← Liberty's Highlights
Liberty's Highlights
David Senra on Deadwood (also: founders, entrepreneurs, civilization, Henry Singleton, Walt Disney, David Ogilvy, etc)
Loading summary
Transcript203 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hi, David. How are you?
- [00:02]
B
Good. How's it going?
- [00:04]
A
I'm good, thanks. What do you want to talk about today? The Wire, Breaking Bad, Sopranos?
- [00:09]
B
I love when I got this calendar invite. What, you named it?
- [00:12]
A
Yeah. I'm going to do my disclaimer first. It's impossible to talk about Deadwood without a bunch of swear words and swearing, so be warned. This is going to be one of the podcasts with the explicit thing on it. So if you have kids around and
- [00:24]
B
any podcast I'm on is going to have to be explicit.
- [00:27]
A
Yeah, but this one probably more than the others. Right? Because it's part of the show and there's a bunch of kind of anachronistic swearing that you don't hear every day. Right. But with that said, welcome to fucking Deadwood, David.
- [00:40]
B
There you go. That's what the calendar invite had.
- [00:42]
A
Yeah, I couldn't resist. But first, before, because I may have mentioned once or twice before that I kind of like this show, so I have some stuff to say. But first, we've purposefully not talked about it since you've watched it, because we're trying to save it for today. So I want to ask you initial impressions. What are your thoughts on the show? Like, how do you like it? Just get us started.
- [01:02]
B
Okay, so I think the reason we're talking is because I've been reading your newsletter for a long time. For, like, years. I feel like it's been years, and I don't watch that many TV shows because I have an obsessive personality. And when I get into a show, it, like, takes up way too much of my time. And so the last time this happened to me is with Game of Thrones. I discovered the show before I even knew about the books. And so once I started watching the show, because I think I got involved, there was already, like, three or four seasons out, and people kept saying how amazing it was. It's like, all right, I'm going to try this. And then I started watching the episodes, then I started rewatching the episodes. Then I start reading all the books. Then I start buying, like, the Encyclopedia of Game of Thrones. And so I had seen you have great recommendations for all kinds of forms of media, TV included, but you were especially passionate about Deadwood. And so I was like, all right, you know what? And he whittled me down like water, death, rock, you know, over time. And I was like, I'm going to give this a shot. Like, I haven't watched a series in a long time. Let me try. And from like the first episode I messaged you after, I was like, oh, I'm already hooked. And so then you're like, you had the idea. It's like, okay, well, do you want, if you watch all the shows and then there's a Deadwood movie, maybe, do you want to. Do you want to do a podcast? And we just talk about Deadwood. And so I think I have to preface the statements here. It's like I'm at a great disadvantage in this podcast because you're like a Deadwood master. You've watched this. I've only watched. I've watched all three episodes and the movie. But you've watched the series multiple times, right?
- [02:29]
A
I've seen it, I think four times. I've listened to podcasts about it. I've read David Milch's book about it. I've read Matt Zeluseit's new Deadwood Bible book about it. I'm even mentioned on some podcasts about Deadwood because I kept dming the host of the podcast.
- [02:43]
B
So.
- [02:44]
A
Yeah, but the advantage you have is you've just watched it like in the past few weeks. I haven't watched it recently, so yeah, but I'm going to do my best.
- [02:53]
B
I'm going to basically learning from you today.
- [02:56]
A
So in general, how do you like it? What's the kind of the temperature?
- [03:01]
B
So I loved it, to answer your question. I thought the writing was some of the best, maybe if not the best writing that I've ever come across on a tv, like a TV series, HBO in general are good for this. I find, like, I think all of my favorite, maybe I think they have all my favorite shows. So Game of Thrones is my all time favorite show. The Wire, Sopranos, and then I would put Deadwood up with the Sopranos and Wires as well. But what I loved about it the most, and it took me time to appreciate, I didn't realize, I think till like the middle of the second season is like, oh, Al Swearinger may be my favorite character, like my favorite fictional character in any TV series that I've ever seen.
- [03:39]
A
Probably the same for me. And that's the thing, right, is when you start the show, you have all these, this baggage about like westerns or just about TV shows in general. And so it starts and you're like, okay, Bullock's the sheriff, he's the good guy. Al is the villain, he's the bad guy. And like the scene is set. But over time you realize that that's the thing I love about Deadwood is very like, humanistic Right? It's about the messiness of being human. Everybody is great. There's no heroes. There's no. There are some really, really bad guys. But even these people are mostly complex people, and they have their. Their own motivations. And I kept thinking about it, and what's different is most shows, they make you love to hate the villains, right? So the villains are really bad. And you're like, oh, I hope they get it right. I can't wait until he gets what's coming to him. Or like, that's kind of like the feeling they're going for in Deadwood. I feel like they flip that around and they make you kind of. Kind of hate that you love the villains because you're like, yeah, he's a murderer and a thief and a liar and a pimp, but I kind of still love him, right? Or even terrible characters like Walcott, who's kind of like a serial killer, basically.
