Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Author and Beekeeper Patrick Freivald
Find an audio version of this podcast here.
Find more about our guest here.
00:01.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday Lee Friday, and we are brought to you, well, goddammit. Sorry, i i used we used to be brought to you by the magazine, but we don't have the magazine anymore, and I didn't ever really come up with a good intro.
00:16.05
Patrick
How dare you.
00:18.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it dude, it's like 250 bucks an issue, and believe me, I was not making that much back.
00:21.59
Patrick
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I hear you.
00:24.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, sorry, let let me just ah start again, please. Ahem. You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday, leave Friday. Do find us on Ko-fi.
00:36.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
This week, we have Patrick Frivald, and he is a four-time Bram Stoker Award finalist, the author of 10 novels and dozens of short stories for publications such as Weird Tales and Dark Discoveries.
00:52.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
He is a high school teacher, of physics, robotics, and American Sign Language, and a beekeeper specializing in hot pepper-infused honey.
00:53.70
Patrick
trademark.
01:01.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
We will definitely talk more about that. He lives in western New York with his beautiful wife, parrots, dogs, cats, chickens, and several million stinging insects. a member of the Horror Writers Association and International Thriller Writers, he has a soft spot for slavering monsters of all kinds. Welcome, Patrick.
01:24.21
Patrick
Hi, thank you very much for having me.
01:26.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, it is my pleasure. I'm so glad you could be here. um We always start by asking guests to tell us the story of the first horror movie that they remember seeing, so I cannot wait to hear yours.
01:39.19
Patrick
so um unlike a lot of horror writers, I'm generally not big on horror movies. I don't watch a lot of horror movies and ah many of those that I've seen I don't particularly enjoy.
01:51.60
Patrick
um However, I distinctly remember and enjoy um John Carpenter's The Thing. um So i have um I have eight brothers and two sisters. I'm the second youngest.
02:05.94
Patrick
um And i spent many a day sitting on the couch unnoticed by my parents late at night watching a slew of things, which weren't so much horror movies, but there was Tales from the Dark Side, The Outer Limits,
02:23.54
Patrick
ah The Twilight Zone, followed by Monty Python and then Benny Hill.
02:29.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
02:29.11
Patrick
and And that particular lineup, I saw many, many, many times growing up. And I think that that did a lot to twist my brain into the various ways that it's twisted. um So in terms of horror movies, I do have to pick The Thing. I love that movie. It's... um It's a horror movie that ah um I saw when I was very young, but also i I really, really enjoy. And I'm talking about John Carpenter's remake of The Thing, of course. um and um but But in terms of like the overall...
03:05.56
Patrick
horror aspect of things. You know, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Dark Side, all of those kind of mingle together in my brain to be the first exposure to horror that I have as as a viewer.
03:22.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
I see. i have to say Tales from the Dark Side is so underrated because you you just don't hear people talking about that. the way I mean, I hear more people talk about the Friday the 13th series more than I hear Tales from the Dark Side, and that is a shame.
03:39.13
Patrick
Sure, sure. um And I... ah to ah To be honest, I don't know that I could tell you anything about the Friday the 13th series. um Like, ah I really... I'm like, wait, which one has Jason and which has Freddy and which has Michael Myers? Like, literally for me, it's not really on my radar, the movie side of things.
04:02.23
Patrick
And if you ask me to name specific episodes of... Tales from the Dark Side or The Outer Limits or um to lesser extent, The Twilight Zone, um I might have a difficult time doing so.
04:17.30
Patrick
I've seen a lot more of The Twilight Zone in recent years simply because like there are marathons on Thanksgiving or whatever because I guess that's what you do.
04:25.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah hu
04:26.70
Patrick
But it's it's a matter of... it's it's a It's a vibe, right? that That I've absorbed over the years ah from those shows that I've never really gotten from the movies.
04:42.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, well that makes sense. Especially when you talk about something like Twilight Zone, which I mean, Rod Serling was a man with a vision. he had an agenda, and he had the skill and talent and connections to pull it off. So I think, though, that Twilight Zone is kind of like Monty Python in that...
05:05.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
There are that handful of classic, great episodes that everybody remembers and can quote from. you know, in Twilight Zone, a lot of those haunt us. But if you ever see, like once the DVD collections come out and you get the whole thing, here're like, wow, there's there's a lot of weak links here.
05:25.75
Patrick
Yeah, um I love the Twilight Zone. and And even some of the ones that that are are have have this huge cult or or pop culture following, like ah William Shatner with the goblin on the plane thing.
05:40.05
Patrick
Like, that one never really did much for me.
05:40.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
05:42.69
Patrick
um But the there there are there's a ton of... The Twilight Zone was kind of horror, kind of sci-fi.
05:54.81
Patrick
but always socially relevant, right? Rod Serling was, um we we take pride here in New York that he was one of us.
05:58.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
yes
06:03.54
Patrick
um And, you know, he was a quasi suicidal man with a ton of PTSD who decided to focus all of his efforts and energy into storytelling about fundamentally about compassion and about how humanity strays from compassion.
06:25.14
Patrick
And so to me, the Twilight Zone holds a really special place in my heart in terms of what was his, like not even necessarily the specific stories, but what was his intentions and how well did he pull it off?
06:39.77
Patrick
And the fact that you can turn on Turner Classic movies on any given whatever day and suddenly there's ah there's a Twilight Zone ah marathon, I think, helps speak to the legacy that he hoped to create um actually in Realization.
06:57.54
Patrick
Okay.
06:59.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yes, and it holds up. I mean, all of it, I shouldn't say all of it, but so much of it holds up so well. Monsters are due on Maple Street. You could show that people today.
07:09.43
Patrick
Mm-hmm.
07:12.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
And not only is it going to be completely engrossing, but people will understand like what's being said. Like, wow, those people should have calmed down. Those people should have waited a minute.
07:23.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
They should have talked to each other. Like, all these different things. Yeah.
07:27.26
Patrick
Yeah, you you look at um the the remake of The Twilight Zone from a few years ago, and the thing is, you could, rather than trying to redo The Twilight Zone with new stories,
07:41.34
Patrick
for a modern audience, you could update every single Twilight Zone episode with um a little bit more modern dialogue, but definitely more modern special effects.
07:52.41
Patrick
And I think every single episode could come out as totally relevant to a modern audience.
08:00.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you took Death's Head Revisited, but made it an ICE officer, that would be insane. You know, the the guy that goes back to the camp and the the victims of the camp are like, oh, hey, we're ghosts now and we've got some things to tell you. Yeah.
08:22.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
So so you're not you're you're not just a horror guy. i think I think I initially thought of you as a horror guy because I knew you through the HWA.
08:31.41
Patrick
Sure.
08:31.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
But but you you do lots of stuff. You're a sci-fi guy you You have... It it seems a ah love of of black comedy, even if if it isn't necessarily known by that. Because a lot of people...
08:47.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah have difficulty parsing the line between horror and dark comedy I certainly do people tell me hey your book isn't even horror that's a comedy like no um so how do you determine what what's the process for deciding what your next project is going to be what genre it's going to be what genre is best to tell the story that you want to tell how do you get there
09:15.58
Patrick
You know, even from the very beginning, I i think that um I've never cared. um Genre is something that is determined by publishers ah to figure out what sells. Yeah.
09:30.01
Patrick
So like you look at Krause's novel, Angel Down, that just won the Pulitzer Prize, right? People are calling it, oh, it's weird fiction. Oh, it's horror. Oh, it's magical realism. Oh, it's this. Oh, it's that. it's all of that All of that argument is really just about ah what can we do to get more money for this product.
09:52.25
Patrick
ah When it comes to genre, so... One of my very early works, Twice Shy. It was my first published novel.
09:57.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank you.
09:58.83
Patrick
It wasn't the first I wrote, but my first published novel, Twice Shy. um it's ah It's a zombie novel, but it i wouldn't I would never have really called it horror, um even though some really horrific things happened and some people said it scared the shit out of them. It...
10:17.43
Patrick
it's With Twice Shy, there's only one zombie, and she's the main character, and she's taking drugs so that nobody knows that she's a zombie.
10:28.70
Patrick
I wrote it as a as a deep satire of high school life. The premise is that um high school students are hilarious, sometimes on purpose.
10:40.63
Patrick
Um... but often enough not on purpose. And um and that that kids are often dealing with things that are very, very serious. um It's kind of a flippant book, um but it's yeah it's kids are dealing with things that are very, very serious and very, very critical to like real life.
11:05.99
Patrick
And yet they're generally brushing that aside to focus on trivial things. Excuse me. Like, do boys like me? Do, you know, is, am I popular? Things like that. Whereas this just takes that and turns it up to a spinal tap in 11, right? Where it's like, she's worried about, does my crush Mike still like me now that I have to hide the fact that I'm a zombie so I can't do the things that I used to be able to do?
11:33.43
Patrick
Whereas, If the wrong people find out that she is what she is, then black helicopters are going to swoop into town and incinerate her and all of her friends.
11:44.82
Patrick
um So there's this there's this juxtaposition between what she's worried about and what she should be worried about. And there's a subtext there of why that I never really get into. So it's it's it's a dark satire, but it it it means more...
12:03.67
Patrick
even when you're reading it on the surface, I kind of had two audiences for it. I had people who were like, Hey, that's very, that, that, that's a, uh, that's a, I had people who were, who were like, Oh, I love Annie. And I identify with her journey. And this is so emotional and so impactful and blah, blah, blah. And I had other people who are like, dude, that is hilarious.
12:28.09
Patrick
Um,
12:28.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
12:29.50
Patrick
and And both of those audiences are completely valid because I i wrote it kind of to be both for for both of those audiences, which are very different audiences.
12:41.11
Patrick
And yet at the same time, it's also about something more where it's about, the you know, what are people, how do people deal with really traumatic, traumatic and really um upsetting and difficult things that,
13:02.26
Patrick
when they're just trying to get through life, whatever life happens to be. And in this case, it's the life of a high school girl. So she's worried about high school girl things. Um, and so it's, is that a horror story? Is that a dark comedy satire? Is it a rumination on, um, the absolute horrors of modern life?
13:29.27
Patrick
Sure. It's, I wrote it to be whatever it is. And I try and bury myself in what the, what the characters are doing and then let other people worry about what they get out of it.
13:43.10
Patrick
Although I do try and help. I do try and inject certain things. If people are looking for it, like if you're looking for it, you'll find it. And if you're not looking for it, you'll miss it. And that's okay. Okay.
