Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Author, Pilot, Publisher, Badass Tawn Krakowski
Find an audio version of this episode here.
Find more from our guest here.
00:00:01.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday Lee Friday, and with us this week, we have Tawn Krakowski. And born and raised in the heart of America, Ton grew up scouring her local library for any, oh, well let's see, Terry Brooks, Isaac Asimov, Piers Anthony, or Stephen King.
00:00:19.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right, right. Fascinated with space and flight, she earned her private pilot certificate at 19.
00:00:20.99
Tawn Krakowski
you
00:00:26.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
And after comp competing completing a BS in aviation management, Worked as a flight instructor, cargo pilot, and jet charter captain. We'll definitely get into that.
00:00:39.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Let's see. Author of four novels. Ton is also a serial entrepreneur entrepreneur. At one time, operating a catering business, a virtual reality arcade. And now, she has an experimental media outlet, Tonlandia.
00:00:53.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
She is on the board of directors for the nonprofit BWN Publishing and firmly believes in the power of storytelling and community. Welcome, Tawn, it is great to have you here.
00:01:06.21
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, it's wonderful to be here. Thank you.
00:01:10.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, sure, yeah. ah I'm so excited and we like missed our first opportunity to talk, so I'm so glad that we are able to get this done. um We typically start the show by asking guests to tell us the story of their first horror movie. So, let's have it
00:01:28.90
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, my first horror movie. So, um the, I have kind of a first horror movie. in that I inadvertently saw the scene from the exorcist where she was raised up above the bed and, you know, screaming.
00:01:46.14
Tawn Krakowski
And I think I saw that when I was, i don't know, eight. So i had, I had nightmares for a long, long time after that.
00:01:51.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yikes.
00:01:55.28
Tawn Krakowski
Um, but my first like horror movie that I went to see, see, oh my goodness.
00:01:56.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'll bet.
00:02:05.56
Tawn Krakowski
Maybe Wolfen? it's It's just been so long.
00:02:09.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. Oh, the big werewolf boom of the 80s, man. Those were wonderful times.
00:02:15.81
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah, yeah. And all those, um the murders at at camp and things like that, I actually did camp in the 80s. So I was at summer camp. I was just rife for all of those you know scary movies.
00:02:31.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice, nice. I actually did summer camp one year in the 80s, and it was a year where there had been a Friday the 13th, so we were all showing up on Sunday the 15th like, ah we're doomed!
00:02:44.28
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Yeah. I remember those.
00:02:48.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
So do you think early exposure to horror movies set you on a path?
00:02:54.11
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, probably. yeah Um, my parents divorced when I was really, really young. And I think a lot of the way I coped with that was to like hide.
00:03:06.14
Tawn Krakowski
in like dark places. And when you're in dark places, you kind of know, want to know what, you know, might be in there with you. ah So, um, yeah, I was, I was attracted to, uh, Stephen King novels early on.
00:03:14.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:03:21.70
Tawn Krakowski
Uh, I read above my grade level. So those kinds of things really, um, attracted me and, you know, being a teenage girl, I was totally into all the occult stuff.
00:03:32.96
Tawn Krakowski
So,
00:03:34.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, we're about the same age, so I need to ask if you did the VC Andrews thing.
00:03:41.75
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah, the flowers in the attic. Oh my God.
00:03:44.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was so much of it because that series ended up being like five books. And then there was Heaven Castile and Audrina.
00:03:52.60
Tawn Krakowski
Oh my gosh.
00:03:54.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, yeah, that's probably the my girliest reading stint ever because I know a lot of people that write romance or like paranormal romance or romance to see, you know, and I don't I don't really get near that.
00:04:03.10
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:04:07.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
But man, back in the day, like. you know, bad parents, bad grand grandparents.
00:04:09.98
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah.
00:04:12.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
that was like I had great grandparents, but parents not so much. So all that was like right up my alley.
00:04:18.52
Tawn Krakowski
oh yeah I got into all kinds of stuff I shouldn't have been and my my aunt had an extensive collection of horror novels and um so every time I was at her house I would you know take one off the wall and start reading some of that you know this the scary stuff and then the the sci-fi stuff came from
00:04:19.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
And...
00:04:22.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
00:04:30.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
00:04:42.97
Tawn Krakowski
Do you remember the Isaac, I think it was Isaac Asimov science fiction and fantasy magazine.
00:04:49.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:04:50.36
Tawn Krakowski
I, my parents had that subscription. I would steal it every, I think it came out every month that and Omni magazine.
00:04:55.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn't get to read it unless I was at the dentist. So that's amazing.
00:05:00.79
Tawn Krakowski
That and their Omni magazine. I was totally into all the were crazy sciencey stuff.
00:05:08.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.
00:05:11.94
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:05:12.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
So now you're in Arizona. um Which is traditionally pretty red.
00:05:16.15
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:05:18.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
um You are not especially red. How is that going for you?
00:05:23.74
Tawn Krakowski
I feel like I'm behind enemy lines so often. It's crazy. Um, I actually moved out here in 2015 from, uh, the Chicago area.
00:05:34.74
Tawn Krakowski
And, um, honestly, I've been surprised at how how many, you know, ah blue folk, how many, um, I consider myself an anarchist, you know, kind of thing.
00:05:50.83
Tawn Krakowski
So maybe some people on my side of the the alley there that there are, um, I just think that the the red is louder than the blue.
00:06:02.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that applies to an awful lot of things, you know, because, well, there's a think a line of thinking among MAGA boys that liberals don't have guns.
00:06:09.53
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:06:17.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
And i think they think that because we don't wear them like jewelry.
00:06:17.82
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:06:22.26
Tawn Krakowski
Exactly.
00:06:22.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, it's not it's not our entire fashion aesthetic.
00:06:23.77
Tawn Krakowski
i don't i don't need an AR-15 to go pick up ah you know some Starbucks or whatever.
00:06:28.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:06:28.50
Tawn Krakowski
Okay.
00:06:29.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. Well, I mean, when I was coming up, if somebody rushed into a room with a gun that was like longer than their arm, they were bad. And we knew they were bad and they were going to do something bad and that we needed to get the hell out of there. And now people are just standing around shops with guns like that being like, what? I'm just exercising my right.
00:06:50.50
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, it's
00:06:50.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, it would be my right to wrap a 15 foot python around myself and walk down the street. But I don't do it because I don't want to upset people.
00:06:58.74
Tawn Krakowski
I totally want to wrap a Python around me and go for a walk now. How awesome would that be? No, I mean,
00:07:05.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, that's that's the our answer to the Helen Roper pub crawl. It'll be the the Python walk.
00:07:12.00
Tawn Krakowski
I love that. No, I it it it astounds me that I'm You know, first of all, that that, you know, as these these folks are so insecure that they need, you know, weaponry to go to the grocery store.
00:07:27.99
Tawn Krakowski
But then I'm on the side of the fence that if I see any gun at all, any weapon at all, I'm going to assume you're a bad guy until you prove otherwise.
00:07:39.35
Tawn Krakowski
It's just like, you know, men, they they say not all men, but until I know better. Yes, all men. You know?
00:07:50.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well, and and there's a snake analogy for that too, actually, because if you get thrown into a pit of snakes, but only 10% of them are dangerous, what are you going to do?
00:08:00.04
Tawn Krakowski
Yep.
00:08:01.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, you're going to treat all of them like they're dangerous until you can get the hell out of there. You know, you're not necessarily going to start questioning them to see, hey, snake, who did you vote for?
00:08:05.98
Tawn Krakowski
Exactly.
00:08:12.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um...
00:08:13.85
Tawn Krakowski
And it's it's funny. You'd think that because you know, generally women are the only creatures that have to date a natural predator.
00:08:25.43
Tawn Krakowski
It astounds me that more of us are not lesbians, you know, there you go.
00:08:30.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's how we know that sexuality isn't a choice, right?
00:08:35.20
Tawn Krakowski
Exactly. Exactly.
00:08:38.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I am aware that you have an ADHD diagnosis and that it's pretty recent, which means that like me, you went all through school not necessarily realizing why you were struggling so much. um So let's let's talk about that. How did your diagnosis come about?
00:08:57.34
Tawn Krakowski
Well, during the you know the global pandemic, before the apocalypse, um i was ah there was just a lot of personal stuff going on, a lot of family difficulties, and I was running a business, and i was you know the kids were in middle school, high school kind of thing, and there was just so much going on.
00:09:25.69
Tawn Krakowski
and I was doing okay until the pandemic and then everything just fell apart. And i noticed that like during the height of it, when everything was shut down and, and it was quiet at night, that how much I really, really loved the quiet.
00:09:46.62
Tawn Krakowski
And I think during that time is when I thought, well, I think I'm, I think I'm depressed. And so I talked to my doctor and, you know, he of course put me on medication right away. And then later on um, when, uh, my youngest was having difficulty with, with school and and focusing and things like that.
00:10:09.69
Tawn Krakowski
Um, we got a ADHD diagnosis for them and their doctors like, Hey, you know, it's hereditary. And I'm like, fuck.
00:10:21.43
Tawn Krakowski
So i don't even know I can say that, but you can edit it out.
00:10:24.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:10:25.11
Tawn Krakowski
It's fine. So I was like,
00:10:26.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, no, i would I would not have a show where people could not use profanity because I couldn't be on it.
00:10:30.58
Tawn Krakowski
oh, and I love you so much. So yes, I was like, fuck.
00:10:34.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
and
00:10:36.12
Tawn Krakowski
um Yeah, maybe I should get that checked out. And yeah, um it's been it's been enlightening because so much of what happened in my past that I just thought was everybody was going through that.
00:10:57.75
Tawn Krakowski
it It illuminated all those things that had I not been raw dogging reality, um i would have, it would have been so much easier to get through. i mean, I had no idea I was playing the game on hard mode this whole time.
00:11:13.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Did did do you do you feel a lot of anger about that? i don't want to put words in your mouth, but boy, was I angry when i I realized that I should have had accommodations, maybe medication, much more understanding, like all of that, and that I wasn't actually a failure.
00:11:21.66
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:11:31.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
i was being failed.
00:11:33.30
Tawn Krakowski
Yes. Yeah. aye I think there was a bit of rage, but that was all, you know, during that time that rage was ever present and like directed outwards toward anything read.
00:11:50.26
Tawn Krakowski
so I think it kind of got mixed in with all of that.
00:11:52.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, you know, they they deserve it.
00:11:55.38
Tawn Krakowski
But um yeah, they was it was more of a a realization like, oh, that's why I do that, or that's why that happened that way, or just kind of a a realization of, yeah, not everybody is having the same experience that you're having.
00:12:20.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and it seems like not knowing for all that time would be even more impactful as a parent. Because had you had the the baseline knowledge from your own childhood, it might have been possible to be more aware of what was happening with your child sooner.
00:12:31.96
Tawn Krakowski
yes
00:12:38.30
Tawn Krakowski
exactly yeah that that was yeah and and that
00:12:38.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know So that that has generational impacts, you know not getting diagnosed.
00:12:46.90
Tawn Krakowski
That kind of goes back and forth with, you know, my, my parents' generation where of course, you know, oh, go to therapy is like a insult for them, you know, and they think that ADHD is fake and it's just too much sugar or whatever.
00:12:56.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:13:02.73
Tawn Krakowski
my folks would not have been the kind of people that would have gotten me evaluated young. And because I was smart, I didn't have a lot of the issues that um that I would have had if I had not been, you know, a smart cookie.
00:13:22.58
Tawn Krakowski
So, I think that I would have liked to have known earlier exactly like you said, because it would have helped my own children. Just because I saw them go through through some of the same things that I went through when I was a kid. And i didn't know how to help myself then.
