Cody Reads Ben Shapiro's Short Stories

but I think it's worthy worthy of debate. Well, this is really going to hurt our chances to go public, which we were planning to be the first podcast to be publicly traded. Thanks Cody, we still can we don't. Just don't have to air this part. Well, that would have to start the whole show over again. Hey, speaking of dishonest, you know who's not the most honest man who has ever existed? It has been Shapiro. Do you have anything vaguely related to Ben Shapiro to share with

us today? My? Oh, let me check, let me check my my websites. Oh oh wow, here's oh wow. Here is Ben Shapiro's first published book, A book of short stories. Now I cannot believe you did this instance. But do you mean to tell us all that Ben Shapiro, the author of True Allegiance, Yeah, has a previous fiction publication. Oh his premier before you, the incredible H much loud, foundational. Let's yeah, Jackson, and give some context because this is

a different show. UM, and I think there's probably are some of some of our listeners perhaps don't know what we're talking about. We did a different show for a year straight on a different on We for a year straight on Robert's other show, Behind the Bastards. Uh. Cody and I would intermittently come on and he would just read aloud to us sections of Ben Shapiro's awful novel. UM.

I don't think we need to debate that. UM. I think that people can go back and peruse that library if they want to catch up over the fun holidays. But for now, what we are going to be presenting to you over a number of episodes are Ben Shapiro's short stories. Uh. This is uh, this I believe was self published. Baby use an e book. I self published a book to you know? I no, no, no, nothing that Um it is no longer available. Uh, where e

books are available. I believe that virus. I started looking just like seeing and I there were all these links. I was like, not clicking that, not clicking that. Hour later Cody is like, oh my god, I caught it. There are Yeah, there are many many bad links out there, ones like a Google doc that you can go to like somebody. Yeah, um but I found that's extremely funny. Safely it is virus free and um so you think until you start reading still you crack that motherfucker open,

and that's when the virus part of virus. Yeah, there's there's already some guy in Macedonia like going over cody social Security number, transferring cash out of his bank accounts. It will be worth it. Um. Yeah, so it's here. Uh, we're very happy he clearly, I think just because it's self published. I don't think there's an editor. I think he just didn't want people to read it. Is there like a description of any sort of the book that it doesn't have that on the version I have, But

that's extra writing. You're not gonna give that up for free. But I think there is a yeah here, I'm gonna go to good Reads, where again it is not available. But because this is hard to find. Yeah. Um, But in What's Benja Pier releases his first book of short stories, Explanation Point and What's Fair. An incredible invention leads to bloody brutality when an unsatisfied brother to size he hasn't

received what he is owed. Wow, really wearing your beliefs on your sleeve there, ben And from the pit an adventure shrinks to microscopic size to clean up the environment. But this is going to go himself targeted for murder when he accidentally ingested the body of a mysterious employer. Sorry Katie Wood. So like a HONEYI shrunk that kids kind of vibe, but like kind of mixed with that what's the what's the movie where they go inside the

fantastic voyage or something. It's like that mixed with that, mixed with like environmentalism. And I'm going to guess for all of these here's my my prediction. Weird and not at all relevant Biblical like like bizarre and uncomfortable biblical comparisons like I'm gonna guest have to be like really yeah, really allegories like oh, I see what you're trying to say, because you're telling me, um yeah, really like on the

nose surface level allegories. For example, in Utopia, a man of Bandon's paradise when he realizes that periods up to be is it utopia or like utopia? It's just utopia utopia? But is this the threat to that paradise? Oh my gosh, I bet, I bet the Utopia is like lefty but not secretly it's yeah, it's not going to be so nice and that lefty heaven. From science fiction to parable, from love to violence, Shapira's exciting stories capture the imagination.

I bet, thank you. And then there's a list of you know, his other books um uh, and you know labeled brilliant by Russia, Limbaugh, a Warrior by Globeck, and a foe of extraordinary polemic agility by the Washington past God, the Washington Who at the Washington Who Cody? Whom the post? What is that quote? I'm looking that up right now. Who writes the good Reads page? What is the A foe of extraordinary polemic agility? A foe of extraordinary polemic agility?