13:59.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. Well, that makes sense. Now, when I invited you on the show, you mentioned that you are skeptical of the whole concept of neurodivergence and that everyone is a bit off center and shouldn't necessarily be defined as a problem to be fixed or a riddle to be solved. Am am I understanding that correctly?
14:21.85
Patrick
Kind of. That's
14:26.14
Patrick
that that's something that's easy to misinterpret, I think. So I want to preface my answer to that with, um if you are dealing with anything, anything at all, that makes it difficult for you to interact in society at large,
14:44.65
Patrick
then that can be a difficult thing for you. And you might need um additional services. You might need therapy. You might need um accommodations. You might need, there there's all kinds of things. And I don't want to della delegitimize anything.
15:00.98
Patrick
Any of that. so when i said that to you what i what i want to be clear about is that i think that it's not that people aren't that weird it's that everybody is really freaking weird um if you were to take how the human brain works and start sticking it on a bunch of graphs. Let's say at a bare minimum, you've got 50 graphs of various ways that people interact with the universe around them and or with themselves, whether it's introversion, extroversion, if it's um auditory stimulus versus oral stimulus versus, you can name a whole bunch of things. And if you name all these things, chances are really good that humans, all 8 billion-ish of us, land on a bell curve.
15:51.13
Patrick
And so when it comes to neurodivergence, if you take those 50 things and you say, who is within two sigma of normal, quote unquote normal being the middle of the bell curve, normal is a loaded word.
16:07.67
Patrick
um And who is outside of two sigma? Outside of two sigma is like 3%. But 3% of a billion people is a whole lot of people.
16:19.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
16:20.38
Patrick
And then when you take that there's 50 of these things, or I don't think 50 is nearly enough. It's 50 things or a hundred things or however many things there are. And you take any human being and you go, okay, where do you land all of this stuff? The idea that any human being is going to land within two sigma of quote unquote normal on any of the, on all of this is,
16:48.98
Patrick
Probably nonsense. I think the the most neurodivergent human being on the planet would be someone who isn't neurodivergent on any of those bell curves.
17:01.43
Patrick
Someone who lands within one sigma of of quote unquote normal on everything. That would be like, whoa, what the heck is that? Excuse me. um Sorry. Sorry.
17:17.62
Patrick
um yeah So to that extent, um
17:25.62
Patrick
sorry, you got to give me a second. I'm choking on nothing. but
17:39.74
Patrick
Sorry, man.
17:41.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
No worries. We can cut all that out.
17:45.18
Patrick
I know you can't. I don't even know what that is. All I have in front of me is water.
17:56.70
Patrick
Okay.
18:01.29
Patrick
Let's try that again. I'm
18:13.46
Patrick
not stalling. I'm just trying not to die. wow I had a little popcorn earlier and I think something stuck in my throat.
18:21.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no.
18:29.69
Patrick
like, I think I'm ready. Then I started to cough again.
18:42.88
Patrick
Jeez. Well, I'm glad this isn't live. Holy crap.
18:47.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah ah
18:48.18
Patrick
that
18:51.74
Patrick
Okay, hold on.
18:55.29
Patrick
I swallowed. I'm okay. I can talk. Another little drink.
19:06.04
Patrick
Yeah, okay. So, I think that the the deal is... ah Jesus Christ. Sorry. Sorry.
19:18.89
Patrick
I'm not even eating anything. I've done this before. I'm like, no, no, no. Don't eat anything weird beforehand. Because you don't want some weird coughing fit in the middle of a freaking podcast.
19:37.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, dude, I'm sitting here vaping weed. I get it. Sometimes people gotta cough.
19:42.39
Patrick
I don't do that, but more power to you.
19:49.53
Patrick
Jesus Christ. Wow.
19:56.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Is that it?
19:56.70
Patrick
so yes
19:56.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
you get it?
19:57.91
Patrick
I think so.
19:59.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
19:59.86
Patrick
i think I'm good.
20:01.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right.
20:02.30
Patrick
right. So what I was saying, um there's a, there's this notion of normal that I don't think applies. So um I think that,
20:19.42
Patrick
The way your question is phrased might make it come across that I think that I'm very insensitive toward those who are
20:32.02
Patrick
off normal. When in fact it's the other way around. Jesus Christ.
20:43.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, there's a line of thinking that basically we should all be cool to each other, whether we know that someone has something mental or emotional going on or not.
20:54.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like the weird autistic person and and, you know, people make fun of the weird autistic person.
20:54.39
Patrick
Yes, yeah that's exactly correct.
20:59.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then you say, hey, man, he's autistic. What the fuck is wrong with you? And instead of saying, wow, I was an asshole, I probably shouldn't have been. They say, well, how was I supposed to know he was autistic?
21:10.42
Patrick
Yeah.
21:10.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's the that's the point.
21:11.22
Patrick
Yeah,
21:12.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Just don't be a dick to anyone if you can help it.
21:15.80
Patrick
yeah, yeah.
21:15.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
I can't always help it, but that's the goal.
21:16.32
Patrick
okay
21:18.82
Patrick
I'll go even further than that. So, yeah, there there was a lovely autistic guy who helped me this morning with some beekeeping stuff I needed to do. And I'd never met him before. But, no, I'll go eat i'll go even a step further. It's, we're all abnormal.
21:36.30
Patrick
There's no such thing as normal. Normal is a fiction. And some of us are abnormal in ways that are more compatible with society as a whole, and some of us are abnormal in ways that are less compatible.
21:56.31
Patrick
And that doesn't mean that those of us who are abnormal in ways that are more normal or less less normal are better or worse human beings or are less or more worthwhile human beings.
22:12.92
Patrick
Everybody is a worthwhile human being, and how their
22:23.05
Patrick
overlap of however many bell curves we've got going on interacts with society is not a reason to treat them with anything other than compassion and respect and love.
22:37.85
Patrick
And so that that's where my comment about neurodivergence being bullshit is, is that
22:46.93
Patrick
I'll bet you, if you picked the most normal human being we could find on this planet, and you gave them whatever tests, you'd find somewhere where you'd be like, whoa, that dude is a freak.
23:02.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Yes.
23:05.10
Patrick
It's just that the way that dude is a freak doesn't manifest in a way that...
23:15.58
Patrick
strongly impacts that freak dude's interactions with society as a whole. If that makes sense.
23:23.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, because, yes, we're all judged ah by society based on how well we function within that society.
23:25.09
Patrick
Yeah,
23:31.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
So if you can't keep a job, for example, you're seen as being less valuable than people who can. If you don't have kids or you do have kids.
23:37.88
Patrick
yeah, yeah. so
23:40.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I mean, even something as simple as being a night person. can super impact like your entire school career. Because when you're a kid and you go to school, there's not an option to start that at three in the afternoon.
23:54.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
You've got to get up early and you've got to get there and focus and pay attention. And if you can't, people start to think there's something wrong with you.
24:02.52
Patrick
Yeah, and you know...
24:02.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
And maybe what's quote unquote wrong with you is that you need sleep, you know?
24:09.18
Patrick
Right, and and being a night person a night person versus a day person, evolutionarily, it was super important to have both, right?
24:16.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, yes.
24:17.46
Patrick
um Like, look at...
24:17.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
24:19.14
Patrick
um Look at... bike Look at... um ah Colorblind people. So... um the the vast majority of colorblindness in Homo sapiens is in men.
24:34.55
Patrick
And it's a lot more than people think. I don't remember the exact number, but it's big. And you look at that and say, why would why would that be...
24:50.01
Patrick
a common trait in humans. So ah obviously I'm talking about something that's not mental. I'm talking about something that's physiological, right? The, the number of cones in the number of types of cones in your eyeball, but it's, but it's an evolutionary thing and the brain is part of the body.
25:02.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
25:06.47
Patrick
So what I'm saying is not about the brain, but it certainly applies to those types of things. Um, It's only been in recent years that we've discovered that people who red-green colorblind or blue-yellow colorblind are fantastically better at picking out camouflage.
25:32.79
Patrick
So those of us with quote-unquote normal human vision, just our trichromat, normal, boring-ass people like we are, When you are looking at someone who is wearing a ghillie suit in a field that has been designed to fool people into being part of the field, a lot of us can be completely fooled and just be like, we have no idea that there's a person out there or a tank out there or whatever it is.
26:02.23
Patrick
Whereas with someone who's colorblind, they've found that those people are often much, much more tuned in with, oh, there's something there that doesn't match the, that I don't know, the the visual textural pattern, whatever it happens to be, where they can be like, hey, there's a dude right there.
26:24.92
Patrick
Whereas...
26:25.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is wild because my husband is colorblind.
26:28.38
Patrick
Okay.
26:28.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So I have not tested that hypothesis and now I have to.
26:35.13
Patrick
um and well and And good luck because i don't i don't this has been peer-reviewed and I know that it's out there. um Have fun performing experiments on your loved ones. not that I've ever done this myself.
26:45.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
26:47.32
Patrick
But...
26:47.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, dude, we're taking up paintball. Yeah.
26:49.87
Patrick
It's absolutely shown that people who are colorblind are way better at picking out camouflage designed for the non-colorblind. And so if you think about evolutionary biology and you think about, oh, this person is a night owl and they're colorblind.
27:11.48
Patrick
Their odds of being able to pick out enemy warriors sneaking up on your camp, random animals sneaking up on your camp, whatever it happens to be that makes us quote-unquote normal people unable to see the threat, they can be like, yeah, right there.
27:21.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
27:31.79
Patrick
That's the thing. And so it's a It's an evolutionary advantage for the group as a whole to have some percentage of people to be quote-unquote abnormal.
27:48.98
Patrick
And I very much doubt that the same thing is not true of pretty much every other neurophysical, neurological thing.
28:02.74
Patrick
condition that meets or at least almost all of them that that you encounter in in modern day society
28:12.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, I mean, if if people have always had this condition, there has to be a reason for it, because if there wasn't, it wouldn't have lasted, right? I mean, just biologically, we tend to weed stuff out if it's not working.
28:26.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
28:26.87
Patrick
Right. I mean, ah so maybe is the answer. um It's not that there's an absolute yes or no. Just because something might be a disadvantage doesn't mean that it won't carry through.
28:38.87
Patrick
But it's more likely to carry through if it provides some kind of advantage, not necessarily to the individual. And this is where a lot of Darwinian... libertarian douchebags fall on their faces, it doesn't necessarily have to be beneficial to the individual themselves, but if it's in aggregate beneficial to the to the whole, then there's a reason why those things might carry forward genetically.