00:13:45.02
Tawn Krakowski
and i certainly didn't know how to help them now. So it was a, the learning curve was vertical for me. both for me and for them.
00:13:56.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, that that makes a lot of sense. um So when you're addressing what your your kids are going through, how is it different than addressing what you're going through?
00:14:09.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like what kind of coping mechanisms are being used?
00:14:14.19
Tawn Krakowski
Um, so I think for, um Well, both for for myself and for my youngest, we we've got, you know, some medication to kind of help with that.
00:14:30.20
Tawn Krakowski
And it's funny because, you know, I grew up in that, like we all did in that era where, oh, you know, medication is bad for you and all this other stuff. But I tell you what the ADHD medicine, it's like night and day. I mean, I can tell when I forgot to take it.
00:14:50.90
Tawn Krakowski
And then when i did take, when I do take it, I'm like, I'm on, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm in sync with kind of what's going on around me. And it's not such kind of a, a lag, I guess, when I'm, when I'm not, you know, on my ADHD meds.
00:15:09.88
Tawn Krakowski
Um, and I,
00:15:10.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, it's it's, oh, I'm sorry, i didn't mean to interrupt.
00:15:13.30
Tawn Krakowski
Oh no, no, go ahead.
00:15:13.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm just curious to know, is that something that you feel like within a day? Because a lot of psych meds, they take weeks before you feel anything.
00:15:23.22
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, um, the medication for, uh, depression, anxiety. Yeah. That took, that took a little while to kind of, to take effect.
00:15:38.68
Tawn Krakowski
But the um the ADHD meds, once we got the the dosage in there, so we kind of had to play around with the dosage. But once we got that dialed in, I can feel it like within a couple of hours.
00:15:55.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:15:55.64
Tawn Krakowski
And then, you know, at the end of the day, I'm like, ah you know, if I forgot to take it at the end of the, toward the end of the day, I'm like, why am I so freaking tight? Oh, shit. Yeah, I forgot.
00:16:06.80
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, that's why.
00:16:09.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. and And so is it, if you take it and it like, I guess I don't know how to describe it really, if it hypes you up or increases your focus, what happens at the end of the day? do you, do you crash or do you come down gentle? Like how how does that go?
00:16:26.17
Tawn Krakowski
you know actually that's a good question probably i probably crash I mean I get to the point where I'm i'm really tired and I'm like hey i guess I'm going to go to bed and it it doesn't take me long to fall asleep after that so but it's not like you know, I'm doing something and I have to sit down and go to sleep.
00:16:50.23
Tawn Krakowski
Um, which honestly, when I was, when I was a kid, i did have those issues where, you know, I got to the point where i was so tired and I was doing so much stuff that I was like that kitten, you know, that you watch like fall asleep while it's sitting up.
00:16:51.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
I see.
00:17:08.85
Tawn Krakowski
I would do that. Yeah.
00:17:11.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. So I guess what I'm wondering is, had you been diagnosed in childhood and properly treated, What do you think would have gone differently for you in life?
00:17:27.66
Tawn Krakowski
Well,
00:17:27.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
mean, could you point to anything specific that didn't go your way because of how your symptoms presented?
00:17:39.96
Tawn Krakowski
no. So I think school would have been a whole lot easier. i think there would have been a whole lot less feelings of um, a failure or, or perfectionism, um, kind of holding me back, I think.
00:17:59.20
Tawn Krakowski
Uh, and i' I believe that my relationship with my children would have been a lot different because I would have understood what it was that they were going through, from a frame of reference where i knew what I was going through.
00:18:19.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
That makes sense. That makes a ton of sense. um Would you say that ADHD impacts your writing? Like how often you're able to write or how much or the content?
00:18:32.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what do you think the impact has been?
00:18:33.07
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, very much so. Oh yeah, very much so.
00:18:35.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Okay.
00:18:36.98
Tawn Krakowski
ah um i i envy the people who have this routine where they're like, I get up and I write from this to this every day and blah, blah, blah.
00:18:47.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
00:18:47.26
Tawn Krakowski
I can't do that. i don't My energy levels fluctuate.
00:18:49.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:18:51.80
Tawn Krakowski
um Generally in the morning, i i can't talk to anybody for like a few hours after I get up because I'm still so groggy. And then you know, when I get focused on something and I'm i'm hyper focused, I'm in the moment and i'm I'm writing, you know, that kind of thing.
00:19:02.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
huh
00:19:13.11
Tawn Krakowski
And something interrupts me. i can't i can't get back into it. It takes forever. And sometimes I never go back to it.
00:19:24.07
Tawn Krakowski
I've got like 15,000 works in progress that I think I'm just going to turn into a bunch of short stories because I can't focus for very long.
00:19:27.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah.
00:19:33.95
Tawn Krakowski
That's why um when I started writing with Big World Network, they were in episodic format.
00:19:34.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:19:41.85
Tawn Krakowski
And I think that was hugely helpful to me. and And I think maybe the ADHD played into that because I really liked the short stories and kind of writing in, writing in tidbits.
00:19:55.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, that is so relatable. I think making the switch from long form to short form is the reason that I'm still writing fiction now, because I was getting so overwhelmed by the idea of putting together another long form book.
00:20:10.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
And for me, that's only like, you know, maybe 100,000 words.
00:20:10.84
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:20:14.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, my books are not even that long. But a short story is like, OK, I had this cool idea.
00:20:16.86
Tawn Krakowski
Mm-hmm.
00:20:21.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
I sat down for three hours and outlined it. And then two days later, I went back through and, and you know, sharpened it up. And that's a story. That's a thing that you can publish because it's it's already done.
00:20:32.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, whereas I've been trying to finish my Don Jr.
00:20:31.96
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:20:35.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
trilogy for years. I mean, the last book was published in 2022, and I still can't finish the third one because I hate that motherfucker so goddamn much now. Oh, yeah, we're using swears on the show. Did I mention that?
00:20:48.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:20:50.07
Tawn Krakowski
Motherfucker. Yeah, no, I can't stand him either.
00:20:51.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that that was a tough one for me because, I mean, regular listeners know I sincerely believe that he was a good guy surrounded by assholes, and I believed it for decades.
00:21:03.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
And spoiler alert, that's not true.
00:21:03.64
Tawn Krakowski
Really?
00:21:05.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, I mean, because, you know, his dad was a Democrat forever, and Don Jr.
00:21:11.44
Tawn Krakowski
Uh-huh.
00:21:12.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
didn't give a fuck about politics when he was young. And it so happened that when I found out about a particular abusive incident that That happened sort of publicly.
00:21:24.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
I was on LSD.
00:21:24.65
Tawn Krakowski
Uh-huh.
00:21:26.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it became like a like a core memory that Don Jr.
00:21:27.65
Tawn Krakowski
Uh-huh.
00:21:30.68
Tawn Krakowski
ha ha
00:21:32.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
is a good guy who's being abused and somebody ought to help him. And that just like burrowed its way into my mind like one of those little Star Trek bugs from Wrath of Khan.
00:21:40.92
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah.
00:21:41.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:21:43.02
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah.
00:21:43.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
And and so so, yeah, I was convinced of it. And I don't know if you've ever been hornswoggled by someone who doesn't know you you exist, but it can make you feel pretty fucking stupid.
00:21:54.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
So.
00:21:55.03
Tawn Krakowski
How I can imagine. i get And you know what? I'm the kind of person that I would blame that on myself for being dumb enough to fall for it versus on them for being so smart as to fool me.
00:22:06.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah.
00:22:10.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and for fuck's sake, he wasn't even trying to trick me. mean, until I started freaking cyberstalking him on Twitter, he didn't know who I was. And so, and which is not cool, because like I invited him to my wedding, and I did not even get an RSVP.
00:22:23.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I'm sorry, sir, but that's rude. Don Jr., if you're listening, that was rude.
00:22:25.84
Tawn Krakowski
motherfucker.
00:22:29.34
Tawn Krakowski
So rude. So rude. I think you can still blame him.
00:22:32.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, high treason is one thing, but come on, not returning an RSVP? What the fuck, man? Optics, anyone?
00:22:42.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, you run a publishing house, and it is called Barnstormer Publishing, and there's a bunch of books that are, like, on their way to readers right now, so tell us what we need to know about that.
00:22:47.83
Tawn Krakowski
who
00:22:54.00
Tawn Krakowski
Oh my gosh. So, um, I started it because I really just wanted to publish republish my own books to get all of the, the royalties.
00:23:05.58
Tawn Krakowski
Um, and then, a friend of mine, Pat Green was writing some, um,
00:23:06.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:23:13.56
Tawn Krakowski
some kind of short fiction based on the 80s and some characters that he was working on for his book and i first kind of connected with his short stories and thought hey um i i'm also a narrator i'm like i would like to voice some of these short stories and kind of publish them you know as as just on my blog that kind of thing And, um, we got to talking and he says, well, I'm, I'm looking to publish my, my parts of glass book, my first one.
00:23:46.30
Tawn Krakowski
And I'm like, well, I just bought a hundred ISBN. So let's do this thing. And it's kind of grown from there. um Pat is putting out his second in the Hearts of Glass series.
00:24:02.54
Tawn Krakowski
I've also republished three of my four. what The fourth one is getting a new cover and kind of a rewrite to go with the cover. um I've just finished publishing The Grovers, um which is it's The Grovers, Who's Afraid of the Boogeyman by J. Jesse Edwards. And it's a,
00:24:26.17
Tawn Krakowski
It reminds me of a Scooby-Doo mystery with kids that get superpowers and you know battle evil.
00:24:30.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice.
00:24:33.85
Tawn Krakowski
um And they have some some kind of things going on in their lives as well. um And then I republished my friend Wendy, Wendy Lou, two of her novels, which um are, they're like sci-fi, not sci-fi, I'm sorry. like um like adventure, a spy kind of romance novels with the main character is a woman, an adult woman, as opposed to like the 16 year old who goes off on the quest, um which is kind of like my pirate princess book, which is a 12 year old who goes off on a quest, but that's another, that's another story.
00:25:06.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, how fun.
00:25:19.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
00:25:20.15
Tawn Krakowski
oh And then um the, one of my, favorite ones that came out this one was a little bit outside of my comfort zone and I'm actually really grateful that Stevie B's gave me a chance on this one but um they wrote an adorable illustrated children's book called What is a Safe Space?
00:25:43.16
Tawn Krakowski
And um so that is being published through my company as well. And that one is coming out. So we had some confusion as far as the shipping um and it will be published, i believe, mid to late January.
00:26:04.31
Tawn Krakowski
but I won't know that until later on.
00:26:09.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Are you guys accepting?
00:26:11.45
Tawn Krakowski
And then I also have, oh no, I was gonna say, and I also have some more stuff coming out.
00:26:12.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Oh, sorry.
00:26:17.63
Tawn Krakowski
There's another, um an erotica novella, as well as a fantasy novel.
00:26:23.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice.
00:26:28.07
Tawn Krakowski
spicy book it's not really erotica it's it's more of a spicy fantasy novel um and i and series and we're working on series uh serials coming out in january so lots of stuff going on
00:26:43.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Can you explain the difference between spicy and straight up erotica?
00:26:48.34
Tawn Krakowski
oh uh so spicy is um there's more like there's more like novel than sex scenes.
00:26:59.26
Tawn Krakowski
And then the erotica one is I I'm it's basically episodic. So each chapter is a full sex scene.
00:27:11.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. Wow. Okay.
00:27:16.24
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:27:16.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's wild. i don' Because, you know, that's that's not really what I read, so I don't know like the the delineations between the subgenres.
00:27:17.88
Tawn Krakowski
I am. I am not.