As when you just do a search for that, all of them are the book What's fair? See here's the thing and I here's what I think somebody here because and I believe true allegiance. Yes. Uh, the one of the blurbs says, meet our new Iron Rand, and that's the quote that is used in the book. But if you google that you find that it's part of a headline, and the full headline is meet our New Iron Rand,

Ben Shapiro's ham fisted propacanda fiction. Even worn it's so funny, cod it's so funny and it's it's look, I would not be surprised if it was like the actual quote was like Ben Shapiro likes to see himself as exactly because I I have just gone through within a like the different permutations, just basically doing different like quote searches for for that phrase and adding Ben Shapiro the post You think, just words from that phrase, nothing comes up

at all. But but like really sketchy book links about the book, What's fair, no Washington Post Water. I have no idea who who said this about him or if he said it over at dinner once. Yeah, but I need to back up because the way read it over time a foe of agility and so like it's written like enemy of that or is it a bad guy that has all of that, you know what I mean, Like,

either way, what is that doing on your book? But it no, it frames him like he is the enemy of extraordinary And this is this is why Ben Shapiro is such a consistent, beautiful thing for us to cover, because we haven't even gotten into the book and we are we already have so much to discuss, to discuss please continue. So is that and then you know whatch appears widely considered one of the most prominent young conservatives America. Can't argue with that. Uh, this volume contains his first

foray into the fiction world and not his last. I had that last little bit. No, they didn't know at the time. They didn't know what he didn't know at the time. He definitely wrote himself. Well yeah, yeah, I actually I think one thing we can say about Ben Shapiro is it is unlikely that he plagiarized anyone else's writing. Yeah,

I think I think that's very obvious by reading the sentences. Um, author of six non fiction books, including New York Time, Pestler, Bullies, Editor of Daily Wire, Editor at large a Breitbart News that's no longer true. Uh uh, probably not. You could have an entire show that is just reading. I feel like his nonfiction is going to be like way harder and more frustrating. Yeah, it's like his opinions, but like him just saying them as opposed to like him trying

to like be a little little clever writer. Guy Um. I mean, I I will say, because we here at uh behind the Bastards, Sophia and I are going over his book that he wrote about sex um and it

is a porn book. It's the porn Generation, the book in which he cites as an example of how teenagers are acting in two thousand four, a book by Norman Mailier about a fictional uh electric electric cool Tom wolf a book by Tom Wolfe about a fictional college student as evidence of like how actual college students behave because if anyone in two thousand four understood millennials, it was Tom wolf like a work of anyway. So that's the description of the book. The actual book itself is called

What's Fair Colon and Other short Stories. I will say that there are only three short stories, and they're each about twenty pages, and each page is kind of like that goose Bumps font you know, where it's like you fit like two and a half paragraphs on a page. Um, so you know that's fine. The short stories, it's fine. Um, no judgment there. Um. I will uh challenge everybody as we go to a quick ad break and come back

to read the first short story called What's Fair? Uh guess the first sentence of a short story by Ben Shapiro called What's Fair in a collection called What's Fair and Other Short Stories. Oh boy, I bet it's gonna be happy. Families are all alike. Oh, I bet it's what's fair? Question Mark, you're Katie's closer in the right direction. All right, we'll be back to find out the answer together. Everything break today. Alright, Cody, we're finally doing it. We're

gonna cut that album. I think I think that's the sign. Robert, Robert and Cody sing a totally while looking at their laptops during a zoom call the album mumble lyrics to a song that doesn't exist, but that doesn't exist. Keep it all in, We're back. Snack from space. Hey, everybody,

welcome back. Wow. Narrative polemics of Ben Shapiro. Yeah, and I before we get into his book, I do think it's worth acknowledging the courage of releasing your first ever fictional debut and choosing three short stories to be the whole thing. Yeah, He's like, yeah, I think that's it. Most people. Look, I've written some fiction, and there's a lot of fiction that I wrote and nobody ever saw that came out that I put together before the first thing that I published. And I'll just say I respect

the hutzpah. Ben Shapiro shows by never once doubting that these three short stories zero needed to be published, utter confidence in himself that I don't need to work on this. That's the thing about his his book, like every page seems like nobody edited it, like it was a first draft that he said, good, it's done. Because I feel like with True Allegiance, uh it does read like it wasn't edited, but I think it was, and I'm pretty sure this absolutely was not. Uh So, I'm curious the

divide there. I'm curious what that first line is. Well, do you have any other guesses you want to shout in your phone? Uh So the first sentence, So, what's fair? I've always thought of myself as a fair man, and I just think that's so fucking funny, you're just saying it's all laid out. Um, no no time to no wavering. All right. So I've always thought of myself as a fair man. That's all I ever wanted. What was fair when the plow was done and when it was time

for supper. All I wanted was the same as what everybody else got. God, the same as okay, fair, I always say, God, damn you okay. As what everybody else got was that it was a couple of sentences. It was a couple he's got. He's got some periods in here. He uses words the way drunk people use cars, and it's just very sad to see words going through. Wait till you here the next sentence. Oh, good, new paragraph. I remember a time when I was a kid that

