a writer.
00:19:44
Speaker 2: I mean.
00:19:46
Speaker 3: One of the other hardest things being a writer is learning how to edit, you know, and go back through. And there's a process called killing off your darlings. You know, like you write this one sentence, you're like, this is the best sentence ever, and you're like, man, this totally does nothing to support right to worry, So you got to cut it.
00:20:03
Speaker 2: That's why you hire an editor to cut your finger off, because you'll never do it. But they'll be like, oh, you need your finger cut. You're like, wait, what should there been a moment of me to say goodbye? You're like, no, dude, it's got to go. You're like, but I could have done that. No.
00:20:17
Speaker 3: Never, that's when you you know, copy and paste it into another document of you know, darlings that you won't want to bring back.
00:20:24
Speaker 2: Sometimes right and revive that line and see if they pick it up in the next edit, like oh hey, you know that line got in there again. You'll get that line in one of your.
00:20:33
Speaker 3: Books book on another book in the future.
00:20:36
Speaker 2: Well, and the other thing. Let me jump over to your website real quick while we're chatting, and it's called Jack McTavish dot com. Very simple. You know, I'm looking at the artwork, you know, the Hawaiian shirt, the nice watch, the timepiece looks like he's rocking, maybe a Burretta. And I mean the dame that's on his back. It's like shoulder and shoulder. It's like, do you want these guys to be your real estate agents on the island? Yes, yes, I do, back to back real estate agents. You know I'm saying that that. I mean, it looks great, the airplane flying with the pontoons on it, you know, the whole thing. I just find that kind of art pleasing to my mind. It makes me want to involve myself in your books.
00:21:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love I love that kind of stuff. And you know one of the things with writing, like you can write like I treasure like Jack Carr and Brad Taylor and Mark Ranny and all these guys, and I think the world of them. You know, I've been able to have interactions with all of them. Actually, Mark Randy is going to be in Raleigh next week promoting this new book, The hard Line Love you know, love the technical detail and all that. And you know, of course Brad Taylor and Elane is well if they do so much good work with the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Of course Jack Carr, I mean that guy is like the professor you look at, always repid, be able to bring you know, it's like built this whole ecosystem around his writing, which you know, foundation is very good. You know. You know their books are all were pretty serious and my books are not quite as serious. And I like that because I want to give somebody you know, I've been to war of practice medicine for a long time. You know, all had our personal tragedies in life and that kind of thing. And I man, I want people to be able to escape for a night or two while they're reading my books and just have fun. There's espionage, there's danger, there's things like that, but I want peop oh yeah, but I want people to just have pure, unadulterated fun while they're reading. And that's that's kind of that's one of my goals as a writer.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: You know, as a writer, I think you'd like to hear this. I had a gentleman on that I interviewed Kyle Steiner, former Green Beret Army Uh. He was it with Streppo and Afghanistan. He was one of the documentary guys that were in that unit. And I was talking to him on our interview and I said, well, did the pilots ever like you They always brought you supplies and mortars and stuff up to your outpost on top of rostrepo because it's a hump, did they ever like kick you down something like outside the you know outside like he's like, as a matter of fact, Dad, they gave us licky and chewies is what he called them. But he's like, but books. The pilots would open up and say, hey, here's a couple they tossed down a bag and inside the bag with some books. Because these guys are sitting on top of this point of this, you know. Yeah, and he said, just toiling our thumbs, you know. And we'd get these books and they would just like fill us all day long with just thoughts of the book, you know. And I find that to be what you're saying, something that's just going to pull you in and maybe take you out for a moment, you know, like.
00:23:41
Speaker 3: Let me tell you I'm kind I'm kind of an EmPATH, so which is maybe why I do medicine. But if I ever heard that some some kid was reading one of my books in a combat outpost, it would be the greatest honor I'd ever have his writer.
00:23:55
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, right right? And to know that they cherish the books at an outpost. So if you're a pilot out there and you're flying a drop to the outpost, taking them a book, okay to you, I tell you what you know, really really just hit up jack right here. And if you're open, oh without a doubt, you know. And it's it's just cool to hear that from the guy on the ground, you know, he's just like we were happy to get books.
00:24:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how I started reading Louis lok Moore was in the military in Afghanistan there or Louis the more books like everywhere. Like there was this one chapel that I used to go to for church and there's a bunch of books that are always kind of lined up there and you'd go in on Louis Lamoor's and just kind of burned through them. Was fantastic, loved it.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: Did you always have the inclination to journal when you're a young man growing up or writing like this. Just college kind of turns you into a writer with dissertations and.
00:24:53
Speaker 3: Uh, definitely not, definitely not. I mean I've got a doctor and you know, actually did that while I was writing the book that I wrote before Royal Diamonds. They're not those two are published. Gen Now, I've always been a reader. And my mom was a teacher when I was growing up, and the summertimes she would teach ged classes for the UH for like the Maryland and State Highway Administration.
00:25:22
Speaker 2: Guilty Guilty, I have a g ed guilty she was.
00:25:26
Speaker 3: She would drop me off at the library and that's where my babysitter was all day. I remember being in like fifth or sixth grade reading Raised the Titanic, you know, by Clift Ship and uh and just and just history book after history book. There's this one section of the elementary school that I went to, and you know, it's just they had all these great books like George Washington, Pactor, Henry Thomas Jefferson, you know, Ben Franklin, you know Theodore Roosevelt. Just in it's like seriously, and I would read every single one of them and and and just love that. So I've always carried that love reading with me. And then you know, when I was on active duty, I got turned onto web Griffin is probably my all time favorite writer. I've read the Core series probably fifteen times. I've read The Brotherhood of Arms, the Army series probably an additional fifteen times. I've got every one of them in hardback, and and and my my friend Jack still working for my book, just wrote direct Action, which is which is the latest book for the Web Griffin The State of Course. You know, great Griffin died a few years ago, but yeah, I love doing that. And then you know, I've just gotten turned onto newer authors and older authors. And as crazy as I've as I've started writing, I read, you know, like I listened to Jack car talking about Frederick forsythe and I'm like, oh, holy crap, but I've never read The Dogs of War.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: I better read it, you know, yeah, dogs will?
00:26:52
Speaker 3: You know. Nelson to Mill has quickly become one of my favorite writers. And you know, I like his general I hate to say smart assid this, but some of his characters can be that one and I love it.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: So yeah, like the.
00:27:07
Speaker 3: Cuban Affair is one of my favorite books ever.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: Mine is The Babe Ruth Story. One of my favorite books. I found myself in ninth grade, seventh grade, ninth grade. I couldn't put it down. I'd walk through the halls reading the book. I turned the page. I loved baseball so much, and I was just reading about this young boy who was just kind of like overweight but could slug the ball. And I was like, I can maybe relate a little bit to him at that time, and you know, and just to know that he became Babe Ruth from an orphanage and everything. Yea, you know there's I love the Babe Ruth Story. That's a book that has resonated as well as this one called The Darkest White, which is about a pro snowboarder, Craig Kelly, who was taken in an avalanche years ago and a friend of a friend, Eric Blem he's the editor for Transworld Snowboarding. He wrote the whole thing because he was a friend of Craig's. And those types of books really kind of hit you where you know, you're like snowboard, I know the terrain. I know what The Darkest White is going to be. It's you know, suffocation of the most it's a lame way. Yeah, it's an avalanche. It's a bad way to go, you know, and there's nothing to do when you have all these trees and boulders and you know, blocks of ice that are just rolling normally for that, but you're in the way. You know, it's like what do you do? So the books like that just point I'm emotional for her right now just talking about it. It's like, you know, that's what a book, a good book can do that.
00:28:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's definitely you know that escape. And one thing that I like about thriller writers and almost everyone that have come in contact with it, you usually go to a thriller conference Thriller First Up in New York in the year. It's such a it seems like it's such a non competitive environment because you know, we spend an entire year, year plus writing a novel and you're going to read it, you know, hopefully, if we did our job right, you're going to read it overnight and like wake up this morning feeling like you need to call him, stick to work. I mean, that's like that's the goal. So I'm not gonna I'm not going to be competing with you know, Jack Stewart for readers ship. You don't read my book on a Monday and read his on a you know, probably the previous week, because he's a bit much bigger writer. You know that's fantastic.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you have are you self published or do you have? You are?
00:29:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's and I'll tell you getting getting an agent is hard. I mean, I've I've worked through the process and I've got a I've got a book called Tales from the Caribbean that I'm I finished it. I'm just going to go through some final weddits and then I want to go out on the query process and try to get in front of some more agents again and we'll see if that one bites. It's it's hard, but the flip side of it is and this has been another kind of neat part about the process is learning the business and kind of viewing writing not as just I'm a writer, let me write a book, but as a business. And it's very much how I look at it. You know, it's a brand, the Jack mctabish brand I've I've built. I was never on social media before I started writing.
00:30:13
Speaker 2: I love the name Okay, Jack McTavish follow that.
00:30:18
Speaker 3: Yes, So you know, I mean I've built a social media following. You know, I've got some seven thousand plus followers now on my Instagram, which is fantastic. I like in a treasury in every one of those those uh those followers. But learning, you know, how to set up an LLC, learning, how to research, learning how to edit, learning, how to hire an editor, learning how to hire an artist to do the artwork for your your your product. I mean Corey, I mean I could never do my cover work, but Corey Club, who is a fantastic artist grn sure can. And you know Corey, I mean, bless as hard as he's the nicest guy in the world. He's got a The week that he delivered my cover to me, one of his covers was like plastered all over Times Square for another author. So I mean, I guess I hired the right guy. So yeah, I'm pretty pretty stoked about that.
00:31:15
Speaker 2: Once you're in that lane, sir, you find others in the lane with you that are going that same way, and it just starts to fall into place like a little domino effect.
00:31:24
Speaker 3: Right son, Even things like this, like learning how to schedule a podcast or reaching learning how to write an email to reach out, but hey, would you be interested? Like right now, I'm setting up stuff for you know, kind of a book tour for next month, and I mean it's hard, you know, I've had reached out to different bookstores and yeah, we might be able to get you in in July.