29:10.14
Patrick
And we have had seen such massive change in the last decade
29:13.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank you.
29:19.69
Patrick
500 years, 1,000 years, 2,000 years, um compared to what we normally see biologically, so that some of those things might look like a, what the hell, to everybody else, when if you try and put it into context of us as a species, you just go, yeah, of course you'd want some of those people hanging around. There's ah there's a massive advantage to that.
29:46.49
Patrick
Um... And I think that's where you see some neurodivergence, quote unquote. um Again, I don't love the phrase, but I'm willing to accept the phrase. You you see people who are neurodivergent in ways that today make them stand out in ways that are often perceived as negative.
30:08.25
Patrick
Whereas in the past, people would be like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the guy who helps us in not die.
30:16.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
30:16.41
Patrick
um Right. So...
30:18.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, you know, like how the person with mobility issues in the tribe is often the person who can interpret, you know, whatever divination tools they're using, or they can communicate with the gods or some other skill that people, you know, quote unquote, normal, sane people don't have.
30:19.00
Patrick
and if you
30:36.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, that's why there's such a high instance of quote unquote, neurodivergent people in the arts, because we've all got these perspectives that
30:37.27
Patrick
it just
30:46.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
that help us to sort of translate the human experience into art to express things in ah in a different way that can reach people, you know, in a way that they wouldn't normally think something through.
31:00.60
Patrick
Sure.
31:00.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now,
31:00.80
Patrick
And i I think you can even look at... um Even if you try to restrict things just in terms of survival of the group, like straight up strict survival going back 100,000
31:15.45
Patrick
People who are in the arts tend to be better at abstract thinking. If they're into visual arts, they tend to be better at various visual things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
31:21.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
31:27.32
Patrick
It's just different people are better at different things. And we are a communal species and we have been for a very long time. um The whole...
31:39.35
Patrick
Social Darwinist idea falls apart because you're not talking about a person passing on their genetic lineage. You are talking about a society of people passing on an aggregate genetic lineage that helps everyone.
32:00.43
Patrick
And I think that that leads to a great deal more diversity. Please keep in mind, I'm not a biologist. I'm not a geneticist. My training is in physics.
32:09.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
32:09.87
Patrick
So to some extent, through most of my life, I'm talking out my ass. But um insofar as my ass can make some sense, you're looking at a an aggregate behavior that results in aggregate...
32:30.36
Patrick
ah traits, in aggregate traits that are necessarily divergent because we are not a super organism trying to do a thing. We are a communal group who are trying to survive collectively. So even just just basing it back to the, you know, bringing it back to the absolute most basic caveman-ish type society,
33:06.73
Patrick
neurodivergence and other divergence is a strength, not a weakness. Right? And the fact that we treat the noticeably divergent today as freaks says something very negative ah about us, both in terms of a moral and ethical failing on our part, but also just in terms of a biologically stupid failing on our part as well.
33:42.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, that's that's really interesting. I wish I could pause and think about that for a while before we continue, honestly. um You know, I actually want to tie that into a few different things, one of which is that how well you're able to function with your baseline, you know, genetic and and biological and and emotional makeup depends very much on where you are in the world and what is expected of you.
34:03.93
Patrick
Sure.
34:11.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which is why Americans tend to have, and I don't have the data in front of me, but a higher rate of getting a diagnosis, of seeking therapy, of seeking medication. Even bearing in mind how many people, like I think everybody you know, could name someone in their life who would benefit from therapy and they know they would never get it. um But here in America, so much is expected of people.
34:39.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Especially now, now that like fascists have taken over the country and people are working like 60 hour weeks and still not able to pay their bills. You know, time is at a minimum.
34:50.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Everything is like fast and expensive and people don't get to rest in between, you know, like their jobs and their lives. And you get single parents and like the education system is all crazy like that.
35:00.68
Patrick
Thank you.
35:05.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
if If people are examining the life that they live, they're going to see that that's a lot. It's a lot to ask of people. And if you can't make that work, it's not because there's something wrong with you. It's because everything that's going on is wrong. And just because some people appear to be managing it and and remaining high functioning, that doesn't mean that everyone should reasonably be expected to do that.
35:36.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, I can tell you early on in my mental health journey, when i was able to like, after I went no contact with my family, I started getting therapy. And one of my first thoughts was, well, who says I'm the one with the problem?
35:52.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, why am I the one that's in here getting therapy when this person is an absolute dick and this person is an abuser and they're not getting therapy? Why am I the one that's seen as as the wrong one that needs to be fixed and managed? and You know, and the answer that they give you is that if you are the one who is unhappy, you can't change other people and you can't change the world, but you can change yourself.
36:19.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that was tricky for me because i do think that we have an obligation to leave our parts of the world better than we found it. But not at the expense of ourself, if that makes sense. well I mean, like, I still haven't necessarily found the in-between between taking care of myself, but also trying to change the mindset of people that I think are wrong and are hurting people and, you know, yada, yada, yada, all that there.
36:51.45
Patrick
Yeah. um
36:55.03
Patrick
I think my general philosophy in answer to your your your scenario there is ah fuck them. um And and it that sounds kind of flippant, but at the same time, fuck them.
37:13.29
Patrick
I'm responsible for me. And yeah, like i I do what I need to do to get through in life and things like that. And and then there are people around me who they're doing what they need to, to get through life. And there are way too many people who are doing what they want to, to make it harder for other people to get through life.
37:36.50
Patrick
And I don't identify with those people at all. Um, yeah,
37:44.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank
37:45.75
Patrick
Look, I recognize the fact that there is a fundamental disconnect between the way I think about the world and the way the vast majority of my family and the people I grew up with think about the world.
38:02.97
Patrick
um And that disconnect... is everybody's problem because somebody is in charge.
38:17.30
Patrick
Like if nobody was in charge, you would be like, okay, you think what you think and I think what I think and we're all good and let's move on and do our thing. um But somebody is in charge. And when you're looking at who's in charge, in regardless of what kind of in-charge system, whether it's a a dictatorship or communism or socialism or pure democracy or representative democracy or whatever it happens to be, somebody's in charge.
38:46.55
Patrick
And those people who are in charge usually have a vested interest in to forcing people in line.
38:59.99
Patrick
And I just wish we weren't like that. And I, I, I don't understand why we're like that. Um, it's something where I, I don't understand. And well, on an intellectual level, I try to understand where people are coming from in terms of, uh, culture and religion and various other things where, where they're approaching these types of issues,
39:27.64
Patrick
At the same time, i never want to truly empathize with their position because fuck them.
39:39.71
Patrick
Go ahead.
39:40.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah. Well, a lot of people are dicks because they're afraid of things and they can't get a handle on their fear.
39:43.10
Patrick
go ahead
39:49.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it's like the people that confuse being strong with being a a bully, you know, like crushing things that are weak makes them feel strong. That whole thing. It's fear based.
40:00.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
And. My impulse when I see someone who is afraid is to say, hey man, you don't have to be afraid. Obama's not really coming to kill your grandparents. You were told that by bad people or, you know, whatever it is, the fear that's making people hateful.
40:17.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
But they They get so dug in. And certainly there's things that I'm afraid of. And maybe that makes me like a worse person or whatever. like I don't know. But that's the hope. The hope is that you won't turn your fear into an excuse for hurting people.
40:37.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
um A lot of times when I talk about MAGA boys online, I refer to them as Morlocks. And sometimes that gets a chuckle. Because that's what I think of. I think of the... You know, like they're they're caveman types.
40:50.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
And maybe that sounds insulting, but I don't even know that they would be insulted by it. It's not like they're sitting around reading literary periodicals. um
41:01.94
Patrick
Um, my, my, yeah, um, my issue with that to some degree is that, um, when people say, oh, these people are voting against their best interests.
41:02.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
But yeah, getting a little tangency there.
41:12.02
Patrick
It's like, well, or maybe you don't understand what they believe their best interests to be. Um,
41:21.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
True. I'm sorry.
41:22.02
Patrick
there's There's a... So, I... a good A good number of my family members are MAGA. And i do I do not understand it at all.
41:29.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
i'm sorry
41:32.82
Patrick
um And yet, I at least try to intellectually figure it out.
41:44.25
Patrick
And so... But for for years and years, people... Oh, these people are voting against their best interests. It's like okay, um... Have you properly identified what they believe their best best interests to be?
41:57.67
Patrick
Now, don't get me wrong. There's a whole lot of leopards eating faces um going on there too, where even the things they think they're voting for are do not end up being things that they're voting for because blah, blah, blah.
42:02.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh yeah.
42:09.99
Patrick
But even then, um and they're what they think their best interests are might be horrific. um you know, the the the absolute inhumanity that people will inflict on others because they don't have a right to live here.
42:28.50
Patrick
Whereas, like, I have a right to live here. Why? Because my parents were born here. Why? Because their great-grandparents stole this spot from the Native Americans, you know. um that That kind of thing.
42:37.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right.
42:40.31
Patrick
but But even if you don't even dig that deep and you just go, okay, what is it that they're actually perceiving as their best interests? And um for a lot of these people, their best interests are fundamentally not ah financial.
42:56.79
Patrick
you You look at people who are dirt poor living in Appalachia or Oklahoma or whatever who are barely getting by. And what they believe their best interests are is in preserving preserving the the culture, if we could be as kind as possible in trying to phrase this, ah preserving preserving the culture in which they grew up, preserving the world in which they grew up.
43:20.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ahem.
43:27.71
Patrick
and To them, that's their best interest. So when you say, oh, they're voting against their best interest, it's like, well, no, they're voting against what you are calling their best interest.
43:39.23
Patrick
They're not voting against what they feel is their best interest. And don't get me wrong, their best interest might be a racist, sexist, and or otherwise horrible thing. I'm not i'm not making, in for the purposes of this point, I'm not making any of those kinds of judgment calls. I'm just saying that when you are looking at other people and you are trying to assess where they're at and what they're doing and how they feel and how they're acting.
44:07.16
Patrick
And as is important in a democracy, how they're voting.
44:12.96
Patrick
There's a fundamental problem with taking external controls, applying it to others and then going, Oh, I, okay, I get it. They're just fucking stupid.
44:27.48
Patrick
Um, which,
44:28.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I would certainly make the case that it is fucking stupid to care about white supremacy more than you care about things like health care or your spouse not being dragged off by masked men in unmarked vans.