00:27:24.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
But also, like, the...
00:27:24.50
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, I kind of made those up. I mean, i don't know Oh, okay.
00:27:28.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well,
00:27:32.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
because people will use a lot of terms like that. Like, I just found out what cozy mystery means recently because someone described the new Matlock that way. And I was like, I don't know what that means.
00:27:42.36
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, okay.
00:27:44.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
But it it turns out that cozy just means you're not going to have your heart broken at the end. Like they're telling you in advance that it's not like reading The Road where you're going to finish it and walk around in a fog three days because everything's so unfair.
00:27:58.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, ah a cozy story is one that has a satisfying ending where the good guys aren't getting completely screwed over at the end.
00:27:58.69
Tawn Krakowski
I gotcha.
00:28:07.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I love that. I love that that's a genre that exists, even if it's probably not what I would choose most of the time. i love that there are books for people that are like, I want to read, but I don't want to take that risk because I have a life and children and I need my mental health intact.
00:28:24.18
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, absolutely. And even, you know, sometimes you're just not up for that hardcore, you know, horror novel. Maybe something cozy is just right up the alley when you're having a bad day.
00:28:33.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:28:38.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, right. And I mean, if you're reading for escapism, you might not want to walk into a nest full of alien vipers or whatever the hell, you know?
00:28:46.49
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Maybe some great British baking show is, you know, is ready for you to go. Yeah.
00:28:53.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, how many times can you really watch Dexter? Well, I'm down to find out, frankly. But um so so the the progression from, oh, you know what? I skipped a question. Oh, my God. I can't even read my own list. um Are you guys taking unsolicited subs?
00:29:09.91
Tawn Krakowski
Yes. Um, uh, editor at barnstorming publisher, bart that editor at barnstormer publishing.com, uh, is our email address.
00:29:20.53
Tawn Krakowski
Um, yeah.
00:29:21.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
So what are you looking for in a sub?
00:29:24.31
Tawn Krakowski
Um, You know, that's a good question. most of Most of what we're looking for See,
00:29:29.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right? I'm smart.
00:29:39.50
Tawn Krakowski
that's a good question.
00:29:41.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sorry, I kind of sprung that on you, I think.
00:29:43.42
Tawn Krakowski
No, no, i don't think that you did. It was probably on the list and I wasn't paying attention. um I think one of the things that all of the publications that I put out have in common are they're either by or about um a ah underrepresented um population. They're either female lead or they're written by a person of color or that kind of thing. And also we're looking for um
00:30:22.46
Tawn Krakowski
A variety, I think. I mean, I've done, i have some children's, I have some middle grade, i have some adult, I have some very adult. um And I really like to see different stories, um but all from from different perspectives.
00:30:44.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:30:44.79
Tawn Krakowski
If that makes sense.
00:30:44.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it isn't even entirely about the sub itself, but how it fits into your your larger ah slate of of what you're putting out.
00:30:54.36
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:55.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
That makes sense. Well, you know, when I first started submitting, sometimes you get that that rejection letter back and it says that your story doesn't meet their needs at the present time. And that always sounded really bullshitty and corporate-y to me. But now that I run a magazine, i understand that, like, no, this is really good. It's just not right for us right now.
00:31:19.00
Tawn Krakowski
yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
00:31:22.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and, like, the progression from writer to publisher... is way more common than I realized. um So, like, I know why I do it, but why do you think that so many writers want to get into publishing eventually?
00:31:37.56
Tawn Krakowski
Um, probably for the same reason that I started is that they want a bigger cut of their own money.
00:31:44.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:31:45.27
Tawn Krakowski
um but learning how to do all the things is, is a lot harder than I had anticipated. it's, it's, you know, to be able to, first of all, find the platform to make sure that everything's typeset correctly, to get cover art, to be able to have that cover art fit.
00:32:05.66
Tawn Krakowski
the the file to be able to, you know, and then you market it yourself. And it's just, it's a lot. And I think when I was putting together a kind ah publishing house, I wanted it to be kind of a co-op.
00:32:24.63
Tawn Krakowski
in that everything that we're doing so far is is royalty share. So I've been doing a bulk of the back end things like typesetting and doing the cover um cover fitting and things like that and uploading it and distribution.
00:32:45.18
Tawn Krakowski
um And then i don't make any money as a publisher until those books sell. So it's kind of a win-win on um both of the both of our parts.
00:33:00.06
Tawn Krakowski
Some folks that wouldn't otherwise have gotten um a callback or or you know their stories published, I'm able to publish them.
00:33:10.60
Tawn Krakowski
And then I also get kind of a cut from them doing all the work, all the hard work.
00:33:16.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:33:17.22
Tawn Krakowski
I just did the stuff on the back end.
00:33:17.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Right?
00:33:19.54
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:33:20.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and the back-end stuff is the stuff that's, not only is it hard work, it's meticulous and it's not fun. Because laying out a book is not, I mean, I don't feel like it's a creative activity. I feel like it's just meticulous and procedural. And I have to keep looking up which thing to pick because it's so, like, I don't know. it's it's It's just, like, every time I have to, like, laying out the magazine is my least favorite part, you know?
00:33:46.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
I love sending acceptance letters. That's my favorite part. And, and like, you know, going through the slush pile. Thank goodness. I have somebody to help with that now. um But no, you know what I wanted to actually go back to is you mentioned the book, what is a safe space?
00:34:00.48
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:34:03.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I want to talk about that because um safe space is one of those like woke terms, that people are really quick to denigrate, you know, oh, I don't need a safe space because I'm tough, whatever, whatever.
00:34:03.83
Tawn Krakowski
yes
00:34:17.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Let's talk about why that's a bunch of bullshit if we can, because safe spaces are important, they're valuable, they help people.
00:34:22.93
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah.
00:34:27.45
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:34:27.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Tell us your take on that, please.
00:34:27.99
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. I think a lot of people who, so who kind of poo poo that and say, Oh, I don't need a safe space. I'm being into, I think those kinds of people have never actually had a safe space.
00:34:42.14
Tawn Krakowski
Um, because I think that if they would recognize that, then of course they would say, well, yeah, everybody needs a place to be themselves, to be safe, to not have to worry about, you know, what kind of crazy things the orangutan in charge is doing. Um, so I really do think that they can't really recognize it because they never experienced it.
00:35:08.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now I wonder if that's like when people talk about culture.
00:35:08.25
Tawn Krakowski
Um,
00:35:12.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you'll have black culture or Hispanic culture and people say, oh, well, why isn't there white culture? It's like, because that's just called culture. That's what takes over everything. So maybe a safe space for a cis white privileged man is just what the world is.
00:35:22.18
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:35:29.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
The whole world is set up to be their safe space.
00:35:32.28
Tawn Krakowski
Yes. Yeah. And that's.
00:35:34.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
And yet they don't they don't feel like it because if there's any sort of critique whatsoever, then suddenly they're the guys punching walls and feeling unsafe.
00:35:34.79
Tawn Krakowski
act
00:35:43.20
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Yeah. That's very, very true. and I think what you get used to it's hard to kind of take away things that you're used to.
00:35:54.84
Tawn Krakowski
and if you're used to being in, you know, the one on top, if you're used to everybody catering to your needs, then, you know, you, you get a boo-boo and suddenly it's the end of the world.
00:36:06.71
Tawn Krakowski
And to them, it probably is at the end of the world because suddenly the world is not working the way it always has been before.
00:36:07.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:36:14.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:36:15.54
Tawn Krakowski
um But yeah, I think everybody absolutely needs a safe space. And I think that everybody needs to know how to discern that.
00:36:27.22
Tawn Krakowski
um You know, we talked about a lot of the horror influences that I had growing up. And i think that kind of instilled in me an instinct.
00:36:40.21
Tawn Krakowski
for, you know, what, what is safe and what is not safe. And I, I think a lot of, you know, that's something that has to be cultivated, hopefully not, you know, with scary stuff all the time. But I think it's probably it's good that, you know, people are able to discern what is safe and what is not.
00:37:06.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And part of a safe space involves consent. And that consent is like we wait to get consent before something happens.
00:37:11.51
Tawn Krakowski
Yes. Exactly.
00:37:16.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then we respect consent through the whole process. And that's something that as a society, we've only been talking about consent openly for our short time and even less so for children.
00:37:28.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
I know when I was a kid, If your gross old aunt that you've never met before wants to hug you, you shut your eyes real tight and you give her a hug because that's what you are expected to do. And yet, if you get the creep from a guy on a date and you don't, you know, what plays in your head isn't, this isn't safe, I should probably leave.
00:37:39.83
Tawn Krakowski
exactly
00:37:47.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
What plays in your head is, I don't want to be rude. I don't want to be accused of overreacting. You know, there are a whole bunch of things that we're taught that make us less safe and we don't even realize it.
00:37:59.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, that whole...
00:37:59.24
Tawn Krakowski
and I think,
00:38:00.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
being polite thing in particular.
00:38:03.10
Tawn Krakowski
oh yeah, and i don't I don't think that we're not getting that feeling that it's unsafe. I think that all that we've been taught has been overriding that feeling.
00:38:13.88
Tawn Krakowski
And so, you know, when we kind of, we smile because we know that we feel unsafe and we're kind of hoping that, you know, nothing nothing will set off this person because we recognize
00:38:14.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:38:27.32
Tawn Krakowski
that this person is not safe to be be with. um And going through that, when you were talking about the safe space for children, ah that's that's one of the things that really, really drew me to this book um is because it's it's in that kind of sing-songy Dr. Seuss meter And um it talks about different children ah with their their name begins with the letter of the alphabet and what they do to be a safe space for their friends.
00:39:04.28
Tawn Krakowski
And then at the end, um So in Hearts of Glass, we have a domestic violence shelter and information, the hotlines, that kind of thing.
00:39:17.43
Tawn Krakowski
In the beginning, resources for folks to be able to find some of the resources that they might need. And then in the back of the Safe Space book um is the ABCs the
00:39:34.19
Tawn Krakowski
I can't remember what it's called, the ABCs of um of consent, I guess. So the the C stands for cassette consent and um and I can't remember what the A and B were for, but essentially it's kind of talking points that you can talk with young children about and how to recognize safe spaces and how to be a safe space for their friends.
00:40:05.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is just cool. I love that. I love it. um I think that kids sometimes get the message that they can't, you know, that they're not very important. They're not in charge of anything. And I think empowering kids, certainly in like bully situations or situations where people are being made to feel unsafe, learning how impactful you can be as a young person sets you up to be more impactful in every aspect of life. Seriously.
00:40:36.15
Tawn Krakowski
Absolutely.
00:40:36.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Plus, I think self-esteem goes up because nothing makes my self-esteem better than when I feel like I have actually improved something that someone else is doing, you know, like leaving things better than you found it.
00:40:49.37
Tawn Krakowski
Yes, yeah.
00:40:49.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
So all of that ties in together to like the sense of community, because I think one of the reasons that we're really in advancing in terms of things like consent or the Me Too movement, um you know, tackling domestic violence, things like that is because we're all talking openly with each other and the bad people don't like that.
00:41:08.47
Tawn Krakowski
Yes. Yeah.
00:41:11.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
They don't want us comparing notes. They don't want us making a list of the men who did bad things on dates so that other people know not to date them. They don't want, you know, adequate sex education so that people know what's a good touch and what's a bad touch and what you do if there's a bad touch, like who you're supposed to tell and, you know,
00:41:24.76
Tawn Krakowski
no
00:41:33.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
What happens if they don't believe you and who, you know, there's so many things there that I had no idea about.
00:41:33.75
Tawn Krakowski
now
00:41:39.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And without getting too personal into my own drama, it would have been helpful to know that not everybody believed what I was being told that people believed, you know?