00:31:45
Speaker 2: Right. Whereas like a publicist or an agent would come in, like a Shiman and Schuster or whoever, and they they'd say, hey, okay, hey Jack, you're gonna go get on a plane, and your itinerary is kind of built out and they have a network out there that would help to alleviate that so you can stay focused on what you should be focused on, which is bringing your thoughts to the page.
00:32:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, but but I like kind of doing it all right now, and because I'm because I'm learning from and you know, hopefully, of course, hopefully one day I'll have David Brown, who's Jack carrs Bubblo says.
00:32:18
Speaker 2: Yah, know, I talked to Dave all the time.
00:32:21
Speaker 3: Is I met him in New York and he's just he's just really.
00:32:26
Speaker 2: Should see our emails. I'm like, bring me the author of Rambo. And he's like he's like, let me see. You know, those are just like the back and forth that I'm like, you know, he'll reach on, say hey, can Jack get on? Or you know we like brad Thor. David's great.
00:32:41
Speaker 3: You know, uh hey, next time you talk to him. I think I think I think he's a cool guy. Oh yeah, you know it's funny doctor doctor Morell, who which is how I prefer to prefer to him. But I got a chance to meet him at the last Thriller Fest and I had not I had not read First Blood, and I'm sorry, I hate to admit it, I had not read Violet. But you know, doctor Morrell wears a Rolex. He wears a Rolex submarine or that he's had since like about nineteen seventy seven or seventy eight, and then still goes out. He cuts grass in his Rolex, He chops wood in his Rolelex.
00:33:18
Speaker 2: His Rolex.
00:33:19
Speaker 3: And I was like, hey, sir, that's a really good watch. And if you look at my Instagram page, there's actually a photo where he and I are like watch checking each other. I was wearing a Tutor, so I was wearing a Tutor GMT. We started talking about watches and then he broke into this twenty minute class as me and Ryan pote. You know, Ryan wrote, let's see Ryan's dating what came out? One Treasure came out last year. And we're sitting there and we're talking to doctor Morrell and he just launches into this twenty minute class on setting a scene, and like, so first it's just me and Ryan, and then like two other people kind of come up, and like two more and before you know it, there's ten people sitting there and we're all listening to the great David Morrell talking about how to set a scene. And he's so freaking humble, one nice. I mean, just yeah, I could listen to the dude for hours.
00:34:13
Speaker 2: That's awesome. I'm just that's awesome, right, because I mean again, I grew up Rambo First Blood, Rambo First Blood Part two, Rambo First Blood Part three, Rambo First Blood Part four, and then Rambo The Home Alone ending Hey guys, I'm in here, don't come in here. We better, you know, but to have it go on and like just I mean, it's iconic, right, it was like whose knife was bigger his or Schwarzenegger's, right, It's like who had more kills? Schorzenega or Rambo. It's like, you know, we grew up in that generation. You know, Bro, It's like contra video game, Zelda Arnold Sylvester. You know, it's funny.
00:34:53
Speaker 3: I remember I remember having off I think for July fourth, when I was going through basic training and we got a break for a couple of hours, and I think somebody brought in a movie projector and I remember watching First Blood and I think, like another Rambo movie and maybe like another maybe it was a Schwarzenegger movie or something like that. It's like, wow, these are cool, but he's meat.
00:35:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and again you're dating yourself. I mean a projector, Bro, a film projector. You had to like line the film up in it, and sometimes it would start.
00:35:30
Speaker 3: I think it was like ACR or something.
00:35:34
Speaker 2: I was just doing. I do because I know about the projector too. I'm I'm forty eight. I'm a seventy seven. You're sixty seven, fifty seven? No, but you're you were born yeah, you know sixty nine, Summer sixty nine, Brian Adams, what's up? Rock and roll? Bro? Wow? Summer yeah, love, that's you. You came from that Mom and dad. Let's have Baby Jack. That's what they're like in sixty nine. Dude, that's so cool. Bro. Yeah, my dad was coming out of Vietnam. He was seventeen seventeen going to Vietnam, sixteen sixty nine. You were just coming out, you know, into life. Yeah, so cool, dude, You're so cool. So, like, what kind of music do you listen to?
00:36:14
Speaker 3: I was just curious, Well, yeah, I mean I love eighties rock. I love I guess you call it like divorced dad rock. You know, of course I love. I'm a huge Jimmy Buffett fan, Okay, I mean I am a huge parrot head when I was.
00:36:35
Speaker 2: I can only just say Pina Colada because, like, you know, if you like Pina Klada, Jimmy Buffett, right, you know, like just relate to the listener. Who Jimmy Buffett is. You know he sings that popular song. I won't sing it for you because you're not ride. The day after my oldest daughter's wedding or was it.
00:36:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I remember we were we went to the wedding and then the next morning we were going to the Outer Banks and just I just remember sweet sweet girl and I driving down the road to the Outer b it's just bawling her eyes out like oh Jimmy's. And it's finally it's funny because I finally understood like whatever I felt like when John Lennon died. Sure, you know that sort of thing. But yeah, I like rock. I love country music. I probably love bro country, you know Riley Green and all that. Actually, yeah, I actually played bass guitar and and acoustic guitar. So I love love contemporary Christian music. I've played that in worship bands for twenty years.
00:37:33
Speaker 2: Oh is that right? Yeah, so you're still rock in a band.
00:37:36
Speaker 3: So yeah, Yeah, still still play occasionally people, not not as much as I used to, but people still give me a call every now and then say, hey, we need a bass player this weekend, can you come fill in?
00:37:45
Speaker 2: You know, that's the first time I ever saw when I went to boot camp and we went to our Sunday church for the first time. I come from Utah, so our our faith was Mormon. Yeah, and we never had a drum set. Yeah, we had a piano, an organ. There was an organist. Sister so and so would play the organ, okay, or brother so and so. But when I went to boot camp, there was like Pentecostal, yeah, and other different types of religion that I had never seen before. And all of a sudden they're like drumming out and like rocking out and they're reaching for the sky. And I was like, oh, this is just what happened here. Yeah, this is another way too, you know, you know, worship exactly. Thank you for helping me there, and really eye opening, you know, coming from like kind of a bubble where you're just raised here and then you go to the army or the air force and you're like, what are what do you mean there's like seven different churches going on on the same day. What what are their other churches?
00:38:39
Speaker 3: It's an interesting it's an interesting the shift.
00:38:41
Speaker 2: And do nothing E supposed to it and I hadn't and so that that is interesting, you know. And so to hear that you play bass in that that's cool.
00:38:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's really it's really interesting because you know, sometimes when you're when you're playing, you can be i mean a really small intimates intimate studying with you know, candles and you know, solight and that sort of thing, or you know, sometimes you're on stage playing that kind of music with smoke machines, and lights and you know, rock and a big production things. So I love both cons.
00:39:13
Speaker 2: It's Colonel Rocker, doctor dude, sir.
00:39:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I've been really lucky. I've had a chance to see you and do a lot of kind of interesting things.
00:39:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. And now your author, you know, you've written some books and you've got this book coming out, Royal Diamonds. Now, tell us where this is going to take place and the setting behind Royal Diamonds and your thought process without giving away too much. Yea, and tell us a little bit about Royal Diamonds that's coming out that you've written.
00:39:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, fantastic. So you know, I live in the South. I love living in the South. I love South Carolina, love Charleston. And it's interesting because before even Royal Diamonds came about, I wrote two and a half more espionage military type novels that are probably more you know, car tailor and kind of their background with some leb gear from throwing in and like, yeah, they were doing good. But the guy I was working with was like, you know, he's like, I don't know if this is like the market's getting a little tired of espionage novels, you know, and shoots you in the face. Novels like okay, well sure, he goes. Can you write me an action adventure novel? I was like, man, what do you mean?
00:40:28
Speaker 2: Right?
00:40:30
Speaker 3: So I thought about it for a little while and I was like, you know, I was a little discouraged at first. I was like, man, I don't know if I can do this. I was like, hell, no, I can do this. So, you know, I just started outlining like an arc for a story, and I was like, well, what do I want to think about? You know, well, I love the concept of the thought of like blood diamonds and all the crap that went on in Africa and how they were used, you know, to come to fund insurgencies. And I love piracy, like the study of piracy and the golden age of I receipt and you know, and I like family relationships, like the kind of things that you see in a like in an older Web Griffin novel. I was like, how can I start weaving all that together? So so I was like, well, let me, let me come up with a character. And my character's name is Jake Steed and he's a he was a marine as a young guy, so I joined young he was he was not a Marine officer or high rank, and NCO, I think he was a lance corporal, and then I think a corporal I think is a terminal rank that I put on him. And he ends up getting hurt in Syria. So the core of the course says, well, you know what, we'll make some arrangements if you love history, and they send him off to Oxford for an education. He comes back to doctor Jake Steed. The story opens up. He's in Charleston, he's hating academia. He needs an escape. Of course, he's fabulously wealthy, because you know that makes things so much easier, of course, and he gets on a sailboat and says, I am heading off to the Caribbean. And the story goes on from there and there's so there's piracy, there's some overtones of espionage from the British Espionage Services because there's a there's a British noble woman involved, and uh, there's friendships. There's Jake's old friend Mike Diaz from the Marine Corps is down doing things in the Caribbean. Are probably in the gray zone or part of the time. Sometimes he's working for himself, sometimes he's working for other organizations, organizations that don't that aren't afraid to drop a duffel bag of cash off if you drop things off of them, uh, right, kind of thing. And the story goes on, and it's interesting because it's a story about searching not only for Jake's own legacy, in his family's own pirate legacy, but also this royal diamond that a damsel in distress and help finding. So that's all I should say.
00:43:04
Speaker 2: And that is coming out around March seventeenth. So you know that will be available basically on your website, right, we'd have to go to Jack McTavish dot com.
00:43:14
Speaker 3: No, it's on Amazon, knpicked Audible, the great Tucker Smith, who is a retired judge from South Carolina as my narrator. It'll be available on Ingram Sparks, so if you're a school or a library or an independent bookstore, you can buy it there, and also Barnes and Nobles dot com. So I really tried to spread out the availability of it.
00:43:38
Speaker 2: So it has a UPC code on the back of the book that can be scanned at these places. Right, it does, Yeah, and that is what helps it kind of like show that you've had these sales to like get up on the rankings, right.