44:41.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
44:41.53
Patrick
Yeah, but when you're trying to convince, I 100% agree with you, 100%. But when you're trying to shift minds, when you're trying to shift hearts, when you're trying to knock people out of their equilibrium into a point where they might consider something else,
45:04.47
Patrick
You can't start there. You can't start with you're a fucking moron and a racist and a shithead. You have to start somewhere with what is it? You have to start somewhere closer to where are you?
45:23.96
Patrick
And where are you looking for things to go? And i i you're absolutely correct that a lot of it is absolutely embedded in fear.
45:35.26
Patrick
because they're afraid of things going places that they don't like, that it's uncomfortable, et cetera, et cetera. But you can't just say, you're a fucking coward, or you're a fucking racist, or you're a, and don't get me wrong, I block a lot of people on Facebook. I think I've blocked more people than I am friends on social media. um um There's plenty of people that are not worth engaging with.
45:58.01
Patrick
But if we're trying to be honest about how to even begin to have a conversation with someone,
45:58.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
to hand
46:04.68
Patrick
It can't start with, here's why you're a fucking moron.
46:12.63
Patrick
It can't.
46:12.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, what what you're saying makes sense.
46:13.20
Patrick
Yeah.
46:16.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think that in my experience, it can be difficult. Like people will start out with a real argument and a salient point. And before you know it, the conversation has devolved into, well, fuck you, you voted for a pedophile. And...
46:34.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know if it's because this is we're on the same internet.
46:37.05
Patrick
Right.
46:37.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
We know that there are people that show show up just to start shit. You know, they see that somebody is happy and celebrating that Abdul Al Saeed won. So they just show up and start talking about 9-11 apropos of nothing.
46:53.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, that dude was nine years old. If you think he did 9-11, you're kind of an idiot. But back what you were saying, you can't start there. You can't start with, hey, you fucking idiot.
47:03.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because sometimes it's also hard to tell whether someone has really, really been taken in by propaganda or if they're just an a-hole starting shit. You know, you you can't always know.
47:18.01
Patrick
Well, and to bring it the to the theme of the of the the podcast, um confirmation bias is a real thing.
47:18.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
And...
47:25.27
Patrick
um and And so, and and the reason it's a real thing, I mean, the, the,
47:25.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh yeah.
47:32.54
Patrick
Part of your brain that registers physical pain is the same part of your brain that registers social pain. Being like, we don't like to be embarrassed.
47:45.69
Patrick
um We don't like to be wrong. ah We don't especially don't like to be called out as wrong in public. Because let's back up 10,000 years or so,
47:57.14
Patrick
If you are the person who's always wrong about shit, you get thrown out of the tribe, you are now ostracized, and you're gonna die in the wilderness because there's you're on your own.
48:10.71
Patrick
And this is a cooperative society now. We're not every man for itself. Again, social so Darwinism is bullshit. This is a cooperative society. We live in tribes. And if you get kicked out of the tribe because we all think you're a douchebag,
48:26.22
Patrick
You're dead. And so there is a legitimate biological evolution in the human brain to feel social pain and embarrassment as actual physical pain. And we know this.
48:43.38
Patrick
And so people don't like to be wrong. They don't want to be wrong. They especially don't like to be wrong in public, but it's even hard in private. And so what we do is when we're wrong, we just reject the things that tell us we're wrong.
49:00.46
Patrick
And then we accept information that tells us we're right. And that confirmation bias is something that we all do, every one of us. And I try to be super aware of it.
49:10.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
49:11.58
Patrick
I try to not do that as much as possible. And I know I do it because we all do. The human brain is hardwired into it. And when you look at, so then when you apply that to
49:28.46
Patrick
Bipartisanship or partisanship in general. when you When you apply that to Democrats and you apply that to Republicans to make it specifically about the United States. um Democrats don't want to be...
49:42.01
Patrick
Like, they don't want to be in disagreement with other Democrats. Republicans don't want to be in disagreement with other Republicans. And so when shit shifts in one direction or another, a whole bunch of people who didn't believe something at one point suddenly find themselves going along, and then they find themselves believing it Um, we, we know that, that when you are told something over and over and over and over and over again, even if you knew it was false at first, you come to believe it. When you hear something enough, you tend to believe it. This is why i think Rush Limbaugh rest in piss, um, started off, um,
50:24.60
Patrick
He was pretty damn funny. When he first started on national radio, my parents were listening to Limbaugh. I was in i was um a kid. I was living in my parents' house. I was listening listening to it too.
50:37.94
Patrick
And he was pretty funny a lot of the time. Some of that stuff was more mean-spirited than I realized at the time due to my upbringing, but some of it wasn't. Some of it was just funny.
50:49.21
Patrick
But I think that he, along with Glenn Beck and a variety of others... they said things over and over and over again so that their shtick became their reality, where what they used to know they were goofing about became what they truly believed.
51:09.98
Patrick
And i think to some extent that's actually inevitable. The more I've learned about neurobiology, the more I think that they they doomed themselves with their shtick.
51:23.70
Patrick
And I think you see that a lot with politicians today and you see that a lot with partisans who are not politicians, but who are just really partisan to one party or another, where they They just say something to themselves enough and enough and enough that whatever it was is now what they believe to be true. And they're going to reject anything that contradicts that. And they're going to accept anything that reinforces that. We are all susceptible to this.
51:53.50
Patrick
um This is how human brains work. We're hardwired to be this way. And Trying to get yourself out of that trap.
52:04.22
Patrick
I don't even know how possible it is. I think it's possible to at least get yourself somewhat out of this trap. But it's... It's vicious and I see it everywhere.
52:17.74
Patrick
Looking at people that I used to know well, who I'm like, I don't want anything to do with you. Looking at at at people who they've even come to agree with me more. And then I look at and go, yeah, okay, but...
52:30.20
Patrick
And yet then you try and push against any of that.
52:30.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. Right.
52:34.12
Patrick
And all you're doing is you're just going to ram so you're going to just going to slam face first into that confirmation bias. And... um it's gonna cause an explosion.
52:48.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, that's terrifying. It is.
52:52.31
Patrick
Yeah, but it's, that's brains, man.
52:52.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause I find that the older I get, the um the more i am trying to incorporate certain attitudes into my existence, things like saying things like, wow, I guess I was wrong. That sucks. you know And then get the real information that that I didn't have before. Or to say to someone, I had not considered it that way.
53:18.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank you for taking the time to explain. You know, like,
53:21.53
Patrick
Yeah, I think, yes, I think my my training as a physicist early on helped with that to some degree because the general attitude of the physicist is we don't know what the hell we're talking about.
53:34.29
Patrick
You're gonna have to try really, really, really, really hard to convince me. And the number one person, the easiest person to fool is myself. So how far do you have to go convince me that you might be on the way to a model that is more correct than what we had before?
53:59.83
Patrick
and But the vast majority of life doesn't work that way.
54:04.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sure.
00:00.23
Patrick
and we got 30 minutes in and she was like, oh, wait, we're on mute. So it could be worse.
00:04.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh but no Yikes.
00:08.41
Patrick
Yeah.
00:08.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, another thing that you told me during the pre-interview is that you were once told you have, quote, an uncommon ability to turn off your fight or flight response, end quote.
00:21.30
Patrick
Mm-hmm.
00:21.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
How does that present?
00:23.93
Patrick
right. So um it was a weird thing. So I was I was dating a girl in high school. I know that sounds odd um to actually be dating a girl. But no. So I was dating a girl in high school and we came very, very close to getting into a a serious car accident.
00:40.86
Patrick
Her mom was driving. Her brother was in the front seat and she and I were in the back seat. And um she insisted I sit in the middle so she could see everything I was doing with my hands.
00:53.50
Patrick
oh
00:53.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my.
00:54.52
Patrick
there she she she She was a realistic human being. She was dating six e she was ah the parent of a 16 year old. um But um we all just got to a very serious car accident.
01:06.36
Patrick
And we all stopped. And she looked up in the rear view mirror and she looked at me. And she, oh, she was a psychiatrist, by the way. This is important. um And she looked at me. She goes, huh.
01:18.83
Patrick
She goes, hold out your hand. So I held out my hand. And then she said, you're strangely calm. And I said, all right.
01:31.22
Patrick
She's like, could I do some tests on you? And I said, um, my parents will probably have to sign off on that. And she's like, all right. So she drew up some paperwork and cause she was a professor as well. And, um, um, she drew some paperwork and then we, we did a variety of tests and things. And she, she told me that my, my fight or flight response is, um, is atypical.
01:57.72
Patrick
And, um, It was just something, and i just I just told her, I'm like, yeah, well, you know, there there was nothing I could do about it, so what was I supposed to do?
02:10.19
Patrick
And she's like, this is kind of a, this is like a kind of sociopathy. And I was like, uh, all right.
02:20.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Rude.
02:20.62
Patrick
And was What's that? No, or whatever. No, she she was she she was cool.
02:24.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
02:25.44
Patrick
um She was cool and I liked her daughter. um But i no, she but so i actually went in and did some tests and whatever with her and her team.
02:36.56
Patrick
And um she said that it's it's really pretty uncommon where it just appears that I can choose to not react in like ah mentally, emotionally not react.
02:52.19
Patrick
in situations. And I was like, okay, because to me, I just thought that's what people could do, right? It wasn't weird to me, because what's weird to you ah is only dependent upon your frame of reference, right? It's like when peace people ask me, what's it like to be a twin? It's like, I don't know, what's like to not be a twin? What's it like to be from a huge family? I don't know, what's it like to not be from a huge family? Um, this was kind of a similar thing where it was like, um, this is abnormal. And I was just like, okay.
03:29.03
Patrick
she's like, neat. And then, you know, I broke up with her daughter. Um, she dumped me by the way, which is pretty typical.
03:36.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ah.
03:36.09
Patrick
Um, but, uh, and then, uh, we, we moved on. We're actually still friends, but, uh, we went ah about our separate ways and whatever else. And then, um, ah it's just, but I have noticed that there have been situations in my life where other people are freaking out and I'm just like,
03:53.97
Patrick
ah or we could react rationally to this situation. um And I recognize that this, that in myself, that this is something that is not typical.
04:07.31
Patrick
um And it has been...
