Mentally Oddcast Transcript: 50th Episode!!! Guest: Author, Podcaster and Badass: Scott Sigler

Find and audio version of this episode here.

Find more from Scott Sigler here.  

00:01.88

Wednesday Lee Friday

You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday, Lee Friday, and we are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. Do find us on ko-fi. This week we have Scott Sigler, who is an American author of science fiction and horror and a podcaster.

00:20.63

Wednesday Lee Friday

Scott is the New York Times number one bestselling author. ah Let's see, 20 novels, six novellas, dozens of short stories and thousands, not an exaggeration, of podcast episodes.

00:32.28

Wednesday Lee Friday

He is a co-founder of Empty Set Entertainment, which publishes his young adult Galactic Football League series. And he lives in San Diego. Scott Sigler also went to undergrad with me.

00:44.75

Wednesday Lee Friday

So, welcome, Scott!

00:44.74

Scott Sigler

Yep. Now I'm happy to be here. It's nice to be chatting with you.

00:49.77

Wednesday Lee Friday

Indeed, indeed. And, you know, I didn't actually realize this when we planned this interview, but this is the 50th episode of the Mentally Oddcast.

00:59.02

Scott Sigler

Woo. Fantastic.

01:00.84

Wednesday Lee Friday

I know, right? It's super exciting. So if you're a regular listener, you probably already know this, but we start by asking guests to tell us about the first horror movie that they remember seeing.

01:02.88

Scott Sigler

Yeah.

01:11.54

Wednesday Lee Friday

And it's weird that I don't know yours, but I don't. So let's hear it.

01:15.13

Scott Sigler

Well, the first horror movie I saw was King Kong, 1976 in the theater.

01:19.04

Wednesday Lee Friday

Nice.

01:21.54

Scott Sigler

And it was this really special moment because i am the youngest of two boys. My older brother is much more, he's very similar to my father. They're a very similar person. I'm not all that similar to my dad in a lot of ways, but the first movie my dad went to see in a theater ever was the original King Kong with his dad, with my grandpa.

01:44.86

Scott Sigler

So my dad, knowing I was already a bit of ah a storytelling kid, took me, just me and him, not my brother. We went to see King Kong and it was great and i was super excited.

01:56.06

Scott Sigler

And then during the movie, there is a scene where King Kong comes out of the jungle and starts pounding away in the bamboo fortress. And it scared the crap out of me.

02:04.66

Wednesday Lee Friday

uh-huh

02:07.19

Scott Sigler

i was, gosh, i I was not very old. And I start crying. I'm like asking if we could leave. and remember my dad saying, laughing and saying, oh no, we paid money for this. So we just sat through the whole thing, sat through the whole thing and I was miserable through the whole movie.

02:16.81

Wednesday Lee Friday

ah

02:21.55

Scott Sigler

And then the, is we're walking out of the theater and I'm like holding my dad's hand, walking out of the theater. And as soon as we got out the doors, i asked him when we could go see it again. And

02:32.42

Wednesday Lee Friday

if

02:33.51

Scott Sigler

That was this, um, the first inkling that I wanted to scare people with something that I did.

02:43.11

Wednesday Lee Friday

Right. That's... ah Wait, now I want to be clear. King Kong in the 70s, is that the Charles Grodin one or is that the real one?

02:53.86

Scott Sigler

yes, that is the Charles Grodin and Jessica Lange.

02:56.72

Wednesday Lee Friday

Jessica Lange?

02:58.80

Scott Sigler

Yep. And one of the brother actors. the The dude, I think.

03:04.02

Wednesday Lee Friday

One of the bridges?

03:05.98

Scott Sigler

Gosh, who was it?

03:06.24

Wednesday Lee Friday

Okay. Okay.

03:07.03

Scott Sigler

I can't. Who played who played the dude? Yes, one of the bridges. You're right. One of the bridges. Yep.

03:12.36

Wednesday Lee Friday

Wow. That's, I mean, honestly, it's kind of a unique experience to have seen that movie at that age because it it actually scared you.

03:19.95

Scott Sigler

Yep.

03:22.47

Wednesday Lee Friday

Like, it would not have scared you if you had seen it as a ah teen, I think.

03:26.46

Scott Sigler

and My dad and I watched all the old creature features all the time. So the original King Kong, all the Godzilla movies, there was just anything that was on the Saturday night creature features, a guy in our area on the local channel called Count Zapula.

03:41.63

Scott Sigler

And Count Zappula every Sunday or every Saturday would have on monster movies. And that was one of the big things that my dad and I really connected on. And so he's like, yeah, I'll take you to the theater to see it. But keep mind, I'd never been in a movie theater before.

03:56.44

Scott Sigler

So this was the whole overwhelming sound and visual spectacle for a seven or eight year old kid. Like that in itself was something

04:04.27

Wednesday Lee Friday

Wow.

04:05.44

Scott Sigler

Amazing. And then, you know, not having the ability to discern fantasy from reality all that much, that that giant, giant gorilla up on that big screen was just an awesome spectacle.

04:19.57

Wednesday Lee Friday

that's amazing.

04:21.24

Scott Sigler

Yeah, it's fun.

04:21.56

Wednesday Lee Friday

And that's I mean, I'm ah kind of blown away by that just because that movie but had never seemed particularly scary for me um because I was much older when I saw it, because I had actually seen the original King Kong on Sir Graves Gastly, who was our Saturday morning guy or Saturday afternoon horror movie guy.

04:30.72

Scott Sigler

Mm-hmm.

04:38.88

Scott Sigler

Yep. well

04:42.29

Wednesday Lee Friday

And it was like it was this weird combination because even as a kid i could tell that it was models and you could tell like the way that the fur was like moving around on the thing that it was all models but yet it was still scary because the performances in the movie were such that you could feel what the people were feeling so so you're

04:54.59

Scott Sigler

yep

05:05.14

Scott Sigler

And the 76 one, the special effects, of course, are ah whole generation of effects better than the original one. um But that that stuff, a lot of that stuff holds up pretty well. A bunch of it doesn't, but there's definitely some scenes. If you watch the 76 King Kong and and the biggest screen you can find with good sound, there's some still phenomenal, phenomenal monster elements in it.

05:27.86

Wednesday Lee Friday

Wow. See, now I want to watch it again. um so you're saying that that really is what made you decide you wanted to scare people for a living.

