Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Nate. And I am Mike. What are we smoking today, Nate? We are smoking a Pertagas black label, although the label has changed, as Mike informed me. Yes, yes it has. It used to be a very simple label, and just said black label right on the bottom. And this new one is very fancy, a very large red and gold and black label. And the gold is like embossed, so it's actually like raised up. Yes, very fancy label. Since 1845 it says on that. Yeah so we'll find out.
We'll find out if it's the same old cigar I remember. They're good, I remember them being good. Well very good air flow. First few puffs, very tasty. I do believe it's darker than the last two that we smoked. Visibly significantly darker than the Macanudo. This is a black cigar. Not like black with the modern color black. But speaking of dark, are we going to talk Animal Farm this episode? We are. We are.
I remember, I know when we initially talked about reading it, we both kind of remembered the last couple sentences or paragraphs, but reading it again, all I have to say is like Jesus Christ, dude. You might not know the history. I don't know the history as like a professor or anything, but the history of the Russian Revolution is mimicked largely by the story of Animal Farm. Where you have Lenin as a character and then you have Marx, his old major is Marx.
Then you have Lenin and Trotsky as Napoleon and Snowball. Stalin doesn't really play that much of a role because that came later. The book was published right as the end of World War II was coming to a close, so to speak. It's funny because I always kind of remember it as being a book about communism kind of. Yes. But reading it again, it really, we talked in between episodes as we do that we both kind of read it. The last time we had both read this book was in high school.
Yes. Let's start out by saying, and I'm an avid reader. I love reading books and I read everything from fiction to nonfiction. I don't really do like the historical fiction. I don't do historical fiction. I don't do romance. Yeah, I don't do romance either. I don't really like the mystery or crime or the spy thriller, even though I really enjoyed James Bond as a kid. I still enjoy James Bond to some extent, but mostly the older ones.
I like some of the Daniel Craig stuff, but it's just kind of nostalgic to go back and watch Roger Moore or Sean Connery and even Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton. But I don't really like the whole spy thing, I guess, in books anyway. I don't recall ever reading a spy book. I do like detective books and mystery books. Okay. I'm a second-grade fan of Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I'm a big Sherlock Holmes fan. I read all of it.
I read the entirety of Sherlock Holmes sitting on a toilet. Okay. I bought the anthology with the two books set. Oh, nice. All of it sitting on a toilet. My dear Watson, I've never read Sherlock Holmes. I might have some. I've got a lot of books. I've got a lot of books that were given to me by great aunts or aunts and things, and I haven't. There's so many books and there's so many movies. I try and read as much as I can. I love reading.
That's how I got through the high school era because I don't know. I wasn't allowed to watch a lot of movies as a kid, but I could go and read. I wasn't able to watch anything that was PG-13 or R, but I could go read The Stand. There's a bit in The Stand where he masturbates and is talking about the dried semen on his stomach. My parents were like, oh yeah, The Stand. It's great. You should read it. I'm like, okay, but they wouldn't let me watch Jaws. I'm like, I don't know, man.
There's some kind of mismatch. I could go to the school library and I could check out any book I wanted. I read Gone with the Wind in middle school. Sure. I've never read The Stand. I have it and I want to read it, but I haven't read it yet. Yeah, you should. It's unabridged or it's not like a director's cut, but you have to make sure you have the full version of it because it was severely edited. Okay. That would be my thing.
The point I was trying to make is with all the books that I've read, to have last read Animal Farm when I was in high school between 2000 and 2004, so we're almost 20 years later, for me to still remember the big line, which is all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others. That was the big thing that I remembered from that book. Still, to this day from high school.
In high school, unless you're a listener that's in high school, which you probably shouldn't be listening to a cigar podcast in high school, but I'm not your parent, so you listen away. That's saying something because in high school you thought you knew everything or I thought I knew everything and I thought I was hot shit in the world of adults. I definitely thought I knew more than I actually did. Well, yeah, for sure. But to have any book, say Animal Farm, what's it about?
Well, all animals are equal except some are more equal than others. That's huge to have written a book that can still have an impact only having read it once. But yeah, it was very interesting to read it again. I agree. I actually did not read it. I listened to it via audiobook twice. Yeah, you do a lot of audiobooks though. I do mostly audiobooks because of my job. Travel time. Travel time, yeah. But you know, like I said, it's a 90-some page book. It's less than 100 pages.
It depends on the edition and the format, but it's less than 100 pages. When I fired it up, I actually went and bought it, used, and then I found out it was like 99 cents on Kindle, so I just bought it on my Kindle so I could read it there. But my Kindle, so I use the Kindle paperweight because I don't want all the distractions when I read. Those are nice. I just want the book. Sarah has one. Yeah, I just want the book.
And so I was like, I could read it physically, but you know, my Sarah bought me the Kindle quite a few years back now. It's going to be aged out of the free 3G connection. That's one of the first, I think it might be a second gen or something, and I think they're probably on like 27 gen. I don't know what, but you know, it's great. I love it. It's small. You can have a crap ton of books. I've downloaded a bunch of books and I've never hit the limit.
You can connect it with the library, the Hennepin County Library System, and you can rent for free all of these books and you get them for like 30 days, right? So you can get any book from the library on your Kindle. So I just, I bought it for 99 cents and I have the physical copy now too, because I'm kind of like, I'm kind of a dork. I really enjoy having a library. I've got, I don't know, four bookshelves down by my office area, just packed with books.
I just love like walking in and like looking at all the books. Like that's my favorite thing. And eventually when we get a bigger house, hopefully I can have like a library den where I can sit there and I can smoke cigars in that room. And I've got those like books and I've got the ladder, right? The ladder that moves on the rails, the wheels. Yeah, would be cool. Fuck dude. Like, that's amazing. Like I love the library look and that's why I love like physical media, even for movies and things.
Like I love, you know, like walk in and like just look. Like we've got a pretty extensive vinyl collection and it's all laid out so you can like flip through and everybody loves, like everybody I show our vinyl room to, they like, they love just flipping through, just flipping through. And you can't really do that. I mean, you can digitally, but there's something like, to be said about the tactile, like you could see it there. Absolutely.