04:08.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
But back to the whole like evolutionary, like what the tribe needs, that's gotta be huge. The guy that doesn't panic when we find out there's a rival tribe coming to get us in the middle of the night, you're the guy that doesn't panic? that That's handy. I hope no one kills you, because the tribe needs that.
04:28.44
Patrick
Yeah, I mean, and and you hope it's not something more like leprosy where it's like, oh, I can't feel my digits, so I lose them. um You kind of hope that that you're like you're not in a situation where you're like, oh, I hope this isn't something that completely screws me. Yeah.
04:44.98
Patrick
I think it's it's done me some reasonable good in my professional life as well, where you get situations where the shit hits the fan, i had work or whatever else, and then everybody's like freaking out about it. And it's like, well, wait a minute. what What do we do about this? It's like life doesn't have a rewind button.
05:01.69
Patrick
We have a situation that cannot be controlled retroactively. Where do we go from here to try and achieve the best outcome?
05:13.11
Patrick
um And so to me, it's always been something that's been super useful. ah It has been difficult at times to try and understand other people's reactions to things. I have to stop and be like, okay, wait, how, it's not even how would other people think, because I don't know how other people would think. It's how do I think other people, like, what do I think other people are thinking at this moment?
05:42.97
Patrick
If you get what I mean, like it it's, it causes, i had another person ask me a question about this in terms of my writing.
05:44.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.
05:49.31
Patrick
um And it's like, you know, when you're trying to write believable characters, you want to write characters that other people can sympathize with and empathize with and put themselves in their shoes. And so when you're doing that, you need to be able to say, okay, when confronted with situation x How are realistic people going to respond?
06:14.39
Patrick
And how do I write that if I'm not a realistic people? um And I don't know. I hope I've done a good job with that but over time.
06:25.82
Patrick
um I hope.
06:26.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
you ever Do you ever send ah a piece to a beta reader and it'll be something that you've agonized over it and they'll give it back and be like, why didn't they just do blah?
06:27.99
Patrick
Yeah, go ahead.
06:38.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's the most reasonable thing in the world. And it was something you never would have thought of. Does that happen to you?
06:44.53
Patrick
um generally not so much i think i do a pretty good job in delving into my characters um i have a really excellent beta reading group as well um just wonderful most of us have been in part of the same group for almost 20 years now um and um yeah we're we're we're primarily an online group and we have uh
07:01.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
07:07.79
Patrick
We're all over the place. there There's Western New York and California and Costa Rica and various other places, Canada. um So we're from we're from all over the place and we all have a lot of writing experience. um like a lot of, there's a couple of Nebula awards and some Bram Stoker awards and lots of Bram Stoker nominations and this and that and the other amongst the whole group.
07:32.91
Patrick
It's a group of people who are, are really dedicated to, um, making things great. Um, I have had people ask me like, why would this person behave this way in this situation?
07:49.82
Patrick
Um, It's not generally not too terribly often, and generally they're like, oh, well, this is why, this is what's going on in their head. um I haven't had too many situations where people have have said, it's like, no, people just don't act like that.
08:06.62
Patrick
um But part of that is affect on my part. um where I recognize while I'm writing, i need to be writing characters that are going to at least reasonably behave in a way that most people would find reasonable.
08:28.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay all right um you know we're actually about at the halfway point so this is when i stop and i thank our big donors um if you want to donate to the show not you you but like all of you um we are located on ko-fi that's ko-fi.com um where we are sometimes hilarious horror or you can also find us under the mentally oddcast um
08:52.25
Patrick
so
08:54.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so we are thanking this week, Alison Huff, Nemu Ravenfall, my good friend, Low Key and Brianna Simmons. So thanks so much to them. And if you want to be on that very prestigious list, you just have to give us a little money. It's how we keep the lights on around here.
09:14.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, Patrick, I have never been to where you live, but you describe it as remote and idyllic, and that is the setting of a slasher movie to me. So how is that going? Is it inspiring?
09:27.06
Patrick
um So, as I mentioned before, I don't really watch horror movies. um In terms of slashes, what not? No, I've... So, I live in the middle of nowhere. um I bought this house from my parents after living elsewhere for 10 years. I was looking to move back to the area while they were looking to move south to Virginia. so I live in the house I grew up in. We moved here when I was four years old.
09:50.77
Patrick
um I lived here through high school and then was gone for 10 years and then I moved back and I've been here for 23 more years.
09:50.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
09:58.47
Patrick
So um I've been here a long time and all of my neighbors are trees and over... But over a long period of time, I have had people come to the house to visit. So I've done a couple of writer's retreats that have included people from not too far away like Buffalo, but also New York City and Canada.
10:19.35
Patrick
um So I've had people come in from some pretty urban areas. um and ah But I've also had just you know random friends from from the various places. i know I know people from all over now, right? And no, it is funny when like when it's dark out, it's really, really dark out.
10:43.35
Patrick
um One of the jokes I like to tell about where I live, ah as I ask people, you've heard of a one stoplight town? Yeah, we don't have one of those. um And so there there are no street lights. There are no stoplights.
10:57.35
Patrick
um I live next to 2,700 acres of state forest. um It's very, very, very rural. This is not suburbia. um I get annoyed that in the wintertime when the leaves fall off the trees, I can tell that other human beings live in my zip code because I can see lights.
11:16.92
Patrick
Um, but in the summer you can't see it. So, but I've had people where it's, it's nighttime and they'll, it's, it's so dark.
11:20.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
11:25.50
Patrick
And in the winter time, it's really quiet. In the summer, you get all kinds of white noise from all the insects and stuff. Just, there's this constant hum of noise. Um, but beyond that constant hum of noise, you'll occasionally hear owls or this or that or the other, or a deer barking and it'll freak them the fuck out. And it's hilarious because,
11:46.95
Patrick
Like, I don't hear sirens, and i don't I generally don't hear car motors and stuff at any any general given time, but um especially at night here, it gets really, really, really, if not necessarily quiet, at least devoid of human noises.
12:06.97
Patrick
And then when you get a chipmunk rustling in the brush and then friends from the city are like, oh my God, what is that? It's like, that that's a mini bear. It's like, what do you mean? It's like, it's a chipmunk.
12:17.61
Patrick
It's like, it weighs like 200 ounces and it's rustling through the grass.
12:18.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
right
12:22.06
Patrick
How you know it's a chipmunk? i'm like, I don't, but it's probably a chipmunk. What if it's a bear? It's not. Bears are quieter than that. um you know It's, um yeah, it's, this is a very, very quiet, ah downright serene area.
12:29.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
right
12:38.38
Patrick
um Yeah. If you were going to write a horror movie, that that's a funny thing, right? Is is when people write things like ah ah whatever, at Crystal Lake and so forth, it's because that's the different.
12:52.38
Patrick
And so different is scary.
12:54.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right.
12:55.00
Patrick
um when When I was growing up, people would tell stories about shit that happened in the city. And when I'm talking about the city, I'm talking about Rochester, New York, which is not exactly a hellscape of doom, but specific ah streets got like a mythic quality. When I was growing growing up, it was Genesee Street and Lyle Avenue, which is funny because later in college, I lived on Genesee Street for a while.
13:27.84
Patrick
um And it was not at all the way it was mythologized. But but the the mythology of the city and all the things that could happen to you in the city, those were terrifying to the people who live here.
13:44.06
Patrick
Whereas when you look at slasher movies, whether whether you're at summer camp or you're just living out, you find a cabin in the woods or whatever else. um You know, when I was in high school, there was in a there's an abandoned cabin up above one of the parks that is not too near not too far from here, where teenagers would go up and like bang and smoke weed and drink and things. The things that will get you murdered in a horror movie, right?
14:11.25
Patrick
This was just one of the places you could do that where parents weren't around, where you it's very unlikely that you would get busted by anybody.
14:19.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
I
14:22.36
Patrick
And it wasn't scary to anybody. That was the place that you went to bang and smoke weed and drink and whatever people were doing. I didn't do those things. I was busy playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends.
14:33.59
Patrick
But the the the people who went up and to I went to this cabin once just to check it out and no part of it was scary.
14:33.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
know. ah
14:41.39
Patrick
It was just like, oh, okay, this is where people come to do this. Goodness gracious, those mattresses are disgusting. Yeah. Um, it was, there was, there was nothing, nothing, nothing scary about it.
14:47.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
me
14:53.91
Patrick
Whereas I think from the lens of someone coming from the city, that place would have been creepy as hell.
15:04.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah.
15:04.09
Patrick
so So, yeah. So I think that ah how's it going? It's going fine because that stuff is fiction and it's a fear of the other. And this isn't my other. This is my normal.
15:19.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but you also don't have a fight or flight response, dude, or it's optional.
15:24.73
Patrick
um but I've been there with other people too, and they they they haven't had a problem either.
15:25.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
15:28.17
Patrick
So I don't think in this particular case, that's just a matter of me saying, yeah, I'm a weird freak. um it's It's a matter of...
15:37.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, no, now I gotta come and visit and see for myself. We gotta determine who's right about this.
15:42.04
Patrick
Yeah, so here's the thing. You're welcome here anytime. i don't know if that cabin is still standing, but we can certainly go try and find it. And I promise not to be the cannibal that eats you if you...
15:49.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right.
15:53.37
Patrick
if you very Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:53.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'll bring a blanket. It sounds like I'll need one. um
15:57.59
Patrick
Mm-hmm.
15:58.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, now we gotta talk about honey, because here's the thing. I grew up thinking that I didn't like honey, but it turned out I had never really eaten real honey.
16:05.18
Patrick
oh
16:08.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
I was eating that crap in the bear in the grocery store that was like yellow corn syrup. So it turns out honey is delicious, so I'm excited to know how you became a beekeeper.
16:21.85
Patrick
So when I was a kid, up behind the house, this is a strange thing. Up behind the house, off to the side where my mom had a horse pasture, there were some colonies of bees.
16:38.21
Patrick
And nobody had taken care of them for years. um And I only found out later that my neighbor didn't know where they were from. And the people who owned the house prior to my parents didn't know they were where they were from either. So I don't know where those bees came from. But I got to see them kind of up close um as a kid for a little bit.
16:57.50
Patrick
But we pretty much stayed away from them. um But they were kind of interesting. It was kind of neat. And then um fast forward many, many, many years. So this is about 20-ish years ago.
17:09.37
Patrick
I'm about 30-ish. And I'm at my mechanics and he's got honey for sale. And I was like, hey, are you a beekeeper? And he said, yeah. Like, that's really cool. I've always been kind of interested in that. And he said, well, I have an extra suit if you'd like to come out and check it out.