Dad gave me and Jim Christmas presents. What I remember a time when I was a kid that Dad gave me and Jim Christmas presents. So no one edited this. You're right. He gave Jim a risk watch and he gave me a hunting knife. Uh, we'll find out, I hope. Why don't you introduce your relationship with this guy to start? No, Ben understands that the key to good fiction is keeping mystery. You want to keep the audience guessing who is this

person they're getting Christmas? This is? This is uh, you know, I'm going to come to Ben's defense here in this marketplace terrible ideas, because uh, I feel like in true allegiance, it would be like I remember a time when I was a kid that dad gave me and Jim my brother Christmas presents. Whereas yea christ presents, I assume it's his brother, because who else his dad given Christmas presents to? Um? He actually assume it's Jim Jones. It's very well fingers

trust we'll see, it's not very long. How do we know? All right? But he did give jimmy griss watch, and he gave me a hunting knife. Boy, it was Jim taken with that wristwatch. He'd wear it around every day, rain or shine, always careful to keep it clean, to keep it sound. If he scuffed it up, he'd buff that scuff right out. Incredibly engaging writing bit. He'd spent hours with a handkerchief, spitting on it and rubbing it, spitting on it and wiping it until spitting on it.

Because audio we've been sharing spitting on it, And that's what your brother was doing, wiping it sting. I didn't really like my hunting knife. I wasn't big like Jim. Then it wasn't very context very people's sizes, and here always has to be pretty big. Well, here comes the moment. Yeah, I I just love We've we've found the origin of beIN Shapiro writing in a in a very sad way about someone brother. Does he have one? I don't Jim? Does he have a Does he jerk off his watch

all the time? His middle name is Aaron. Now he's a sister Apple Gail. Maybe um, maybe he's Jim. And this story anyway continue. Well, he wasn't big like I wasn't big like Jim. Then it wasn't until later that I hit my growth spurt. Every they always he can't even he was praying for that growth spurt. Great, his prayers were not answered. But you know, that's very funny.

That's that's incredibly funny. Okay, it's right there. But Dad kept after me to try it out, and I wanted so bad to please him, so I headed out to the woods to see if I could catch something. Sure enough, I found me a rabbit. When I pounced for him, though he was faster than I was. Yeah, he's a rabbit, and he skittered away like his tail was on fire. Okay, really good rust stuff. But I wanted to show Dad that I knew what to do with a knife, so

I chased him and chased him. He chased your dad, Yeah, this is this is where they're like the poor. Like an editor would help. Yeah, yeah, said, it's a new paragraph. We haven't mentioned the rabbit in this paragraph. I wanted to show Dad chase him and chase him. This isn't the only spot. This isn't where it starts. I couldn't. I would have used an editor from word one. I remember a time when I was a kid that Dad

gave me and Jim Christmas presence. Kind of an awkward phrasing, um right off the bat, But I chased him, chased him, and I finally cornered that old rabbit in a rocky little dead end. He'd moved to his left, and I'd moved to my right to cut him off. He'd moved to his right, and I jump with him, but he was too smart for me. He charged straight at me, and before I knew it, he'd gone right between my legs,

like that ball Buckner missed in the series. I love because he's very clearly trying to be like folksy and like found me around classical, grew up in the country. Number one, he doesn't get the way people talk right at all. But number two, Uh, it's very clear that all of his knowledge about how to like chase and hunt down a rabbit comes from Looney Tunes cartoons. It's literally like a Looney Tunes he's describing there, or like

playing basketball. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it doesn't bear. Also, it would be not like rabbits are very easy to skin. That's one of the nice things about rabbits. A gigantic hunting knife would be like a weird tool in any instance to use on a rabbit. But okay, whatever, its good to have around at random, I mean all times, but random times you just have specific wealth of knowledge. You mean this short story like, well, do you like

you would never use that tool? Yeah, I mean like when even like butchering like a sheep or something, you're not using like a giant hunting knife like he's describing, like there's like specialized like you could but like smaller anyway, whatever, you want to impress his dad, you know, yea psychopathic maybe, yeah, I mean if you If I was going to make it more realistic, I would have like, you know, him going out hunting with his dad, and his dad's you know,

given him a hunting knife or bought him a twenty two or like something that actually makes a little bit more sense than him just like wandering out alone with a knife to like, yeah, catches catch the rab the rabbit, and then his dad's like skin the rabbit and he's like too squeamish to do it, or yeah, sure, yeah like it. I like, okay, my my my ex wife's little brother grew up in the middle of nowhere, Texas and would hunt rabbits and stuff. But it was always

like trapping them because like tex just better. And so maybe he like traps a rabbit, but he's too squeamish to actually like kill it or knife. There's a number of ways that that a writer this work, right. The the issue he's running into now is like a the rabbit like ran through my legs, Like you didn't get a chance to use the n nonsense. Yeah, okay, please continue, Cody, this is very full. I turned around and there was that rabbit sitting there staring at me like he was laughing.