There is something about a library room if you have the space for it. Or a vinyl, like a vinyl room or a vinyl wall. Or like you guys have the vinyl area, you know, like you have like a piece of furniture basically just for your record collection. Yes. It's very cool. And I don't know if that's lost on people that are younger than us, but it's not lost on us.
And I know that what I remember the propaganda when we were growing up was going to be all these damn millennials, they'll kill off all these blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, not my house and not your house. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, CDs, like CDs are probably not ever going to come back. You know, I still buy CDs. When I buy an album, I buy the CD and then I always buy the version that has the digital download. And I have like Fear Inoculum, which is the last Tool album.
It's not even opened. Never physically opened it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I have it physically. And for me, like we've got, I don't know, man, I've got so many CDs, but there's just something that there's something really nice about. And this is what the older generation, this is what we should be connecting on is there's just something really fucking great about grabbing a vinyl record, putting it on your turntable and like dropping the needle like, I don't know, it's so different.
It's a nice feeling. You know, the CD might have higher bit rate or whatever, but there's just something nice and organic about the vinyl record. Yes, we listened to vinyl this week, this last weekend. Oh, nice. Sarah and I did. We just grabbed one of my favorite concept albums ever on vinyl. And I'm so excited to listen to it. What is it? Okay, so one of my favorite concept albums is, and this isn't the one that I got, so I don't want everyone to get like all like worked up.
But one of my favorite concept albums is American Idiot by Green Day. And if you don't know what a concept album is, it's basically a prevailing theme. It doesn't have to necessarily be the story from A to B to Z, but it's like a theme. But American Idiot by Green Day tells the story of Jimmy throughout the whole album. It's a great concept record. But my favorite, one of my favorite concept records is by a punk band called Titus Andronicus. And so they're named after a Shakespeare play.
So you can already tell that they're educated and a lot of their shit is going to be like, you know, brainy. And so they put out a concept album, and I think all they do is concept albums, but they put out one called The Monitor and it's based off a Civil War submarine. So you've got this whole punk rock album set in Civil War times, but to modern punk music sounds. It's really fucking weird.
Like it's a fucking weird mix mismatch of Civil War things and then modern things, but then Civil War things again. It's wild. It's an experience. If you like pretty voices and things, it's not the album for you. But you know, if you're actually you know what, this is something that I talked to with my brother recently and to Sarah recently too is, you know, and this is a good question for you, Mike.
When you listen to music, do you first connect with the music and the harmonies and the melodies or do you first connect with the lyrics? Harmonies and sounds. I'm 100% lyrics. Really? Like honestly, and I've told people listening like what? Like what? And I'm like, no man, like if it's a good lyric, I don't give two fucks what it sounds like. Like I'm there for the lyrics, like for the writing, for the composition, you know, for like that. If it's got great music behind it, even better.
But by and large, it's the lyrics for me. So when I listen to old blues and old folk music and modern folk, it's the lyrics and the music is almost irrelevant. It's largely the poem, so to speak, of what they're saying. And the music is kind of a backdrop because most of the time it's like a guy and a guitar. And it's all about the lyrics. And I listen to a lot of that music as well. But like metal, it's all about the sound. I couldn't tell you the words to many songs that I enjoy.
It's all about the music, you know, the instruments. It reminds me of classical, the good metal is a lot like classical with the composition. And I was trying to determine why I like lyrics so much. And you know, I enjoy, you know, I don't know, maybe it's connecting with the author because I was huge into reading and that was all I could do for a long time. Sure. Was reading. And I love film. And I almost wonder if I love film because I was denied a lot of films as a kid.
You know, yeah, we did. And but I love connecting and hearing what they have to say like the message or their struggle or their strife. And sometimes it's not always apparent. Like you can watch a movie and you can watch it at multiple levels. Like you can watch it as pure entertainment. You can watch it as a critique on modern society or you can watch it even as like what the screenwriter or scriptwriter has gone is going through at that time. You know, but for me, it's lyrics for sure.
I love great music. Like there's a lot of instrumental stuff that I just I love because it's beautiful. It's beautiful. And instrumental stuff will also have you feel emotions and connect and everything. And it's great when you can get both, right? You can get the lyrics and the music and they both come together and it's amazing. But that's not Animal Farm. But Animal Farm is to that level though.
I mean, it's amazing because like you think about some of these great works of literature and then you like that's a really short book like The Great Gatsby. It's really fucking short. Of Mice and Men is really fucking short. The Old Man and the Sea is really short. Animal Farm is really short, you know, but they're very pivotal. They're they have a message. It's very simple to understand and it's well done. Yes, exactly.
And last episode we were talking about prey and how they could have made it a two and a half hour long movie, but it would have been absolute shit. And so they made it an hour and a half and it wasn't absolute shit. It wasn't phenomenal, but you don't have to drag something out. You don't have to give it more words than it needs. Right. The prey was good enough for what it was. Yes. Fantastic, but it was fun. But Animal Farm, man. It's truly great. Mandatory reading, in my opinion.
Very few works of literature are that important or will happen to write to 1984 and Animal Farm. Animal Farm is obviously much more straightforward. But the themes in it are very prescient to our society now, even 80 years later. And you know what? I think he did a great job of taking really complex themes and abstracting them through animals to make it relatable. I think if it were a story about humans versus humans, it would not have read the same.
And it's very episodic too, which is nice because it's almost like a blueprint of red flags. Well, yeah. Every little section is like a red flag, a red flag, and it's a progression. It arcs back to the beginning of the story. Yes. Well, and so I don't know how you want to do this or how you want to dig into it. But I guess I'll share my takeaways, which won't be all of them because even though it's only 90-some pages long, there's a lot to unpack. And that's what we said. There's a lot there.
It's very dense. Very dense. I really liked that kind of the catalyst to the whole animal revolution, old major, died before really anything happened. Yes. Right. So he prophesized basically that the animals would revolt and then he died. And then you had, it was Napoleon and Snowball, and Snowball was kind of more brainy. Initially, right? Like he was, he was brainy but naive, we'll say. Brainy, naive, but also corrupt. He was also corrupt. How was Snowball corrupt?
So when the animals first revolted, they had to go out and work the field because it was right before the threshing, right? Yes. Yes. So the cows needed to be milked. So the pigs milked the cows. Napoleon said, all right, animals, now we need to go and, you know, get this weed off the field. I will take care of the milk. Next segment, Snowball went out and led them with their task. Next segment, nobody knew what happened to the milk.