17:24.61
Patrick
He's like, I've got a couple extra suits. So me and my twin brother went out and we we checked out his thing. And he showed us ah the basics of checking on some colonies of bees.
17:36.06
Patrick
And we thought that was really cool. And my brother didn't end up getting bitten with the bug, but I was say hey, this should be fun. i'll I'll try and get a couple colonies of bees. And so a couple colonies um ah got completely out of hand. So now it's a side gig for me. But that's really how it started was just me asking my mechanic, who was a beekeeper, like, hey, this is neat. Can you show me what's up? And he said, sure. Yeah.
18:05.05
Patrick
So not terribly long after that, I ended up being the vice president and then the president of our local beekeepers association. Um, and I haven't done that in a long time, but, um, But yeah, it was just something that I fell into because I thought it was neat.
18:18.68
Patrick
And bees are really cool. I actually like bees more than I like honey. um The honey you get in the grocery store now, at least in New York, there are labeling requirements where it can't be corn syrup.
18:30.07
Patrick
um You can buy honey syrup, which is like a dollar for one of those little bears. um And one of ingredients that's almost entirely corn syrup with just a tiny dab of honey.
18:35.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right.
18:39.58
Patrick
and It's the same thing you could have bought for... 10 years ago for $5 a jar and now it's $1 a jar um because of labeling honesty.
18:49.82
Patrick
but um
18:50.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
18:50.94
Patrick
but yeah With honey, everything I do is small batch. so If you buy real honey from the store now, like from Subie or one one of these giant corporation corporations, um they're buying honey from Thousands of beekeepers around the country and then mixing it in these huge vats and putting it in bottles. And here's the thing. It's perfectly good. There's nothing wrong with that honey. It's it's perfectly good honey ah that will taste good.
19:17.46
Patrick
um I liken it to scotch. Do you drink scotch at all? and Okay. So um for those who do, a single malt scotch tends to have a lot of character. Every single place that makes their own single malt scotch. Some are smokier and some are more bitter and some are sweeter and some are this and some are that. And so they've got all these different notes of flavor to them. But then you can also go to a store and buy a blended scotch. Jameson, I think, is a good brand example Where you just go in and you buy, and every bottle of Jameson you buy anywhere in the world tastes just like every other bottle of Jameson anywhere in the world.
19:54.81
Patrick
Because what they're doing is they're they're buying from these small batch guys, and then they're mixing it all together in huge vats.
19:55.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
20:03.77
Patrick
And what happens is it smooths out. So it's it's not going to be nearly as bitter. It's not going to be as smoky. It's not going to be as this. It's not going to be as that. It's going to be an average of everything. And so honey is the same way. There's nothing wrong with a blended whiskey and there's plenty of people who like those.
20:21.69
Patrick
A blended honey, there's nothing wrong with it. You go to the store and you buy a blended honey. What you're getting is probably ah a mix of a whole bunch of different stuff that has been blended together. And so that all of the really unique notes have been blended out, but you end up with something that's nice and tasty.
20:40.47
Patrick
Whereas if you buy something that's small batch, you're going to get an extraordinary amount of variety. And that variety is huge. um Autumn olive or in early spring or locust is super, super floral and really, really light in color. It's super pale. It's almost like slightly yellow water.
21:03.26
Patrick
And buckwheat honey is almost jet black and kind of tastes oatmeal-y. And, you know, all of those things go into blended honey and you end up with just the honey you get at the store but when you buy small batch honey you end up with all that different character but you don't end up with that consistency
21:25.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, see that makes a ton of sense to me because i got some Suebee honey recently, even though I usually get my honey and I'm actually looking it up right now. Okay, I get it from a company called Nate's Organic Honey.
21:40.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's raw, unfiltered honey. They do organic and they also do like a conventional one.
21:43.26
Patrick
Sure.
21:46.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I was taken aback when I first tasted it because it was so complex and so like...
21:52.70
Patrick
Sure.
21:54.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, i wanted to talk about it with someone, which is not my feeling when I when i eat Sue B.
21:57.76
Patrick
Sure.
22:00.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Honey. um So, yes. So, I have ah very much an appreciation for the distinction that you describe. Because...
22:08.70
Patrick
Yeah, so the the very first batch of honey that I ever made, um it was an extremely rainy year. And the honey I got was very dark and very thick and tasted extremely raisiny with a kind of vanilla aftertaste.
22:29.85
Patrick
And then something that I in particular found kind of off-putting, like this off kind of off-putting kind of bitter note at the end of it. And I was like, I'm a writer. I can spin anything into something cool. So I described the things that made it interesting and unique. And I sold all of this honey. And there were a bunch of people who bought it and they loved it. I did not describe it as an off-putting aftertaste.
22:55.26
Patrick
Um... and and And people loved it. And my brother, Jake, funny enough, he kept a bottle for, he had it for years because he knew it was just this unique once in a while thing.
23:07.32
Patrick
And he had it for years and he said it never crystallized, which I thought was very interesting because all honey eventually crystallizes.
23:15.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah.
23:15.48
Patrick
um And I think knowing more than I did back then, that what I ended up with was was a bunch of honeydew. um and Honeydude primarily comes from Turkey, but ah you can get it other places.
23:31.10
Patrick
um When aphids chew pine trees... they secrete a liquid that is high in sugar. So ants will milk aphids for, for sugar.
23:44.18
Patrick
um So honeybees will actually suck.
23:44.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
OK.
23:47.86
Patrick
This is pretty gross, but they'll suck the liquid right out of the ah aphids butts, essentially as nectar and turn it into honey. And that's what we call honeydew.
24:01.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Huh.
24:01.98
Patrick
And reading the descriptions of how honeydew tastes, I was like, it was raining so much that I think the flowers weren't producing enough nectar. And there are enough pine trees around here, and there's always plenty of aphids, that what my bees probably produced that first year was honeydew.
24:25.18
Patrick
And I've never had anything like it. And it's not something that I would go out of my way to buy. Personally, the aftertaste was just blech to me. But I had customers who absolutely adored it as an interesting and unique thing that they'd never had before.
24:40.11
Patrick
And so for me, I just ride the wave.
24:41.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sure.
24:42.15
Patrick
Every year, the weather's different. What blooms well versus what doesn't bloom as well is a little different. Every year, every season is a little different. And so whatever you get is whatever you get.
24:54.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice. Love it. So you sell honey um and you also make hot sauces, right? So how do we get some?
25:04.12
Patrick
ah So my website is frogspointhoney.com. Um, my, my house, this land that I live on, ah was on a map back in 1860 called frogs point, uh, which given how many frogs are yelling during the summer, I understand how that happened. Um, but so I, I saw that. So I just, I named my company frogs point honey and frogs point honey.com. I sell honey and hot honey. i do hot maple syrup. Um,
25:35.13
Patrick
I have a variety of hot sauces that also contain honey because, you know, that's what I do. So I grow all the peppers. I keep the bees. um i do not grow all of the spices. The maple syrup I buy from a Mennonite down the road, i don't do the maple syrup myself. But a lot of it is stuff that comes from my own garden. And it's just fun. it's a It's a fun side gig as I go about life and do things I enjoy.
26:04.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you have a roadside stand, right? That uses the honor system?
26:07.15
Patrick
I do. I do. I do.
26:08.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
how How's that going?
26:10.17
Patrick
So honor system with cameras. Um, so, uh, when I first started, I did not have the cameras and i was losing a significant amount of, uh, product to what in retail they call inventory shrinkage, AKA a assholes stealing stuff from you. Um, and, um,
26:34.55
Patrick
So I got a camera. Originally i started with a with a a deer camera and then somebody stole the camera as well as all of the honey off my stand, um which were great.
26:45.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh my gosh
26:47.06
Patrick
ah So now i have I have wired and unwired cameras. I have a ton of them on my house and I have a reputation for being a bastard about it. um Like if you...
26:55.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
well yeah
26:56.28
Patrick
Well, because the problem is if someone steals... an $8 bottle of honey today. It'll be two next month and it'll be five the month after, you know, a 10 bucks now becomes a hundred bucks later.
27:12.82
Patrick
Um, so And I can't do much about people who are who who swing through like once. I did have a guy, he did a smash and grab basically. he It was a guy at a giant orange tractor trailer who pulled up, pulled an armload of honey off the stand, dumped it in the front seat of his truck and drove away.
27:34.42
Patrick
And it was like 150 bucks worth of honey all at once.
27:37.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
God damn.
27:38.07
Patrick
And at the time, I didn't have my cameras set up to see license plates.
27:42.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ugh.
27:44.22
Patrick
So it's like orange Mac truck. That's all I've got. And it wasn't enough and nobody had anything to go on. So was just, I just sucked it up. But that was a long time ago. This is maybe, that was maybe 15 years ago.
27:56.38
Patrick
Um, over time I have learned about camera placement. So now you can't get anywhere near my house without me knowing everything about you. I can see your license plate. I see your car, your make model of your car. Uh, I've got night vision.
28:12.57
Patrick
I can see your face if you walk up to the stand. um And I have a reputation for being an absolute bastard. ah Two years ago, a woman walked up to the stand. She grabbed a $8 bottle of honey and she stuck $2 in the box.
28:29.53
Patrick
And unfortunately...
28:29.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Aw. It's not a suggestion.
28:34.31
Patrick
Unfortunately for her, um i had checked the stand and run to town and then came back and checked the stand. Generally, just like if I'm outside, I just bother to check because it's there. And so I checked the stand and emptied it of cash and whatever. And then I went and did my thing. And then I came back and there were $2. And of course, I have nothing for sale for $2, right? So I was like, okay, $2.
28:56.60
Patrick
So I went and I looked and I had her license plate and I had her face. And I just, I posted on Facebook. I've got a stand that says or i've got a sign that says, ah shoplifters will be shamed on social media and prosecuted.
29:11.93
Patrick
Um, so I, I put her name and I didn't have her name. Sorry. I put her license plate and her face on Facebook and said, this person took a $8 bottle of honey.
29:23.35
Patrick
She only paid me two and she owes me $6. And, um, she immediately complained and said that I had ruined her life and things. And then she came over, she came over to the camera and she, she wrote fuck you on her butt cheeks and then mooned the camera, which was exciting.
29:31.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
No.
29:38.52
Patrick
um
29:38.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
29:39.51
Patrick
She also paid me my $6 that she owed me. um But um peep I have this reputation now of being someone where I will go after you for 50 cents.