00:43:49
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, And let me tell you as an as an Indie, as an Indian writer, right, the author those reviews me and everything. So if you if you get a chance to buy a book, and if you're buying it online and tonight is just kicked in, it's like this sound of freedom. If if you get a chance to purchase one of my books, if you would bless me about doing that, and then you could leave a review, that.
00:44:16
Speaker 2: Would be hugely helpful, especially on the Amazon, the Barns and Nobles, the Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. So I'm not going to say who the author is, but I'm going to give you a freebie and you can tell me if you can choose this or not in your life. So you carry your book with you and if you go to the airport, you go to the bookstore that usually has like all the best sellers, you know, like Jack Cars out there, He's like, hey, I signed one, it's here on the shelf, come and get it right. But you go there and say your book is you know, not on the shelf. Well, you pull your book out of your bag that has a UPC and you have them scan it as if you want to buy it, and you might have to pay for your own book because it'll ring up with a UPC in their system as out of stock and that they need to re stock because you are buying the last I heard a rumor.
00:45:06
Speaker 3: Well, you know what's interesting is my brother gets on a plane every Monday and travels uh huh the country every single week and will say hip broke.
00:45:15
Speaker 2: So you kind of got to say, yeah, I want to get this book right here, let's see what I got. Mission like, I want this book. They just scan the back of it and just go beep and they're like, oh, let me see why that's not pulling up in the system. They do a little typing, find the price of it whatever, and then it says out of stock because they're buying the last one.
00:45:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's crazy. It's funny, you know. You look, you'll see guys like post stuff on Instagram where they're traveling through kardas this all the time, where he'll roll through an airport and you know they'll just come in. They'll just sign a bunch of books and leave them there for people to people to find. And I mean, what a what a cool thing like you know, hey, I'm have to fly out to LA for a business meeting and I'm looking for something to read and you pick up a Jack Car book and a crap, look, it's son, that's fantastic.
00:45:57
Speaker 2: Thanks for reading a book Jack or something, you know, whatever he wants to write. And that, right, it's that I see him do that on his install quite a bit. And yes, and so like you know, that's just like a thing I heard. You know, authors that are traveling do. I'm just telling you right, how to get your book on that shelf. It's tough. There's it's placement, right, we know that it's it's tough. Like you said, it's hard to get a publicist. I'm not trying to say that everything is easy. You get on the show, you get on software radio, and you have like just huge people hitting you up. It's like you are working to get yourself out there, you know, and hoping that. I think self published is cool. I did.
00:46:43
Speaker 3: I really do too. Now that I've committed to it, I am fully committed to it.
00:46:50
Speaker 2: It's like an indie band doing their own thing and just like producing themselves and everything they did was all from their own hide. So they have nothing to they have everything to lose, you know, so it's like, so they're going to overwatch it.
00:47:02
Speaker 3: Yet it's it's part of the American dream for me, you know, be able to build a small business on your own. And you know, and you know, like I said earlier, you know, if I have heard that some dude was reading my book on the top of a combat, I mean, that would be a great out, you know, a great honor. But you know, the communities that I've been able to associate with in the past, you know, the Special Operations community, the intelligence community, the you know, all of all of that, I want to write stories that honor those people. I'm not afraid to put the fun out of me either, but.
00:47:37
Speaker 2: Right now, but I want to honor it.
00:47:38
Speaker 3: And and I'm with those communities especially to enjoy reading these books.
00:47:44
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that. And you know, there's always a place here at soft Rep if you ever wanted to like put something up on the website or share some of that or anything, look at doing that. You know, if you ever thought about it. It's just something if you have stuff scripted already and you want to share it on soft rep, know insights into your world or hey, you know, you know you're going Jack's going to be traveling to someplace to do a book tour. Why would we not want to support you, you know, put it out there. So if anything comes up like that and you're trying to hustle and you need some extra hustle behind you, hit up us. My guy actually his name is Guy, he's my editor. Yeah, he would probably love to see, you know, share some of your stuff on our website. No problem, you know, yeah exactly. And when this comes out, anybody listening or watching, thanks for watching. Blow your kiss, but anybody listening blow your kiss. Anybody out there, just you know, if you buy the book. When you buy the book, leave a comment where you bought it at and just say, hey, you know, give feedback. Authors are going to go read it. And it also helps to bring their book in the algorithm up more so that it can be then found a little easier to help these guys offset you know, doing this, Like you said, you're operating a business. You're now transitioning from tactical to practical. Okay, so you're bringing that and I find out like the Caprice Son, you know, the drink I love to call that tactical to practical. You know, it's like a NASA thing that became a school lunch. Okay, it's like tactical to practical. Tang Tang Tang was made for astronauts, and the Tang is now in our household. Well, it was household name in the eighties and nineties.
00:49:30
Speaker 3: You know, it's crazy. If you're a gen X or not excited about Artemis two, I don't know what's wrong with you. Oh, I mean, I'm stoked. I'm like, I mean, I'm not like really, I've never really been a big sci fi guy other than you know, Startik Troopers, which I've probably bought multiple dozens of copies for and given out to other like officers and leaders in the military.
00:49:50
Speaker 2: Read this this Spiders are coming, Aliens are coming.
00:49:55
Speaker 3: Well, I mean more so. I mean, if you want to look at the transition from private soldier to noncommissioned officer to officerfreaking read this book, dude. It's fantastic. But yeah, it's kind almost my train fall a little bit.
00:50:10
Speaker 2: No Artemis too, It's what it is.
00:50:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, it's so exciting, like for our generation. You know, I'm going to remember you. Of course, the Challenger disaster, which was cool, right, but but also being a kid, you know, watching blasting off the dang moon and walking on the moon and love it.
00:50:26
Speaker 2: Are you were you alive during that? Was that something that was in your lifetime? Or is that history to you? The moon landing?
00:50:33
Speaker 3: Uh, it was funny.
00:50:34
Speaker 4: If you ask my oldest dollars, she's like, it never happened. Oh right, well you conspiracy theories, but let's just say it happened. Let's just yes, we believe it happened. Yes, yes, yes, I'm sure it did.
00:50:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, definitely. I think I can't remember what day it was that Armstrong walked walked on the moon, but it was. But it was in sixty nine.
00:50:54
Speaker 2: I believe, in the year of your birth and the year of my birth.
00:50:57
Speaker 3: And I remember being a kid, like you know, kid models and plastic models. I was just like, it's so cool.
00:51:05
Speaker 2: So yeah, I just remember watching Challenger, you know, I was in school, but then I came home and it was on TV all the time. It was like replaying over and over, and I remember just sitting there watching the you know, the shuttle going up and just dissipating and coming back down in pieces and there was just a teacher. I remember she was like a teacher and it was such a big deal. You know that it was a civilian that was going up in space, and you know, we want to believe that that's the final frontier space. You know, I mean, who knows, right, wild Yeah, we're finding planets between our planets. Man, It's like what we thought was is you know, it's crazy, right. And and for those out there that have a conspiracy about the Earth being flat, I just want you to look at like a diagram of the Sun, which is round, right, we agree on that, right, and then like Pluto and Mercury and Uranus and everything's round, and then Earth's flat? Right? Is that right? Think about it for a Second's want you to think about that. Okay, come on now, come on now. I'm still stretching from boxing this morning. Bro. I went out and hit that gym up. Dude. We did non stop ones and twos on the bag, fillling it right in that left shoulder right there. It's like, oh, bro, you know, a minute twenty on the bag multiple times. I love it. It's good for the heart. Yeah, good for you, thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm proud to have had you on the show today. You know, we've talked for like an hour. You know, we've just been back and forth banter like that, dude, And you're great.
00:52:35
Speaker 3: And I really appreciate the interview. I mean, I really do it. It's I mean, this is not my comfort zone, but I've really enjoyed it.
00:52:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I hope that's a little different than what a lot of interviews are like. You know, I'm just like, hey, you tell me what's going on. How are you doing? You know, are you doing well? You need a pat on the back, because a you should get a pat on the back for your service to our country. Thank you for so many selfless years of you know, doing the right thing and being a respiratory therapist and helping people and being empathetic. Being a colonel totally cool, going back to basic training with a colonel on your shoulder.
00:53:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, crazy things happen, you know.
00:53:16
Speaker 2: You know, to go from having to salute a cardboard box with a colonel on it to being a colonel, you know what I'm saying.
00:53:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was. I was pretty lucky, you know. I mean, sure, I've got to a rank that a lot of people don't get as an officer, but I'm proudly it's fine. One the things, you know, I retired from the Army's Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, and they were still on jump status back then, so you know, I made my last parachute jump as a colonel. But one of my favorite things to do, you know, as a as a medical provider was actually go out walk around the drop zone with a with an ad bag on my back doing jump coverage.
00:53:56
Speaker 2: We love that.
00:53:57
Speaker 3: Because you know, like some duple land is, you know, like you know, you know, you walk over and you check them out. Hey man, you all right, and they look up and they're like, shit, I thought you were a specialist. Oh oh no, yeah, no, I'm fine. Like just it's like just doing it for the love of the game, just just being out there. I mean, if you asked me, at the one thing I missed the most about the Army, it's doing things like that, being out on the DZ and hanging out with other people doing it, you know, watching the drop, controlling the drop.
00:54:27
Speaker 2: I'm sure in the field, I'm sure in the office you're a colonel, I'm sure you earn that rank. But in that drop zone at that moment, you're you're a buddy that's like got the skill set to make sure that they're good. You know.
00:54:39
Speaker 3: It's like I pretty much had a fifty mile and I had no salute area around me.
00:54:44
Speaker 2: I would imagine I'd imagine my dad growing up in the Green Berets. They rarely ever saluted anybody around. They were all first name basis.
00:54:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd rather operate that.
00:54:53
Speaker 2: Way, you know. And I love that, and and and I hope you much success with your your books and your your storylines, and and I love the artwork. So congratulations on a great looking book. I look forward to having it, you know, in my local airport. Yeah, because it's now in stock Okay, David Brown, if you're watching this for some reason, let me just point over here to my man. Okay. And uh, I don't know if it's appropriate for me to create an email for us three, but I could always like say, hey, I want inroduce you to a friend of mine. I don't know where it could go, but have a nice day, you know, there is something like that. And again, if you want to come back on the show, if you want to put anything on our website, Colonel dude, sir, you're more than welcome to do so.