00:41:51.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that's, it's so important to get those messages out to where people will.
00:41:51.42
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:41:58.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, and I mean, I'm not even just talking about kids, you know, grown women, comparing notes about their terrible husbands and saying, like, I will never forget the first time I was talking to someone at a sex website that I was working for.
00:42:01.46
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:42:13.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
And she said, well, what do you do when your husband forces you? And I just froze because yeah, I've had some terrible boyfriends, but my husband, no, he would, he would never.
00:42:18.63
Tawn Krakowski
Wow. Yeah.
00:42:24.57
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Well, and what it wasn't until wasn't until what the 90s before marital rape was a crime.
00:42:27.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
And the,
00:42:33.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
in In all 50 states, yeah, there were some states that tackled it ah earlier, but yeah, federally, the 90s. The 1990s, kids.
00:42:39.87
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:42:42.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because it turns out women aren't property. No no person is property, it it turns out.
00:42:50.33
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, yeah.
00:42:51.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, so yeah. like I mean, that's honestly one of the reasons that I do this show, because I think that talking about these issues with people who aren't typically hanging out with people that are talking about these issues is so helpful because there are women in these little...
00:43:06.01
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, yeah
00:43:08.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, i don't want to blame churches in general. I was going to say these little churchy pockets of, you know, isolation.
00:43:13.50
Tawn Krakowski
no, that's okay if you blame churches in general.
00:43:17.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
i think is
00:43:17.38
Tawn Krakowski
i'm I'm completely good with that.
00:43:20.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
m Not you Episcopalians. We're cool.
00:43:25.72
Tawn Krakowski
But I do think that a lot of a lot of times, church and those kinds of environments are the first places that we learn to suppress our our own fears, our own gut instinct, and and learn how to obey and to be silent.
00:43:26.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
But yeah, like people...
00:43:44.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. Mm-hmm.
00:43:44.76
Tawn Krakowski
and And that kind of darkness, that kind of evil thrives in silence. And for a long time, it even if you did say something, it didn't matter. Nobody would do anything about it. So I think a lot of women just kept it to themselves. you know If they were assaulted or anything you know that happened to them, they would keep to themselves.
00:44:10.01
Tawn Krakowski
And then when Me Too started, you know i i could see that more more women were coming forward.
00:44:20.82
Tawn Krakowski
and more people were paying attention. And i think that that we've gotten to this point right now with the Epstein files and and just trying to expose all of the rotten foundation um of of all of this just abuse. um
00:44:46.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:44:46.49
Tawn Krakowski
it it almost feels like ah like ah a boil coming to a head, you know, that that this has been growing since since the 80s, especially, but this kind of upheaval of of um women finding their voices and and especially black women finding their voices and people actually listening for a change.
00:44:52.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:45:11.98
Tawn Krakowski
i think it's really come to a head.
00:45:16.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well, absolutely. And it's so wild because, like, with the Epstein files, we're finally reaching a point where the plausible deniability is gone. You know, people have to stand up and make some choices and and admit what they're supporting and what they're not supporting.
00:45:34.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
And ah from where I'm sitting, I'm learning about a whole bunch of cowardice that I had not suspected before, you know?
00:45:43.79
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah.
00:45:44.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, Megyn Kelly's always been crap. I'm not going to say she hasn't always been just performative garbage, but she's got a 14-year-old daughter, and she said, oh, 15, barely legal, blah, blah, blah.
00:45:48.71
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:45:57.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, bitch, what? No. i don't.
00:46:00.60
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:46:02.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah it's It's shocking to me.
00:46:02.51
Tawn Krakowski
She's...
00:46:04.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
but But, I mean, I guess it's not shocking. and It's more appalling, because if if I'm shocked at at the terrible things Megyn Kelly is saying, that's That's kind of on me at this late date.
00:46:09.14
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:46:15.64
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, no, it's, she's definitely appalling. i recall that she wasn't, um she was particularly hard on, i don't remember, it like nursing mothers or something like that until she herself was a nursing mother.
00:46:29.06
Tawn Krakowski
And she's like, oh yeah, this is what it's like.
00:46:29.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:46:31.64
Tawn Krakowski
I think a lot of people are kind of the same way in that they don't, if it, if it doesn't personally affect them, then they don't really understand and they don't really care to understand, you know?
00:46:44.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and, you know, I think that's one of the core differences between conservatives and, you know, liberal progressives. and And I'm sure I'm painting with a broad brush. It feels like I am. But what I observe really is that, I mean, you know, even in terms of like charity and and donations, poor people help each other.
00:47:06.58
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:47:06.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Rich people tend to not, you know, a prosperous person is much more likely to help a prosperous person so they can hit them up for a favor later than they would be to help the poor.
00:47:09.62
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:47:17.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because the poor should have thought of that before they were poor.
00:47:20.98
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:47:22.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
And as someone who, like like, we weren't poor, we were, like, working class, but my mom was terrible with money because she was mentally ill and not diagnosed.
00:47:22.14
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. That's,
00:47:33.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
So we were always having money pinches, even though there really was enough money to go around. But I think... I forget where I was going with this. Maybe I just wanted to talk about myself. um
00:47:47.86
Tawn Krakowski
No, I, I completely,
00:47:48.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, but no, that's,
00:47:49.50
Tawn Krakowski
Great. I mean, there's the the capitalism is just, it's it's like when you're um you're thinking about buying a car and then suddenly you see that car everywhere.
00:48:02.01
Tawn Krakowski
um it The whole capitalism system, i mean, once you see it, you see it everywhere. And we've been we've been on the same thing since the 80s. I mean, um the the Wisconsin was supposed to get... um like a monorail, oh, a maglev system in the 80s.
00:48:22.30
Tawn Krakowski
But the conservatives poo-pooed it and got rid of it. And nothing has changed since the 80s. It's just gotten worse. You know, we, in the 80s, we never had, we didn't have millionaires. I mean, you were a millionaire, that's awesome. Now we've got, I think Elon is like a fucking trillionaire or some bullshit.
00:48:41.81
Tawn Krakowski
It's just, it's so out of control.
00:48:41.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, he's he's close.
00:48:46.55
Tawn Krakowski
um and
00:48:47.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and they're such bad men.
00:48:47.86
Tawn Krakowski
We were all conditioned to believe it.
00:48:51.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, because remember, like, I mean, we don't remember because we're not that old, but you're aware of, like, the Carnegies, you know?
00:48:57.79
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah.
00:48:58.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they were absurdly rich, but they built hospitals and libraries and performance centers and, I mean, Carnegie Hall.
00:49:01.27
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:49:05.40
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. So they wouldn't get at, ah so they wouldn't get at, they're like here, let them have some fancy stuff.
00:49:06.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
We all know what that is, right? And that's the thing.
00:49:13.43
Tawn Krakowski
So nobody comes to eat me. Yeah. These guys, I mean, Elon, he looks stringy, but you know, if you gotta eat something.
00:49:23.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, ah he too slow broed fixing world hunger. Like he offered to do it.
00:49:28.66
Tawn Krakowski
my God. Oh no.
00:49:29.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
If someone showed him the numbers, he would show the numbers and then was like, oh, ha ha, psych.
00:49:32.06
Tawn Krakowski
like god
00:49:34.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, I'm not doing it. And I don't know why anyone would. I mean, why would anyone take him seriously or think that he wants to do good after that?
00:49:45.78
Tawn Krakowski
ah Yeah, I don't, I kind of hope they all blow up their cyber talk trucks and and and protest.
00:49:45.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, that's. Like.
00:49:53.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
I I don't understand. like If I had the money to help everyone who was suffering, why the fuck wouldn't I do it? You know? Because any time that I have
00:50:04.22
Tawn Krakowski
I think it's because, like, that's what that's what capitalism does to us, though. It makes us It's, it's like, it's a feature. It's not a bug.
00:50:15.51
Tawn Krakowski
Um, they know they're siphoning off all of the money from, you know, the people who don't have any money. It's, it's, it's like, they're a bunch of human dragons hoarding all the resources there.
00:50:29.29
Tawn Krakowski
There's enough resources to feed everybody.
00:50:30.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and in the case of Elon, like he thinks he deserves it because he's so smart. It's terrifying how entitled these people...
00:50:35.67
Tawn Krakowski
ah yeah.
00:50:38.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
like I mean, it's it's fine. like Okay, fine. Your parents were rich. They were rich because of like slavery or whatever, and that's gross, but you didn't do it. So, okay. You grew up with a bunch of money that came from a bad place.
00:50:50.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
and you bought a bunch of other people's IP and pretended you made it, you know, all of that, like, okay, that's just regular shitty capitalism. But, like, you're bankrupting the whole world to make exploding rockets and ugly cars.
00:51:01.82
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:51:04.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, is that really worth it? it I don't see how it could be.
00:51:08.50
Tawn Krakowski
And the weirdest thing is, is that, I mean, technically money doesn't exist. I mean, we, we made it up, you know, the stock market, all of that is just made up numbers.
00:51:15.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:51:17.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:51:21.03
Tawn Krakowski
You know, it's, it's confidence in something or or not. co It's like the biggest gambling, you know, legal gambling bullshit yeah as ever.
00:51:32.43
Tawn Krakowski
If the stock market, stock market crashed today, how much would Elon really be worth? You know,
00:51:42.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, you know, it it kind of reminds me of my favorite part in every zombie movie, which is when they find stacks of cash and they burn it to keep warm because it's not worth a goddamn thing.
00:51:51.82
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that's why that's why community is so important, because while they're, you know, they're self-combusting their castles of cash, the the community is what keeps each other, you know, alive and safe and well.
00:51:57.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like.
00:52:01.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm hmm.
00:52:17.66
Tawn Krakowski
And that's why it's so important for us to have a community.
00:52:21.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, and that you know that's the whole thing with like Snap and all these people have been saying, oh, well, if you've done drugs, why should I have to help you and your children eat?
00:52:28.82
Tawn Krakowski
yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:52:29.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
like Well, first of all, that's terrible argument. But also, i mean, if do do you want to live in a society or don't you? you know Because if you don't want to live in a society and you don't want to pay taxes, I honestly do think people should be able to opt out of that if that's what they want.
00:52:48.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, don't send your kids to public school. Don't use roads. Don't send or receive mail. If your house catches on fire, you don't call the fire department. You don't call the cops.
00:52:56.95
Tawn Krakowski
hello
00:52:58.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, your food doesn't go through the FDA. Like, if that's really what you want, I do think you should be able to opt out. But then you you don't get anything that anybody else is paying for.
00:53:10.42
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:53:11.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which, you know, just society isn't that bad. I mean, sure, people are annoying, but on the whole... Society is a net positive.
00:53:21.05
Tawn Krakowski
I completely agree. um One of the things that i I read earlier was talking about how a lot of the things that we don't have collectively today are because In the past, white supremacists have basically said, we don't want that if the black people are gonna get that.
00:53:46.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:53:47.32
Tawn Krakowski
So we don't you know we don't want money to go to schools if the black people are gonna get good schools.
00:53:47.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:53:54.97
Tawn Krakowski
And that's why we have private schools. It's like we're self-segregating all over again, based on what white people don't want black people to have.
00:54:03.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well
00:54:09.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean i talk a lot about how it's the Southern strategy You know, when when government, when Republicans wanted to Well, conservatives, I should say Wanted to get people to vote against their own interests They convinced Southern white people that no matter how poor you are, how matter how destitute, how bad things are going from you, you're still better than a black man.
00:54:15.45
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:21.59
Tawn Krakowski
hello
00:54:35.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
And the bigots down South ate it up. And so now they really are doing the same thing.