- [04:43]
B
Oh, my God.
- [04:43]
A
Once in a while you're like, oh, man, this guy's sense of humor is so great. Or the way he turns a phrase, or when he gets all beaten up and you're like, I kind of feel for him, but he's still terrible, Right? But the show still makes you feel because everybody's a real person. I should mention people like, listening to him who haven't seen it. Like, we're gonna spoil the show, but it's kind of like a show that's impossible to spoil because what's good about it is not the plot, right? It's how it happens and the way that people talk and the way they are and the community and all that stuff. So if you've never seen the show, like, maybe you should watch it before listening. But if you're on the fence and listening to this may make you want to watch the show, it's still worth it because it's unspoilable to me. It's so unique. Like, even what you're hearing is on screen. It's not going to be like that.
- [05:23]
B
Well, what was fascinating to me is I didn't know it was based on real people and real events that these people actually lived. And I figured it out when George Hearst pops up because I had read the biography of his son, William Randolph Hearst, and, like, he's a big character in his son's life, obviously. And so that was like, oh, once I found that out, I was like, I'm not going to read what really happened with the real Seth Bullock or the real Al Sweargen. I did started reading all their Wikipedia pages after I finished the show and the movie. Actually.
- [05:47]
A
That's good. Cause they changed enough. But what I'm curious is, did you know that Wild Billed was getting killed?
- [05:52]
B
No. No. So I also.
- [05:53]
A
That was a surprise.
- [05:54]
B
Yeah, that was a surprise. Because I did. I refused. I knew he was a real character. I knew he lived and he actually existed. He's actually buried there, just like they said and everything else. But I refrained from reading their life stories till I finished the show. Cause I didn't want. Want to know what was going to happen. I want to go back to what you just said though, because I just experienced this for the first time and I'm not too sure I actually knew of the concept explicitly, even though, like, the phenomenon is familiar with me. I read George R.R. martin's like 700 page book called Fire and Blood, which is a history of the Targaryen dynasty that HBO has now turned into a show. They turned like four chapters into this new show called House of the Dragon. And the author has spoken about the creation of the TV series and is the fact that all the characters involved are morally gray. And to your point, you have the villains that you can empathize with and the heroes. The difference between who is the good guy and who is the bad guy is extreme, incredibly blurred. And in most cases, the people that you thought were the good guy wind up doing heinous things and the people that did heinous things wind up doing very generous things or they would protect the people they loved. And that's the whole point because the point that he was making is it's more of a reflection of human beings in general. Now most of us don't have the extreme traits that like an Al SW does, right. Who is known to be really good with a knife, let's just put it that way. Right. And what was fascinating to me is the way I. So I relate everything back to the fact that like, you know, I read biographies for a living for Founders podcast. And I was having a discussion with two people that listened to the podcast and the discussion was essentially about entrepreneurship, right? And investing. And they had both not watched Deadwood before. And I try to explain what I was like. What's fascinating to me about the practice and the art of entrepreneurship is that in many cases you don't have to be a genius to build a great company, but you do usually have. You normally have to understand human nature and how to get humans to cooperate. Because like, you fundamentally have an idea, you have a product or a service you want to bring it to the world. And you can't do that alone. So you need to be able to recruit people and then manage them and build an effective organization. And I was like, listen, if you watch Deadwood, which you're going to be surprised at, is the smartest player on the board, right? Is an uneducated orphan, a pimp who owns a brothel and sells sex and alcohol and commits murder. Yet the reason he's the smartest player in a very complex story, the reason, in my opinion, he's the smartest player on the board, is because he fundamentally knows human nature, and he knows. He's able to predict how people are going to respond and what is motivating them by focusing on what their incentives is. And that idea, again, not recommending people kill people, not recommending people be pimped, all that other stuff, but that fundamental idea you could take away is like, how is. How is he doing what he's doing? And I think that if you take that one idea. Idea I was like, study human nature and then focus on the incentives of the people you're dealing with that is applicable to any kind of domain.