29:51.58
Patrick
And I don't want to be that guy, but you have to be that guy. um I tried not be that Mm-hmm.
29:57.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I get it. cuz Honestly, we get we get lots of packages stolen here. And as you know, I have a business, so we we do soaps and little gifts and stuff. And they're not... The things that we sell are not necessities.
30:12.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
No one needs these. No one is going to go hungry or, you know, become ill because they don't have these things.
30:15.62
Patrick
Right.
30:20.47
Patrick
Right.
30:20.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which means stealing them makes you a dick. A selfish, entitled... Probably narcissistic dick. um And then we we put out a camera as well and our camera was stolen.
30:33.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that was disappointing because we had one and it had to be a neighbor because you need a key to get into the building. But real, real sticky fingers. And ah i I mean, I started thinking about booby trapping them, but I'm like, no, you know what?
30:50.74
Patrick
I have...
30:51.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm not putting any more money into this.
30:53.21
Patrick
I have eight. um Four of them are obvious on purpose and four of them are hidden on purpose.
31:00.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice. Nice.
31:01.18
Patrick
But i I have eight. You can't get anywhere near any of my cameras without being on the other cameras. And no matter what you do to the camera you've gotten to, I will see you.
31:12.28
Patrick
So that wouldn't stop someone if they were determined if they want to wear gloves and a mask and then black out their license plates and pull up and do their thing. They could do that. But generally, people are not doing that.
31:24.86
Patrick
um It's no, it's.
31:27.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, because they don't think of themselves as criminals. They think they're just getting this one quick thing. And...
31:32.08
Patrick
Well, I don't know. The dude who stole the camera as well as all the stuff definitely thought of themselves as a criminal. But yeah, no, there's a distinction you made there.
31:37.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. yeah
31:40.89
Patrick
And people have shared this online before, and I have mixed feelings about it, where it's, oh, if you see someone stealing food, no, you didn't. And I was like, well, if you think someone...
31:50.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
From a store. From ah a big box retail establishment. Not from a person.
31:54.36
Patrick
Well, it's... Even then, it depends on the food. Like, if you see someone stealing lobster, they're probably just a shithead.
31:59.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sure. Sure.
32:02.90
Patrick
If you see someone stealing a bag of rice, they're probably just hungry. um Whereas, you're right. Like, i sell a luxury product. um Nobody needs any of what I sell. And I actually, i donate honey and money a lot to my local, there's a little local ah food pantry.
32:25.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
32:25.61
Patrick
In my town that I helped them actually form a five o one c three so now people can donate um and get attack and get a tax write-off, which is nice because it helps ah businesses donate more.
32:32.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, that's awesome.
32:36.69
Patrick
But I do donate a bunch to people who need it, and they can go and take that, and that's not theft.
32:44.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
no
32:45.66
Patrick
Whereas if the exact same person took the exact same thing off my stand without asking, that's theft and it's a problem. It's like, go to the little free pantry that I donate stuff to and take it from there.
32:54.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
32:59.64
Patrick
Because that's that's what I've given so that...
32:59.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
33:02.64
Patrick
like I absolutely have sympathy for people who are hungry. I absolutely do. And I give... a more money than my wife knows, ah to to people who are hungry.
33:20.70
Patrick
That is not going to stop me from nailing you to the fucking wall if you steal $6 from me on my honey stand. It's a different thing.
33:31.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, it's called citizenship. You you just don't go around being a dick to people. mean... i mean
33:38.99
Patrick
Oh, but you do, don't you? So many people do.
33:41.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah I mean, i i try not to. I don't always live up to my own expectations, but I do i do try to live a life that's relatively free of dicketry.
33:51.64
Patrick
Exactly.
33:51.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
um and And so should we all. um Moving on to your work, um I want to start by asking how the the current sociopolitical climate is impacting your creative endeavors.
33:57.91
Patrick
no um
34:05.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
You having more work output, less? How's it going?
34:08.95
Patrick
I have had less over the past year. I'm not going to get into details over the past year. But... but it's slowed down, but I do have projects I'm working on. Um, in terms of like sociopolitics involve, uh, like influencing my work, I have always included that kind of thing.
34:30.62
Patrick
If you're looking for it. I mean, I think my most popular series is like, uh,
34:33.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank you.
34:35.61
Patrick
If you just want to read it as a wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. It's ah it's like hyper-violent Captain America versus Fallen Angels. You know, it's it's a it's a super fast-paced action superhero horror series.
34:51.70
Patrick
But there's absolutely social commentary in there if you're looking for it. And I think, by and large, most people who read it and enjoyed the series didn't see it.
35:05.50
Patrick
And that's okay. um But for those who did, it's absolutely there. So in in terms of what I'm choosing to write, It hasn't really affected things.
35:16.68
Patrick
um My general stress level over the past year has slowed things down, but I am ah steadily plugging away at stuff and I have several projects. I've got something coming out in October and I have an agent who just a bit on one of my novels and I'm not sure where that'll go.
35:34.25
Patrick
And then I have another novel that an agent said, as soon as you're done with that, I want to represent that. That's what I'm working on right now.
35:41.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice. Nice.
35:42.36
Patrick
No, it's it it's really stupid, but it's it's super fun. So I've basically written a crime thriller that is using the works of Taylor Swift as um as not only as inspiration for plot, but as, um what do you call it? um and
36:03.83
Patrick
The cutout words for for like ransom notes. Yeah, there we go. Ransom notes. That's the word I'm looking for. It's basically a ransom notes. It's a massive ransom notes of Taylor Swift stuff as a crime thriller.
36:17.79
Patrick
And it's, yes, exactly.
36:18.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
like Like refrigerator magnets. Okay.
36:22.68
Patrick
um where Where I'm taking, I'm averaging over one Easter egg every 60 words. But if you didn't know it, you wouldn't know it.
36:35.86
Patrick
Like the goal is if you had no idea of what the conceit of this novel was, you'd read it and go, that was one heck of a crime thriller. That was super cool. There was con men and murder and this and that and the other. And that was super fun. What a great beach read that was.
36:51.10
Patrick
But if you know the conceit and you're interested, you'd be like, wait a minute, how many Easter eggs can I find? So it's um it's an Easter egg hunt.
37:01.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
37:04.56
Patrick
It's the hardest thing I've ever written. i'm having a lot of fun with it. it's It's way slower than anything I've ever written. it's It's so hard for me to get through a chapter on this, but it's super fun.
37:19.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. Okay, so if somebody is unfamiliar with your body of work, where is the best place to start?
37:29.24
Patrick
ah Probably, so my business card, I guess, would be my short story collection, In the Garden of Rusting Gods. um So it's um it's a mix of a bunch of this of short stories I've written over the years. So I write horror, I write sci-fi, I write fantasy, magical realism. you know I kind of scattershot, i write I write whatever I want to write.
37:54.49
Patrick
And In the Garden of Rusting Gods is a nice... snapshot of a wide variety of things that I like to write. So if if someone was interested in what, um, in the kinds of things I do, that would probably be, uh, the right place to go.
38:10.45
Patrick
If they're interested in my straight up horror, my novel murmur is like the closest I have to what anyone would consider like a horror novel, um, murmur. But, um, but yeah, in the garden of resting gods is where I would go if I were looking to find out more about me and the kind of stuff I write.
38:29.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. And you have a link tree, right? So we can put that in the description so everybody can find everything.
38:35.38
Patrick
ah probably ah Maybe. um I have my name. I'm the only Patrick Frivald on the planet. um Yeah, sounds good.
38:40.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, i'll I'll send you the link to get a link tree. Not that they pay me or anything, but they're great. And it's such a handy way to put up one link and it goes to all your stuff.
38:46.68
Patrick
Okay.
38:51.29
Patrick
Sounds good.
38:51.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
um now Now you're going to be sharing a short story with us at the end of the episode. What do we need to know about it?
38:56.33
Patrick
Sure.
38:56.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
You want to set it up?
38:58.41
Patrick
Yeah, sure. so um this is So my twin brother is probably my biggest critic. And this is like the only story he has ever read of mine where he said something better than that doesn't suck.
39:12.02
Patrick
um So it's called A Creative Urge. It's in the collection I just mentioned in the Garden of Resting Gods. um And it is a rumination on grief that is folded into the mythos of The King in Yellow.
39:28.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. All right. Wow.
39:34.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
So sweet. So we'll have that at the end of the episode. We are nearing the end of our time. So I want to ask if there is anything that you wanted to talk about that we did not get to.
39:44.86
Patrick
um So if I could just randomly plug my own thing, if you're into into mid grade, um I have a new series coming out and the first book is debuting this October on October 13th is Mitch craft vacation magic school.
40:01.93
Patrick
ah Mitch is the only kid in his class who absolutely sucks at magic. So he is sent to vacation magic school as a last ditch effort to try and get his abilities up to the point where he won't be stuck in a remedial class rather than going on to eighth grade with all of his friends.
40:20.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
40:20.41
Patrick
Oh, man. It was somewhat inspired by, um I was driving by somewhere and it's not that uncommon around here. I saw a sign that said vacation Bible school. And I was like, you know, if there were ever any three words that didn't belong together, it would be vacation, Bible and school.
40:36.09
Patrick
Yeah.
40:36.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
40:38.14
Patrick
And that was sort of the impetus for this. So it's it's sort of the the very much anti-Harry Potter. um Mitch is a a sympathetic, smart, well-read kid who is just absolutely god-awful at doing anything magical.
40:56.98
Patrick
so And I i think i'm it's coming from Apocrypha Press, and i'm I'm really hoping that it does really well. I would love to turn it into a very long-running series.
41:08.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
41:08.86
Patrick
not
41:10.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
So when you when you start a series, do you plot out the whole thing? Are you one of those? Or do you kind of make it up as you go along, as it were?
41:19.58
Patrick
um So it it depends a bit. So, you know, like plotters versus pantsers. When I write novels, I tend to plot them. I pants my plot, as it were.
41:34.62
Patrick
um I just like, oh, what if this happened? What if this happened? What if this happened? Until I get three or four pages of what ifs on the page. And then I go through and I edit that and I tweak that and I work with that until I've massaged it into an outline of ah of a story and then I'll write it.
41:51.27
Patrick
um In terms of a series, um it depends on the series. So Mitchcraft is designed to be episodic. So each book is going to be pretty well plotted out. um But it'll be a little bit um Simpson-ish in that...