00:54:39.10
Tawn Krakowski
yeah
00:54:42.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's just that it's not black people. It's all liberals. It's anyone with empathy or compassion who likes things like safe spaces. Like all of those people, the the woke people, you know,
00:54:51.26
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Well, it's anybody who's not a cis white man, essentially.
00:54:58.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep, and and their trad wife.
00:54:59.51
Tawn Krakowski
And it's... Yes, yes, yeah. And and that's that's always interesting to me, too, the how much white women really kind of play into the whole race racism thing without even without even realizing it,
00:55:17.11
Tawn Krakowski
you know um
00:55:18.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I learned about that pretty early on in feminism, because I discovered feminism as a freshman in college. it It was wild, too, because I discovered... the novel American Psycho and Feminism in the same year and boy were they at odds with each other.
00:55:33.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
00:55:34.20
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:55:36.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
But just the idea that, i mean, when I was introduced to feminism, it was raging feminism. There wasn't low-key feminism.
00:55:45.69
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:55:48.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
But it was so centered around suburban white women and affluence. And when I would say things like, well, wait a minute, what about people that are taking the bus?
00:55:53.78
Tawn Krakowski
yes
00:55:57.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, they'll figure it out.
00:55:59.35
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:55:59.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but that's not the point of this movement, to dismiss people and say they'll figure it out. The whole point is that we're you know we're all linking arms and we're all going to be together, so nobody gets left behind.
00:56:12.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
And no, I was shouted down about that.
00:56:12.36
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:56:16.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, well, we we can't, someone actually said to me when I was a freshman, well, we can't worry about the ghettos right now. And yeah, like, I i mean, i wasn't as shocked as I would be now, you know, or like as horrified.
00:56:23.67
Tawn Krakowski
Oh wow. yeah it's
00:56:32.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
But at at the time, it really was shocking to hear people just admit outright, like, no, no, not the ghetto people.
00:56:32.95
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:56:39.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
We're talking about You know, using words like normal or regular or like, like just just say white.
00:56:43.80
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:56:45.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
that's That's what you mean. Just say white.
00:56:48.09
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Well, and.
00:56:49.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it sucks as a white woman because I'm certainly not ah immune to white woman bullshit. I'm sure I've committed it. But I also like want to do better.
00:57:00.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:57:00.82
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:57:00.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's it's tricky because I don't want to be lectured about my whiteness by other white people. But at the same time... That has value because, my God, Black women can't teach everyone everything.
00:57:13.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
They're exhausted, and rightly so, because we've been wearing them out. But...
00:57:16.41
Tawn Krakowski
yeah.
00:57:19.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, yeah, most of the people that I worked with on the Kamala campaign were not white, you know?
00:57:26.55
Tawn Krakowski
yeah
00:57:26.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
and ah And yeah, I learned so much from them about talking about politics. Because they're like, you're you're still telling people facts and hoping they'll change their minds, aren't you?
00:57:40.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, well, yeah. Oh, yeah, I guess that doesn't work, does it?
00:57:43.12
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, it does not work.
00:57:45.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, that's my bad.
00:57:46.91
Tawn Krakowski
Psychologically, they prove that that doesn't work. People just double down based on what they learned first. um It's probably why, you know, everybody thinks that there are only two genders and XY chromosomes, and because that's what they learned in sixth grade, and that's all they remember, you know, and right now, 54 percent
00:57:54.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:58:01.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh
00:58:06.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:58:09.11
Tawn Krakowski
of Americans, adult American adults um are functionally illiterate. They are they read at a sixth grade level or below 54%. fifty four percent So I think a lot of people probably aren't getting the nuance.
00:58:23.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, we we know that
00:58:28.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
it's It's true. I mean, when I was a kid, i was raised by conservatives and conservatives felt very, very strongly that anyone who wanted to live in this country should know English.
00:58:39.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
And when we all went on the Internet and it was time to write down what we thought instead of saying it, it turned out that ah most of those people did not know English and could not put a proper sentence together if their life depends on it.
00:58:39.51
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
00:58:50.04
Tawn Krakowski
Mm-hmm.
00:58:53.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I know there's a lot of talk about you know ableism and in terms of grammar, like that you're not supposed to make fun of people's grammar because it's ableist.
00:58:54.04
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:59:02.04
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:59:05.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
But if you're telling me I'm dumb because I don't support Trump, I will definitely point out that you write like a tired toddler.
00:59:05.34
Tawn Krakowski
Mm-hmm.
00:59:12.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know i just i don't you don't get to call people stupid if you don't know the difference between there, there, and there.
00:59:20.92
Tawn Krakowski
ah
00:59:23.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because you were taught it.
00:59:23.99
Tawn Krakowski
I agree with that.
00:59:24.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, and that's another, like, my taxpayer money thing.
00:59:24.91
Tawn Krakowski
I absolutely agree with that.
00:59:27.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like, well, you were treated to 12 years of free education at least. Even if you skipped kindergarten, you still got 12 years of free education.
00:59:32.25
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
00:59:35.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
You should be able to write a goddamn sentence, especially if you're going to get online and start telling other people how they should live their life. Come on now. Come on.
00:59:44.98
Tawn Krakowski
I think that's one of the things that that's a difference for me between you know conservatives and and progressives is really progressives don't really care what you do as long as it doesn't affect them.
00:59:45.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
But that's that's me ranting.
01:00:00.82
Tawn Krakowski
And conservatives really care what you do because they think it affects them and it does not.
01:00:09.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
I would agree with that. Definitely. ah So listen, you indicated a willingness to talk about a time when you were in legitimate fear for your life. And that is a question that we don't ask people haphazardly. we We always get permission for that because we don't want to spring it on someone. And, you know, we always want people to be able to decline to talk about something that personal if they don't want to. But you've indicated that you do want to talk about it. So what would you like to say?
01:00:38.20
Tawn Krakowski
Well, so first of all, I don't think a whole lot scares me. um So I don't really think that I've been in a spot where I was truly fearful for my life.
01:00:52.50
Tawn Krakowski
Um, but I have been in situations where, um, I was more fearful of, I guess, being hurt, that kind of thing. Um, and generally when I'm faced with those kinds of situations, a, you know, how they do the fight or flight freeze fawn kind of thing.
01:01:19.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:01:19.99
Tawn Krakowski
i have occasionally, gone fight, which is kind of hilarious because I'm i'm five foot two. um And one instance was outside of a grocery store, I think it was the Fry's grocery store.
01:01:30.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, damn.
01:01:37.98
Tawn Krakowski
And I was parked in my car and I was going to pull through the the slot across from me and go down the next aisle. And as I was preparing to do this, this pickup truck, you know, brushes in front of me and cuts me off.
01:01:54.30
Tawn Krakowski
And so of course I do what anybody would do and flip them off or whatever.
01:01:58.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ha ha ha ha ha.
01:01:58.32
Tawn Krakowski
And, and I'm like, and that's, you know, that's the same with my day. Well, this, the truck stopped and the guy got out. And at that point,
01:02:10.94
Tawn Krakowski
my, I, something in my head clicked and I'm like, oh, fuck no. And I, I did the same thing. I got out of the car. i slammed the door. I matched his energy. I, I came up right almost in his face.
01:02:24.98
Tawn Krakowski
And he's like, he was yelling at me that, you know, that, did I, did I flip him off? And how could I do that? He's got kids in the car. And I'm like, if you've got kids in the car, then they should be ashamed that you're such an asshole that you would that you would stop the car and come out after me. I'm like, you do come on, what do you, bring it, bring it.
01:02:47.00
Tawn Krakowski
And after a little bit, he just kind of looked at me and he said, you're crazy. And he got back in his car and he drove away. and I went home and I had to have, you know, some devil's lettuce or whatever to calm down because that scared the crap out of me that I did that.
01:03:00.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Well, yeah. Yeah, because there is a certain stripe of man that will fly into a rage instantly at the the first sign of being challenged, especially by a woman.
01:03:16.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's such a hot-button issue for for toxic dudes.
01:03:16.54
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah.
01:03:20.54
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:03:21.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Yeah, i had a personal experience with that recently, so I'm
01:03:22.52
Tawn Krakowski
And I've, I've never, I haven't been, um i haven't been one that that, has hesitated to lay down that, that woman card either.
01:03:33.82
Tawn Krakowski
Um, there have been times when, you know, some guy was coming after me for something or other. And I, I just put on my best little girl voice and, Oh, was that you? I'm so sorry.
01:03:44.14
Tawn Krakowski
oh my goodness. How could I have done that?
01:03:45.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah,
01:03:46.46
Tawn Krakowski
And just, you know, and then it's over. Cause they're like, Oh, okay, whatever. her
01:03:52.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
I guess if you're short, you probably get away with that more.
01:03:55.64
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:03:55.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm kind of a behemoth, so nobody buys that for me.
01:03:56.08
Tawn Krakowski
It's, it was a little easier when I was young.
01:03:59.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'll bet so. I will bet so. um Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. That's that's wild, really.
01:04:07.55
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:04:08.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because that that is scary.
01:04:08.47
Tawn Krakowski
I mean.
01:04:11.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think I've been in retail situations where things just come flying out of my mouth and before I can stop them. And then it's like, oh, I just made an unsettled man very angry. like I had a guy when I was working at Hollywood Video that I couldn't open an account for him because he had two forms of ID, but they didn't match.
01:04:31.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he like took a fake swing at me at the counter.
01:04:32.26
Tawn Krakowski
oh
01:04:36.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like he was let that, like where they pretend they're going to punch you and then they stop themselves.
01:04:39.51
Tawn Krakowski
holy yeah wow
01:04:42.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I'm like, dude, you're on camera. And he's like, what, what? I didn't hit you. And then I went to leave at the end of the night and he was sitting in the parking lot. And I went back into the store and called the cops and I was like, yeah, I'm sorry.
01:04:53.14
Tawn Krakowski
wow
01:04:56.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
I need an escort. And, hu And even when the cops got there, he was like, yeah, that's right, bitch, you call the cops. Like, this is over a Hollywood video rental cart.
01:05:03.96
Tawn Krakowski
Wow.
01:05:06.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
This is how upset you're getting over, you know, not being able to rent The Mummy with Brendan Fraser.
01:05:06.78
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:05:11.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
And nobody's blaming you. It's a fine film. But come on.
01:05:15.21
Tawn Krakowski
It is hot. ha
01:05:18.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, think, isn't The Mummy considered one of the most bisexual films ever? Because every person of every gender is just absurdly attractive?
01:05:24.25
Tawn Krakowski
Every single one of them. Oh yes, every single one of them. Yeah, absolutely. um ah I'm straight, but I'm sure one of them could change should could turn me.
01:05:35.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:05:35.69
Tawn Krakowski
Because holy shit. um
01:05:37.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
and
01:05:39.77
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:05:39.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like you think you're straight and then you see a movie like that or like, you know, like, oh, yeah, I'm basically straight.
01:05:44.12
Tawn Krakowski
yeah You're like, wait a minute.
01:05:46.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, this movie is called Heavenly Creatures. Let's see what this is about. Oh, I guess I'm not straight. Whoops.
01:05:53.05
Tawn Krakowski
I think Margot Robbie is the one that she's just stunning in everything she does. and And she has become Harley Quinn in my mind forever.
01:06:07.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah.
01:06:07.64
Tawn Krakowski
And i just, everything that she's in, I love her in
01:06:12.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I must agree. And the thing is, I typically find people that are too attractive inherently suspicious. You know, like, I assume that they're breezing their way through life and you know, all that there.
01:06:20.95
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, I get you.
01:06:26.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
i think Margot Robbie is just magnificent as a human being. I mean, she is just, she is wonderful. I can't help it.