Next segment after that, you learn, oh, the milk was blended into the pig's food. Snowball was a pig and Snowball certainly was partaking in that milk stealing. And he said nothing. So he was just as corrupt as all the other pigs in that instance, less so later. But he was involved with the beginning of the downfall, just as much as the rest of them. Yes. I suppose that's true. Which is probably. I think that's a very important thing.
I think it's a very important note because there was no leadership that was not corrupt from the beginning. And I would agree with you. Other than old major. Well, we don't know because he died. We don't know if he was or wasn't corrupt. Would he have been complacent with the milk incident? Possibly. Who knows? That's the important part. He wasn't there. So yeah, he knows. And that's what I'm saying.
And I think it was a great insight to Snowball because certainly like later on, Snowball, if you have any empathy, it's kind of like he's he's run out of the farm and turned into the patsy. And I guess like because he he kind of led the charge against the humans and Napoleon really wasn't there. And then Napoleon turned Snowball into like a war criminal and blamed everything on him.
But but then, like you said at the beginning, like Snowball was was a co-conspirator almost or very much so with the milking, even though he seemed to be working harder. And the way that it was presented in the book is Snowball designed the plans for the windmill and Napoleon came in and like pissed all over those plans.
And then after running Snowball out, built the windmill anyway, you know, so he took Napoleon was the strong man that took over after he ran the brains out and they just took all the ideas of the brains. Yeah, but it's not like he was without fault. Right? Well, no, but Napoleon wasn't wasn't brainless. So when I say Napoleon was, you know, the brains of the operation, he was the brains, but he was naive because if he would have not been naive, Snowball was naive. Yeah, Snowball was naive.
If Snowball would not have been naive, he never would have been run out by Napoleon. Right. So Napoleon had his own brains, but they were less mechanically minded and more politically and crowd control minded. And when Napoleon took those those puppies to train in private, like he made his own Gestapo basically. Well, he made his own police force.
I mean, we call them Gestapo, but in the context of I was looking at it, they teach it in schools as a through the lens of that historical period because they can't criticize modern times. But the story is very prescient for the moment. Well, for sure. Because the dogs are there to enforce the will of the leader, their personal leader, Napoleon. I will say you finish your Napoleon thought. Oh, no, go ahead.
My favorite and this is some of the subtleties that either were one, you know, lost the time because it's been 20 years since I've read it or that I was not, I don't know, not worldly enough to pick up on, we'll say when I initially read it was the commandments. Right. Seven commandments and only some of the animals could read. OK. And I think my favorite character was I was a Benjamin the donkey. Benjamin the donkey.
Yeah, I think he's my favorite character of the whole book because it kind of like reflects what I think about politics. Right. Like he goes, you know, donkeys a little long time and he wouldn't really like criticize anybody whenever anybody would ask him. He'd go like, you know, donkeys a little long time. Everything's gonna be the same. Doesn't matter. Like, no, no, this is more specific. It's important the wording. So I listened to it twice.
OK, picked up the subtleties that I did the second time around. He said specifically, donkeys a little long time. None of you have ever lived long enough to see a donkey die. Oh, perfect. None of you have ever seen a donkey die before. I think exactly what he said. OK. I remember that line from the book as you said it. Right. Like I remember that. That's important. That's very important. Yes. So the illusion is that he has already seen the animal farm revolution happen before.
Yes. Because by the end, he said. By the end, you realize. You realize. And so I think because of some of the topics that we've talked about on this podcast, especially with, you know, Sakakawea, some of the flag stuff, you know, the Tessie Star flag and Bessie Ross and how that some of those myths or urban legends have now become fact. Yes. Unless you dig deep enough. So one of my favorite parts and I hated it. Right. Like I hated it. I hated it.
But one of my favorite parts was when, you know, the pigs would do something and all the animals would go and they'd be like, hey, is that I didn't feel like that was like in the spirit of our revolution. And the first time that it really, like, really struck, like really struck was when Napoleon had all of those people executed. The first time. And all the animals were like, I don't know. And they went back to the barn wall because they painted all the all the commandments on the barn wall.
And one of them that couldn't read was like, hey, can you can you tell me like, what is that commandment say again? And it was no animal shall kill another animal was the original commandment. But now it said no animal shall kill another animal without reason. And then the other animal that couldn't read was like, oh, I guess I just remembered it wrong. You know, it's kind of the same thing is and you hear it all the time and you never really think about it. Right.
Like history is written by the winners. Yes. And just and I know like who designed the flag. It's not important, really. I mean, in the grand scheme of humanity, right. It's not it's not a huge thing. Like, it's still a big enough thing to where, you know, when you learn the true story, you're kind of like you're miffed about it. You're a little upset, but you're like, it's just a flag.
But then you think, well, OK, if they can do that with the flag design, and that's what's taught in schools right now. What else are they doing it about? Right. Everything else is what I'm going to guess. No, I would agree with you. 100%. But that was like that was huge for me to read as an adult, like as a child. You're just like, oh, the animals are like lying to one another. That's fine. Like, whatever. It's animals, you know.
But as an adult who's, you know, I don't know, been through the wringer or whatever you would call it, just normal adulthood, you read that you read that as a 90 page book. Right. And they're the ruling class is changing the laws. But nobody notices because none of the animals can read or only a select few of the animals can read. And the other thing, the other the other big takeaway, I mean, there's a lot of takeaways, right? Like, like you said, it's a dense book.
But the other thing I want to talk about real quick, and then we'll get into your thoughts. Okay, absolutely. And not to hijack it. I don't I'm not trying to hijack it. Like strong arm you. But I just I have this train of thought and I just wanted to like get it out. And then I'm very curious to hear your thoughts because your insights on Benjamin were great. And I remember reading that line, but it didn't stick with me, you know, because I only read it the once. Right.
I actually slowed the I usually listen at 1.3 speed and I actually slowed it down to normal speed because I wanted to hear it. Yes, there's a lot of information. Oh, there's so much so much constantly that you have to really pay if you read it. Read it twice. Yeah, it's quick read for sure. It's an hour and a half basically is what is what the Kindle told me would take.