And I got so mad that I took that hunting knife and I threw it at him like James Coburn in The Magnificent Seven, just about took his head off. But that rabbit moved like lightning. He was gone, and I heard him. That's not just about taking its head off, right, It got away, didn't just about to take his head. I just got to point that out. Yeah, if it touched the rabbit, maybe maybe I feel like, you know, nicked him a little bit. I didn't, but he didn't that he was gone. And I heard a plunk from

a creek that ran through the woods. Wait, okay, I heard of plunk from a creek that ran through the woods. The knife was gone, too, Well, you could find a knife, um, like you threw the knife, you know, all right? Whatever. When I got for the knife, yeah, the rabbit didn't didn't like scarpor off again, continuing to sound like Looney Tunes. When I got back home that night, I was too embarrassed to tell Dad what happened to that knife. But the next morning, when Jim got up, he found that

his watch was dented. He couldn't buff that out? All right, okay, great new section of the book skips a line. This is so bad. Wait a minute, just that thing like, but when I woke up, Jim's watch was dented. Couldn't buff that out? What? Yeah, that's not okay, that's certain that happened alight, I'm not to know what happens next. Well, what happened next is I met em Dash, Emily, that is Dash. When I was a senior in high school.

She was about the cutest thing you've ever seen, No, strawberry blonde with a knockout body and a button nose, blue eyes too, like a miniature of Britney Spears on the team. Okay, back up, she smiled at me breastily. Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute. I made that lineup. I made that up. That's not like you. You might not have is the thing? Um that's intentionally

in there? Sure? But then so after he meets this cutest thing you've ever seen, strawberry blonde hair with a knockout body and a button nose, blue eyes too, like, manage your Britney Spears. She was on the cheerleading team. By then, I'd hit that growth spurt I mentioned, and I was a big burly kid the full back onto he actually say that growth spurt, he did say, And by that I had hit that growth spurt I mentioned where I had edited, I would say, hey, Ben, there's

no reason to mention in the growth spurt earlier. Just say then I hit a growth spurt, and save yourself some words, and don't introduce a fact until it's actually meaningful. Yeah, that's a good note. If anything, don't say that you mentioned it, because we know it was two paragraphs that she's mentioned two times. Here's what I'm going to say is it's been mentioned two times in this very short story already because that's so important to him. It's so

important to him, and it's the thing he never got. Yeah, and like absolutely no shade at people at any heights. We love you. It's him because he's so preoccupied with people's heights. And you know what I mean. Anyway, If you don't know what I mean, go back and listen to all of us talking about single chapter. Every time we've ever talked about the really short terrorists and they really tall. Everybody else, Ah, the bad Guy's classic. That's

big burly kid fullback on the team. I was barreling kids over, I mean steamrolling them, and coach said I was a sure thing for All State. The minute I laid eyes on M, I knew she was the girl for me. I knew she liked me too. You see, she wasn't. It's so awkward. Sorry, she wasn't the first

girl I'd ever gone out with. When you're the star fullback on your high school football team in a small town like Jefferson, there are plenty of girls after you, Comma looking for something to tell their daughters about twenty years from now. Yeah, but M with something special. When I was on the field, she'd cheer and she'd look at me, and I felt like I was playing just for her. That's nice. One night after the game, ME and M got to talking. Don't ask me what we

talked about. I wouldn't know. Probably a game, or her classes or something else. Love story for the ages, said, I don't give a fuck. By the time we looked around, the sun had gone down. It was late. She looked up at me with those big eyes through her eyelashes. Good god, Good god, Ben, have you ever cared about a person? Honestly, I could see, she'd combed them special

for me. Yeah that's what you noticed. Yeah, I noticed that she did her She's looking through them with her big eyes, her big blue eyes, thankfully, and she asked me to walk her home. Of course, being no fool, I said sure. She lived in a nice area of town and I lived near the fields, so we had to walk past my house to get to hers. As we walked by, I pointed at our house. We have to admit I had some guilty thoughts about m and I knew that Dad and Mom weren't home. My guess

was right, Oh, this is weird. There's like a double indentation for this paragraph. Yeah, because he again he's never read anything that he's written. Yeah, this is this that this is a really new paragraph. It's like he hit tab like three times one paragraph. All right, my guess was right. She wasn't shy either. She batted those eyelashes and told me she'd love to see the house. Could I show her around? She didn't have to ask me twice.

That's a new paragraph. And then here's another new paragraph. We walked up to the door and I took her in my arms, and that's when Jim opened to the door. He was back from State where he was studying agricultural engineering, and he looked at me, laughing with his eyes and said, hey, brother, I'm home. When I finally we confirmation Jim's brother. When I turned back to introduce M, she was looking at him. They were married six months later. This is so bad.