01:06:33.08
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
01:06:33.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
And and i that's not the kind of person that I would normally feel that way about. Yeah.
01:06:39.58
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:06:42.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
So yeah, yeah. Now i
01:06:43.59
Tawn Krakowski
I can, I totally get that. She seems like she, and and I think it's just the way that she delivers her line or the way that she, she encompass embodies. That's it. The way that she embodies all of her characters.
01:07:00.54
Tawn Krakowski
Um, she's just. She's just stunning. And I love how she, um, she seems, you know, she's innocent, but then she's not innocent at the same time.
01:07:06.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well...
01:07:14.87
Tawn Krakowski
You know, she's like, she looks innocent, but she's still badass.
01:07:17.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah I wouldn't even say innocent. I don't like to use this word, but yeah, like, like a word like pure, by which I'm not talking about virginity, but like intentions.
01:07:25.53
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:07:28.25
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:07:28.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Her, she, she means well, you know, even Harley.
01:07:28.73
Tawn Krakowski
yeah
01:07:32.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Harley is a ah violent, you know, crazy bitch, but she's on the right side of things. You know, if you
01:07:38.23
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:07:40.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
If you're bashing people because they thought they could just cavalierly touch your ass, well, they needed to be bashed. I'm sorry. You know, just because we're not used to women that bash you for that doesn't mean that that's not what should have been happening all along.
01:07:47.26
Tawn Krakowski
Exactly.
01:07:53.56
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. yeah
01:07:56.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I want to talk a little about your literary influences, if we may. Now we know Terry Brooks, Asimov, Piers Anthony, the the man, Stephen King.
01:08:00.75
Tawn Krakowski
Okay.
01:08:05.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
um can you Can you point to anything specific in how your your own work has been impacted by those dudes?
01:08:14.55
Tawn Krakowski
Oh my goodness. Um,
01:08:19.23
Tawn Krakowski
I think that, uh, the Terry Brooks was probably one of the first authors that I read that I, that I would search out, you know, for any time something new of his came out, that was one of the things that, um, I would look for. And I think that's where my love of kind of fantasy and, um,
01:08:43.70
Tawn Krakowski
the the happy endings where magic comes in and it all works out, you know, kind of stories where that kind of came into my life. i think I play a lot of D&D because of that.
01:08:56.60
Tawn Krakowski
um And, you know, i I'm all about magic because I think that magic is probably quantum physics physics that we don't quite understand yet.
01:09:06.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:09:07.22
Tawn Krakowski
um ah So I think that he... he really introduced me into a fairy-tale-ish fantasy type of story.
01:09:20.12
Tawn Krakowski
um I loved Pierce Anthony because of his his range, I guess. So all the Xanth novels, I loved all of those despite the inherent sexism in it.
01:09:35.45
Tawn Krakowski
um and yet at the same time, he wrote some pretty hardcore science fiction stuff, which I can't recall off the top of my head right now.
01:09:47.22
Tawn Krakowski
But um i from there, i think I got interested in Asimov with the sci-fi Star Trek kind of
01:09:48.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:09:58.81
Tawn Krakowski
um of of stories. and And Stephen King was just, the heart of it all, the dark, scary heart of it all. Because even in all of his stories, even though there's something evil and and scary, and there's always, it always works out at the end.
01:10:21.56
Tawn Krakowski
You know, it always feels like a satisfying ending to me.
01:10:27.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wait, Stephen King?
01:10:29.30
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:10:30.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah. i I have issues with some of Stephen King's endings.
01:10:37.32
Tawn Krakowski
Uh-oh.
01:10:37.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Well, and I know that's a that's a thing that people are kind of divided about in the community, but um yeah.
01:10:44.25
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. And not not not all of them. So like the mist, that was bullshit. But a lot of them.
01:10:51.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, the movie ending is much harder than the the novella ending, certainly.
01:10:52.97
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:10:56.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because the novella ending leaves it, I think we see the the wife die. Like, he makes it back to his house and his his wife has died. But I think they're still, like, driving and looking for a place and kind of running out of gas when the the novel ends.
01:11:04.40
Tawn Krakowski
Mm-hmm.
01:11:11.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then the movie was, like, Darabont saying, well, how can we make that worse? Oh, I know.
01:11:15.93
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, way worse. ah
01:11:19.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, Darabont. Like... I wonder what goes on in Frank Darabont's head between that and like the first season of The Walking Dead. Like, how can I use horror to make people cry?
01:11:30.52
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Oh my gosh. The walking dead.
01:11:32.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
and like.
01:11:33.32
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:11:34.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
I love it. I think it's it's always worth it to to get through.
01:11:37.50
Tawn Krakowski
hello
01:11:38.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, I mean, The Mist in particular has so many great lessons about society and groupthink and religion. And, you know, so, so much, you know, why you should stay still when a bug lands on you.
01:11:45.37
Tawn Krakowski
yeah
01:11:49.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, there are a lot of great lessons in The Mist.
01:11:51.45
Tawn Krakowski
her
01:11:52.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
But then that ending is just such a punch in the face. And I think, because the message of the ending of The Mist... Like, if you're trying to get a message from that, the message would be to wait until the last possible second before you do anything.
01:12:08.57
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:12:09.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I don't know that that's a particularly good message.
01:12:12.62
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:12:13.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like, it's the message for that situation, but most situations are not that situation.
01:12:19.16
Tawn Krakowski
yeah
01:12:20.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Hopefully. if If a lot of ah interdimensional holes are being ripped through and monsters are coming in, more people should be talking about it.
01:12:21.53
Tawn Krakowski
Well,
01:12:28.76
Tawn Krakowski
sometimes indecision is really the key to flexibility. That's
01:12:33.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah, very much so. So you are doing a project and it is called Tawnlandia, which I love because I'm a great fan of putting my name on my projects as well.
01:12:46.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:12:46.40
Tawn Krakowski
because your name is awesome.
01:12:50.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
I feel that way now. it was not awesome as a kid. It was a giant pain in my ass.
01:12:54.62
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, I can imagine.
01:12:57.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Especially because i wanted I wanted to fit in. I wanted to fit in and not be a weirdo. And that's not really possible to do when you're an undiagnosed autistic little fat kid named Wednesday. um like And now people are named Wednesday. I don't want to say a normal name, but there's more Wednesdays now than there have ever been.
01:13:18.52
Tawn Krakowski
Oh yeah. Yeah. My, um my parents always called me by my middle name, Kimberly, which there were 15 million Kimberleys when I was growing up.
01:13:27.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I'll bet.
01:13:27.83
Tawn Krakowski
So I didn't have to worry about any of that. um But yeah, I, I think I went the other way. um They, I was in um the challenge classes, I guess, since it's starting in sixth grade. So I was in smaller classes in bigger schools. And ae didn't, I was crazy. I didn't really care about fitting in or anything like that. um i was I was getting in rock fights with the boys after school.
01:14:01.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh wow.
01:14:02.24
Tawn Krakowski
ah um i was just kind of a a tomboy kind of thing.
01:14:04.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Damn.
01:14:07.00
Tawn Krakowski
And yeah, I wasn't i wasn't i wasn't really caring so much about fitting in. I was doing my own kind of crazy thing. I remember when i was in high school, I wanted to make a whole lot of noise. I used to wear bells on my shoes just because they made a whole lot of noise and I loved it.
01:14:24.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. That's fantastic. so So tell us about Tawnlandia.
01:14:28.89
Tawn Krakowski
oh
01:14:32.89
Tawn Krakowski
Well, so Tonlandia is kind of the umbrella company, as it were, of Barnstormer Publishing. We'll be doing the serials under Tonlandia.
01:14:47.32
Tawn Krakowski
And it's also where I have my author stuff. So I have um information on how to buy my books, audiobooks, that kind of thing. And um i I believe my blog is there as well. It's a little bit, uh, uh, neglected at the moment. I've been doing other stuff. Um, but, uh, yeah, that's kind of the catch all for, ah everything as it grows.
01:15:19.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. and we'll have links into the description. Do you have a link tree?
01:15:23.51
Tawn Krakowski
I do. Um, yeah, I'll have to look that up because I have a,
01:15:30.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Okay.
01:15:31.51
Tawn Krakowski
I have a bio site, which is just my author information. think everything else can go through tawnlandia.com.
01:15:40.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, cool. Well, yeah, we'll we'll have links so, you know, people can follow up.
01:15:44.23
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:15:45.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, I also want to talk about your pilot experience. That is way outside my experience. I don't even drive cars. um But, okay, so this is something that you were always interested in and just decided to pursue as a younger person, right?
01:16:02.01
Tawn Krakowski
yeah so i um when i was really young i wanted to be an astronaut but then i got to see the view from space and it freaked me out and i said i don't want to do that shit anymore um and then
01:16:18.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wait, how did you how did you get to see the view from space?
01:16:21.63
Tawn Krakowski
well you know like on tv they have yeah yeah yeah the view view from Dr.
01:16:23.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay.
01:16:27.32
Tawn Krakowski
Jennifer You know, TV from space, the astronauts view and and of the earth from the moon, and I just that was too scary i'm i'm afraid of heights and falling and that's just that's too much.
01:16:40.92
Tawn Krakowski
Jennifer So um. When I got into high school, ah i was never even remotely an athletic kid. And so I took ROTC instead of gym so that I could get a decent grade in a class instead of an F in gym.
01:16:59.86
Tawn Krakowski
So, and it was an Air Force ROTC. So there I kind of learned how to do um some navigation.
01:17:03.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. Okay.
01:17:08.42
Tawn Krakowski
You know, they teach you a little bit about um the science of of airplanes and how they work. And then I took a ah ground school class with um a friend of mine and basically learned how, you know, how airplanes, you know, navigate and and work and things like that.
01:17:31.77
Tawn Krakowski
And my 16th birthday present was an aerobatic glider ride. So you you put on this, some you put on a parachute and you get in the back of this glider.
01:17:47.03
Tawn Krakowski
another airplane toes you up in the air and then you release from that airplane and you we did loops and rolls and just kind of flew around all over the place.
01:17:59.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow!
01:18:00.62
Tawn Krakowski
And that was the coolest freaking thing ever. and um And my 17th birthday present was my first flight lesson.
01:18:06.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it sounds like it.
01:18:13.69
Tawn Krakowski
So it kind of took off from there.
01:18:17.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is wild. Now I imagine you have to be 18 to get your license, right?
01:18:22.26
Tawn Krakowski
Well, you have to be 16 to get your license.
01:18:26.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
To get a pilot's license?
01:18:26.01
Tawn Krakowski
um
01:18:27.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is wild!
01:18:27.53
Tawn Krakowski
Yep. You have to be 16. And then if you were to get a glider license, a glider's license is 14.
01:18:30.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, is that for farmers? for
01:18:35.99
Tawn Krakowski
Nah.
01:18:38.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:18:38.52
Tawn Krakowski
so
01:18:41.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, I'm guessing that's so that kids on farms can do it, because you have to like fly over farms sometimes to do the you know the spraying or whatever. Or is that just an okay thing to do as a 14-year-old?
01:18:50.71
Tawn Krakowski
a ah
01:18:54.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
That blows my mind, that a a kid of that age could could fly an airplane.
01:18:56.15
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:18:59.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
um But they, I mean, it.
01:19:00.79
Tawn Krakowski
I did have, um I did have a student when I was instructing.
01:19:02.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:19:06.14
Tawn Krakowski
I had students of all ages. One of them was this, I want to say he was 80 years old, this, this 80 year old man who really didn't want to get his pilot's license. He just wanted to go up and fly around.
01:19:20.44
Tawn Krakowski
you know, for a little while with somebody.