00:55:35
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'd love if you're listening and you're not following your at Jack mctavia's adventures on Instagram. I would love to have you as a follower.
00:55:45
Speaker 2: And yeah, and that's at Jack mc tavish.
00:55:49
Speaker 3: Jack McTavish, m A C T A v I s H Adventures on Instagram. And I would just love to have you all follow me.
00:55:57
Speaker 2: Okay, well, before I let you go, let's see how fast I can do that. Hold on one second here, Let's see if we can do it this quick. Hold on one moment, let's see you here. So we're gonna look up Jack McTavish, j A c K m A C t a v I s H mc tavish adventures. You got a blue check mark, legit follow. I am now following. It took me less than like a minute to do that, and you can do it too. That's what's up. I just did, so feel free to follow back. And if you don't like what I'm posting on followed. But you know it's that easy, so go follow Jack Jack McTavish adventures at Instagram. Check out Jack McTavish dot com, where you can definitely get his book when it comes out. Check out all the other places where you can find quality books, including your airport. Let's hope it's there. And Jack again, you're welcome back to the show. And thanks for being a very cool, humble, bass playing rock and roll author, doctorate of everything dude.
00:56:58
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
00:57:00
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, You're so awesome, and again on behalf of everybody here at soft Rep. Brandon Webb, calum My, producer, Gia, behind the scenes, you know, Logan out there, you're hustling, Logan, thank you so much, and Xander and everybody that posts up all the time, and guy you know, thanks so much for being there and believing in me to host this and letting me interview guys like Jack, which just make me a better person. So thanks again and be half of everybody else. This is rad saying peace.
00:57:43
Speaker 1: You've been listening to your self. Rep Lady
Speaker 1: Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're listening to soft web Radio Special Operations, Military Nails on straight talk with the guys in the community.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: Hey, what's going on? This is rad your host for soft Rep Radio. All right, welcome back to another wonderful episode today, and if you're new, thanks for taking the time to click on the link and join me. Obviously you see who my guest is on the title. But before I introduce you to him, let me talk about the merch. So we have soft rep dot com Forward slash merch and you go check out the merch store. Lots of cool items in there that you could pick up. Wear it around town, tag me on social media. I love to reshare it. And if you're you know, a repeat offender of the program, thank you for coming back and being intrigued by us and who we bring on to the show in the way that only we can here at softwap Radio number two, soft rep dot Com Forward slash book hyphen Club. So the book club. We love books. I love to read. We all like to read. I talk to authors all the time. I get book sent and I got to read some of those things I was never a reader, but I've become one, and so it just helps grow my brain to be stronger and a strong muscle in my skull, which is where you know, that's where it matters right up in here. So read a book. Go check out the book club at soft rep dot com, Forward Slash book hyphen Club. Now I have Jack McTavish here, okay, and he is an author. Let's call him that first, former military, Let's call him that second, because it was what he was. Now he is full on author. He's got great art on his books. And I'm going to introduce you to him. Let me read just a little bit about Jack, retired military officer, action adventure and espionage writer. I love it the background on Jack. Jack McTavish is a retired United States Army colonel and the author of high stakes action adventure novels and military and political thrillers. With more than thirty six years of service in the US Army and Army Reserve, his fiction is grounded in real world experience without sacrificing pace, atmosphere, or entertainment. His career spanned airborne special operations, joint environments, including assignments supporting US Army Special Operations Command and US Special Operations Command. His work took him across Afghanistan, Korea, Haiti, Central and South America, and the Middle East. He has also supported missions within the intelligence community as a contractor. And today he brings that world to the page through stories defined by competence, consequence, loyalty, and adventure. And today we're going to just crack out his new book that he's got coming out called Royal Diamonds. And so welcome to the program.
00:03:06
Speaker 3: Awesome, Hey Rah, how's it going. Thanks, thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.
00:03:11
Speaker 2: Well. I love that you jumped on and I said, hey, I like to strike fast. You're like, let's get on the show and boom off we go running dude. And so here we are today, you know, becoming friends. I love all the things on the backgrounds. I like the fallout shelter logo that you have on your wall, and I love the warning you know, bonding rangers something, don't cross this path. You have some really cool vibes going on. Welcome to the show.
00:03:32
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you very much. It's funny the I mean, I mean, I'm a gen xer. I assume you probably are too. Yeah, the fallout shelter just reminds me of being an elementary.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: School me junior high. My dad was a Green Beret and he had an armory at the junior high school that he ran, and in that was a fallout shelter, which nobody really saw at school except for me, because I would go in with the guys. We'd go downstairs see the shooting range. The fallout shelter there was always locked off to the regular students. You know, how do they get in there in a fallout?
00:04:01
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think I remember seeing a clockwork orange or just a little piece of it when I was a kid, and oh my gosh, that was scared.
00:04:11
Speaker 2: You want to know, you want to know something about Clockwork Orange and me that I have in common. I started a movie with Malcolm McDowell, who is the main character in Clockwork Orange. Yeah, we did a Stephen King movie called fire Starter together and I played the dad Andy McGee to the fire Starter, and so he plays the evil Rainbird in the novel in the in the in the one that we did, there's a first one with Drew Barrymore and David Keith, and then there's a second one, which is me and Malcolm McDowell, and then there's a third one with Zach. He's super high, he's on Baywatch and he's in high school musical. Zach Efron plays, Yeah, so he plays, So I'm in good company. It's me, Zach Efron and David Keith as the dad for fire Starter. I mean, you know what I say. That's so funny you say Clockwork Orange because there's a story that Malcol told me when he If you saw the whole movie Clockwork Orange, he's sitting in the theater and he's being like brainwashed by this movie, and he has his eyes peeled open with this device on his head, and there's an actual optometrist next to him, dripping drops actually in his eyes so they would not dry out from having them stretched open. He told Stanley Kubrick, I would I'm never going to do that again. Yeah, I had no idea. It scratched his retinas, it did all these things to him. And then if you watch Clockwork Orange, there's another take and he had to do it a second time. As you can tell, he's just hate pissed. Yes, he just doesn't want to be in it. In the thing that opens his eyes. So funny you mentioned clockwork orange impacting you. I had to bring that up.
00:05:44
Speaker 3: It's kind of funny. And I don't want to give too much into movies, but did you did you see the recent show that talked about the making of the Godfather.
00:05:58
Speaker 2: No, I haven't.
00:05:58
Speaker 3: It's fantastic, dude. I think it's on I think it's on Amazon. I love The Godfather. And heads up because two books from now it is going to be Cuba, the Cia, and the Mafia.
00:06:08
Speaker 2: I saw that on your website.
00:06:10
Speaker 3: So stoked about that. But the scene where Michael reaches up behind that old look, that old fashioned toilet to find a gun to shoot the mobster of getting in the crooked Irish cop, they had shifted around the gun. He didn't know where it was. So when he's like fumbling around her, that's real. He's like, shit, where's the gun. So and I just saw that scene on TV again the other night, and I was like, oh wow, it's cool. Movie stuff asson me.
00:06:38
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, a little little little easter eggs like that, right, it's like test, you know. Yeah. And and and fire Starter. I was filming it and the girl that's my daughter, she blows everything up and the director's like, hey, Rad, I'm all, what's that Rob. He's like, we need you to slap her in this scene, right, And she's like eight and nine years old, maybe ten sky and I was like, I looked at her. She's like, I can take it. I was like, I looked at the director. I looked at her again, and I was like, well, we'll just we'll mock it, you know. But she's like, go ahead, slap me across the face. I was like. We both looked at each other like for a moment, maybe I should for realism, but that no, so we blocked it out. It looks great. You see me in the movie and go go watch fire Starter. I know this is all about me today. No no, no, no, no, it's about Jack. Jack. So many years my father's name was Jack. What a great name. Jack is also the name of the guy in Cloak and Dagger who I looked up to as also my dad because he had a beret and the silhouette of him walking out of the fire at the end of the movie of Cloak and Dagger. Jack. He's such a great name. Colonel just I want you to know that, mad respect.
00:07:45
Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:07:46
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, Yes, sir, So when you were joining the military, let's just crack you open. You were how old when you decided, Hey, this is my goal.
00:07:56
Speaker 3: I was seventeen and six weeks.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: And you enlisted as a young man in high.
00:08:04
Speaker 3: School or what I did. So I went to my parents signed the papers for me. I joined the Maryland National Guard, first the twenty ninth Late Infantry Division Light and I joined initially as a medic, which is honestly the best thing I ever did. But I was probably one of the youngest guys in my basic training class.
00:08:26
Speaker 2: I'm sure. Yeah. When I was in I was twenty one and I met a seventeen year old and I said, how did you know to be so driven at seventeen. I'm an older dude at this point, and I was called grandpa.
00:08:35
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I love looking, you know, at fifty seven. I love looking back at that. Something happened forty years ago now, and you know it was weird as nineteen eighty six. It was the Cold War. My drill sergeant Staff Sergeant HEROLDO Padro Moore. You know, I still I wish I could meet the guy today and say this is what I ended up doing. It's interesting. I actually took care of my infantry company commander, or sorry, my basic training company commander retired as a colonel as well, and I actually ended up taking care of his daughter as a patient A bunch of years later. I think I was I think I was a lieutenant colonel then, but I was like, I saw the name and I was like, is your dad so and so? And she's like, oh yeah. I'm like, oh my gosh, she was my Basic Training company commander. But it was just it was a great experience, and it you know, my family has a large military history. My dad's a marine, My youngest brother's a marine, My youngest nephew is marine. My oldest nephew is getting ready to be a naval intelligence officer. My middle brother is a paratrooper. I spent thirty six years, all of my uncles, everybody spends time as the military. Nobody other than me makes it a career, but or at least chapter one of her career, because hopefully I'll have a long, long writing career. Yeah, but it it's just kind of part of what the family does. It's part of the family business. And man, you know, I got off the bus at for Dick's New Jersey. Funny story. I went back as a colonel to help run an exercise, probably half a dozen years ago, maybe longer. And I go to the I'm like, well, let me drive around, because now I can drive around and I'm not a private. You won. And I found the old reception station and I looked across the field and that's where my basic training place was. But as a young private, they loaded my bud on a cattle car, drove me around for like, you know, an hour or two hours whatever. It was all around for Dicks, and I was like, holy cow, this is the biggest place I've ever seen. This place is a ginormous And then in my fifties, I go back and I look into my reception Ah shit, there's where I went to basic training. Across the field, right. They just made you have the story and it was crazy.