05:37.95

Scott Sigler

Yeah, yeah. And I, I was always writing monster stories. And like, probably from that point on, just like that, everything I did in class was like, write this monster, that monster.

05:48.70

Scott Sigler

And was really, really starting to dig it. And so that, that's what sort of led me toward writing fiction and writing horror, because i um my mom was a big reader. She was a grade school teacher.

06:04.35

Scott Sigler

So she was just books, books, books all the time in our family. She'd take me to the bookstore, give me a book, take me a library, max out how much we could get. so I was reading constantly, but she was a big reader too.

06:15.46

Scott Sigler

So every Christmas I would save up my my quarters, my nickels, and I would get her the latest Stephen King and the latest Donyell Steele novel. And I think I can't, I might've been like,

06:25.59

Wednesday Lee Friday

nice

06:29.81

Scott Sigler

12 or so. And one of the books that I got over Stephen King was called cycle of the werewolf, which they made the movie based movie silver bullet around.

06:37.25

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yep, yep.

06:41.39

Wednesday Lee Friday

yep yep

06:42.34

Scott Sigler

And I had never read so read Stephen King cause that's, you know, that's grownup stuff. And as I'm wrapping presents and whatnot, I open up the book and I start reading and like from the first line, I just wound up reading the whole thing over the course of a couple of days.

06:55.54

Scott Sigler

And I remember my mom coming in, and my bedroom and like I would hide the book behind the desk, like ah clever. And I'm pretty sure she thought I was like reading a playboy or something because I was at about that age.

07:09.41

Scott Sigler

ah But no, I was just hiding it because it was her Christmas present. But I read the whole book and then I sort of connected, ah sort of connected like the experience with King Kong.

07:12.56

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank you.

07:19.33

Scott Sigler

And in my head, was like, I understood making the movie was this incredibly complicated process. And when I read Silver Bullet, that was a light bulb moment. like, oh, I can give people those safe scares like I had in the theater, but I can do all that myself and not have to involve anybody else or coordinate with with any other organization, et cetera.

07:40.23

Scott Sigler

And that's really where where it started off.

07:44.34

Wednesday Lee Friday

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Now, I am aware that you have ADHD.

07:52.04

Scott Sigler

Yep.

07:52.25

Wednesday Lee Friday

um What I don't know is that when when were you diagnosed with that? Was that early in your life?

07:58.17

Scott Sigler

I'm not sure how active the diagnosis that was when I was a little kid, but I i was, my mom was trying to figure out like what to do with me because I was very, very hyper kid. And I think our family doctor, somebody get did a prescription for Ritalin.

08:14.67

Scott Sigler

But my mom, being a grade school teacher, you know, third grade mostly, had seen a lot of her students come in, you these, these very excited, hyper bright kids.

08:29.10

Scott Sigler

And then they would go on Ritalin. And then she said it was back then. She's like, it's like, like most of the light just went out of their eyes. And, it was very disturbing for her to watch that. And, you know, some parents back in the day would parent by over-prescribing the stuff.

08:42.36

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank you.

08:43.60

Scott Sigler

So she had seen some worst case scenarios and she decided that that was not the route we were going to go. So technically, I guess I was probably diagnosed with it way back when.

08:56.51

Scott Sigler

And, but then just went through, you know, grade school, junior high, high school, college, et cetera, and really didn't start to get at didn't go for a diagnosis until I'd say about five, six years ago.

09:11.69

Scott Sigler

So well, you know well into my midlife area. And that came because my wife, was in the pharmacology industry, was in the drug industry.

09:23.84

Scott Sigler

And i was suffering from like super bad heartburn all the time. She's like, you know, there's medication for that. I'm like, what? And wound up getting a prescription for that. And all of a sudden that like changed my life dramatically.

09:36.84

Scott Sigler

And so now I'm very pro. I was very pro drugs. You know, like if there's something that's going to solve a problem, let's check it out. So she got me to look into the ADHD, see if we get a prescription and and get on some of that. And we did. So we got a diagnosis, got on that. that's had you know moderate levels of um success.

09:57.14

Scott Sigler

So the answer your question is probably, you know, about five or six years ago, well into midlife.

10:03.15

Wednesday Lee Friday

All right, now I just want to want to focus on something for a minute here. so So what I'm hearing is that you have over 20 novels, you revolutionized podcasting,

10:14.97

Wednesday Lee Friday

You started your own ah publishing house, and you did all of that while unmedicated and having ADHD.

10:23.16

Scott Sigler

Yeah, yeah. And there's a couple areas where I get the hyper focus. They talk about if you if you follow it each year, know someone who has it. The then one side, the bad side of the coin is being scatterbrained, being very easily distracted, not being able to hold the thought or pursue a thing and needing, frankly, for me, it was like, I need a lot of management to get me through my homework.

10:38.52

Wednesday Lee Friday

Mm-hmm.

10:46.29

Scott Sigler

The homework was always piece of cake, and but like except except for math, everything else is just like, no problem, like I can knock that out.

10:53.53

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank

10:54.33

Scott Sigler

It was just sitting down long enough and focusing enough to get that done. So a lot of problems in that and that area. But the the good side of the coin was when you get into hyper-focus, like everything else just fades away and all you are doing, you're sort of in the yeah in the tunnel, right? Doing that one thing.

11:13.94

Scott Sigler

And I had a couple of things that would do that. Sports was a big thing for that, especially any kind of sports with physical contact, like wrestling or football. um I was able to pay 100%

11:27.26

Scott Sigler

100% attention to that stuff. And especially with wrestling in high school, I just worked out religiously. I would work out before school, skip lunch and work go to practice, and then work out after practice.

11:38.25

Scott Sigler

And so wrestling season was this crazy time of just like everything was calm in my head. Everything was super chill. I was really good at my homework and everything else. um And the other place where it really started to kick in, the hyper focus, was writing writing in general and then writing fiction in particular.

11:57.36

Scott Sigler

So I could go, i remember being at college and writing for like just 10 hours straight one Saturday when I'd come home and barely remembering to get up to go to the bathroom kind of a thing. um So that,

12:08.79

Scott Sigler

So the ADHD, when it comes to the podcasting and the fiction and things like that, a lot of times it was very beneficial. It was like a superpower to be able to just focus on this narrative thread and this character arc and this story long enough to get that thing done. So it it's definitely had some pros and cons, but i overall i give it a lot more pros than cons.