42:07.73
Patrick
ah you could you should be able to pick them up anywhere. I envision sort of like a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys kind of thing where you can just pick up any given book and read it and go, okay, that was a fun Mitch Craft book, you know if you're a 10-year-old or 12-year-old or 13-year-old. But my other series that I've written, i have planned out significantly more. So I want...
42:30.97
Patrick
if I'm going to write a story, I want a complete arc before I start. I want to at least have a good, reasonable idea of what is going to happen with the protagonist and the other main general main characters throughout the entire arc. And then I can write books that lead into that arc as you go and build it as you go. um I never ever want to George R.R. Martin people.
43:04.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
43:05.10
Patrick
autum
43:06.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah I know that feeling
43:06.23
Patrick
And I've met... I've met George. I was his lackey at Stoker con in Palm beach some years ago. i never spoke to him on this particular subject, but you know, the whole, um, not that anyone wants to mention his name anymore, but Neil Gaiman saying, um, George Martin is not your bitch.
43:24.99
Patrick
Uh, it's like, isn't he though? Didn't he promise a story when he started publishing these books?
43:32.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, i I'm with you, man.
43:32.68
Patrick
Um, yeah.
43:34.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think that Creatives, if you've made a promise to your fans, to the people who are, that that gave you this career that you have, that yes, you have an obligation to keep your word to them. And if you can't, then they are owed an explanation.
43:50.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
I, ah you know, as a writer myself, who has been stalling the fuck out of my latest trilogy, i get it. you You can't do that to the fans.
43:59.58
Patrick
Okay, so first
44:00.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if you do, you can expect the fans to take issue with that. Strong issue.
44:04.54
Patrick
yeah what So you don't necessarily owe anybody an explanation, but at the same time, ah they have a right to be pissed off about it. um the crown of ah A Crown of Stars by Kate Elliott was originally going to be a trilogy, and then it got pushed to five books, and then five books got pushed to six. um It's a wonderful fantasy series. I absolutely adore it. It's one of my favorite fantasy series ever. But when three books wasn't going to be enough...
44:30.56
Patrick
She like, this is before blogs were a big thing or anything else. She was sending out her newsletter saying, Hey, it's going to be longer, but don't worry. I'm going to get it done. And then book four came out. And then as she was halfway through book five, she sent something out saying, okay, book five is not going to be the end, but book six will.
44:49.06
Patrick
It's going to be a six book series. I'm going to finish the whole thing. I promise you. And she did. And it's wonderful. And it's it's it's one of the greatest fantasy series I've ever read. i love it so much.
45:02.87
Patrick
But reading it as it went along, you know, it was a little disappointing to be like, oh, okay so there's oh so we gotta okay, so I got to wait a little more. But she did it.
45:15.06
Patrick
um Contrast that to like The Wheel of Time. that was originally supposed to be a three book series that became five, that became 10, that became 12, that became, Oh, he's dead.
45:27.52
Patrick
And then Sanderson finished it.
45:28.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, geez. Geez.
45:29.64
Patrick
Then Sanderson finished it for him. Um, using his notes, like on, he spent his last year on his deathbed, giving him his notes, uh, for to Brandon Sanderson.
45:39.73
Patrick
So Sanderson could finish And then Sanderson was going to do one last book. Oh wait, it's two. Oh wait, it's three, which it did fine.
45:46.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
please
45:47.27
Patrick
It did finally finish. um And i I think that it could have been one of the most spectacular five book fans five book fantasy series in the existence of fantasy had those 15 books been properly edited down into five. but um But Robert Jordan, you know, he just, he, it's another book. It's another book. It's another book. And some of those books, you're just like, well, nothing happened in this book. um And I never want to be that guy.
46:15.64
Patrick
um I don't want to be the person who wrote book 10 and 11 of The Wheel of Time. I don't want to be the guy who wrote book four and five of A Song of Ice and Fire. um To me, there's an obligation to the reader to know where you're going, to have a plan to get there, and to get there.
46:36.43
Patrick
um because you started telling this story and just stopping and going, yeah, well, you know, that's what I got, man, is
46:45.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
46:46.56
Patrick
it's pretty shitty, right? So I'm not worried about that. So right now, all of the series that I've written are done. So Twice Shy was a duology. It's two books. I might have a third in me, but the second didn't promise a third. So it's like if I ever write a third, it'll be like, oh, okay, that's something new.
47:04.23
Patrick
that can finish things out, but it's not necessary. The Matt Rowley books was four books and done. um And that's what it needed to be. And that's what it was. It's a four book series and that's what it is. um The Mitch craft books are, like I said, plan to be very serial. So they're not, they're not intended to have this giant massive over overarching thing that needs to finish.
47:28.14
Patrick
Um, it'll be each book should be a self-contained story. That is a fun story in the world of Mitch who sucks at magic and his friends who don't. Um, and, uh, so, but yeah, when it, when it comes to a series, I realize I'm babbling on in terms of the answer to the question, but when it comes to a series, it, it depends to some extent on the type of series. But if you're writing something with a giant overarching plot, um,
47:58.02
Patrick
you kind of owe it to your reader to get there. And I don't think I will ever start anything that I don't know where its it should end up and have a good idea of how it's going to get there.
48:10.05
Patrick
Okay.
48:11.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. All right. And finally, we do like to give guests a chance to ask me a question if they have one. So if you do, now's the time.
48:23.54
Patrick
So I guess ah my my prime question to you, being as someone who's not particularly neuro-spicy, why did you ask me on this podcast? That was my question for you.
48:36.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, well, that's interesting. um it's um It is because, first of all, I have not developed the skill yet or the ah the a method to approach people and say, hey, are you neurodivergent?
48:53.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Because some people are offended by that question. And then it it like colors me permanently in there.
48:57.54
Patrick
sure
49:00.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah, that's the bitch that asked if I was insane.
49:02.95
Patrick
Yes.
49:03.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, no, no, I didn't. But um I invited you because, a you're in the horror community and I see you online enough to know that you are articulate and well-read, which leads me to think that, A, if you're not neurodivergent, you're going to have some opinions on it, and, B, that I would probably enjoy talking to you for two hours and that you would have a perspective that is different enough from my own that it will have value for listeners. And that's really where I was when I asked you.
49:33.83
Patrick
Very good. And so my follow-up to that is just, what is your overall, if you want anyone to get anything out of what you are doing here on this podcast, what would you like that to be?
49:49.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think the the hope is that it will humanize people who often are relegated to stereotypes.
50:00.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I've had, i try to have as many different kinds of perspectives on the show as I can.
50:02.30
Patrick
going
50:05.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
and also to... um approach people that tend to disagree with me on on at least one or two issues. I've had people, had a guy on here that defended Elon Musk.
50:19.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know I've had ah you know trans people because i don't I don't know a whole lot about trans people.
50:19.52
Patrick
Sure.
50:25.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's a group that is in need of some perspective sharing because there's so much bad information going on. about that community. I've talked to some ah people of color about their standing in their various literary or artistic communities, how they feel that they're received.
50:47.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
um and And generally, like I have... this This dichotomy, because one of my favorite movies is It's a Wonderful Life. I usually watch it once in the summer and then once or twice at Christmas time. I think it's one of the most important movies and the messages in that movie are so valuable.
51:07.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
And every year i get frustrated again because so many of the people that are also at home watching that movie are missing every salient point that it makes.
51:17.79
Patrick
Right.
51:18.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so my Rod Serling-ish quality is that I say, how do I reach people? how do I get people this information? And my hope is that if I bring in an array of guests and they are willing to be generous with their time and with their stories, and we can talk about movies and books and humanize people and then share these experiences, that the people who, who could value and benefit from that information will get it and they'll get it in a way that's entertaining and enjoyable. Like that's, that's the hope.
51:55.18
Patrick
Well, that's wonderful, and you honor me by bringing me in to be a part of that. i Thank you very much. All right.
52:01.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, cool. It is now time for the Mad Lib, which is the most fun part of the show. So I hope you're ready for it. Let's see. We need to start with some nouns. I need one, two, three, four singular nouns.
52:20.91
Patrick
Four singular nouns. Okay.
52:23.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
52:23.66
Patrick
o Pepper. Box. Tree.
52:32.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
And one more.
52:34.62
Patrick
Oh, you said four. I have a master's degree in physics, so I can count. Honest.
52:40.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wait, pepper box and tree. What was the other one?
52:43.22
Patrick
There wasn't one. i can count. I didn't say I did it properly this time. ah Oh, let's go with chair. 17.
52:55.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. And i need a number.
53:00.31
Patrick
Hmm.
53:02.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
And let's see, adjectives, I need one, two, three adjectives.
53:11.12
Patrick
Adjectives. Big. Small.
53:17.02
Patrick
Interesting. flat
53:24.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Okay, so a part of the body.
53:33.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
A celebrity female.
53:33.95
Patrick
this has got to be taylor swift
53:35.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. Now we also had person in room male, and that is always the guest and person in room female, which is me.
53:49.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
And let's see another part of the body.
53:56.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
And another number.
54:00.62
Patrick
six New York City
54:03.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
And finally, a place.
54:11.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so this is called Talk Show Queen. After a 17-year reign as daytime TV's most popular talk show pepper, Wetness O'Walters finally announced her retirement.
54:27.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
On her big farewell show, she recalled the moments nearest and dearest to her knee. When famed Hollywood actor and leading box, Patrick proclaimed his love for Taylor Swift, then surprised everyone by getting down on one toe and proposing with a six-carat diamond tree.
54:51.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
When a woman and the chair she gave up for adoption 20 years ago were reunited. oh wow. And when each member of the small audience was given a fully loaded, fuel efficient, interesting convertible and an all expenses paid trip to New York City.
55:10.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
All these answers were like way too useful and appropriate.
55:15.29
Patrick
Apparently, yeah.
55:17.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's not the kind of irreverence we usually see with these.
55:20.62
Patrick
Sorry. i could have been way grosser.
55:24.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Whatever, Logic Boy.
55:26.36
Patrick
if
55:26.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm factual. My name's Patrick. um
55:29.43
Patrick
Well,
55:30.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Dude, thank you so much for being on the show. I had an amazing time, and I learned some stuff, so that's always good.
55:38.49
Patrick
thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it
55:41.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right on. We want to remind listeners to do find us on coffee so you can send us some love and find out who's coming on the show later and any episodes that you missed and all that there. So we'll see everybody next week.
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