00:10:56
Speaker 2: They just drove you around, seen year old kid.
00:10:59
Speaker 3: I was like, my gosh, the army is huge. It was. It was it was an interesting mind game.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: I just remember the orange lights in San Antonio. It was like foggy orange lights. You're getting off the bus and you're just like humidity and I'm like, this is where mold grows. Like, yeah, it was.
00:11:16
Speaker 3: It was cool. I mean, you know so, I mean I finished, I went to boot camp between a junior and senior years of high school, and then came back and finished high school, came back to football camp, and like the best shape that I probably could have done that at that point, which is great. You know, finished high school, graduated high school, went down to the medic course at for Sam, came back, joined my unit. It was a light infantry company in the second Battalion, one fifteenth Infantry the Maryland National Guard, and I just loved it. I mean initially I started out as just you know, like a regular rifle platoon medic and then very quickly like they're like, hey, this kid's okay, we'll let them work with the scouts. So I ended up being a scalplotoon medic and you know, and very quickly I was like, you know, this is cool. And I made PFC and I made specialist and you know, I thought I was the you know all that, and got into ROTC and I mean from there, you know, my love kicked up. You know, I mean, next next thing, you know, I'm going to jump school when Aerossault School and went to Northern Warfare School as a cadet, and you know, I just loved it, and then very quickly got commissioned and headed off down to the eighty second.
00:12:26
Speaker 2: What was your degree medical? Was it a medical degree as well?
00:12:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my my undergraduate degree is in respiratory therapy, okay, and so but I never really did it. And my undergraduate degree in college should have been pre army because most of the time I was doing ROTC stuff. And then, uh, you know, I graduated uh college, went off to the eighty second, spent about three years down there, and decided that I wanted to practice medicine. So and at the time, you know, I didn't think I was smart enough I am, but ended up decided to go to physician assistant school. So I went to PA school with wake Forest and graduated from there and done a lot of emergency medicine and emergency general surgery since then, and that's great, and a bunch of other stuff.
00:13:13
Speaker 2: You know. I had a friend he passed away a little bit ago. His name's Jim Johnson. He was a general and he was over the eighty second airboard I think, yeah, during those Yeah, we'd email all the time up until it was passing, and he'd always listened to the show and be like, Ran, I love your show today, and I'm like, hey, I thanks, General.
00:13:30
Speaker 3: I think Jim Johnson was the division commander. I think he was the division commander. And now I'm drawing a blank when his name started with an S. He ended up being Chairman of the Joint cy Staff and I can't I'm so embarrassed. I can't remember his name.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: Happens all the time I interviewed hundreds of people.
00:13:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he was. He was the commander. I think a couple of commanders for my time in the eighty seconds.
00:14:01
Speaker 2: So that's very cool, very cool and uh and cool legacy to go through the eighty second. Right, I'm all American, absolutely, you know aa lt w right, Yeah, I love that. Well airborne to you, that's awesome. Hey, do you have a close call being airborne? Like jumping out? Was there ever like a static line that went almost upside down on you?
00:14:24
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I did get a concussion on the jump once it was out on nine Megan drop zone.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: I was.
00:14:32
Speaker 3: I had gone to jump Master school, was a second lieutenant and uh, you know and it became like my additional duty. I was jump mastering all the time, but I don't know what happened. I did a feat butt head PLF and swhacked the back of my head and it was like a little man went like I felt like the shock and it was like a little man like went from my fingertips all the way after my brain turning off all the ways one by one, and it was just kind of closed in. And the next thing I know, I'm waking up and some dudes coming by on the next pass like yelling down at me, Hey, dude, are you okay? I mean, that was like crazy. So I kind of shook it off back to my parachute, stood up and walk back. And then I wondered, this is before I went, you know, to grad school. I was like, I never went and got a checked in. I was like, why the hell do I have this headache? For the next six weeks, I had had a postconcussion post concustom headache.
00:15:21
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, TB. I that's a call that a TBI. Yeah, great, traumatic brain injury. Yeah. So, and definitely, especially when you're coming down landing. A PLF is a prepared landing fall parachuting parachute landing fall, so you have to go feet knees and then you roll with it and flop over.
00:15:37
Speaker 3: But you would also the feet cats, plodocks, push up muscle, you know, if you if you're being chim master dogmatic about.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: It, but you missed those middle parts and just went like feet button head, Yes, exactly.
00:15:50
Speaker 3: No.
00:15:50
Speaker 2: I saw a guy get picked up at one of my dad's jumps. He was a Halo guy, just a small uh, you know, small dude on the team, a little dude, and he was all coming down, everyone was all watching him, and then all of a sudden, he it's almost like twenty feet off the ground and the wind picked him up and just dropped him right onto his I saw my dad and his guys run out onto the tarmac so fast. I just that's a normal day growing up with you know, the guys on the teams in my life. It's like, yeah, you know, being able to get tot along and jump off picnic tables with him. We would be like, oh, get up there, a little rad here, go ahead, jump off the picnic table with us. I'm like, yeah, can you put me in your backpack your rucksack? Yeah, So my dad would always take a baseball because I love baseball and he loved to train me, and he would always take a baseball wherever he went on deployment. So I have baseballs and ziplock bags that are all shlacked with him written on him, like jump nineteen eighty six, jumped into Florida swamps. Yeah, things like that. Yeah, I love, yes, love that. Did you ever do anything like that?
00:16:48
Speaker 3: I've got a I have a flag. It's actually on the other side of the room in my little retirement shadow box. But it was my it was my uncle Charles. My uncle Charles, Uncle Chuck was a it was almost like a certain strong man. That dude was strong. But he was in World War Two in Italy. And I don't know how it came into my possession, but it did. And I took it to Afghanistan with me. I think I took it to Haiti like in the early nineties when they're a steam you got put back in power. I've taken it like on every trip with me, everywhere, and I've kind of written in on it, you know, in black Shark. I love that you know where all it's going and and it's got I mean, it's dirty and messy and it's got rips in it, but it's folded up and it's when I retired. I retired it and put it in the shadow box.
00:17:37
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that. That's awesome, and so I love that you can write your novels based off of all of these types of experiences. I mean, you know what it's like to hook up and shuffle up and do this honk honk, and you know, you do the whole door everything, and you know a lot of booty slapping going on there, you know, like get out the door. So you can bring that to your books. Yeah, I love that. My dad would love those books. He loved Tom Clancy because of the detail of the Navy ships and stuff. You know, my dad was Navy before he went Green Beret, and so he would read it with He liked the detail and like knowing that.
00:18:13
Speaker 3: You know that, I've got a first edition Naval Press Hunt for Red October behind me.
00:18:19
Speaker 2: On the bookshelf. Totally, we're just talking gen x, okay. I mean Dad would read that in bed, going to sleep at night. And then the movie came out with Sean Connery. We went and saw it and he left the theater. I thought it was great. I was like, oh yeah, you know Alet Balldwin Sean Connery, he's a Russian, you know, talks like a Spaniard from Highlander. But at the end of the day, I'm like, that's how a Spaniard talks, Dad Russian. So I mean he was kind of sad that it wasn't exactly how he thought in his mind. But you know, when you read a book, it takes you away, it takes you into what you wanted to kind of you know, how is the sunset in your mind? You know on the beach when the guy rides into the sunset, you know, in a book, but when you see somebody say, oh, well, I think the sunsets caught and candy, like, well, mine is more orange and blood red, you know.
00:19:08
Speaker 3: Like that has been one of the hardest things that I've had to learn as a writer. You know, I don't have an English degree, but far and I you know, as I've worked with you, I've worked with an editor, and I learned a lot. I feel like it's almost like another graduate degree, right, So, learning how to trust the reader and let them form their own like like I don't need to tell you, this guy's pissed off. I need to show it to you through action and learning how to do that has been one of the hardest things and I still struggle with it as a writer.
00:19:44
Speaker 2: I mean.
00:19:46
Speaker 3: One of the other hardest things being a writer is learning how to edit, you know, and go back through. And there's a process called killing off your darlings. You know, like you write this one sentence, you're like, this is the best sentence ever, and you're like, man, this totally does nothing to support right to worry, So you got to cut it.
00:20:03
Speaker 2: That's why you hire an editor to cut your finger off, because you'll never do it. But they'll be like, oh, you need your finger cut. You're like, wait, what should there been a moment of me to say goodbye? You're like, no, dude, it's got to go. You're like, but I could have done that. No.
00:20:17
Speaker 3: Never, that's when you you know, copy and paste it into another document of you know, darlings that you won't want to bring back.
00:20:24
Speaker 2: Sometimes right and revive that line and see if they pick it up in the next edit, like oh hey, you know that line got in there again. You'll get that line in one of your.
00:20:33
Speaker 3: Books book on another book in the future.
00:20:36
Speaker 2: Well, and the other thing. Let me jump over to your website real quick while we're chatting, and it's called Jack McTavish dot com. Very simple. You know, I'm looking at the artwork, you know, the Hawaiian shirt, the nice watch, the timepiece looks like he's rocking, maybe a Burretta. And I mean the dame that's on his back. It's like shoulder and shoulder. It's like, do you want these guys to be your real estate agents on the island? Yes, yes, I do, back to back real estate agents. You know I'm saying that that. I mean, it looks great, the airplane flying with the pontoons on it, you know, the whole thing. I just find that kind of art pleasing to my mind. It makes me want to involve myself in your books.