But the other thing the other thing that was huge to me, I mean, this is like the dogs like him training the dogs, his police force, them changing the the commandments, you know, and it goes it goes it gets progressively worse, you know, each each throughout the book, like each commandment they change gets progressively worse. But the other thing that really struck out stuck out to me was when I think it was squealer because he's a little like fucking piggy that you you just fucking hate. Right.
And he took all the sheep because the sheep were, you know, the sheep or the sheep, basically, like there was a very it wasn't it wasn't it didn't feel like heavy handed in the book. But when you when you try and like when I'm trying to articulate this to you now, the reason why we call people sheep, yes, followers is because of this book because of this book.
So it feels heavy handed trying to explain to you now, but in the book, it didn't feel heavy handed, which I think is a testament to George. But squealer took the the sheep and he took them for special training or something, right? Because they used to say, you know, two legs bad, four legs good. That was the whole thing. And that was how they quieted dissent on the farm. They use the sheep to quiet dissent. And it was always two legs bad, four legs good. And that was their whole thing.
But then towards the end of the book, Squealer took them all aside and he took him for like, I don't know, it was a day or two days. It was I don't know. It was a long period of time. It was a week. A week. Yeah. And when they came under the guise of pruning, special pruning that needed to be done on the far side of the farm away from everybody else. Yes, it was farm work that had to be done. But it wasn't it was brainwashing, extra brainwashing.
Because when they came back, they didn't say two legs bad, four legs good. They said, what do they say? They said, four legs good, two legs better. Yes, that is exactly what they said. Because the pigs were all learning to walk on two legs so they can negotiate with the other humans. Which brings us to the conclusion of the book, when the animals looked in the window and could not distinguish the pigs from the men. But that was, you know what, that was huge because you can see it going on today.
And it doesn't matter which side you're on. But if you're watching your favorite news media on TV, right, it's going to be three letters either way. Okay, Fox or CNN. That's what they're doing. They're teaching you to be the sheep for that side. And but nobody but they don't realize it and the sheep never realized it. I don't think. They're too stupid to understand what was going on. Yeah. And I know we want to talk about boxer. We're going to talk about box.
But I just wanted to get my initial thoughts of like the big takeaways, the big takeaways. I mean, there's a lot there. And even just talking about it with you. Very nuanced. Yes. Incredibly nuanced. And just talking about it with you and having you bring some things that I like I read and I remember reading them. But I didn't like hit as hard as it hit for you. Like, all right, that's the whole point.
Like to read a book and to read it with somebody else, everybody else has a different viewpoint or different lens that they're looking at it through. Even if you still get the same major message, there's still some like finesse in there. So it's great to read something. Read something at the same time somebody else's and then talking about it later. Well, that's the popularity of book clubs. Well, yes. Nuts. I mean, you had a college book club and I had a college book club, too.
And it wasn't like an official book club. It was just like, no, a bunch of friends that were saying, we're all going to read this and we're not going to talk about it until everybody finishes. And after this, we're going to read this, you know, and then we're going to bullshit and have a discussion about it when we're all done. And I like that. Oh, it's great. Let's hear your thoughts. We can do more of that. We should do more of this. Mike. Yes, I agree. I enjoy these episodes tremendously.
First of all, I'm over halfway done with the cigar. Oh, yeah, me too. It is a one note cigar. It is a good note. It is dark and it is sweet. It's a good note. Yes. Very pleasant smoking, which is what I remember the original one being too. Very good. For my speed, the Macanudo was also very good. It was very good. I would say like if you like a lighter cigar, the Macanudo. If you like a darker cigar, this one. But they're both very similar.
They're similar in the fact that the tobacco is very good, very consistent throughout. Probably takes a lot of effort to make a cigar that is consistent throughout, as consistent as this. I would believe that to be true. Yes. Yeah. And I like dark and sweet cigars. That's my sucker spot. And do you like dark and sweet other things? But we'll get into that later. So I was going to go back to when they started changing the Commandments. Yes. So it was important that the second horse, not Boxer.
Now I can't remember her name. Clover. Clover. She was the one that knew something had changed. She was the only one that recognized it. Because she could read more. Boxer could only read, I don't know, the first six letters of the alphabet or something. Yes. He could read A through D. By the time that he learned E through F, he had forgotten A through D again. Yes, precisely. So he had to restart reading.
But Clover, she knew all the letters and she had a good memory, but she wasn't smart enough to memorize it. So she asked Muriel the goat to come and read it. And Muriel the goat was smart enough to read all the letters. And the first read through I was like, is Muriel a conspirator? Second read through, no, she wasn't. She was smart enough to be able to read them all. She's not smart enough to remember. Clover could remember. Muriel could not remember, but she could read it out loud.
Yes. But Clover didn't have the confidence, right? Because that was always the thing. She would go, that's not how I remembered it. But if that's what's written, it must be true. Right. Oh, yeah. And the first animal slaughter, she's the one that raised hell. Boxer who couldn't read, who was also the work, like literally the workhorse of the farm, was like, you're right. They did this wrong and they attacked him, but he was too strong for them to overcome. So they had to let it go.
They had to let him go because he could not be beaten by the dogs. Well yeah, so that was very, I found that moment to be interesting because Boxer did all the work for everyone. Oh yeah. His motto was, the Napoleon is always right and work harder, which is what they want, what they, being the people who run the society in Animal Farm, what they wanted everybody to say was the leader is always right. Yes. The answer to all things is to work harder. I can give more.
And that was the saddest part was he was so close to retirement, quote unquote, because no animal ever retired on Animal Farm, but he thought he was close to retirement. And his only concern was that they had enough stone to finish the windmill. Yes. And he used to wake up a half hour early to go haul stone and work. And then he started waking up 45 minutes early. And then I think by the end he was waking up a full hour early for his shift.
And one of the sentences I remember, and he wrote it several times was, you know, the animals weren't sure if it was better or worse than under Jones, but they always felt like it was better because they were no longer slaves. Right. Except, you know, except of course the unwritten thing was, except they were. Right. Except they were worse. By the end they reveal that, of course. Well yes, of course. But as a writer, you're not going to say, except they were, because that's super heavy handed.