It's bad news for this guy talking right. Oh you mean the writing also? Yes, yeah, the writing is quite bad. He spends so much time on dumb details and zero time on where the story is. Like it understands that the least important thing about the story is that there's a story. Right. Yeah, well I think he's gonna You know, Jim just gets everything he wants right. And it's not fair. I've read the first sentence of this U this short story. All is fairer to be close enough. I always thought

of myself as a fair man. But a new section. We've the passage of time. Uh. This is after they've been married six months later. Uh. The next summer, Dad died in an accident. Mom was walking around like a ghost, and the farm was going to ruin. Jim and M, who were off living near state, came home to help take care of Mom and the farm. Dad had left him in charge since he was the first born. Jim and M moved into the house with us. The farm was still workable well, Jim was m moved into the

house with you. Jim lived there. I think, I mean, hey, brother, I'm home moments doesn't know whatever. Jim and Man moved in the house with us. The farm was still workable, and Jim figured that he could save up enough money to buy some machinery. Jim took over the master bedroom with M and Mom moved into Jim's old room. I stayed where I had always been. It was pretty terrible to be around the house, what with mom haunting is so?

Oh say it differently, man, So I spent most haunting it like that bit like haunting them for stupid dead Uh So. I spent most of my extra time in the weight room at school, classic bulking up for next year. I didn't like to be near Mom. It made me feel depressed inside. I was a high school graduate and I was getting invited to all the best parties. Anyway, One night, Jim and M asked if I could take care of Mom for a while so they could go

out and grab dinner. I said sure, I was downstairs watching TV when I saw the water dripping through the ceiling. It turns out the mom was in the bathtub, her head under the water, not breathing. I had learned some basic mouth to mouth and I was able to get her breathing again. But she was never the same after that. Now, Jim and m and I had to help her get to the bathroom, shower herself, feed herself. What the fuck? I'm sorry, Wait a minute. He is just going through

so much. It's a lot going on. Yeah, this is a I mean, it's actually Ben's pitching his full length family drama. It's actually just like the treatment for it. He's doing this thing that like upper like money, having a coastal elite, Conservatives do to pretend that they're not coastal elites because Ben is, as far as I know, a California boy. Um, and it's they're doing this thing where they imagine and I don't think Ben has ever spent a particular amount of time near working class or

even poor. He grew up in Burbank. Yeah, he grew up in Burbank. And he's doing this thing that conservatives in his position do, where in order to try to separate themselves from the liberal coastal elites that they demonize. They imagine, they imagine they actually know anything about what

rural life is like. And in Ben's case, he's imagining this like constant train of horrific disasters and tragedies and folksy nonsense, and it's it's just like, yeah, because you don't know, you don't actually know what the actual like

struggles in in rural America are. Like if you did, I think he would be spending less time on trying to take Karama and more time talking about like like even if you're going to focus on like your mom's health issues, the lack of like actual medical care of hospitals and whatnot in rural areas, the difficulty in actually like getting someone to treatment when you're out in the sticks, um how to like like it kind of glosses over,

like how they actually got her treatment. Okay, Like you pull her out of the bathtub, Now where do you take her? You're an hour and a half away from the hospital, Like do you have gas? Do you maybe only have one car and your brothers away in the car, and so you can't do anything for a while, Like every year, if he knew anything about what it was actually like dealing with problems for people. But he's imagining, Yeah, now suddenly, okay, we've taken care of Ma, and yeah

that's the thing. Um, it's not good. It's it's like Jade Vance, right, yeah, it's that stuff. It's like, oh yeah, look, I can imagine the hardships. Um, but now they have to they know, now they have to, you know, get into the bathroom, shower herself, help, help help, he feed yourself. I imagine something. I imagine it's time for an act for a time for a nat break. Oh well, we'll find out soon. What happens at State State is always

capitalized and it's unclear where. Um it's like the state college. Right. It's like it's like he's trying to keep it as vegue as possible, because like Lincoln, Americana Midwest. Yeah yeah, but you know, we'll be right back. We will together everything, so don't don't. And then we came back, and it was this moment back we did. We didn't come back. We we buffed our watch, we shined it, we like rubbed it more, we spat on what I did little more,

and then we came back. I walked on out to that forest, and I easily found the knife I chucked. Just took a minute of me like you just left it there? Because yeah, like I remembered that I threw it and it didn't hit the rabbit, but like the general area where I threw it, and I was able to find it and come home with it, and now I still have it. Oh good good? After that sounds easy? Uh, Like you would only need like a short ad bricks worth of time to go find that knife that you threw. Honestly,

any who uh that fall starting for State? I blew out my knee there with the scholarship offer to State? How did you out your knee? Say? Yeah, how did you like? What was the move? You know? Haven't again? A thing a writer would do is describe, you know, the excitement of this big game, how much it meant to you. You've got like this girl who's like super into you, and they're about to be you know, your whole future is writing on this pivotal moment, and then

you describe the actual scene. You know, you're running the ball sailing overhead, and as you leap up to catch it, somebody like comes in and tackles you and get you like right in the side, and you land as he pulls you down. You land on your right leg and it fucking pops your knee out and it tears, and you you know, and the story you cry in the