00:21:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love I love that kind of stuff. And you know one of the things with writing, like you can write like I treasure like Jack Carr and Brad Taylor and Mark Ranny and all these guys, and I think the world of them. You know, I've been able to have interactions with all of them. Actually, Mark Randy is going to be in Raleigh next week promoting this new book, The hard Line Love you know, love the technical detail and all that. And you know, of course Brad Taylor and Elane is well if they do so much good work with the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Of course Jack Carr, I mean that guy is like the professor you look at, always repid, be able to bring you know, it's like built this whole ecosystem around his writing, which you know, foundation is very good. You know. You know their books are all were pretty serious and my books are not quite as serious. And I like that because I want to give somebody you know, I've been to war of practice medicine for a long time. You know, all had our personal tragedies in life and that kind of thing. And I man, I want people to be able to escape for a night or two while they're reading my books and just have fun. There's espionage, there's danger, there's things like that, but I want peop oh yeah, but I want people to just have pure, unadulterated fun while they're reading. And that's that's kind of that's one of my goals as a writer.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: You know, as a writer, I think you'd like to hear this. I had a gentleman on that I interviewed Kyle Steiner, former Green Beret Army Uh. He was it with Streppo and Afghanistan. He was one of the documentary guys that were in that unit. And I was talking to him on our interview and I said, well, did the pilots ever like you They always brought you supplies and mortars and stuff up to your outpost on top of rostrepo because it's a hump, did they ever like kick you down something like outside the you know outside like he's like, as a matter of fact, Dad, they gave us licky and chewies is what he called them. But he's like, but books. The pilots would open up and say, hey, here's a couple they tossed down a bag and inside the bag with some books. Because these guys are sitting on top of this point of this, you know. Yeah, and he said, just toiling our thumbs, you know. And we'd get these books and they would just like fill us all day long with just thoughts of the book, you know. And I find that to be what you're saying, something that's just going to pull you in and maybe take you out for a moment, you know, like.
00:23:41
Speaker 3: Let me tell you I'm kind I'm kind of an EmPATH, so which is maybe why I do medicine. But if I ever heard that some some kid was reading one of my books in a combat outpost, it would be the greatest honor I'd ever have his writer.
00:23:55
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, right right? And to know that they cherish the books at an outpost. So if you're a pilot out there and you're flying a drop to the outpost, taking them a book, okay to you, I tell you what you know, really really just hit up jack right here. And if you're open, oh without a doubt, you know. And it's it's just cool to hear that from the guy on the ground, you know, he's just like we were happy to get books.
00:24:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how I started reading Louis lok Moore was in the military in Afghanistan there or Louis the more books like everywhere. Like there was this one chapel that I used to go to for church and there's a bunch of books that are always kind of lined up there and you'd go in on Louis Lamoor's and just kind of burned through them. Was fantastic, loved it.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: Did you always have the inclination to journal when you're a young man growing up or writing like this. Just college kind of turns you into a writer with dissertations and.
00:24:53
Speaker 3: Uh, definitely not, definitely not. I mean I've got a doctor and you know, actually did that while I was writing the book that I wrote before Royal Diamonds. They're not those two are published. Gen Now, I've always been a reader. And my mom was a teacher when I was growing up, and the summertimes she would teach ged classes for the UH for like the Maryland and State Highway Administration.
00:25:22
Speaker 2: Guilty Guilty, I have a g ed guilty she was.
00:25:26
Speaker 3: She would drop me off at the library and that's where my babysitter was all day. I remember being in like fifth or sixth grade reading Raised the Titanic, you know, by Clift Ship and uh and just and just history book after history book. There's this one section of the elementary school that I went to, and you know, it's just they had all these great books like George Washington, Pactor, Henry Thomas Jefferson, you know, Ben Franklin, you know Theodore Roosevelt. Just in it's like seriously, and I would read every single one of them and and and just love that. So I've always carried that love reading with me. And then you know, when I was on active duty, I got turned onto web Griffin is probably my all time favorite writer. I've read the Core series probably fifteen times. I've read The Brotherhood of Arms, the Army series probably an additional fifteen times. I've got every one of them in hardback, and and and my my friend Jack still working for my book, just wrote direct Action, which is which is the latest book for the Web Griffin The State of Course. You know, great Griffin died a few years ago, but yeah, I love doing that. And then you know, I've just gotten turned onto newer authors and older authors. And as crazy as I've as I've started writing, I read, you know, like I listened to Jack car talking about Frederick forsythe and I'm like, oh, holy crap, but I've never read The Dogs of War.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: I better read it, you know, yeah, dogs will?
00:26:52
Speaker 3: You know. Nelson to Mill has quickly become one of my favorite writers. And you know, I like his general I hate to say smart assid this, but some of his characters can be that one and I love it.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: So yeah, like the.
00:27:07
Speaker 3: Cuban Affair is one of my favorite books ever.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: Mine is The Babe Ruth Story. One of my favorite books. I found myself in ninth grade, seventh grade, ninth grade. I couldn't put it down. I'd walk through the halls reading the book. I turned the page. I loved baseball so much, and I was just reading about this young boy who was just kind of like overweight but could slug the ball. And I was like, I can maybe relate a little bit to him at that time, and you know, and just to know that he became Babe Ruth from an orphanage and everything. Yea, you know there's I love the Babe Ruth Story. That's a book that has resonated as well as this one called The Darkest White, which is about a pro snowboarder, Craig Kelly, who was taken in an avalanche years ago and a friend of a friend, Eric Blem he's the editor for Transworld Snowboarding. He wrote the whole thing because he was a friend of Craig's. And those types of books really kind of hit you where you know, you're like snowboard, I know the terrain. I know what The Darkest White is going to be. It's you know, suffocation of the most it's a lame way. Yeah, it's an avalanche. It's a bad way to go, you know, and there's nothing to do when you have all these trees and boulders and you know, blocks of ice that are just rolling normally for that, but you're in the way. You know, it's like what do you do? So the books like that just point I'm emotional for her right now just talking about it. It's like, you know, that's what a book, a good book can do that.
00:28:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's definitely you know that escape. And one thing that I like about thriller writers and almost everyone that have come in contact with it, you usually go to a thriller conference Thriller First Up in New York in the year. It's such a it seems like it's such a non competitive environment because you know, we spend an entire year, year plus writing a novel and you're going to read it, you know, hopefully, if we did our job right, you're going to read it overnight and like wake up this morning feeling like you need to call him, stick to work. I mean, that's like that's the goal. So I'm not gonna I'm not going to be competing with you know, Jack Stewart for readers ship. You don't read my book on a Monday and read his on a you know, probably the previous week, because he's a bit much bigger writer. You know that's fantastic.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you have are you self published or do you have? You are?
00:29:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's and I'll tell you getting getting an agent is hard. I mean, I've I've worked through the process and I've got a I've got a book called Tales from the Caribbean that I'm I finished it. I'm just going to go through some final weddits and then I want to go out on the query process and try to get in front of some more agents again and we'll see if that one bites. It's it's hard, but the flip side of it is and this has been another kind of neat part about the process is learning the business and kind of viewing writing not as just I'm a writer, let me write a book, but as a business. And it's very much how I look at it. You know, it's a brand, the Jack mctabish brand I've I've built. I was never on social media before I started writing.
00:30:13
Speaker 2: I love the name Okay, Jack McTavish follow that.
00:30:18
Speaker 3: Yes, So you know, I mean I've built a social media following. You know, I've got some seven thousand plus followers now on my Instagram, which is fantastic. I like in a treasury in every one of those those uh those followers. But learning, you know, how to set up an LLC, learning, how to research, learning how to edit, learning, how to hire an editor, learning how to hire an artist to do the artwork for your your your product. I mean Corey, I mean I could never do my cover work, but Corey Club, who is a fantastic artist grn sure can. And you know Corey, I mean, bless as hard as he's the nicest guy in the world. He's got a The week that he delivered my cover to me, one of his covers was like plastered all over Times Square for another author. So I mean, I guess I hired the right guy. So yeah, I'm pretty pretty stoked about that.
00:31:15
Speaker 2: Once you're in that lane, sir, you find others in the lane with you that are going that same way, and it just starts to fall into place like a little domino effect.
00:31:24
Speaker 3: Right son, Even things like this, like learning how to schedule a podcast or reaching learning how to write an email to reach out, but hey, would you be interested? Like right now, I'm setting up stuff for you know, kind of a book tour for next month, and I mean it's hard, you know, I've had reached out to different bookstores and yeah, we might be able to get you in in July.
00:31:45
Speaker 2: Right. Whereas like a publicist or an agent would come in, like a Shiman and Schuster or whoever, and they they'd say, hey, okay, hey Jack, you're gonna go get on a plane, and your itinerary is kind of built out and they have a network out there that would help to alleviate that so you can stay focused on what you should be focused on, which is bringing your thoughts to the page.
00:32:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, but but I like kind of doing it all right now, and because I'm because I'm learning from and you know, hopefully, of course, hopefully one day I'll have David Brown, who's Jack carrs Bubblo says.
00:32:18
Speaker 2: Yah, know, I talked to Dave all the time.
00:32:21
Speaker 3: Is I met him in New York and he's just he's just really.
00:32:26
Speaker 2: Should see our emails. I'm like, bring me the author of Rambo. And he's like he's like, let me see. You know, those are just like the back and forth that I'm like, you know, he'll reach on, say hey, can Jack get on? Or you know we like brad Thor. David's great.
00:32:41
Speaker 3: You know, uh hey, next time you talk to him. I think I think I think he's a cool guy. Oh yeah, you know it's funny doctor doctor Morell, who which is how I prefer to prefer to him. But I got a chance to meet him at the last Thriller Fest and I had not I had not read First Blood, and I'm sorry, I hate to admit it, I had not read Violet. But you know, doctor Morrell wears a Rolex. He wears a Rolex submarine or that he's had since like about nineteen seventy seven or seventy eight, and then still goes out. He cuts grass in his Rolex, He chops wood in his Rolelex.
00:33:18
Speaker 2: His Rolex.
00:33:19
Speaker 3: And I was like, hey, sir, that's a really good watch. And if you look at my Instagram page, there's actually a photo where he and I are like watch checking each other. I was wearing a Tutor, so I was wearing a Tutor GMT. We started talking about watches and then he broke into this twenty minute class as me and Ryan pote. You know, Ryan wrote, let's see Ryan's dating what came out? One Treasure came out last year. And we're sitting there and we're talking to doctor Morrell and he just launches into this twenty minute class on setting a scene, and like, so first it's just me and Ryan, and then like two other people kind of come up, and like two more and before you know it, there's ten people sitting there and we're all listening to the great David Morrell talking about how to set a scene. And he's so freaking humble, one nice. I mean, just yeah, I could listen to the dude for hours.