01:19:22.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:19:22.84
Tawn Krakowski
So he, you know, and then another one of my students was this 14 year old kid and he would go up once a month. um He had everything that he needed to have in order to, to take the test to get his license, except he was too young.
01:19:43.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. How frustrating for him.
01:19:44.19
Tawn Krakowski
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think he just was, he was having a good time going up and flying around anyway.
01:19:47.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:19:52.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, what are things about being a pilot and a licensed pilot that that I would never suspect?
01:19:59.09
Tawn Krakowski
Ooh.
01:20:01.89
Tawn Krakowski
Um, I don't know. There's lot. I don't know what your experience is with with airplanes.
01:20:07.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'll bet. I have no experience. i ah so I think the most expensive thing I've ever flown was a $200 drone, and I almost crashed it into a tree because that's how bad I am at things.
01:20:12.38
Tawn Krakowski
ah
01:20:19.08
Tawn Krakowski
Ha ha ha ha.
01:20:21.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Dude, okay, I'm goingnna tell you something. I used to have this recurring nightmare about that I'm supposed to be driving a car, but I'm not in the car.
01:20:23.34
Tawn Krakowski
Ha
01:20:30.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm like remote controlling the car, and I'm so bad at it that I don't even know where the car is. like It goes out of my vision and I can't now that that's, that's my nightmare.
01:20:36.62
Tawn Krakowski
ha ha ha. Ha ha ha
01:20:40.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
01:20:41.02
Tawn Krakowski
ha.
01:20:41.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
So for a while I was making money by reviewing things on Amazon. So they'd send me stuff and I test it out and then I get to keep the stuff and I get a little money. So they sent me a drone and I was like, okay, this is a really easy beginner drone.
01:20:50.16
Tawn Krakowski
Oh no.
01:20:54.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
It has altitude hold and everything. So my husband and I go out in the parking lot and it's an apartment complex. And, uh, I almost cost us so much money because I was within like, it like h had to run and physically stop this drone before it hit one of my neighbor's windshields.
01:21:13.11
Tawn Krakowski
oh
01:21:13.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then I did reach a point where I was flying it and I had no idea where it had gone. And it was still flying with altitude hold. So like it was above my head level. But if you were six foot three, it would have hit you in the frigging head.
01:21:26.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I am bad at these things.
01:21:26.29
Tawn Krakowski
Oh my gosh.
01:21:29.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm bad at like anything that where you have to have hand eye coordination, like video games, I suck at them. You know, if it's not like Tetris or Frogger or something like pre 1995, I cannot play it.
01:21:43.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I've died in Left 4 Dead so many times because I can't climb up the ladder.
01:21:44.34
Tawn Krakowski
yeah
01:21:48.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, I'll do the whole mission and then I can't get up the ladder so the zombies just get me. So, yeah.
01:21:55.29
Tawn Krakowski
yeah
01:21:55.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm not not a flyer. I don't know what that would entail.
01:21:58.55
Tawn Krakowski
ah Well, okay, I have one um that you, I actually i have two. So first, airplanes can fly backwards.
01:22:11.83
Tawn Krakowski
The reason that I know that is um if you're in a a relatively small airplane, you can slow it down enough so that the headwind can push you backwards.
01:22:12.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
What?
01:22:27.16
Tawn Krakowski
So it's kind of like being in a boat. If you're on a river in a boat and you slow down, the river can push you backwards.
01:22:35.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. All right. That's insane.
01:22:39.42
Tawn Krakowski
but
01:22:39.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm trying to get a mental picture of Tom Cruise doing that and I cannot.
01:22:41.37
Tawn Krakowski
hu
01:22:45.21
Tawn Krakowski
Oh God, don't get me started on Tom Cruise. I hate that man. With a passion to the point that I will watch
01:22:50.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
fair. fair
01:22:52.06
Tawn Krakowski
that Edge of Tomorrow movie or whatever it is where he gets killed over and over and over again just to watch him get killed. Or that stupid mummy movie that he did just so the mummy would just beat the shit out of him every time.
01:23:05.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no, come on, that's not a good enough reason to subject your electronics to that movie, come on.
01:23:09.38
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, but you know, okay I know, but he's, he's, oh, that man.
01:23:10.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's like cruelty to screens.
01:23:16.25
Tawn Krakowski
ah All right. So the other thing about airplanes that you may not know is that um a stall is not when the engine fails a stall is when the nose is pitched up actually it's not even the nose of pitch up it's when there's not enough air going over the top of the wing for it to continue to fly
01:23:43.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it doesn't have anything to do with the engines.
01:23:43.61
Tawn Krakowski
so nope nothing at all to do with the engines and in
01:23:49.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
So we just think it does because stalling is something that a car does with his engines.
01:23:53.27
Tawn Krakowski
Exactly. Exactly.
01:23:54.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:23:55.58
Tawn Krakowski
Now, if your engine does fail, then you don't fall out of the sky. You still have wings. You can glide, you know, depending on what the airplane is, you can glide pretty far.
01:24:07.10
Tawn Krakowski
Um, depending on how high you are also, you can glide pretty far, but yeah, it, and, and pilots.
01:24:15.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
So the idea would be to point your nose down slightly so you're like reaching the ground at the slowest pace possible? Is that how that works?
01:24:21.91
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
01:24:23.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:24:23.48
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:24:25.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, put me on a plane. I'm ready.
01:24:27.69
Tawn Krakowski
did. Oh, yeah, yeah. When in the late
01:24:33.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
that That is amazing. that It seems like it would feel incredibly powerful to fly a plane.
01:24:41.30
Tawn Krakowski
early I was cargo pilot. when in the late ninety s early two thousand s i was a cargo pilot And as a cargo, when you fly a small cargo plane, a small twin engine with, you know, propellers, generally you're by yourself and you're flying in the middle of the night. So there's nothing going on and there's nobody in the plane to scare but yourself.
01:25:12.76
Tawn Krakowski
um yeah Yeah, you have to make sure you stay awake too.
01:25:13.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's how an awful lot of horror movies get started.
01:25:19.26
Tawn Krakowski
um And then... Uh, later on, i was flying, a Learjet, which is if you ever see all the old, um, eighties movies about drug dealers and how they're flying, you know, drugs over the the pointy airplanes, those are Learjets.
01:25:34.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep.
01:25:40.44
Tawn Krakowski
Um, flying a Learjet is like flying. It's like driving a sports car. Um, they'll, they're, they're very quick. And they're fairly slippery. If you, you know, if you lose track of what you're doing, it's very easy for a Learjet to bite you in the ass for doing something stupid.
01:26:02.62
Tawn Krakowski
And, um, our airplanes were so old, hu so old because the cargo outfits just get the crappy stuff.
01:26:03.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:26:13.02
Tawn Krakowski
Um, we had Willie Nelson's old Lear 20 series. Now Lear 20 it's like the first generation of kind of Lear jets and it's got straight jet engines on there, which means that they're louder than shit.
01:26:36.56
Tawn Krakowski
They're so loud that those Lear jets are not even allowed to fly in America anymore because they're too loud. um, so,
01:26:47.70
Tawn Krakowski
um so when you're, and, and then because it's a straight jet engine, when you're taking off in one of these Lear 25s, um, you put the, you push the thrust levers forward and it pushes you back in your seat.
01:27:05.34
Tawn Krakowski
Um, like if you're driving a, uh, an electric car and you, you know, you put the the gas in and it just takes off because there's no, there's no torque to it.
01:27:17.34
Tawn Krakowski
Um, I'm not even sure if that's the word, but It's, it's the, the feeling is amazing. It really is. Taking off was always my favorite part.
01:27:26.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:27:29.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
See, this is really interesting because i thought that Learjets were super fancy and like you know just like decked out in opulence.
01:27:40.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
opulent Because I think because you hear about rich people having Learjets and because I know nothing about this, it seemed to me that that must be something really like
01:27:47.13
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Yeah.
01:27:53.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Fancy and Trump-like that would have a chandelier and velour furniture and stuff.
01:27:56.18
Tawn Krakowski
ah
01:27:57.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I think not. I think that I thought that that was opulent because we were simply talking about people that can afford their own airplane. And that you have to be quite rich to be able to do that.
01:28:06.84
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, well,
01:28:10.54
Tawn Krakowski
I think back in the day, probably that was correct. I mean, Learjets were one of the first business jets that were built. But now we have, oh goodness, Gulf Streams and Falcon jets and things that are much, much bigger.
01:28:27.11
Tawn Krakowski
um A Learjet, I could stand up um at 5'2 in the cabin without a problem. If you were any taller than me, it was something that you would have to duck over to get into.
01:28:41.02
Tawn Krakowski
It's not even that tall.
01:28:41.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. Huh.
01:28:42.81
Tawn Krakowski
But um I also flew a Hawker jet. which is, you know, it's a British jet and it's a little bit wider and a little bit longer. um and it's, but it's the same amount of people, about, you know, eight, eight nine people in the jet.
01:29:01.08
Tawn Krakowski
and um And so the Lear jets can be kind of opulent in there, but they're compact.
01:29:12.25
Tawn Krakowski
Um, whereas, you know, you get into like a, a Gulfstream five or something like that. And it's, I, I think some of those have like bedrooms or something in there. They're just freaking huge.
01:29:24.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
01:29:25.37
Tawn Krakowski
And, and I have seen Trump's airplane out here at Sky Harbor as gross as it was. Um, and it's, it's pretty big.
01:29:32.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ew.
01:29:36.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
The airplane, right? Yeah,
01:29:38.36
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. That's the only thing that's big about, well, his mouth is big, but
01:29:39.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
who yeah I was going to say his ego is quite sizable.
01:29:44.60
Tawn Krakowski
ah
01:29:46.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um... so So if we could move on to your catalog, actually, um if let's say I've never read any of your work before, um is is Darkling Drake a good place to start?
01:29:59.12
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, actually. Darkling Drake was kind of my debut novel. And I actually wrote it at the same time as The Private Princess, which is they're completely on different spectrums. of of the genres, but you know, um Darkling Drake is about a ah a woman who is a thief.
01:30:27.13
Tawn Krakowski
She, and she discovers that she's actually a dragon ah and she kind of gets caught up in this whole um mystery of of where she came from.
01:30:33.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:30:38.15
Tawn Krakowski
And, and, you know, the, there's, all the subterfuge within the dragon communities and things like that. um it She's kind of an anti-hero.
01:30:50.15
Tawn Krakowski
She's not very likable. And she's pretty mouthy. My mom was really upset that she swore like a sailor. So there's that.
01:31:02.46
Tawn Krakowski
a hum But it's, it's, I think that's a good place to start. If you're, younger than the pirate princesses. It's kind of a middle grade fairy tale-ish kind of thing where a um ah princess, her Penelope Puff and Stuff,
01:31:22.42
Tawn Krakowski
is the ninth daughter of in the ninth generation and there's a prophecy that she will go on a quest and find a treasure that will save her family and her kingdom from some great evil and um she comes up with a plan to being fake pirates in order to you know get away from her duties as a princess and be able to search for this treasure because that's what pirates do.
01:31:55.86
Tawn Krakowski
um
01:31:56.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, of course.
01:31:57.30
Tawn Krakowski
And then Dragon Defender is a it's a companion. It's not really a sequel in that Penny and her friend Megan the Dragon were playing together and Penny accidentally stumbles upon an ancient curse and gets put to sleep.
01:32:14.87
Tawn Krakowski
So the dragon has to go on a quest, a quest to save the princess.
01:32:15.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yikes.
01:32:21.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, cool. That sounds so fun.
01:32:27.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
we're ah We're actually nearing the end of our time, so I want to make sure that there...
01:32:30.56
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, okay.