12:30.47

Wednesday Lee Friday

Wow. Now, I have never ah talked to anyone with that experience before.

12:34.97

Scott Sigler

Thank

12:35.28

Wednesday Lee Friday

That is fascinating. And it's also interesting to know that you were so into sports. Like, I knew you were a sports fan, but there's also a lot of sports content in your work. You know, um because even though, like, there is a strong focus on horror and sci-fi, like, the first novel of yours that I read was Infection, because I got, to you had given me a ah draft of it.

12:46.34

Scott Sigler

Yep.

12:57.69

Scott Sigler

Yeah.

12:58.55

Wednesday Lee Friday

And, uh, And yeah, i wasn't I wasn't prepared for how much like sportiness there was going to be. But you're a Lions fan, right?

13:06.66

Scott Sigler

Yes, that is correct. All my lifelong Alliance fan.

13:10.68

Wednesday Lee Friday

Well, and it's also interesting because I've i've gleaned from your social media that you seem to prefer Faygo to Town Club. and And I just want to say, I think it's really brave of you to have the courage to admit that publicly.

13:24.85

Scott Sigler

Well, I guess either Town Club Fago or Vernors.

13:26.10

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yeah.

13:28.33

Scott Sigler

And Vernors, of course, is forever associated with being sick. So I don't like Vernors.

13:32.41

Wednesday Lee Friday

Right.

13:33.75

Scott Sigler

That's the Michigan culture. Oh, you got a bellyache? Here's a Vernors. um

13:37.00

Wednesday Lee Friday

Exactly. Maybe some Campbell's soup.

13:38.14

Scott Sigler

But The Faygo thing I actually picked up of all places when I lived in San Francisco. because of course, Faygo was you know like a quarter for a two liter when I was a kid.

13:49.47

Scott Sigler

So when it was playing me and do with my pals or hanging out with everybody, the parents would just come and show up like eight two liters of Faygo trying to keep these teenage boys happy.

13:49.70

Wednesday Lee Friday

Right.

13:58.20

Scott Sigler

And then I, you know, move out, go to college, live around and go San Francisco and found a Lions bar, a Detroit Lions bar in San Francisco. And the guy who owned the bar was a Michigander.

14:08.67

Scott Sigler

So when the Lions were on, if the Lions scored, he would serve Fago and vodka shots.

14:15.52

Wednesday Lee Friday

Oh, wow. What flavor?

14:17.96

Scott Sigler

It was all over the place. you would Because bet I think there wasn't even a BevMo back then. So he was just having the stuff. like trucked in and just all these Michiganders would flock to the area and living in San Francisco for 10 years, being from the Midwest is a little bit of a culture, culture clash, not too much, but you get to go to these football games, be around other people in their Lions gear, talking about stories from Michigan. It was wonderful. it was like this very found family kind of thing.

14:45.54

Scott Sigler

And then I just, after that, I was totally back on the Faygo wagon. So now, The only time a Faygo gets consumed in this house is when the Lions win a game. Not play game, they have to win game and I get a Faygo.

14:55.62

Wednesday Lee Friday

Ah, yes.

14:57.71

Scott Sigler

Because I'm a lot older now and that straight up sugar water is really, really sweet.

14:58.49

Wednesday Lee Friday

the

15:02.61

Scott Sigler

My

15:03.20

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you. That's because, yeah, soda has always been one of my my weaknesses. That summer that that Mountain Dew invented Code Red, I really thought maybe they wanted me to die.

15:08.79

Scott Sigler

phone is...

15:14.55

Wednesday Lee Friday

Like, I can't.

15:15.50

Scott Sigler

like was

15:17.00

Wednesday Lee Friday

The nectar of the gods, that stuff.

15:17.09

Scott Sigler

but It's so good. My near-death experience with soda came because of Red Bull. So Red Bull came out and I, you know, heard about it.

15:23.36

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yeah, that'll happen.

15:27.21

Scott Sigler

i was living in San Francisco at the time. And I've always been like a huge caffeine guy because caffeine is one of the things that sort of helps... I've convinced myself it helps get me to more of a hyper focus and sort of deal with the the ADHD symptoms.

15:43.08

Scott Sigler

And so, you know, um um'm a ah I'm a soda guy. I'm a manly man. Like, why have one Red Bull?

15:48.93

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank you.

15:49.37

Scott Sigler

Let's go in there have two. These little baby cans they got. And I had ah two Red Bulls. And I remember sitting at my desk and being like, I think I'm having a heart attack. This is crazy.

16:00.46

Scott Sigler

Like just everything was racing inside I was like, so that's the last time I've ever had one of those energy drinks. Like that's not for me.

16:08.77

Wednesday Lee Friday

Well, for Gen Xers, I mean, we were taught that that was like a good way to get fucked up is with super high amounts of caffeine.

16:16.52

Scott Sigler

Yeah.

16:17.02

Wednesday Lee Friday

Jolt Cola.

16:17.21

Scott Sigler

yeah

16:17.67

Wednesday Lee Friday

Man, the theater kids were passing Jolt Cola around backstage like crazy.

16:18.36

Scott Sigler

Yeah.

16:21.92

Scott Sigler

Jolt was huge in the rent for us wrestling in high school. We would get Jolt Cola, and then there was a candy bar called the One for the Road Bar. And this had the equivalent of two cups of coffee in it.

16:35.93

Scott Sigler

So we would be at wrestling tournaments all day long, pounding Jolt Colas, drinking One for the Road Bars, and just the over-the-top caffeinatedness of it.

16:47.24

Scott Sigler

I'm very surprised we didn't die.

16:50.00

Wednesday Lee Friday

Now, was your coach down with that or did they not know? Okay.

16:52.67

Scott Sigler

They didn't really know what was going on. You know, like we're just like we were we had strategies to get the jolt colas in. But just I finally realized needed to cut back on caffeine as my senior year.

17:05.34

Scott Sigler

And we're watching film of one of my wrestling matches. So we watch all the weight classes, watch the watch the matches, watch them all together. And I wrestled at 126 pounds. The guy before me is at 119. So I'm just a little guy.

17:18.66

Scott Sigler

And we're watching the 119 pounder wrestle. And on the edge of the mat, there's me walking up and down the side of the mat with my hands up by my ears and just flinging my fingers around and kind of staring at around.