Right. And that book is a master class of nuance, I think. If you're interested in writing or telling a story, this is one of those books that you read and you're like, look, Georgia Orwell didn't give you any extra fluff. This is boiled down condensed. Oh, there's a reason why it took him two years to write. Full of nuance though. You know. It was masterfully written. Writing more than you need. Yes. No more detail is necessary.
And it's great because this is a time before the audiences were too dumb to pick up on things. Right. You know what I mean? And to be fair to the audiences, I don't think the audiences nowadays are too dumb to pick up on things. I just think that most writers and creators of content, whether it's Hollywood or your best seller, you know, New York Times best seller list or whatever, they just believe you're too dumb and nobody's calling them out on it.
Just like the animals weren't calling out the pigs for, and one of the greatest things ever was when the pigs discovered the whiskey, right? And then Squealer's like, Napoleon's going to die. Well, he was just hung over. Right? Like we've all almost been dying because of drinking too much. You definitely feel like it. Yes. But it was hilarious as an adult who has felt that way at least once in my life. I'm not going to give you an exact number, but at least once we'll leave it at that.
But like how, but it's fucking funny as an adult. Like as a kid, you're never going to pick up on that. Like, oh, we think Napoleon's going to die soon. And all the animals like, well, what's going to happen if we lose our leader? But then you realize like he was just hung over. Right? Oh yeah. So it's like, it's fucking funny, but it's also like super sad. Right.
And on a second reading, that whole, the whole series of events that led up to them finding a whiskey cask or a box of whiskey was when they traded the wood pile for money and they claimed the money was fake. So they couldn't use it to finish building the windmill. But then magically they find a box of whiskey the next day. Right? Well, so, and I was like, ah, so they might've found a box of whiskey or they might've spent the money they use selling the wood pile to buy whiskey.
But now I might remember, I might be remembering this differently. So I might be boxer or clover here when I say this, but I feel like they found the whiskey first. No, no, no, no. They just found the whiskey. No, no, no, no. I'm saying I might be boxer or I might be clover. Oh, I see. I see. Yes. Yes. But I feel like the pigs found the whiskey first, then sold the wood pile and bought more whiskey with it. They did buy more whiskey later.
Yes. But I wasn't sure if it was from the wood pile or not. Cause the wood pile thing kind of took forever, which is weird to say in a 90 page book. But like, you know, but that was the whole point. Like he was like, they were drawing that out. And it was like, it was, I wasn't annoyed by it because it was, it was great. It was, it was exactly what would actually happen. But when they were trying to choose between the two farms to sell the wood pile to, right?
Like it's like, as an adult, it's like, who fucking cares? Just list that shit on Craigslist, get your money and call it good. Like you're not actually like, you're not like condoning one farmer over the other or, you know. So that was kind of a commentary at the time with the Soviet Union and like the fascists and the free world. They switched allegiances several times before World War II. And I understand that. And I understand that in the book. And so what I'm saying, like it took forever.
I mean, it's a 90 page book, so it didn't take forever, right? And it was, but it was a big contention point on the farm. And I think it was a big contention point because I feel like Napoleon was testing the waters of how much he could get away with, with his populace. Sure. You know. To draw a modern parallel, it's kind of like China, Russia, who's the bad guy?
Well friends with them one day, where any of these next day, the leader of one country is like the greatest evil of all time, but George Bush was best buddies with the leader of one of these countries. We're not going to say which ha ha ha ha. You know, it goes back. Oh, he's truly a good man. I can see it in his eyes. You know, I know, but that's the whole point. It's a switching back and forth of allegiances for no reason. Exactly. Because there is no issue.
Behind the scenes is the insinuation. Well, and that's why the book is so great. And I don't know how he, I don't know how. Like, like, I don't know how. Um, Well, that's because we're more politically aware and we're older. And context that you're picking up on it. What I'm saying is, I don't know how he did it in 90 pages. Like master writer. No, that's what I'm saying. Like, I'm like, seriously, like, you'll beyond anything that I have, like phenomenal. That's what I'm saying.
Like more skilled at writing than I will ever be at anything for sure. Except bowling maybe. But no, no, no, he's a way better writer than I'll ever be a bowler. But you know, but that's what I'm saying is like, like it's, it's, it's, it's almost mind boggling. Right. Uh, to be sitting here talking about a 90 page book. But all of the stuff he fit into it without beating you over the head with it. Right. And my book had a forward to it. I'm not sure if yours did.
No, my forward is written in the 1950s and I listened to it the first time. I skipped it the second time. And in the forward, one thing stood out was this is either going to be a lesson to keep people free or it in afterthought will be a blueprint of how their society fell. More or less was the summation. Well, and that's, that's always kind of how it is. Right.
And it's like, wow, it's like I say, it's kind of like 1984, which we could read 1984 next or at some point, because I, I read it, I've read that twice and I read it on my own in college when I was college age. I read that one in college. I really enjoyed it. And you know what else I really enjoyed? But I can't remember much about it as a brave new world. I read brave new world. I read that recently.
Oh, and I thought it was, it's one of those things where it's so on the nose now that I didn't think it was that good, but I understand that it was really good. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know that I would, I would like, I remember enjoying it, but I don't know if I would say that I enjoyed it as much as 84 or animal farm. It's not as good. I don't think. You know what? It's still good. Here's one.
And we're still going to talk about animal farm because even though it's 90 pages, absolute masterclass in writing, not being heavy handed, letting your reader come to their own conclusion is, I mean, really, like you could read it and not get what we got out of it. And you could get a little story about animals on a farm. You know, you could. I'd probably think you were fairly dense if that's all you got out of it, but you, I mean, you certainly could.
But one of my favorite books of all time, all time, one of my favorite, absolute favorite, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Never read it. That's the next one we're going to read. That's the next one we're going to read. That'll work for me. It is so good. Have you read any Kurt Vonnegut before? No. Oh my goodness. You're going to love Kurt Vonnegut. Have you read any Mark Twain? Yes. Of course. Okay. If you love Mark Twain, no, no, no. Yeah.
So it's kind of the, almost the same like irreverence that Mark Twain has. I mean, he's like, he's very like, you wouldn't like, I don't know. I don't know if you'd ever think like Mark Twain was, you know, necessarily irreverent, but he certainly got his own like distinct voice. Oh yes, he's irreverent for sure. Given the time. Purposefully so. Oh yeah. It's the same with Kurt Vonnegut. My favorite, I've read a lot of his books.