game and point out it's not because it hurt. It's because I knew that I wouldn't be able to play anymore, Whereas the way this is written, it's like, yeah, and then I blew up my knee and then the scholarship was gone, and I balled like a baby. But like, it's not connected to the game or the event. It's connected to like losing the scholarship, but that he wouldn't be able to use a font that's true. This is you are correct. This big, this incredibly important event in

this person's life is two sentences long. You are here. Here's the central issue that Ben keeps having. He is he thinks that he is making an emotionally affecting story by having sad and difficult things happen to a family of characters. But all he is doing is listing sad things, rather than making us inhabit a moment in which something difficult and sad happens. And it's because he understands the broad strokes, Oh, yeah, your mom can get sick and

you don't have much money. You could you can hurt yourself while playing in a game and not be able to to go pro. But he doesn't understand enough about what it actually means to be poor with a suffering, sick family rout in the middle of nowhere, or what what sports are to write scenes in which things happens happen emotional. This is the epitome of facts don't care

about your feelings. Feelings, and this happened, this happened, and like there's no attempt at like an empathetic approach to it to like you're saying, like, yeah, get into this story, get into the characters and like live these moments. Yeah, well then this happened, and that's what that's that's bad.

So when facts don't care about your feelings, you're it's you can't like, it's not human, it's not Yeah, like maybe maybe have this guy going through the ship with his mom and like like set up how difficult his life is as he's you know, seventeen eighteen about to go into college and then like his coach sees him stressed out and he's like, hey, man, don't worry like their scouts out there, You're so good. This is gonna set you up for life, like you're you're you know,

you're going to move through this. All your hard work is going to pay off. And then we have the scene where he actually injures himself, and then maybe there's

like at least some kind of emotional connection. Maybe maybe maybe you established the suffering and make him hope for this moment before it falls apart, right, and like even like describe like him playing football when he's not big and burly and like he just really wants to, like he loves he loves the game, you know, and then it finally gets to play it and describe that feeling. The title of this series should be editing Ben Shapiro's book for him. Oh my god, it's a task, but

somebody needed to do it. Also, actually, now that I look at it, the very first paragraph is also intended weird. Yeah, and the second one. I just mean, you guys are pitching great notes, great feedback. It's just like you might make this a story. Feedback to Ben would be write a story. Yeah, Like if you're like, if you want to write a short story. I would recommend that you write a short story, um as a list of sad things that has a list of sad things with a

lesson that he wants people to gain from. I'm sure we're building to it. We're getting there. I mean, I know, I know from the title in the first fair Yeah, fairness is bad. What I get it? Sucking Ben, But like it's it's written like a parable. It would be something where he has to take something for himself because he stopped being fair. He's been fair as a life or some ship. Let's get yeah, like, yeah, we're gonna

learn that fairness. I'm excited to get their cody. But the important thing is I came home Comma quit state period. I was there for football anyway, not for my studies. When the football went, so did my shot at the big time? Well yeah, the big time was the football? Like what sorry, yeah, okay, fine, bad sentence. We're moving on. And was like a saint. She took care of mom and me and she made sure we got what we needed. Jim would farm and he'd got right and he'd come

back at night. No, I don't even mean it like that, Just like anyway, go ahead, the caretaker. Yeah she was. She filled her role katie you see. Um, and he'd come back at night and would have dinner already for him. There we go exactly. Uh. Pretty soon I was able to get around on my own. I'd never be able to run fast again, but I could at least help out. Jim used me mostly for field work, and he handled the sales and the accounting and the marketing or whatever

the hell else need to be handled. Wait, that's weird. Why wouldn't Jim do that because you're injured? Whatever. I thought it was pretty cush of him to sit there. Okay, here we go. I probably I thought it was pretty cush of him to sit there in the air conditioned office and make the decisions while I sweated. Mm hmmm yeah, yeah,

yeah again. Another piece of advice would be learned how to use the words that just like the words also like it's it's one of those things where like you know, if you like uh center, like if you align the text so it's like lined up on the left and the right and it sort of spreads out the words.

Sometimes it'll it'll split words and have a dash by the line, so like this is sweat dash new line ed, which is like, it's like really highlighting that it's the wrong word anyway, uh, and make the decisions while I sweat. But there wasn't much I could do to complain. He'd been to college, he knew his stuff. We got along like that for a few years. Things hummed along, or I guess mosy along is more like it. Same thing.

There is the thing that he does that he doesn't seem to care about, and I try to remind I give people a pass if it happened sometimes, but he doesn't all the time. Writer right every so often in a book that's beautifully written, it's unavoidable. And you see a word twice really nearby. These important absolutely so important to me. When I write a couple of sentences, like, I do a pass specifically to make sure there's no repetition. I'm embarrassed for him that it's like, yeah, it's the same.