17:29.94

Wednesday Lee Friday

Oh, wow.

17:31.40

Scott Sigler

and then so And then every now and then looking at the person I'm going to wrestle because I was going to murder him. And then just like, I did that for like eight minutes, nonstop.

17:39.29

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yikes.

17:40.17

Scott Sigler

and i'm watching ah was And I'm watching it, and I'm like, that's that's like watching a crazy person do crazy things.

17:40.51

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yikes.

17:47.50

Scott Sigler

So I decided at that point, I'm like, I'm going to cut way back on the caffeine.

17:53.56

Wednesday Lee Friday

Wow. And I imagine you slept better afterwards, too. Because that's that's what I notice now is that I sleep like crap if I have caffeine.

17:57.70

Scott Sigler

I...

18:01.70

Scott Sigler

Yeah, I'm finally to that point where have caffeine after six o'clock or seven o'clock at night, it can interrupt my sleep a little bit. um But I've always been super lucky in that I can fall asleep on the drop of a hat almost anywhere.

18:18.10

Scott Sigler

So all that caffeine never impacted my sleep at all when I was a kid or my 20s or anything like that.

18:25.30

Wednesday Lee Friday

Well, that's handy.

18:26.78

Scott Sigler

it It's very handy. And i having I'm on my the um my second marriage. My first wife had ah very difficult time sleeping, like constantly.

18:37.53

Scott Sigler

And it was ah it was an educational experience to find out that people have trouble sleeping because I had i had no frame of reference for that whatsoever.

18:48.03

Scott Sigler

So I got myself very lucky that I still can.

18:48.33

Wednesday Lee Friday

Oh, wow.

18:51.09

Scott Sigler

i I'm a big napper. I can take a 10 minute nap and feel like a million bucks.

18:55.62

Wednesday Lee Friday

What? Oh, man.

18:56.78

Scott Sigler

Yep. Yep. Yep.

18:59.27

Wednesday Lee Friday

That is wild. So listen, on this show, um we we complain a lot about generative AI, talk about how we don't like it, we prefer the humanities, blah, blah, blah, blah. blah Now, I am aware that you use AI in the process of language creation, and I find that fascinating.

19:17.21

Wednesday Lee Friday

um I tried to do some language creation,

19:17.72

Scott Sigler

yep

19:20.40

Wednesday Lee Friday

After I learned Dothraki, I had this brilliant idea that I was going to invent a language for these like Sonny Bean type family of of murderers. And it was going to be really minimalistic. And even doing it minimalistically, was way too much for me.

19:34.93

Wednesday Lee Friday

It was just too huge and I couldn't do it. so So how is that going? How do you go about that?

19:41.37

Scott Sigler

Well, I have a book coming out next year in March called Warpath, and it is set in 1760 during the French and Indian War. And ah Fort Pontchartrain, which is now Detroit, a unit of Rogers Rangers who were kind of like the special forces group before special forces were a thing,

19:54.92

Wednesday Lee Friday

Mm-hmm.

20:02.29

Scott Sigler

have to go from the from the Detroit area down to Western Kentucky, or what would become eventually Western Kentucky. And in 1760, there were no European settlements of any kind in all of Kentucky, that whole region.

20:17.68

Scott Sigler

And it was all Native American cultures down there. And they were just starting to really get impacted by the spread of disease and you know the the Europeans taking advantage of different different aspects of things.

20:29.89

Scott Sigler

But to make the book as realistic as possible, I wanted some of the protagonists to be from this tribe. And I wanted to showcase the the communication difficulties and build up the culture on it.

20:43.63

Scott Sigler

Because I didn't want to like, I'm not going to take Cherokee or Chippewa or Cree and being a pasty white guy, write this write a character from within that culture and screw a bunch stuff up and piss a lot of people off.

20:57.20

Scott Sigler

So I invented one.

20:57.41

Wednesday Lee Friday

sure sure

20:58.83

Scott Sigler

I treated it like, Like a lot of guys who look like me and women who look like me, write they make up European cultures, mostly Western European feudal cultures for fantasy, whether grimdark or high fantasy, et etc. So there's all these wonderful made-up cultures over there that look and feel and smell like you like like the French or like the English or or German or any combination thereof.

21:21.28

Scott Sigler

So i want I just want to do the same thing four for this North American native tribe. Because and this is... This is the land where I was born. We're like five generations here. I have far more identification with people who have always been in North America than I do say people who have always been in Europe. It was just that far apart from it.

21:44.03

Scott Sigler

So I was like, this is great.

21:44.38

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank

21:45.25

Scott Sigler

This is basically a Warpath is kind of a military fantasy horror novel. And let's just make up a whole culture, whole cloth, except instead of it being a bunch of white people, it'll be a Native American invented culture.

22:00.43

Scott Sigler

So you're going to do that, you need to have a language. So i I was trying to figure out how to do it, and i I had tried to create my own languages for books before.

22:11.22

Scott Sigler

And as you found, it's incredibly complicated. And tracking this basic stuff is really rough.

22:16.08

Wednesday Lee Friday

Mm-hmm.

22:19.03

Scott Sigler

So I asked ChatGPT, I'm like, hey, can you help me come up with a language? I learned from ChatBT there's a whole concept called a conlang. think that's a contrived language.

22:30.11

Scott Sigler

It's what you do if you write a fantasy novel and you make your your own language. That's called conlang. And so I just had it start helping me with that. And it's like, well, This is ah Native American culture.

22:45.44

Scott Sigler

Can you use whatever is known about those to kind of find commonalities in sentence structure, in in dialogue, in nomenclature? Are there any threads that go through all things? Because then in Europe, of course, Latin...

23:00.89

Scott Sigler

is is the bedrock of most of the languages over there so different of a lot of shared stuff so i asked chat to come up with that so it came up with ah and like all of a sudden like here's verbs here's gerunds here's sentence structure like came over this whole i was like this is amazing and then it came up with like great let's come up with a so i said put it put it in the you know the sort of the chippewa family there's a whole

23:04.46

Wednesday Lee Friday

Mm-hmm. Yep. yep

23:25.83

Scott Sigler

tree, a language tree involved in that, much of which is is lost to time. There's so many tribes that didn't have a permanent record written down. So a lot of this is guesswork.

23:37.45

Scott Sigler

And ChatGPT was able to go out and find current thorough research and say, great, here's your vowel set.