Fucking love Kurt Vonnegut. But Slaughterhouse Five, one of my all time favorite books ever. I would read that before reading a lot of things actually. I'm a big fan of, oh, well come on now. I actually have the anniversary special edition of it. Boy's on an Island, Get Left Alone on an Island, Golding. What the hell is that book called? Are you talking about the Lord of the Flies? Lord of the Flies. Yeah. Okay. Lord of the Flies. It's been a hot minute since I read that too.
Oh me also, me also. I think we should do Slaughterhouse Five and then we'll do Lord of the Flies. Sounds good to me. Fuck I love Vonnegut. He's so good. He's so good. I've had a few people say that Kurt Vonnegut is quite good. That I've known over the years. But I just never made it around, you know what I mean? Made it around to it. I'm busy reading Dune and things like that.
Yeah. And I'm on Heretics of Dune and I've still got what, like three or four books left in the original like series and then all the supplementary novels. So, I made a little like brief pause on the Dune to read Animal Farm, which you know only took me an hour, hour and a half, whatever. But I think Kurt Vonnegut is one of those ones and I don't, you know, I don't know. Maybe Slaughterhouse Five is his most accessible.
I don't know if it's the one he's most well known for, but it's certainly my favorite of all of his. There's a lot of Kurt Vonnegut that I absolutely love and there's none of it that I dislike. There's some that are more, that resonate more than others, I suppose. He has, I can't remember which book it is. He'll sometimes put himself in his own books.
So he's kind of like, I don't know if he was the first one to break the fourth wall, but he does, he does, he does, he's not, but he does from time to time. Not very often though. Very rarely he does that, but he, he invents this religion called the Church of Jesus Christ the Missing. Okay. Okay. So they believe that Jesus Christ never died and he's still here. He's with us. He's right here, but he's missing.
And so this whole, this whole church's premise is they look underneath their dinner plates, they look behind curtains. They look everywhere for Jesus. You know, they're always looking, they're always looking, they flipping things upside down, they're looking, looking for Jesus, which is hilarious. I mean, it's a whole critique on a lot of things, but like it's, it's fucking hilarious. And Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical account because he was a prisoner of war in World War II.
Oh, okay. So it's very, I don't know, I don't want to like give you too much to go on. Sure. Other than if you were to ask me what my favorite Kurt Vonnegut book is, I would say Slaughterhouse-Five all day long. Sure. And, you know, if you were to ask me to list off like my top 10 books, Slaughterhouse-Five is somewhere in there. I don't know what level it's at, but it's, it's one of those. It might be top 10, might be top five.
Kurt Vonnegut, my middle brother, who's three years younger than I am, and myself, we've kind of banned, we've banned ourselves from reading Kurt Vonnegut in public. Because, because Kurt Vonnegut is a very interesting character and he can really hit you deep and make you very, very sad. Okay. But he can also make you laugh uncontrollably and it's that second part, which is the reason we won't read him in public.
Because you can be reading a Kurt Vonnegut book and you can feel like you're down on the ropes and you're about to, you know, like lose the fight. And all of a sudden he hits you with something that's like the absolute funniest thing that you've ever possibly read in your entire life. And you have no choice. Like it's an uncontrollable human urge. As you just laugh like a moron in public. He's very nuanced in that way.
Like he can, he can write the ultimate sadness and then something hilarious, the next sentence. I think it's very phenomenal. But this isn't about Kurt Vonnegut. We're talking about Animal Farm. Yes, we are. But it's great how like, but I'll say, you know, what is good authors make you think about other good authors? Right. Yeah. And George Orwell is, I mean, there's a reason why I would say every educated person in the English speaking world has heard of George Orwell. Yes, for sure.
For one work or another. From one method or another. It's Edward R. Lexicon. I even used, this is back in my days of union work, quote unquote. I accused one of our bosses of speaking doublespeak. Yes. In an open air meeting. Shocking, I know. And then one of the guys that I knew came back later and said, I don't know if those guys know what you mean when you said doublespeak. And I'm like, we should all know what doublespeak is. We should. We should all know.
But the fact of the matter is most of us don't. We should all recognize it as well. You know, but no, it's incredible. And this, well, we talked about it. Don't be a boxer, be a Benjamin. Yeah. Well, let's talk about boxer for a little bit. I mean, we talked a little bit about him being the workhorse or the only worker of the farm. Side note, I am damn near done with my cigar. I am three inches away. Three inches away? I am nubbing right now. Dude, man, I'm so sorry. I was very excited.
Mine's still letting going, but I was very excited about Kerr finding it. Oh, this is, oh no, I completely understand. I will grab a smaller little Excalibur to finish off the episode. That is perfectly okay with me because they're quite good. Those are kind of like my little holdover cigars when we go past on these episodes. And they're right here in the room. So no issue. Well, I guess there we go. I am done. It was the same note for me the whole way through. It is burning my fingers hot.
I even put it down a couple of times to cool it down, to get me to smoke it because it did get quite hot. The oil made it burn a little unevenly, but not too bad. Okay. It's burning pretty decent. I put mine down the whole time I was talking about Kerr finding it. So it lasts like 15 minutes, but it's still lit and it's still going strong. Sure. I'm pumping on it and there's less than an inch left and it still tastes the same as it did. Yeah. It's been good. It's been good.
It's incredible when they do this. We do criticize it sometimes a little too harshly when it's the same. It does take quite a bit of talent to make a consistent flavor through it. I wouldn't say that we criticize it overly.
I would say that through smoking as many cigars as we have smoked, even just on this podcast, I mean, we've smoked more than on the podcast here, but with what we've smoked, you and I have come to the conclusion that we usually enjoy the flavor changes more than we enjoy the one notes. Yes. The same thing with beer is I've heard it's very complicated to make a light beer consistently. Like it's almost more complicated to make a light beer consistently than it is to make an IPA consistently.
So the craftsmanship in a light beer is perhaps higher than that of an IPA. Sure. It's kind of like making a machine or something that does work and making it look like it doesn't have enough parts to actually run. Yes. That's a thing. So we're not criticizing the craftsmanship or the skill that goes into these one notes. We're just saying our personal preferences are the flavor changes. A purposeful and consistent flavor change. Yes. Not like a swisher sweet turns from great flavor to sour.