It's reading somebody's rough draft, but it's reading a ninth No. When I was a ninth grader, I wrote better fiction than this. It wasn't good, but it was better than this. Sure, but like an average ninth grader maybe no, you're right, I think an average ninth grader. I remember like the cartoons and ship my friends would draw, and they all had better grip of story structure than this. No, this is like sixth grade, fifth grade ship. Yeah, things hummed along,

mosey along, it's more like it. Because those different those those different folksier Cody Mosey is what rural that much folong? No, no, no, But I also hate the conceit of um the same thing, like in a tweet or anything when someone goes like corrects themselves and then keeps it. Do you know what I mean? That concept that structure of like things hummed along? Well, I guess mosey along is more like it. Edit it. It makes mosy to long? Do you know what I mean?

That's like again trying to be cute. See, it's a tactic that I'm always like out of here with that. If you're trying to make it feel like authentically you know, rule and down home. UM don't have the character self editing his own thoughts to make himself. We're hearing your thought process been as a man whose only time outdoors has been that one time you couldn't get to a rest stop driving off the five and you had to pee by the side of the road and you got

scared because of the wind, like bad. Come on. I I used to write these like, uh, spooky short stories. Uh. They were like half like there was like gross and silly and like kind of terrible on purpose, and the narrator was like bad and I would do like comed along or I and more like like I guess I don't know the word for it actually anyway, and like

I would do because you're making fun of that. Yeah, and mosy is the kind of word today you would more often here from like I don't know, somebody who got rich in the Bay Area and decided to move to a town outside of Reading in the middle of nowhere in order to feel more authentic cowboy where torn good will fucking car hearts but whatever mailed that Robert,

I'm delighted by this episode so far. Yes, m hm anyway, continuing to repeat this again, we got along like that for a few years things hummed along or I guess mosey along. It is more like it period until Jim had his idea period and then we skip a couple of lines. It's a new section of time. It struck him one day while he was taking don't. You don't need to skip this, you can just like it's to compete a new paragraph. This is weird, all right. It struck him one day while he was taking a look

at the wheat the wheat crop. That night at dinner, we couldn't stop him from running on at the mouth. Okay, okay, that's all right. I'm gonna oh, finally a conversation M. Like I've been waiting, like showing interaction with between these people, like what would what would one person say to the other in a room together? We haven't any dialogue, But finally some dialogue. M. Tommy, you won't believe this, he said. Hold on, Jamie said, M. Mom's drooling. She wiped it

Mom's mouth while Jim babbled onto her. He never was good at listening. The plow is just not aerating the ground, baby. Okay, Well now he's sounding like the guy from Chrue Allegiance. Yeah, yeah, that's how. Okay, good Good can take a bullet for you, fucking baby, get run over by a tractor for you, baby. He whipped out a piece of odd from his pocket. Jimmy, take that dirt away from the table, said in his pocket.

In his pocket okay, because he's so goddamn folksy, he's so down home fucking country boy that he keep his motherfucking here. Look at how dance it is. Look how there isn't any oxygen getting in there. What if there was a plow that was even finer about aerating the ground. My god, we could feed the entire world with machinery like this makes rain cheapest dirt. He's the Tony Stark of farms. Yeah. The only issue with everywhere not being able to grow all the grain they want is the

soil is to dents d you gotta make it. Yeah, okay, then the farm nowhere, Ben Shapiro, just like you didn't have to do this, man, you could have whatever. I mean, I'm sure there are yes. Soil is a makes the only i mean, the only specific of farm life that we're getting is this conversation about soil aeration. That's obviously bullshit. You know, Like, but he started diagramming charts at the table. My head was spinning, and I wasn't paying attention, So

why was your head spinning? Like what? Sorry? If you're like it's like you're like, if you're not paying attention, then it's not like, oh, my head is spinning, like so many things, like no, you're not paying attention, You're like blanked out, like whatever, It's fine, Who cares. My head was spinning and I wasn't paying attention. I don't think m was either. She was wiping it Mom's mouth, and I have to admit I couldn't take my eyes off of herky. I've never seen Jim so excited. He

wasn't the excitable type. Different word, man, use a different word. Uh, he wasn't the excitable type. You understand, he got straight a's through school. That doesn't mean you're not excitable. What he was always teacher's pet. That also doesn't mean you're not excitable. What. Everybody knew he'd go to college and make a name for himself. Like nobody excitable. Ever, and

Jim knew it too. Ever, since he came back to the farm, he'd been in a funk, like farming was too low for him, I see, unlike Burbank's own, Ben Shapiro, Austin's now right and again, one of the funniest things about this is that, like the actual like buying tractors is a fucking nightmare right now, because John Deere has such domination of the market, and they do all sorts of fund up ship to like make it illegal to repair your own tractors a good like for example, say

someone competent like Cory doctor. Would it take on the story with aspects of these themes. It would probably be about how somebody figured out an incredible way to increase crop efficiency and productivity by improving their tractor, and then the John Deer Corporation came after them and destroyed their life for legally modifying their own piece of equipment. Like again, an author with something to say could take elements of

this and make a story. But this has been so I'm gonna guess magically, the fact that the tractor, the fact that there's a huge barrier to entry and even manufacturing tractors, the fact that John Deere keeps it on such like, all this stuff, I'm gonna guess is not at all a factor in the stories. Would that be correct, Cody, what you're saying being I would say that is correct. This yard boy just make a tractor that gets huge.