23:42.73

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank you.

23:43.91

Scott Sigler

Here's your consonant set. And right out of the gate, I'm like, this sounds like, you know, like growing up in northern Michigan. And, you know, there's Chippewa ah names all over the place. It sounds a lot like that.

23:58.09

Scott Sigler

But these were invented words. And the final step I had it do was, and this is where it broke down. I just assumed like, well, it can track the whole dictionary for me.

24:08.87

Scott Sigler

And like it can correct things. It it turns out it can't do that. It can't keep a whole vocabulary going. So I then had to use a wiki.

24:16.77

Wednesday Lee Friday

evening

24:17.81

Scott Sigler

So I use my wiki to be great. Here's what wolf means. Here's what tree means. And then I would constantly have to re-upload that to ChatGBT every time I had to make a new word.

24:30.91

Scott Sigler

Because I'm like, make sure we don't want the same word for two things, if at all possible. Because I say, once I got to about 40 words, 50 words, there's no way I can come come up with any combination of syllables and what have you, and it's eventually going to be a word that's already in play, which would be more confusing to the reader.

24:50.60

Scott Sigler

So ChatGPT was really, really helpful in that in that regard. it It gave me education on the concept of a conlang. It was able to take existing research and kind of craft a rule set by which I could build language, vocabulary, sentences, et cetera, and then kind of help me proof all of that.

25:13.06

Scott Sigler

And we would often run into like, well, this this sounds too similar. Wolf here was this word, but wolf pack is now two completely different words. Those should be closer, more related.

25:24.23

Scott Sigler

Things like that was able to kind of an iterative process with ChatGPT to eventually find like like this word, this collection of syllables has not been used. Great. We'll put that in stone, put that in the wiki. And they're actually going to put all of those words in the back of the book when Warpath comes out, which is which is pretty cool.

25:43.41

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, like, like I said, I'm really down on the whole AI thing, especially in the creative arts. But I think that is a really good example of something that, I mean, you can't just hire someone to do that. It's not like people are losing out on jobs because we use chat GPT in that way.

26:03.85

Scott Sigler

and

26:03.99

Wednesday Lee Friday

Like it's, it's legitimately a helpful thing.

26:07.91

Scott Sigler

It's very helpful. And I think there are probably people out there that you can hire to do that. Guillermo del Toro hired someone to make a whole troll language for Hellboy 2 written and everything and spent many thousands of dollars on it. They wound up not using it, which is the way movies get made, I guess.

26:24.38

Scott Sigler

But something like that, you know, they're there are, have problems trying to find my footing in the debate about generative in certain areas like this.

26:38.59

Scott Sigler

I could hire somebody to do that. That would be three times as much as I was paid to write the book, right?

26:43.76

Wednesday Lee Friday

Right, exactly.

26:44.36

Scott Sigler

It's gonna be a lot of work.

26:45.12

Wednesday Lee Friday

Well, probably not someone.

26:47.03

Scott Sigler

And well

26:49.03

Wednesday Lee Friday

You'd probably need a team for that, right?

26:51.30

Scott Sigler

um i I assume so. Yeah, but this is not... So depending on the project, you know, now Del Toro making a $50, $80 million dollars film, that's he can go hire somebody to do that.

27:02.87

Scott Sigler

I'm like, I just want, you know, for the 28 lines of dialogue in this book, I want it to feel real. I want the readers who really want to break this stuff down, because there's a lot who do, be like, oh, this is how this how they have a possessive. This is their articles. Like that stuff is deep dive Easter eggs that...

27:21.33

Scott Sigler

turn people into absolute super fans. Like if you hit their sweet spot, they love it.

27:24.15

Wednesday Lee Friday

Oh, totally.

27:26.40

Scott Sigler

So it was, ChatGPT was a great solution for that. But there are areas where it's not taking away jobs. Like if you need help with math, you're trying to understand a math concept.

27:38.72

Scott Sigler

All the math is already out there. you know You're not taking money away from someone or or pilfering someone's copyrighted work if you need some, uh, uh,

27:49.75

Scott Sigler

simple explanation for some complicated math or physics. I use it a lot for physics, for my Crypt series and Far Future Sci-Fi. This stuff is all out there. It's how much time do you want to spend trying to learn it or do you just want to get that one nugget of things?

28:05.69

Scott Sigler

So if you do have physicists and mathematicians who read your work, they don't turn up their nose. Well, this this person doesn't know what they're talking about. Just enough granular reality to make it feel normal to the people who really know that stuff.

28:20.93

Scott Sigler

So I think that's a very good use of it. Collating and assisting analysis of scientific research, you know, again, as a fiction writer, I'm not a scientist. I am not a physicist. I want characters who are physicists.

28:33.10

Scott Sigler

So how much time am I going to spend learning about the math of wormholes? Very little, if any, because that's a special effect. That's not plot, character, dialogue.

28:44.77

Scott Sigler

It's not the things that

28:45.15

Wednesday Lee Friday

Right, right.

28:45.80

Scott Sigler

I, people pay me to do. It's not the really good stuff. I think it's got fantastic uses in education. There are so many people out there who maybe have access to a computer, but don't have access to a tutor and don't, you know, they're in a classroom with 60 kids in it and, you know, getting their educational opportunities with it that I think have a lot of promise and potential, especially as if if you're able to have a generative AI that sort of you follow along with, you know, ah and and it starts to understand how you learn, how you communicate, and its ability to give you information that you could not otherwise get or don't even know exists to make you a smarter, more educated person give you more opportunities.

29:18.78

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank you.

29:33.02

Scott Sigler

So that's out there. um You know, if I'm going to go Have ChatGPT help me come up with, i need and I need a plan for my ADHD to help me get through this novel. I need to need to break it down.

29:45.63

Scott Sigler

Sure, I can go buy seven books. I can read all of those books. I can spend a lot of time doing that. Or since those books are built on you know common source research, could I use an AI to help me kind of tailor a plan that fits current existing real world knowledge? I think there's areas, there's tertiary and secondary areas of the creative process that that it can help you with.

30:09.37

Scott Sigler

I am a full believer like chat GPT AI in no way should be involved in the actual creation of the fictional content. That's a full stop bar none.