From worse to worser. But the one notes, there's a lot to be said for that. If you want a consistent smoke, this is a great one. And the mac and noodle, also a great one. Also the one note edges were quite good. We're not naysaying on these. We're just saying our personal preferences are we would much more enjoy a flavor change. But maybe a flavor change, and I don't know, we'd have to look into it. Maybe a flavor change is easier to do than it is to keep something consistent for a full stick.
It might be. But it doesn't matter. I'm saying that this is a great cigar. A series of cigars that Nate and I both tried and had mixed results were the Gurkas. Very few Gurkas that I've had were good before the first half of the cigar. And that's not a good flavor change. So it's not a criticism of the cigar to say that it's one note. If they know it is good. Oh, absolutely not.
I think if you can make a cigar that tastes good at the beginning and good at the middle and good at the end, that's a win. Is it one that I'm going to constantly go back to? You know, maybe not. It depends, you know.
Especially since doing this podcast and talking to other people about cigars, it's interesting because the more you know about cigars, even if it's a one note and something you might not smoke for yourself, you'll hold it in the back of your mind and say, you know what, my buddy so and so, they really like this flavor, this kind of cigar. I've got one that fits that and it's that all the way through. You don't have to smoke through a bad first half to get to a decent second half.
You can smoke a good all the way through cigar. Yes. And I agree with that. Especially if they don't smoke a lot of cigars. Or even if they do and they like the one notes. If you have a friend that doesn't smoke a lot of cigars and they're new to it, I know my answer and it's only one answer, which is the Mood Trance. Yes. So, anyway, back to Animal Farm. Hit me. Hit me up. So our favorite character is Benjamin. Even though I was trying to break it down for personalities in society.
And I think a lot of the talk about the cat was very interesting. You know, because the cat pops in and out. And the cat is never directly affected really by the rules and never believed in the rules either. And I think that a lot of people in our modern, a lot of the quote unquote smart people act a lot like the cat. Where they're there, they don't really believe in the rules, but they tertiarily follow them. Well, and the same with the crow.
The crow was super interesting because it's a directing, that's almost blunt. The crow that talks about sugarcanned or sugar land candy mountain or whatever. Yes. But it was interesting because it was almost the crazy kook profit on the street corner. That is sponsored by the state.
Yes. And so that's what I was going to say next is the crazy kook street preacher that Napoleon allowed because Napoleon as the dictator saw value in giving the animals hope in something that could in no way, shape or form ever be proven. You bet it wasn't just allowed. Remember Jones fed the crow. Yes. And when Moses came back on the blunt nose, right? The pigs gave him an allowance of beer per day. Yes, they did. And no other animal got an allowance of beer. Besides the pigs. Except pigs.
Yes. The pigs and the crow. And the pigs would of course talk bad about the crow. But they had to. Well yes. They had to. Yeah, they had to. But they paid the crow. But they saw the value in the crow, right? So they saw the value in the crow. But they had to publicly denounce the crow. Which is interesting. I thought. It's true. Like I say, there's a lot of parallels to our modern society. Yes. But just as it was then, it hasn't changed that much. It really hasn't.
And as a free nation, if you don't see the air quotes, it's because you're not watching us live on video. But as a free nation, the amount of things, the ruling class, and by ruling class I mean either both political parties and all billionaires, that's the ruling class. Like you can get a huge boner for Elon Musk. But guess what? He's part of the ruling class. And something we should talk about later is Mark Cuban's pharmacy site that he set up. He's undercutting.
I don't know anything about it. Yeah, he's undercutting all the big pharma. Interesting. By hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Interesting. And he's still cutting a profit. Yeah. And he's caused quite a stir. And that's something that we have to look into a little bit more before we can talk about it intelligently on our podcast. But that's something that's causing a stir right now. Especially if you take prescription drugs.
And his site is amazing because you can click on the disease you have and it lists all the medicines that their pharmacy covers. And instead of like $400, it's like 30 bucks. So he'll tell you what it costs for him to buy. And he'll tell you what CVS, Walgreens, all the insurance companies are charging for that drug. And then he'll charge, if it's a $30 thing, he'll charge 40 bucks. So you're paying 10 extra bucks, which is still a pretty decent markup.
But it's interesting because as a wealthy person in America, you can choose to go the Elon Musk route where you're sucking the government's dick all day long to get more money for you. Or you're trying to undercut and change society to where you're not trying to monopolize and make a fuck ton of money off of sick people. Right. Well, the Elon Musk of the world are definitely kind of like Moses because he gets tens of billions of dollars in contracts. Yeah. And he made all these various projects.
And the only reason he was able to buy the founder ship is he's not the founder of Tesla, but he bought that title. The only reason he's able to buy that title is because his daddy sold blood diamonds. Blood emeralds. Well, whatever. Blood something. That's pretty much the same thing. African slave mine. Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, Animal Farm. I mean, I read it in high school, but I was not prepared for a 90 page book to do what it did to me. You know what I mean?
Right. Well, I feel disappointed in my old literature teacher because they taught you the things in literature and it was like testing, blah, blah, but the real cultural significance of it was purposefully avoided. What happened? That's how I would put it now. Kind of, yeah. You know, my nephew recently came and visited us and we were going around doing all the things. And even he at 16 is aware that you don't ban things that are lies.
You ban things that are true and the people who are banning them are probably guilty of the things that whatever they're banning is preaching against. That is real and true. You know, so the young people now are with it. So it's not a terrible thing. It's just weird that a lot of adults seem to put their blinders on. Well, and that's the whole thing is like the younger generations know how to use the internet.
So you can tell them they can't read a certain book, but if you tell them they can't read a certain book, they're going to go find it somewhere else. Like even if it's not in the public library, you know how much. So they banned Mouse, which is the graphic novel about, you know, the Holocaust. And as soon as they banned it, you know what I did? Went on eBay for five bucks about the complete thing, all in one book. I haven't read it yet. But you know what? I'm 36 years old.
And if somebody bans a book, I'm not in school, so I don't care if they ban it. But if they're banning a book, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go fucking buy it and read it because that's what you need to do. If the ruling class is telling you a book is banned, you had goddamn better well go fucking read that book right now. Yep. And they are local books other here has a stack of them. It wasn't there before they banned it. Oh, yeah, of course.