00:34:13
Speaker 2: That's awesome. I'm just that's awesome, right, because I mean again, I grew up Rambo First Blood, Rambo First Blood Part two, Rambo First Blood Part three, Rambo First Blood Part four, and then Rambo The Home Alone ending Hey guys, I'm in here, don't come in here. We better, you know, but to have it go on and like just I mean, it's iconic, right, it was like whose knife was bigger his or Schwarzenegger's, right, It's like who had more kills? Schorzenega or Rambo. It's like, you know, we grew up in that generation. You know, Bro, It's like contra video game, Zelda Arnold Sylvester. You know, it's funny.
00:34:53
Speaker 3: I remember I remember having off I think for July fourth, when I was going through basic training and we got a break for a couple of hours, and I think somebody brought in a movie projector and I remember watching First Blood and I think, like another Rambo movie and maybe like another maybe it was a Schwarzenegger movie or something like that. It's like, wow, these are cool, but he's meat.
00:35:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and again you're dating yourself. I mean a projector, Bro, a film projector. You had to like line the film up in it, and sometimes it would start.
00:35:30
Speaker 3: I think it was like ACR or something.
00:35:34
Speaker 2: I was just doing. I do because I know about the projector too. I'm I'm forty eight. I'm a seventy seven. You're sixty seven, fifty seven? No, but you're you were born yeah, you know sixty nine, Summer sixty nine, Brian Adams, what's up? Rock and roll? Bro? Wow? Summer yeah, love, that's you. You came from that Mom and dad. Let's have Baby Jack. That's what they're like in sixty nine. Dude, that's so cool. Bro. Yeah, my dad was coming out of Vietnam. He was seventeen seventeen going to Vietnam, sixteen sixty nine. You were just coming out, you know, into life. Yeah, so cool, dude, You're so cool. So, like, what kind of music do you listen to?
00:36:14
Speaker 3: I was just curious, Well, yeah, I mean I love eighties rock. I love I guess you call it like divorced dad rock. You know, of course I love. I'm a huge Jimmy Buffett fan, Okay, I mean I am a huge parrot head when I was.
00:36:35
Speaker 2: I can only just say Pina Colada because, like, you know, if you like Pina Klada, Jimmy Buffett, right, you know, like just relate to the listener. Who Jimmy Buffett is. You know he sings that popular song. I won't sing it for you because you're not ride. The day after my oldest daughter's wedding or was it.
00:36:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I remember we were we went to the wedding and then the next morning we were going to the Outer Banks and just I just remember sweet sweet girl and I driving down the road to the Outer b it's just bawling her eyes out like oh Jimmy's. And it's finally it's funny because I finally understood like whatever I felt like when John Lennon died. Sure, you know that sort of thing. But yeah, I like rock. I love country music. I probably love bro country, you know Riley Green and all that. Actually, yeah, I actually played bass guitar and and acoustic guitar. So I love love contemporary Christian music. I've played that in worship bands for twenty years.
00:37:33
Speaker 2: Oh is that right? Yeah, so you're still rock in a band.
00:37:36
Speaker 3: So yeah, Yeah, still still play occasionally people, not not as much as I used to, but people still give me a call every now and then say, hey, we need a bass player this weekend, can you come fill in?
00:37:45
Speaker 2: You know, that's the first time I ever saw when I went to boot camp and we went to our Sunday church for the first time. I come from Utah, so our our faith was Mormon. Yeah, and we never had a drum set. Yeah, we had a piano, an organ. There was an organist. Sister so and so would play the organ, okay, or brother so and so. But when I went to boot camp, there was like Pentecostal, yeah, and other different types of religion that I had never seen before. And all of a sudden they're like drumming out and like rocking out and they're reaching for the sky. And I was like, oh, this is just what happened here. Yeah, this is another way too, you know, you know, worship exactly. Thank you for helping me there, and really eye opening, you know, coming from like kind of a bubble where you're just raised here and then you go to the army or the air force and you're like, what are what do you mean there's like seven different churches going on on the same day. What what are their other churches?
00:38:39
Speaker 3: It's an interesting it's an interesting the shift.
00:38:41
Speaker 2: And do nothing E supposed to it and I hadn't and so that that is interesting, you know. And so to hear that you play bass in that that's cool.
00:38:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's really it's really interesting because you know, sometimes when you're when you're playing, you can be i mean a really small intimates intimate studying with you know, candles and you know, solight and that sort of thing, or you know, sometimes you're on stage playing that kind of music with smoke machines, and lights and you know, rock and a big production things. So I love both cons.
00:39:13
Speaker 2: It's Colonel Rocker, doctor dude, sir.
00:39:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I've been really lucky. I've had a chance to see you and do a lot of kind of interesting things.
00:39:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. And now your author, you know, you've written some books and you've got this book coming out, Royal Diamonds. Now, tell us where this is going to take place and the setting behind Royal Diamonds and your thought process without giving away too much. Yea, and tell us a little bit about Royal Diamonds that's coming out that you've written.
00:39:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, fantastic. So you know, I live in the South. I love living in the South. I love South Carolina, love Charleston. And it's interesting because before even Royal Diamonds came about, I wrote two and a half more espionage military type novels that are probably more you know, car tailor and kind of their background with some leb gear from throwing in and like, yeah, they were doing good. But the guy I was working with was like, you know, he's like, I don't know if this is like the market's getting a little tired of espionage novels, you know, and shoots you in the face. Novels like okay, well sure, he goes. Can you write me an action adventure novel? I was like, man, what do you mean?
00:40:28
Speaker 2: Right?
00:40:30
Speaker 3: So I thought about it for a little while and I was like, you know, I was a little discouraged at first. I was like, man, I don't know if I can do this. I was like, hell, no, I can do this. So, you know, I just started outlining like an arc for a story, and I was like, well, what do I want to think about? You know, well, I love the concept of the thought of like blood diamonds and all the crap that went on in Africa and how they were used, you know, to come to fund insurgencies. And I love piracy, like the study of piracy and the golden age of I receipt and you know, and I like family relationships, like the kind of things that you see in a like in an older Web Griffin novel. I was like, how can I start weaving all that together? So so I was like, well, let me, let me come up with a character. And my character's name is Jake Steed and he's a he was a marine as a young guy, so I joined young he was he was not a Marine officer or high rank, and NCO, I think he was a lance corporal, and then I think a corporal I think is a terminal rank that I put on him. And he ends up getting hurt in Syria. So the core of the course says, well, you know what, we'll make some arrangements if you love history, and they send him off to Oxford for an education. He comes back to doctor Jake Steed. The story opens up. He's in Charleston, he's hating academia. He needs an escape. Of course, he's fabulously wealthy, because you know that makes things so much easier, of course, and he gets on a sailboat and says, I am heading off to the Caribbean. And the story goes on from there and there's so there's piracy, there's some overtones of espionage from the British Espionage Services because there's a there's a British noble woman involved, and uh, there's friendships. There's Jake's old friend Mike Diaz from the Marine Corps is down doing things in the Caribbean. Are probably in the gray zone or part of the time. Sometimes he's working for himself, sometimes he's working for other organizations, organizations that don't that aren't afraid to drop a duffel bag of cash off if you drop things off of them, uh, right, kind of thing. And the story goes on, and it's interesting because it's a story about searching not only for Jake's own legacy, in his family's own pirate legacy, but also this royal diamond that a damsel in distress and help finding. So that's all I should say.
00:43:04
Speaker 2: And that is coming out around March seventeenth. So you know that will be available basically on your website, right, we'd have to go to Jack McTavish dot com.
00:43:14
Speaker 3: No, it's on Amazon, knpicked Audible, the great Tucker Smith, who is a retired judge from South Carolina as my narrator. It'll be available on Ingram Sparks, so if you're a school or a library or an independent bookstore, you can buy it there, and also Barnes and Nobles dot com. So I really tried to spread out the availability of it.
00:43:38
Speaker 2: So it has a UPC code on the back of the book that can be scanned at these places. Right, it does, Yeah, and that is what helps it kind of like show that you've had these sales to like get up on the rankings, right.
00:43:49
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, And let me tell you as an as an Indie, as an Indian writer, right, the author those reviews me and everything. So if you if you get a chance to buy a book, and if you're buying it online and tonight is just kicked in, it's like this sound of freedom. If if you get a chance to purchase one of my books, if you would bless me about doing that, and then you could leave a review, that.
00:44:16
Speaker 2: Would be hugely helpful, especially on the Amazon, the Barns and Nobles, the Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. So I'm not going to say who the author is, but I'm going to give you a freebie and you can tell me if you can choose this or not in your life. So you carry your book with you and if you go to the airport, you go to the bookstore that usually has like all the best sellers, you know, like Jack Cars out there, He's like, hey, I signed one, it's here on the shelf, come and get it right. But you go there and say your book is you know, not on the shelf. Well, you pull your book out of your bag that has a UPC and you have them scan it as if you want to buy it, and you might have to pay for your own book because it'll ring up with a UPC in their system as out of stock and that they need to re stock because you are buying the last I heard a rumor.
00:45:06
Speaker 3: Well, you know what's interesting is my brother gets on a plane every Monday and travels uh huh the country every single week and will say hip broke.
00:45:15
Speaker 2: So you kind of got to say, yeah, I want to get this book right here, let's see what I got. Mission like, I want this book. They just scan the back of it and just go beep and they're like, oh, let me see why that's not pulling up in the system. They do a little typing, find the price of it whatever, and then it says out of stock because they're buying the last one.
00:45:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's crazy. It's funny, you know. You look, you'll see guys like post stuff on Instagram where they're traveling through kardas this all the time, where he'll roll through an airport and you know they'll just come in. They'll just sign a bunch of books and leave them there for people to people to find. And I mean, what a what a cool thing like you know, hey, I'm have to fly out to LA for a business meeting and I'm looking for something to read and you pick up a Jack Car book and a crap, look, it's son, that's fantastic.