30:20.41

Scott Sigler

I don't want to see AI actors. I don't want to see AI scripts. I don't want to see AI fiction. Although all of these things are coming and they are coming fast because that's

30:31.39

Wednesday Lee Friday

Ah, really? yeah

30:34.05

Scott Sigler

That's kind of my my line in the sand is I'm like, I look at a problem that I need solved. Can chat GBT help me with this? Can Google Gemini help me with this? And if so, is it drawing on copyrighted work to do so?

30:48.56

Scott Sigler

Is there army of other writers out there that this will take from?

30:49.59

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yeah,

30:53.16

Scott Sigler

So that... that kind of becomes my initial acid test for it. Like if the answer is obviously yes, then that we're not using it for that. But um there's so many, so many gray areas in there.

31:05.69

Scott Sigler

And we are absolutely right around the corner from that. It's already happening right now. Audible right now is using AI generated narration.

31:16.48

Wednesday Lee Friday

yeah they are.

31:16.57

Scott Sigler

And they're all to anybody who's on ACX, which is there their homegrown self-serve. Like I write a book, I can upload it to ACX, have somebody narrate it for me. So ah that that's this is a big soapbox of mine.

31:28.79

Scott Sigler

Where we're gonna see this happen in bulk is with Amazon. Because Amazon, of course, makes bookstore in the world.

31:33.83

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yep.

31:35.15

Scott Sigler

They own Audible. We are very close to um watching Amazon have AI write books and short stories because there's a couple of things they can do because they're the biggest horse and biggest biggest gorilla in the room and their data analytics are out of this world. The amount of stuff that they can follow, like for my audio books, I got a book deal with Audible for a book because they went back and could tell how long people listened to my other works, whether they listened to it fast or slow, whether they repeat listened.

32:09.32

Scott Sigler

And they were like, oh, this guy has great stickiness with his work. Let's let's bring him in. But the other thing they can do with that is, great, we're going to write a standard hero's quest or a standard boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl get together story.

32:22.97

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank you.

32:25.65

Scott Sigler

They can do variations of the structure, plot, and character. they can Because they can push that book out so many people, they can have that book in front of 20,000 people, the snap of the fingers.

32:37.61

Scott Sigler

They can break that down into A, B, C, D, E groups with different sets of story and different wordplay and different writing levels, and then see how long people listen and see how long they read if they finish it.

32:50.01

Scott Sigler

And then they can go back Have AI almost at the speed of light. re mountain Okay, great. Now take all, take B, C, D, and E and rewrite them with A style.

32:56.30

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank you.

32:58.88

Scott Sigler

Now let's split things up and do more control groups and focus groups. And all of this can happen in weeks and in months. And that's the kind of work that as a human writer, you simply can't do.

33:11.62

Scott Sigler

What that means is when Audible pulls the trigger in this, when Amazon pulls a trigger in this, they're going to crack the code of a bestseller Super fast, much faster than any of us want to accept or admit.

33:25.28

Scott Sigler

So that is.

33:25.72

Wednesday Lee Friday

yeah

33:27.37

Scott Sigler

And then with that, they've got the audio book narration. And we are within a year or two away from audio book narration being indiscernible from human narration, from everything, from pacing, volume to emotional content. All of that's done

33:45.16

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yeah, i mean, I always, like, now, I have a hard time telling on YouTube. I'll get, you know, eight minutes into a video before I'm like, wait, wait a minute, that voice is, damn it!

33:51.16

Scott Sigler

Yep.

33:56.15

Wednesday Lee Friday

Because I don't want to purposely patronize any of that, but I just wanted to hear the spooky story, that's all.

34:01.50

Scott Sigler

yep

34:04.62

Wednesday Lee Friday

And yeah, it is it's terrifying in so many ways, because... I mean, first of all, you know, I run the magazine and I've gotten submissions. I got one that straight up started with the line, sure, here's that same story again with more suspense.

34:21.71

Scott Sigler

Oh my goodness.

34:22.31

Wednesday Lee Friday

and Yeah, like, okay, you're you're not even trying to trick me. um and And that's, I think that's why I have such a knee-jerk reaction is because that's where my mind goes when someone says ai is people that

34:28.91

Scott Sigler

and

34:38.62

Wednesday Lee Friday

don't want to take the time to write something, they just want to be a writer.

34:41.80

Scott Sigler

Yeah.

34:42.53

Wednesday Lee Friday

But you're not being a writer.

34:42.58

Scott Sigler

Yeah.

34:43.97

Wednesday Lee Friday

know you're You're a prompter at best, but

34:47.25

Scott Sigler

Yep.

34:48.19

Wednesday Lee Friday

You know, having said that, there are a lot of good uses for AI, and it is my hope that ethical people will do that. Once we get into a point where we consume more AI work than work from actual humans, art will just become this stagnated echo chamber of mediocrity, and I'm not looking forward to it.

35:09.05

Scott Sigler

Yeah, and it it's absolutely coming and things are gonna get weird because eventually companies like Amazon and you're gonna see Penguin Random House do this because all I've been in publishing for 20 years no matter what you hear from anyone, all the bean counters at all the big five publishers and all the mid-listers, if they could put out a book and not have to pay anybody for that book and that book would sell, that's business.

35:31.44

Wednesday Lee Friday

Mm-hmm.

35:32.06

Scott Sigler

And they're absolutely going, they're going to do that. They're going to a they're going to have AI-generated authors, images. They're gonna do AI-generated social media. You're gonna see primarily what you're gonna see is, you know, a female authors, probably like 24 to

35:49.51

Wednesday Lee Friday

Mm-hmm.

35:50.08

Scott Sigler

AI person doing social media and for a lot of people, it's going to be indiscernible. And there's two other factors to it. Like we're all up in arms over it and panicking over it. You know, there are 12 year olds out there who are about to be enter into the main reading demographic.

36:04.42

Scott Sigler

It's always been around for them. They, they don't care. And it's not, it's not a moral quandary for them. And you're going to also get, this stuff is going to wind up being good in a way that it caters to very niche demographics, right?

36:24.49

Scott Sigler

It's gonna get to the point where if you're like, you know, europe're you're a 14 year old farmer boy from Kansas and you like, you know, you like fixing up old cars, stuff like that.

36:35.71

Scott Sigler

There's gonna be entire lines of fiction that cater specifically to that small, small, small demographic, because it doesn't cost anything to make these things. So that's where you're gonna

36:45.89

Wednesday Lee Friday

Well, and it's terrifying because when you give any group of people, but let's, I mean, just saying general consumers, when they get everything they want all the time, first of all, they don't appreciate it, but they also don't learn anything. There's not opportunity for growth and development and the introduction of new things.