01:32:32.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Was there anything that you wanted to cover that we have not gotten to?
01:32:37.26
Tawn Krakowski
Um, well, so one thing I did want to mention, um, is through Barnstormer Publishing, we're starting this thing called Thrive. um It's basically a way for us to provide books to places where um people wouldn't normally have access to books.
01:32:58.41
Tawn Krakowski
So for example, i we were looking at donating um Pat Green's books, Hearts of Glass, Living in the Rural World and Fade Away and Radiate, as well as the Safe Space book and um some children's books to places like domestic violence shelters, um children's ah support
01:33:19.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. know
01:33:23.90
Tawn Krakowski
um places uh there's a place in in phoenix called um one in ten which is an lgbtq uh youth support uh um so we're looking to kind of partner with uh venues, indie bookstores, and also professionals in ah domestic violence, in healing, in
01:33:59.22
Tawn Krakowski
just kind of workshops to help, ah writing workshops, music workshops, that kind of thing, to give back to the community and also put resources in places where there wouldn't normally be resources.
01:34:15.93
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, and that reminds me, one of the other um one of the other books that we're working on um publishing is called Buford's Purposeful Day by Alexandra Cherecki.
01:34:29.40
Tawn Krakowski
She has founded a nonprofit called beacon of hope and healing and it's to help military and first responder families cope with PTSD and substance abuse.
01:34:45.53
Tawn Krakowski
um So one of the other things is we're partnering partnering with her to kind of help thrive
01:34:46.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
01:34:53.56
Tawn Krakowski
a in order to help thrive reach out and get resources to the right places.
01:35:00.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, that is fantastic. Particularly bringing books and bringing the arts in general to to the vulnerable. I mean, I'm a big believer in creativity as a coping mechanism for...
01:35:16.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
a kajillion different kinds of neurodivergence, mental illness, trauma, addiction recovery. I mean, the arts are so valuable there just because giving people way to express what they're feeling and what they've been through and just to get out all those emotions in a way that can be impactful, not just to the creator, but to anyone who sees that work. It's such a huge part of community and of of healing and like being there for each other.
01:35:45.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
I just love that so much, John. i love it.
01:35:48.89
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah, and that's, that's exactly how i feel about that as well, to be able to, especially kids, you know, like you were saying, to be able to give them an outlet to explore how to cope with some of those feelings.
01:35:57.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:36:04.45
Tawn Krakowski
And I know that a lot of authors will will write to kind of cope with those feelings. And and being able to express them in in music, in writing, um really are accessible ways for people to be able to to express themselves and to to share vulnerability.
01:36:34.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, very much so. um You know, I also like to give guests an opportunity to ask me a question if they want to. No pressure, but if you have a question, now is the time.
01:36:46.52
Tawn Krakowski
Hmm. All right. Um, favorite movie ever.
01:36:54.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, gosh. um See, this is a tough one because I can never narrow narrow it down to one movie. ah Not ever. Because as a horror fan, i could never choose between Psycho and Night of the Living Dead.
01:37:02.33
Tawn Krakowski
Oh,
01:37:07.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because both of those were so formative for me. And are such vital classics. Not not just to the horror genre, but like, you know, AFI Top 100. I mean, they're just ace, ace, ace films.
01:37:20.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:37:20.38
Tawn Krakowski
those are Those are very good choices.
01:37:20.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
In terms of non-horror films, thank you. um But yeah, I mean, if you want to talk about non-horror People are often shocked when they hear what my favorite two non-horror films are.
01:37:33.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:37:33.82
Tawn Krakowski
All right.
01:37:34.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
They are the first remake of Ten Commandments, which is the 1954 version of the Ten Commandments. This is a B. DeMille. And also Barbie.
01:37:43.26
Tawn Krakowski
okay
01:37:47.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think Barbie is one of the greatest movies ever made.
01:37:50.07
Tawn Krakowski
I love that movie so freaking much.
01:37:50.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
And... i
01:37:53.83
Tawn Krakowski
And it just blew my mind how the, the, the Barbie movie came out at the same time as the, like the Armageddon movie.
01:38:04.01
Tawn Krakowski
I can't even remember now.
01:38:05.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oppenheimer.
01:38:06.33
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah. Hoppenheimer and just the, the, the juxtaposition was just so telling, you know, it just,
01:38:07.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:38:15.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Oppenheimer was a wild summer for sure.
01:38:19.44
Tawn Krakowski
That was so wild. So wild. I love that.
01:38:25.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right.
01:38:25.85
Tawn Krakowski
i do.
01:38:26.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Hey, it is.
01:38:26.33
Tawn Krakowski
I do want to let you know, though, just so that you know, i recently saw sinners and that one's near the top of my list now.
01:38:26.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
it is Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it is certainly made it to my my top 10 horror.
01:38:39.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, it's, that was just outstanding. And it's so, like, I actually haven't done a second watch yet, because I'm still thinking about the first watch. um
01:38:47.93
Tawn Krakowski
Hmm.
01:38:49.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because I like to do a how did they do that watch, where I watch specifically to see how they were able to emotionally manipulate me, and and how they were able to, like, get me to feel certain things at certain points.
01:38:58.84
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:39:02.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I don't want to do that yet because I'm still just so into enjoying it as for for what it is without dissecting it.
01:39:08.47
Tawn Krakowski
Yes.
01:39:11.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
so So, yeah, I'm with you.
01:39:11.99
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:39:14.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
that That was incredible. And, you know, the lead... Damn it, his name is escaping me now, and that's so embarrassing. But, yeah, the lead guy that played Smoke and Stack, I mean...
01:39:28.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
that That is one of the best performances put to screen because he's Apollo Creed's son.
01:39:29.68
Tawn Krakowski
I can't remember his name right now either, but Michael B.
01:39:33.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, I really should know this, but yes, my God.
01:39:34.86
Tawn Krakowski
Jordan, Michael B.
01:39:37.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:39:37.54
Tawn Krakowski
Jordan.
01:39:38.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, if if he doesn't win an Oscar for that, then the Oscars are a sham.
01:39:44.09
Tawn Krakowski
Oh, I still am trying to figure out how they had him in the same scene all the time.
01:39:46.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
there's There's no way that there was a better performance.
01:39:51.58
Tawn Krakowski
I'm still trying to figure that out.
01:39:54.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, i think I can spot a green screen, and that's not what that was.
01:39:54.48
Tawn Krakowski
It's amazing.
01:39:59.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
so
01:39:59.42
Tawn Krakowski
Right?
01:40:03.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, so, Mad Libs, let's go.
01:40:03.61
Tawn Krakowski
Crazy.
01:40:06.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
We will start with a color.
01:40:06.65
Tawn Krakowski
Ooh, yay.
01:40:11.83
Tawn Krakowski
Green.
01:40:14.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, I'm going to need a bunch of plural nouns. Let me count. One, two, three, four, five plural nouns.
01:40:24.17
Tawn Krakowski
Five. Okay. So llamas. Um, Pancakes.
01:40:35.38
Tawn Krakowski
Tap shoes.
01:40:38.70
Tawn Krakowski
Eyeglasses.
01:40:41.68
Tawn Krakowski
Gnomes.
01:40:47.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Gnomes. Alright. um I need a last name.
01:40:55.42
Tawn Krakowski
Trump. What the hell?
01:40:59.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Fantastic. And an adverb.
01:41:00.48
Tawn Krakowski
Hopefully he's getting fucked by a gnome. I don't know.
01:41:03.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
He doesn't deserve something that neat.
01:41:04.38
Tawn Krakowski
Do we need a verb? No. Shyly.
01:41:07.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
that's That's way too whimsical. He doesn't deserve it. Okay, so one, two, three adverbs. Three adverbs. Three adverbs.
01:41:16.26
Tawn Krakowski
Aggressively.
01:41:26.68
Tawn Krakowski
aggressively
01:41:30.13
Tawn Krakowski
and
01:41:34.91
Tawn Krakowski
happily. don't That'll work.
01:41:39.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. See, Mad Libs are difficult for writers because we feel a lot of pressure to pick good words.
01:41:42.56
Tawn Krakowski
Yeah.
01:41:45.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, musicians don't have this problem.
01:41:45.82
Tawn Krakowski
Well, and we're not supposed to use any of them anyway.
01:41:47.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
They just start looking around the room.
01:41:48.72
Tawn Krakowski
We're not supposed to use any.
01:41:51.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. ah Let's see. Noun. One, two singular nouns. I need two.
01:41:58.51
Tawn Krakowski
Um, All right.
01:42:04.55
Tawn Krakowski
Escargot. And
01:42:10.23
Tawn Krakowski
sock.
01:42:13.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
I need a verb ending in ing.
01:42:17.72
Tawn Krakowski
Fucking.
01:42:20.46
Tawn Krakowski
I've been waiting for that.
01:42:21.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And a part of the body.
01:42:27.74
Tawn Krakowski
Armpit.
01:42:32.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
And an adjective.
01:42:35.25
Tawn Krakowski
adjective.
01:42:40.73
Tawn Krakowski
Is jiggly an adjective?
01:42:44.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:42:45.21
Tawn Krakowski
All right, that'll work.
01:42:48.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. So this is called Curse of the Bambino and it is from the sports section of the Mad Lib book. ah This curse began after the owner of the Boston Green Llamas traded Babe Trump, sometimes called the Bambino, to the New York Pancakes.
01:43:05.89
Tawn Krakowski
I love it.
01:43:08.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, I think we need you to sit with that for a minute because that's good stuff right there.
01:43:15.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
At the end. Oh, that was at the end of the 1919 season. I'll believe it. um
01:43:19.67
Tawn Krakowski
that
01:43:20.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Before the trade, the team was playing shyly, winning its first ever world tap shoes and dominating the game. But after the trade, things went aggressively wrong.
01:43:33.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
They failed to win another escargo for the next 86 years and endured many arm printt armpit breaking losses.
01:43:43.79
Tawn Krakowski
I feel like this is originally about the cubs. but
01:43:48.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
New York, to whom the Bambino was happily traded, went on a decades-long fucking streak and dominated the American Sock.
01:43:58.65
Tawn Krakowski
Okay, that's that's a little too real right there.
01:44:01.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my god. that I don't even know what to call this bad lib. It's like too accurate. It's it's eerie. it's It's like one of those South Parks that comes true two years later. um Okay, so he dominated the American Sock, winning more eyeglasses than any other team.
01:44:18.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
the Babe went down in history as one of the greatest gnomes of all time. They say that Boston spent the money from the sale of the Bambino to pay for the theatrical production titled No-No Tawn.
01:44:33.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
I hope it was a jiggly show.
01:44:37.13
Tawn Krakowski
It was very jiggly.
01:44:38.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
And there we have it!
01:44:39.00
Tawn Krakowski
but
01:44:40.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Hooray, Madlib! Alright...
01:44:42.01
Tawn Krakowski
Yay.
01:44:43.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm really glad you could be here and that we could have this talk. It was a great conversation. I think we covered a lot of cool things. And I got to learn about airplanes. So that was sweet.
01:44:52.27
Tawn Krakowski
Yay. I had so much fun.
01:44:54.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:44:54.51
Tawn Krakowski
Thank you so much.
01:44:55.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I'm glad. I'm so glad. um I just want to remind all of our listeners that we will be back next week. Unless we're not. You never can tell with me. I'm fucking crazy. um But if you want to support the show, the best way to do that is by supporting the magazine, Sometimes Hilarious Horror.
01:45:11.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
You can find us on Ko-fi, and we do have an issue coming out, and OMG, it is dope. So we will see everybody next week.
01:45:17.04
Tawn Krakowski
Thank you.
01:45:19.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thanks.
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