00:45:57
Speaker 2: Thanks for reading a book Jack or something, you know, whatever he wants to write. And that, right, it's that I see him do that on his install quite a bit. And yes, and so like you know, that's just like a thing I heard. You know, authors that are traveling do. I'm just telling you right, how to get your book on that shelf. It's tough. There's it's placement, right, we know that it's it's tough. Like you said, it's hard to get a publicist. I'm not trying to say that everything is easy. You get on the show, you get on software radio, and you have like just huge people hitting you up. It's like you are working to get yourself out there, you know, and hoping that. I think self published is cool. I did.
00:46:43
Speaker 3: I really do too. Now that I've committed to it, I am fully committed to it.
00:46:50
Speaker 2: It's like an indie band doing their own thing and just like producing themselves and everything they did was all from their own hide. So they have nothing to they have everything to lose, you know, so it's like, so they're going to overwatch it.
00:47:02
Speaker 3: Yet it's it's part of the American dream for me, you know, be able to build a small business on your own. And you know, and you know, like I said earlier, you know, if I have heard that some dude was reading my book on the top of a combat, I mean, that would be a great out, you know, a great honor. But you know, the communities that I've been able to associate with in the past, you know, the Special Operations community, the intelligence community, the you know, all of all of that, I want to write stories that honor those people. I'm not afraid to put the fun out of me either, but.
00:47:37
Speaker 2: Right now, but I want to honor it.
00:47:38
Speaker 3: And and I'm with those communities especially to enjoy reading these books.
00:47:44
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that. And you know, there's always a place here at soft Rep if you ever wanted to like put something up on the website or share some of that or anything, look at doing that. You know, if you ever thought about it. It's just something if you have stuff scripted already and you want to share it on soft rep, know insights into your world or hey, you know, you know you're going Jack's going to be traveling to someplace to do a book tour. Why would we not want to support you, you know, put it out there. So if anything comes up like that and you're trying to hustle and you need some extra hustle behind you, hit up us. My guy actually his name is Guy, he's my editor. Yeah, he would probably love to see, you know, share some of your stuff on our website. No problem, you know, yeah exactly. And when this comes out, anybody listening or watching, thanks for watching. Blow your kiss, but anybody listening blow your kiss. Anybody out there, just you know, if you buy the book. When you buy the book, leave a comment where you bought it at and just say, hey, you know, give feedback. Authors are going to go read it. And it also helps to bring their book in the algorithm up more so that it can be then found a little easier to help these guys offset you know, doing this, Like you said, you're operating a business. You're now transitioning from tactical to practical. Okay, so you're bringing that and I find out like the Caprice Son, you know, the drink I love to call that tactical to practical. You know, it's like a NASA thing that became a school lunch. Okay, it's like tactical to practical. Tang Tang Tang was made for astronauts, and the Tang is now in our household. Well, it was household name in the eighties and nineties.
00:49:30
Speaker 3: You know, it's crazy. If you're a gen X or not excited about Artemis two, I don't know what's wrong with you. Oh, I mean, I'm stoked. I'm like, I mean, I'm not like really, I've never really been a big sci fi guy other than you know, Startik Troopers, which I've probably bought multiple dozens of copies for and given out to other like officers and leaders in the military.
00:49:50
Speaker 2: Read this this Spiders are coming, Aliens are coming.
00:49:55
Speaker 3: Well, I mean more so. I mean, if you want to look at the transition from private soldier to noncommissioned officer to officerfreaking read this book, dude. It's fantastic. But yeah, it's kind almost my train fall a little bit.
00:50:10
Speaker 2: No Artemis too, It's what it is.
00:50:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, it's so exciting, like for our generation. You know, I'm going to remember you. Of course, the Challenger disaster, which was cool, right, but but also being a kid, you know, watching blasting off the dang moon and walking on the moon and love it.
00:50:26
Speaker 2: Are you were you alive during that? Was that something that was in your lifetime? Or is that history to you? The moon landing?
00:50:33
Speaker 3: Uh, it was funny.
00:50:34
Speaker 4: If you ask my oldest dollars, she's like, it never happened. Oh right, well you conspiracy theories, but let's just say it happened. Let's just yes, we believe it happened. Yes, yes, yes, I'm sure it did.
00:50:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, definitely. I think I can't remember what day it was that Armstrong walked walked on the moon, but it was. But it was in sixty nine.
00:50:54
Speaker 2: I believe, in the year of your birth and the year of my birth.
00:50:57
Speaker 3: And I remember being a kid, like you know, kid models and plastic models. I was just like, it's so cool.
00:51:05
Speaker 2: So yeah, I just remember watching Challenger, you know, I was in school, but then I came home and it was on TV all the time. It was like replaying over and over, and I remember just sitting there watching the you know, the shuttle going up and just dissipating and coming back down in pieces and there was just a teacher. I remember she was like a teacher and it was such a big deal. You know that it was a civilian that was going up in space, and you know, we want to believe that that's the final frontier space. You know, I mean, who knows, right, wild Yeah, we're finding planets between our planets. Man, It's like what we thought was is you know, it's crazy, right. And and for those out there that have a conspiracy about the Earth being flat, I just want you to look at like a diagram of the Sun, which is round, right, we agree on that, right, and then like Pluto and Mercury and Uranus and everything's round, and then Earth's flat? Right? Is that right? Think about it for a Second's want you to think about that. Okay, come on now, come on now. I'm still stretching from boxing this morning. Bro. I went out and hit that gym up. Dude. We did non stop ones and twos on the bag, fillling it right in that left shoulder right there. It's like, oh, bro, you know, a minute twenty on the bag multiple times. I love it. It's good for the heart. Yeah, good for you, thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm proud to have had you on the show today. You know, we've talked for like an hour. You know, we've just been back and forth banter like that, dude, And you're great.
00:52:35
Speaker 3: And I really appreciate the interview. I mean, I really do it. It's I mean, this is not my comfort zone, but I've really enjoyed it.
00:52:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I hope that's a little different than what a lot of interviews are like. You know, I'm just like, hey, you tell me what's going on. How are you doing? You know, are you doing well? You need a pat on the back, because a you should get a pat on the back for your service to our country. Thank you for so many selfless years of you know, doing the right thing and being a respiratory therapist and helping people and being empathetic. Being a colonel totally cool, going back to basic training with a colonel on your shoulder.
00:53:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, crazy things happen, you know.
00:53:16
Speaker 2: You know, to go from having to salute a cardboard box with a colonel on it to being a colonel, you know what I'm saying.
00:53:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was. I was pretty lucky, you know. I mean, sure, I've got to a rank that a lot of people don't get as an officer, but I'm proudly it's fine. One the things, you know, I retired from the Army's Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, and they were still on jump status back then, so you know, I made my last parachute jump as a colonel. But one of my favorite things to do, you know, as a as a medical provider was actually go out walk around the drop zone with a with an ad bag on my back doing jump coverage.
00:53:56
Speaker 2: We love that.
00:53:57
Speaker 3: Because you know, like some duple land is, you know, like you know, you know, you walk over and you check them out. Hey man, you all right, and they look up and they're like, shit, I thought you were a specialist. Oh oh no, yeah, no, I'm fine. Like just it's like just doing it for the love of the game, just just being out there. I mean, if you asked me, at the one thing I missed the most about the Army, it's doing things like that, being out on the DZ and hanging out with other people doing it, you know, watching the drop, controlling the drop.
00:54:27
Speaker 2: I'm sure in the field, I'm sure in the office you're a colonel, I'm sure you earn that rank. But in that drop zone at that moment, you're you're a buddy that's like got the skill set to make sure that they're good. You know.
00:54:39
Speaker 3: It's like I pretty much had a fifty mile and I had no salute area around me.
00:54:44
Speaker 2: I would imagine I'd imagine my dad growing up in the Green Berets. They rarely ever saluted anybody around. They were all first name basis.
00:54:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd rather operate that.
00:54:53
Speaker 2: Way, you know. And I love that, and and and I hope you much success with your your books and your your storylines, and and I love the artwork. So congratulations on a great looking book. I look forward to having it, you know, in my local airport. Yeah, because it's now in stock Okay, David Brown, if you're watching this for some reason, let me just point over here to my man. Okay. And uh, I don't know if it's appropriate for me to create an email for us three, but I could always like say, hey, I want inroduce you to a friend of mine. I don't know where it could go, but have a nice day, you know, there is something like that. And again, if you want to come back on the show, if you want to put anything on our website, Colonel dude, sir, you're more than welcome to do so.
00:55:35
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'd love if you're listening and you're not following your at Jack mctavia's adventures on Instagram. I would love to have you as a follower.
00:55:45
Speaker 2: And yeah, and that's at Jack mc tavish.
00:55:49
Speaker 3: Jack McTavish, m A C T A v I s H Adventures on Instagram. And I would just love to have you all follow me.
00:55:57
Speaker 2: Okay, well, before I let you go, let's see how fast I can do that. Hold on one second here, Let's see if we can do it this quick. Hold on one moment, let's see you here. So we're gonna look up Jack McTavish, j A c K m A C t a v I s H mc tavish adventures. You got a blue check mark, legit follow. I am now following. It took me less than like a minute to do that, and you can do it too. That's what's up. I just did, so feel free to follow back. And if you don't like what I'm posting on followed. But you know it's that easy, so go follow Jack Jack McTavish adventures at Instagram. Check out Jack McTavish dot com, where you can definitely get his book when it comes out. Check out all the other places where you can find quality books, including your airport. Let's hope it's there. And Jack again, you're welcome back to the show. And thanks for being a very cool, humble, bass playing rock and roll author, doctorate of everything dude.
00:56:58
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
00:57:00
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, You're so awesome, and again on behalf of everybody here at soft Rep. Brandon Webb, calum My, producer, Gia, behind the scenes, you know, Logan out there, you're hustling, Logan, thank you so much, and Xander and everybody that posts up all the time, and guy you know, thanks so much for being there and believing in me to host this and letting me interview guys like Jack, which just make me a better person. So thanks again and be half of everybody else. This is rad saying peace.
00:57:43
Speaker 1: You've been listening to your self. Rep Lady