37:06.41

Wednesday Lee Friday

Because even if I read a book that's right up my alley, there's probably going to be stuff in there that I didn't know or a perspective that I've never heard before.

37:15.13

Scott Sigler

Yep. Yep. All the time. And that's why getting into books with diverse cast and things like that, having different perspectives on things has always been very beneficial to me as a learning, constantly striving to grow human being.

37:28.70

Scott Sigler

But it's, it's, it's a, there's a lot of darkness coming around for creative people. at the end of the day, nobody wants to pay the creatives. None of these people, they don't want to pay reporters.

37:40.00

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yep.

37:41.17

Scott Sigler

They don't want to pay news journalists. They don't want to pay authors. They don't want to pay artists. They just want to make as much money as they can to the highest margin they can. And that's going to the point where think it's going to be wild is when really well-developed AI fiction starts to analyze other really well-developed AI fiction and how strange that's going to get when they're not, you know, they're not pulling from Edgar Allan Poe and from Shakespeare, but from Johnny 209 or whatever.

38:10.12

Scott Sigler

So I think the only thing that can keep, the only thing that'll keep the wolves from the door is human fiction is just going to have to get weird. It's going to be weird as, weird as hell, you know?

38:22.11

Scott Sigler

Like a standard thriller, like I wrote, I've written several thrillers. I don't think writing a thriller is that complicated. it's There's a specific formula to it.

38:32.92

Scott Sigler

I don't think writing a romance novel is that complicated. Now there's good and bad, of course. and people after the craft, but the basic premise of how these things go is similar to the hero's journey.

38:38.59

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yep.

38:44.37

Scott Sigler

You know, like that you can map so many movies, the hero's journey, Star Wars, ah the Matrix, et cetera, because they follow a very predictable formula that has been with humankind for at least, you know, two, three, 4,000 years and even farther back.

38:45.67

Wednesday Lee Friday

yeah

38:59.34

Scott Sigler

If human beings are following a formula, AI can follow a formula. So I think the if if any creatives out there are listening, the the the The only thing that's going to help you in the long run is you have to have at least some stuff that's just bizarre and weird and could only come from your brain. If you're writing your version of Star Wars, that market's going to be locked up.

39:24.24

Wednesday Lee Friday

Right on. Yeah, that's, wow, so much to think about there. and we um You mentioned that you have something coming out next March. um but You're podcasting all the time, right?

39:38.13

Scott Sigler

Mm-hmm.

39:38.44

Wednesday Lee Friday

So let's let's say that someone out there is unfamiliar with you. Where is the best place for them to get started with the majesty that is Scott Sigler?

39:48.00

Scott Sigler

Well, I would say if listening this as a podcast, then the place to go would be wherever you're listening to this and search for Scott Sigler, S-C-O-T-T-S-I-G-L-E-R. Look in the podcast and audiobook section. You're going to find a whole bunch of stuff.

40:01.33

Scott Sigler

Most stuff in the podcast section is free.

40:01.75

Wednesday Lee Friday

Thank you.

40:04.15

Scott Sigler

The full audiobooks, some of which I read, some of which are read by by other narrators. um That's the the fastest, easiest place to go. and Then you, of course, can go to scottsigler.com and we've got our big book section tab there.

40:18.56

Scott Sigler

And you can see all the stuff that I wrote. Plus, we got all the merch for all the the, I write the sports series. So there's all the stuff for that. And hopefully another series, book two of The Crypt will be out.

40:30.70

Scott Sigler

We were hoping to be out by the end of this year, but we're waiting on the audiobook narrator to finish his work. So that's those the biggest ones. And finally, I currently am doing a series called Slay, S-L-A-Y.

40:44.45

Scott Sigler

We live stream that every Wednesday. And I do a new piece of fiction from that. and People can watch at twitch.tv slash Scott Ziegler, youtube.com slash Scott Ziegler, facebook.com slash Scott Ziegler.

40:55.62

Scott Sigler

Join us in the chat room, blab about the story. Then we take that audio, rip it from the video, edit it, put that in the podcast feed. So we're getting ready to finish up season three of Slay. ah hundred and It's 115 episodes total in the series so far.

41:08.67

Wednesday Lee Friday

and

41:09.86

Scott Sigler

And that is fresh, fresh storytelling in the feed every Sunday.

41:14.69

Wednesday Lee Friday

Nice.

41:15.82

Scott Sigler

Yeah.

41:16.16

Wednesday Lee Friday

Nice. Okay. We're we're certainly nearing the end of our time here. I do like to give guests a chance to ask me a question if they want to, so now is the time for that.

41:26.82

Scott Sigler

Well, I would say basically we had good chunk of the conversation based on AI. What do you see as positive use of AI in the creative space?

41:38.56

Wednesday Lee Friday

Um... Well, i was I was thinking about language creation. That was one of those things. But um what what I have used it for is um languages I don't speak.

41:51.65

Wednesday Lee Friday

I will feed in the information, and I find that ChatGPT does a much better job of translating, but also it can explain cultural things that I'm missing.

41:57.05

Scott Sigler

Yep. Okay.

42:02.60

Scott Sigler

okay

42:02.86

Wednesday Lee Friday

So I've used it for that. Like i've I've uploaded poetry and been like, well, but I understand the translation. But what is the symbolism? What is being discussed? What event is this in reference to? You know, stuff like that, that, yeah, I could probably spend an entire weekend researching it or I could just ask and it will tell me.

42:23.90

Scott Sigler

I use that a lot with Warpath as well, because there's there's a native speaker of Italian, several people speak French in the book, and even a little Portuguese in there as well.

42:37.17

Scott Sigler

You know, ah assembling that battery of people to help is quite a big task. And then there's the wrinkle of, okay, can you make this

42:43.97

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yep.

42:49.45

Scott Sigler

in the dialect of that tongue, 1760, from a first generation American, but has got, come from all, like, whole family is from Italy.

43:00.46

Scott Sigler

Things along that line, and, you know, having Chachubiti help me figure out, like, people didn't curse a lot back then. Warpath is a story about soldiers going to do awful things.

43:08.04

Wednesday Lee Friday

Mm-hmm.