And it's, you know, like banning a book. That's only for like schools, right? Right. Yeah. Like it's not banning it for the general population. Like they can never ban a book. They can try. They can try. They can try. But it's not going to be easy. You know, there's so many other places to get books. But if they're banning it, you'd better read it.
And one of the best books and I think I talked about this before on a podcast, but recently because I subscribed to a couple different like newsletters and things. I don't really watch the news, but I subscribe to some like email digests and things and I subscribe to, you know, like a reading list email that comes out once a month.
But one of the one of the prevailing themes of some of the media that I choose to consume in my life is that if somebody bans a book, it's something they don't want you to read. It's really nothing to do with, you know, per perverse thoughts or theories or mentalities. It's just perverse to them and their goal to, you know, make you into a boxer as it were. Right. They want you to be a boxer or be real. Well, yeah, anybody, anybody who just thinks the leader is right all the time.
And so anytime you see a banned book, probably a smart move to read that book. Right. Right. It's kind of like the recent attack on Salman Rushdie. There's a reason why he's had a hit on him for 40 years. It's because he wrote something provocative and unpleasant to a certain faction globally. Right. And I've never read it myself, to be honest with you. So. Animal Farm, such an interesting book. Everybody should go out and read it if you have not done so.
And if you have not done so for years, you should do so now because it's more prescient than ever. And I won't make it political as far as one political party being more like certain animals than the other. Well, I think it's more the ruling class versus everybody else. It is. I was going to say that it's more, it's kind of like Snowball and Napoleon. They weren't hoots together until Napoleon kicked them out of the club. They were working together and all their nefarious bullshit.
That's where the milk comes in. They were both stealing the milk. They were both perpetuating the initial inequality amongst the animals. Just happens to be that Napoleon kicked Snowball out and made him the scapegoat. Yeah. And I think Snowball probably had some guilt about it. Not that that made it right, but I think that, you know, and we said this before, is like Snowball was naive and never thought Napoleon would turn on him. Right. But Snowball was also a collaborator.
Well, he was a collaborator, but I think he felt maybe guilty about it. He was probably one of those collaborators that was like, but why shouldn't we have all the milk? But I still feel guilty about it. And Napoleon was like, well, you're weak then. You know, I mean, that's some of the back behind the scenes stuff that, you know, George Orwell never wrote about, but it's just there to imply or there to, you know, chew on.
It's very, like I say, layered, very, too complex to talk about in a podcast. You know what I mean? Line by line. Well, yeah, we can touch on, you know, the major themes and some of the subtleties that we picked up on, but it's really one of those ones that you got to read for yourself and pick up on some of that stuff yourself because everybody's going to view it a little bit differently. Oh, for sure. Very good. Like I was saying, everybody should go out and get it.
If you haven't read it, read it. And if you read it a long time ago, read it again or listen to it. It's free and audible. Okay. Yeah. So, and it's 99 cents on Kindle. Now there we go. And the reader on the audible book that I listened to was one of the voice actors in Oblivion. Oh, nice. It was kind of a blast from the past for me. There you go. It's very easily accessible is what we should say. You can go buy it at a used bookstore. I'm sure most used bookstores have multiple copies of it.
I know the used bookstore I went to had, I don't know, four or five copies, a couple different editions. So, it's not out of the realm of acquiring. No, no. It's not an obscure novel. No. So yeah, boxers, that's who they want you to be. They want you to say the leader is right. And all I need to do to make the world better is to work harder for them. Yes. Speaking about working harder for the leader, there's this new, I don't know if it's cultural phenomenon or counter cultural phenomenon.
It's really not a phenomenon and it's really not that big of a thing, but it also is, which is weird. So there's this whole thing called quiet quitting. I have heard of that. Yes. Okay. So it's, you will clock in, you will do your job and you will clock out and that's the end of it. You're not going to go work extra hours. You're not going to kill yourself to try and do extra work for your employer, which, you know, thinking about it, that should never be a thing. Like we don't live to work.
You're supposed to work to live. But apparently like a lot of employers are getting butt hurt about their employees not going above and beyond when they're not paying them above and beyond. You know what I mean? So well, it's being a Benjamin. It's not being a boxer. Well yes, precisely. And that's the whole point is like, and you've been saying it this whole episode is animal farm is more relevant now, maybe even than it was when it was written. But you shouldn't kill yourself for your job.
No, like they don't care about you. Really. They don't care about you. Everybody is replaceable. No one individual is integral to the machine and the machine doesn't care about you because if you leave tomorrow and a few days time, somebody else will be in your place. Yes. And also the machine is hungry. It's always hungry. It will take everything you give and more. Absolutely. Unless you draw your boundaries. Absolutely.
And it might have personal consequences with your boss and your coworkers depending on their attitudes, but they're not your family and they're not your friends. So that is just the way that it is. Awesome. That was one thing I like to is that Benjamin being the donkey who was there longer than anybody else, right? Didn't change the way he did things that he didn't get involved with any of the goings on largely.
Other than he was friends with Boxer to the very end and he tried to inform the animals that Boxer was getting sent to the glue factory. Well, if you remember the powers that be said it was just an old cart and they hadn't repainted the name. They hadn't repainted the name and everybody believed it. Other than Benjamin, of course. So in life, be a Benjamin because everybody's trying to take advantage of you. Yes, they are.
No matter what station or income you're at, there's somebody somewhere trying to take advantage of you and probably succeeding. And that is true. At least in my life it's true. Yes. So unless you're the one taking advantage of your being taken advantage of by somebody else. Yes, but then you're also probably a pig walking on two legs. Right. Exactly. So where are you at with your cigar, dude? That's it, man. Right on. We got another one for the record books. We do. And that's Animal Farm.
So check it out. What were your thoughts on the cigar? I liked it. It was consistent all the way through. Nothing overly, you know, special. But nothing overly not special. It's a good stick for a conversation. Yeah, good stick. It's long enough. Yeah, if you want something darker, do this one. If you want something a little lighter, do the mac and noodle. I would tend to agree. I'd say they're pretty comparable.
You know, they're both very consistent, very stable all the way through, depending on your taste preferences. Yes, sir. Well, everybody, be safe and have fun. And be a Benjamin.