- [08:37]
A
Absolutely. And it's. Al Superpower even says it, and I don't remember which episode, but at one point he's talking about politicians outside trying to gain power over them, and he's saying, like, they're too busy stealing to study human nature, right? Because they've missed something important. And when you talk about entrepreneurship and building something, Deadwood, to me is about building human civilization. It's a metaphor for human civilization. And where does it start? And it's very, very crude and rough and brutish. And over time, you kind of build up and you create these lies, basically, that everybody agrees upon, Right? That's the title of one of the episodes, A Lie Agreed Upon. And everybody agrees that this guy is the sheriff, this guy is the mayor. Oh, now we are doing this this way. And. And it's all really a lie, right? There's nothing concrete that forces people, but once they kind of agree, it changes how everybody behaves. So in the first season, every problem that Al has is like, okay, let's get my knife, right? Or let's send Dan to kill the guy. But over time, there's less and less killing of that kind. Right? There's still violence, but not in the same way, because now they're more civilized now they've kind of moved past that point. And what the show to me reminds me of is, you know, as a metaphor for companies, for countries, for Whatever is, there's the real kind of origin story, which is often like, bloody and terrible and like, it's kind of like bad stuff happening from all angles, right. It's hard to find someone who's all clean and pure in there. And then over time, these origin stories get sanitized and they get changed. And now that people have moved on and are kind of like in a less rough circumstance, well, they kind of revisit the past and like, oh, well, what actually happened is. And then they rewrite history. And I feel like Deadwood is a way to remind us that, you know what, when Al talks about how he and Dan came in the swamp and they were chopping down trees and building the town, like they really had to build a town from absolutely nothing to start this civilization, this community, right? Someone has to be there first. Like, there's no infrastructure, there's no police, there's no rules already pre existing. Like, you started from nothing, right? It's all made up. It's all someone that came up with it. And we tend to forget this because we all live. Well, most of us live in societies that are pretty stable and like, all that stuff happened hundreds of years ago,
- [10:37]
B
right, that were built by other people in the past. I think that's a great observation you had that. A theme of Deadwood as it, as it progresses from the first to the third season is how malleable the world is. You know, they were frontiersmen. There was no laws. Then over time, there's more people that start setting up in camp. Then they're like, okay. And to your point, it's like, okay, well, they look around like, what do other forms of human civilization have? Well, we need some kind of law. We have the press here. We have a sheriff, we have a mayor. We have these committees of people that get together and they make decisions for the group. You know what I mean? Like, when they're meeting, they're always like, you know, it's a special meeting when they pull out the peaches.
- [11:10]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [11:12]
B
And so like, and all the meetings are happening in Al's, you know, saloon, in the gym, Gem Saloon. We talked about, hey, if we ever did a, a video version of this podcast, we'd have to get a green screen in the back and it'd be me, you, sitting in the Gem Saloon. Because so many main events and important decisions take place in Al's establishment that he was, you know, the founder of. But there is a, something that Al says. So there is a character named Merrick. Merrick is the reporter the publisher of the, the lone, you know, Deadwood newspaper. Right. And he gets, you know, he's America. I don't know how you describe him, but to me he's like a character where he's like, unbelievably nice and kind of almost too nice for the rough environment that he lives in.
- [11:52]
A
He's probably the most, like, naive and idealistic character in the show. Right. He thinks all things should be working this way and he kind of doesn't realize it's actually very different.
- [12:01]
B
Yeah. And he happens to be neighbors. His newspaper is next to Al. And so there's a time where I forgot who, who was like, beating up on Merrick.
- [12:09]
A
It's guys, okay.
- [12:12]
B
So I can remember if it was Hearst or. So Tsai Tolliver's guys. They beat him up, like, to your point, he's really naive, way too nice for this rough environment that he's in. And he's going to get run over by people that do not have the same sense of ethics as him. So he's feeling down on himself. And Al gives the greatest, one of the greatest speeches I've ever heard in any show ever. And so much so that I went and looked for the quote and there's a pic, there's a ton of them online where you see a picture of Al and then they overlay the quote and I save it. And now it's in my Favorites folder on my pH. And I look at this all the time because this is how I feel like again, being a student of history, reading biographies for a living, you just, you see the full scope of humanity. Right. Played out over and over again. And a lot of it is we live in a very rough world. Right. And I think, not being naive to that, that there are people out there. Even if 95%, whatever percent you want to put it, even if 95% of all humans are nice and kind and in my lived experience, it's been. That's not been the case at all. But I know some people have had that lived experience. That's fantastic. But let's say, you know, the vast majority of humanity are nice to each other or whatever the case is. That 5%, that's that 1%, that 10%, whatever you want to put, it's like borderline psychopathic or sociopathic and they can do an unbelievable amount of damage. I just got done reading Stripe Press, has this fantastic. They're reprinting all these like old, old and hard to find books.
- [13:28]
A
Super nice design, too.
- [13:29]
B
Yeah, they're beautiful. Look at this one. So I just read Vannevar Bush's Pieces of the Action, and he might be the. They make the case that he is the most important American to ever live in terms of science, the impact of science and technology.
- [13:40]
A
He was a mentor of Claude Shannon, one of my. My boy.