43:11.55

Scott Sigler

So I was, you know, I started writing it. I'm like, well, this just, of course, it's going to be like every war movie I've ever seen. It's of, lot of fuck this and blah, blah, blah. Really, that was not the case back then. So having...

43:23.27

Scott Sigler

having a digital assistant that can kind of look at stuff online for you and become this great search engine to say, that's not how they would have set it back in 1760. So a straight translation of English to French is only part of the story if you want to be somewhat contextual. So I've used it for for that, for language translation with very specific nuances as well.

43:48.04

Wednesday Lee Friday

yeah Exactly, because, I mean, my work, I always want to be at least witty, but maybe downright funny. And if you are not in your element, then you definitely need help with that, because humor isn't just about translation.

43:55.56

Scott Sigler

Yeah.

44:02.18

Wednesday Lee Friday

There has to be a deeper cultural and sociopolitical understanding of of what you're actually saying and why it's funny. So to get there, yeah, sometimes I need a little help.

44:13.37

Scott Sigler

I have tried to get ChatGP to punch up a line or give me ideas on a line like, okay, this supposed to be funny. I don't think it's funny. Give me give me you know four variations on this joke. Because what it can do is like give me a variation on this and they all suck, but it can like, like oh, okay, I got talk about this and go now I get it. Now I get it.

44:31.28

Scott Sigler

It's very unfunny. its yeah Genitive AI is is incredibly bad at telling jokes.

44:38.27

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yes, it is it is dry. Even Alexa is better at telling jokes than GenGPT.

44:43.55

Scott Sigler

So that's another area where the, uh, the crate is listening out there.

44:43.60

Wednesday Lee Friday

um

44:47.00

Scott Sigler

Work hard to get humor into your stuff. Cause it doesn't look like ai' is going to be able to nail that anytime soon.

44:53.20

Wednesday Lee Friday

Speaking of which, sir, it is time for the Mad Lib. I hope you're ready for this.

44:57.89

Scott Sigler

Let's go. I'm so excited.

44:59.60

Wednesday Lee Friday

Alright, we're going to start with a plural noun

45:03.44

Scott Sigler

Horses. 17.

45:05.31

Wednesday Lee Friday

and a number.

45:08.14

Scott Sigler

seventeen

45:10.14

Wednesday Lee Friday

A singular noun

45:13.53

Scott Sigler

Windmill.

45:15.93

Wednesday Lee Friday

and an adjective. Actually, give me three adjectives.

45:20.88

Scott Sigler

Three adjectives. um See, I'm terrible with adjectives. Let's see. Let's

45:28.47

Wednesday Lee Friday

No, you're not. What the hell? I can read, dude.

45:31.72

Scott Sigler

so yeah let's go with um glowing.

45:32.53

Wednesday Lee Friday

I know you're not terrible with adjectives. yeah

45:35.87

Scott Sigler

Glowing.

45:38.83

Scott Sigler

glowing um Bright and broken.

45:47.26

Wednesday Lee Friday

Okay, I need one, two, three, four more nouns.

45:52.51

Scott Sigler

Four more nouns. We'll go with ah can, book, mountain, and streetlight.

46:04.55

Wednesday Lee Friday

Okay, and i need a part of the body.

46:09.75

Scott Sigler

Finger.

46:12.05

Wednesday Lee Friday

An adverb.

46:15.44

Scott Sigler

Oh, let's see. Adverb blazingly. That works. in yeah

46:23.93

Wednesday Lee Friday

right, and a part of the body plural.

46:27.77

Scott Sigler

The part of the body plural. Let's go with ears.

46:33.53

Wednesday Lee Friday

Okay, so this is called Coach's Pep Talk, because it's the sports section of the Mad Lib book.

46:40.08

Scott Sigler

Okay.

46:41.17

Wednesday Lee Friday

All right, horses, listen up. It's the bottom of the ninth, and we're down by 17 runs. Okay, we know our opponents are a very glowing team, and they're on the winning windmill right now, but we can beat them.

46:57.41

Wednesday Lee Friday

Some say it would take a bright miracle for us to score a single can. To that- Oh, fuck me! I forgot to put in- I forgot one, actually. There's one here that's an exclamation.

47:08.88

Wednesday Lee Friday

And I forgot to say it, and so I just completely screwed that up.

47:13.47

Scott Sigler

All right.

47:13.73

Wednesday Lee Friday

But, I know, right? We all put our pants on one finger at a time. It ain't over till the broken lady sings. We can still win this book, provided that you think blazingly and play your ears out.

47:29.36

Wednesday Lee Friday

Remember,

47:29.39

Scott Sigler

yeah

47:30.50

Wednesday Lee Friday

You can do anything you put your mountain to. Now, let's get out there and give it our best street light.

47:38.22

Scott Sigler

ah You know, that would get me pumped up. I'd be ready to go out at the graph and and get some things done.

47:40.97

Wednesday Lee Friday

Right?

47:43.69

Wednesday Lee Friday

Yeah, go out there and hit a few cans. um

47:47.67

Scott Sigler

like

47:47.98

Wednesday Lee Friday

Alright, so dude, thanks so much for being here. I want to let everybody know, because it's kind of a short interview today, we're going to... After this episode, we're going to show, um well, we won't show it, but it's Deadland.

48:01.40

Wednesday Lee Friday

It is a radio drama that we made back in our W.O.C.R. college days, and it actually stars me and you.

48:06.05

Scott Sigler

Awesome.

48:09.07

Wednesday Lee Friday

And yeah, and i actually, I'm always on the fence about saying other people's names on the show, but they'll be in the credits.

48:09.13

Scott Sigler

Great.

48:17.65

Wednesday Lee Friday

You'll be able to hear them. It's an eight-part radio series that we did all the way back in the 90s, and so that'll be here. In the meantime, do find us on Ko-fi, where we are sometimes hilarious horror, ah because we pay people who submit to us with real earth money.

48:34.18

Wednesday Lee Friday

And the way that we do that is because people subscribe and give us their money.

48:39.15

Scott Sigler

Fantastic.

48:39.19

Wednesday Lee Friday

It's all a big capitalism party. So, Scott, man, I'm so glad you could be here. Thank you so much.

48:45.73

Scott Sigler

Thank you for having me. It's just a delight to get to chit chat with you for a while.

48:49.28

Wednesday Lee Friday

Right? Right? And we'll see everybody else next week.