Despite what you're describing seeming to me to be a bit unfair, Yeah, it does seem I mean it seems like you could make a great story called What's Fair about You? Maybe his dad raises him with these strong energy fairness and they're farming family and aspects of John Dear's intellectual property ship fucks them over and sure to get Bench Shapiro this episode, I think he's going to be really yeah, yeah, anyway, just been I guess my other piece of advice, my third piece of advice to

you this episode is have something to say. Yeah, oh, well, get to what he has to say. I shouldn't be telling him, just dying to know what is fair? Mhm, nothing's fair. Life's not fair, I assume, and shouldn't be, is what I assume he is about to say. But farming, it's too low for Jim, is what I've gathered. I always think that's why he hold up in the office and let me do the grunt work. But now he was excited again. Wait, he said he wasn't excited. He was,

and he's not excitable. You said he wasn't excitable and that he never liked that, he never liked farming. So he's excited about farming again. Two paragraphs earlier quote, I'd never seen Jim so excited and then so now here we are, but now he was excited again. Great, the energy coming off him like the buzz in the air after a lightning strike, Unlike anything before, except apparently some other time that I'm remembering. He was drawing diagrams and

he was grabbing him. This is so god like. Delete one of those sentences. He was drawing diagrams, and he was grabbing him around the waist and singing little songs to her. And he was even holding up those drawings so Mom could see, even though she wasn't really seeing anything. Too many evens in there. Uh. Then he came around and gave me a hug around the neck. It was the first time he'd hugged me since we were in elementary school together. Tommy, he said, we're gonna be rich.

The productor's name is Tommy. Okay, okay, uh. Moving on through time. As much time as he had spent in the office, he was now spending it in the barn, messing with our mechanical plow. Every time I'd go in there, he'd be underneath the thing, a hammer or a wrench in his hand, bashing away at the thing, not the thing, things tightening something here screwing something there. Yeah, I shouldn't have called it the thing twice in a row, real

close together. It's just and like it's just awkward. Every time I'd go in there, he'd be underneath the thing, a hammer, a wrench in hand, bashing away. It's the thing awful, it really, it's like nails on a chalkboard. To me, I don't interject every time it happens, but it's like something twinges in my spine. Not again. The finances went to the dogs. Okay. One time I signed a check at the grocery and we were overdrawn. Another time, wait,

you can't overdraw the check? Bub how did you know? Yeah? All right. Another time, I mean maybe they can, maybe there's something, but go on. Another time the mortgage man came down the road, fucking kidding me. Another time, that's like that's our version of tax man or whatever. Another time the mortgage man came down the road and asked if we needed more time on the payment. We didn't. Jim had just forgotten to pay him. Even m was getting worried about his absent mindedness. And with Jim out

of control, everything's fun. Out of control. Oh fuck, that's good that's just good clean fun. Cody, That's that's just good clean fun. That's we no notes on that clean. Yeah. Well let's splut this into a part two. Yeah, we can do part two. We can continue this on into the fucking new year. Um. I would do this the rest of my life because I mean, be careful. That's how we get ourselves into another new show. Like, let's not say anything. We can't take good Katie can't. We're like,

we're good at it. And then let's just do it every day and the souls are dead. Um, there's not like a good like time jump coming up for another couple of pages. Um, although we stop it here. Uh, honestly, we can stop it. Uh yeah, and with gim out of control, it seems like a good stopping spot. Agree, you guys are yeah everything yeah, don't with everything out of control on this podcast, don't let yourself spin out of control until next time when this is though. What

an amazing writer. Yeah, this is a Christmas holiday miracle, a miracle we tease something fun for you guys, and this is this is what you've you've you deserved this after the year. This is like it's like either a compliment or a threat like yeah, I don't know which all is fair. Maybe we deserve this, you deserve this. Yeah, I can imagine us like patting a patting an exhausted nurse on the shoulder and saying you deserve this, and also staring at like an n f T brow and

going you deserve this. You and your ape show UM, so yeah, I think um with gmatic control. Everything's when I control. And we'll be back, uh next time to find out the rest of this paragraph. And I can't wait. Oh everything, so everything, So I tried. Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.