- [13:43]
B
Unbelievable. Like, there's so many people in that book. At the end of that book that Stripe Press produced, there's like 27 pages. I think he goes to, like, 250 historical figures that he. His life interacted with. And he gives, like, little descriptions of who they were and what role they played. Right. But he makes the point, you know, this guy's a genius. And he's writing the book. It's published in 1970. He's 80 years old. He's had a lived experience so far beyond most anybody has ever lived. Right. He's one of the smartest people I've ever come across, one of the most formidable people I've ever come across. One of the people has the most unique life experience. And this is a range of people that he was exposed to. And he says in the book, like, we live in a rough world. And this is, you know, some. Somewhat of an academic. He was a company founder, he was an engineer, he was a scientist. But I really feel like what his conclusion, or one of the themes of the book is very similar to what Al tells Merrick. And Merrick's sitting down there, he's kind of, you know, downtrodden, feeling sorry for himself. He's like, can't believe this guy smacked me around, got beat up. And Al smacks him in the face to get his attention, right? And he goes, pain or damage don't end the world. I'm going to read the exact quote. And I think if you haven't watched Deadwood, it is. I've never come across writing like this in another TV show. Like, oh, my God. I had to rewind sometimes to figure out what the hell does that mean. It's written like almost like a Shakespeare play to some degree, right? So he says, pain or damage don't end the world, or despair or beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man and give them back. And that idea is where he says, the world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. That. That's. That's a much harsher version of what Charlie Munger says. He's like, listen, if you live long enough, bad things are going to happen to you. It's inevitable. Everybody experiences bad things. Obviously he's referencing in his case like his 9 year old son dying, I think of leukemia, you know, when he was a young man. And his whole point is like, okay, so what's to what Al's saying and to what Charlie, to me is saying is just like, what's the point? Like you going to sit there and complain? It's like, no, that is part of life. You've got to make yourself stronger and you've got to learn how to endure through these bad things. And so Charlie Munger may say, may express that idea in a different language, but Al says like, give some of it back and it's not going to end until you're dead.
- [15:54]
A
And feeling sorry doesn't make the situation any better, it just makes it worse. Right? So that part, skip it as fast as possible and move on to the part where you're actually doing something right, you're trying to take control back or do something good or whatever it is.
- [16:06]
B
And what's Maric's response? He gets back up and he gets back to work. That's all you can do.
- [16:10]
A
Exactly. The thing is, Maric was about to give up. Not so much because he got a beating, it's because his equipment had been damaged. Right? And so Al is like, how long will it take you to fix this stuff? And Merrick says, oh, the equipment is okay, but the psychic damage is what make me quit, basically. And that's when I was like, yeah, that part, you can't let it stop you because it's always coming. There's always more. Right? It's like I wrote something recently about expectations where if you expect that life should be always fine and without problem, then every problem is going to seem like a terrible imposition on you. Like, how dare the world do this to me, right? It's not supposed to happen. But if you expect that problems are always going to come, then you kind of be prepared for it and you become the person that's good at solving problems and moving forward. That skill is going to always be in demand in the world. Right? So it's all about what you expect.
- [16:59]
B
That's a matter of perspective. And you realize with time that you can actually learn to change the way you view things. Andrew Carnegie has this fantastic quote in his autobiographies, like, young men should know that a sunny disposition is worth more than a fortune. And you can move your, your mental, your. I forgot the word he used. But like your mentality from the shade to the sunshine, like another way to think about the same idea is there's this guy named Henry Kaiser who was as famous in his day as, say, like an Elon Musk is in the world you and I inhabit today. And Henry Kaiser built, like, over 100 different companies. He was one of the people that built the Hoover Dam. He built the Liberty ships in World War II. The guy's career is just unbelievable. But one thing I learned from him that was absolutely fascinating and I'm glad I read his biography and this lesson wasn't lost to history, was that he had this great saying that problems are just opportunities and workflows. So same thing. There's examples in the book where he, you know, one of his. If he's building a ship or if he's building a construction company, whatever, something gets damaged. There was a flood at one point. I can't remember what they were building. They were building some kind of physical. He built mostly physical goods, although his insurance company is still around to the stairs. Healthcare company, Kaiser Permanente, or however you pronounce it, Permanente. I think he comes across his employee in the book and his employees just, like, all down and out. And he's just like, look, now it's all flooded and mud. It's all muddy here. And Kaiser, who again, is facing severe economic loss, is, like, bouncing on his feet and laughing. And he's like, yeah, it's rainy and muddy now, but look above. He goes, the sun's coming out. The sun's going to dry all this up. And then, like, we're going to overcome this. We're going to move on. And I think just distilling that mentality, that perspective down to that maximum, like, problems are just opportunities and workloads. It's fine. It's an opportunity. It's not a problem.
- [18:33]
A
Absolutely. Another thing about this show that I don't know if you've noticed because there's a bunch of stuff. Like, the first time I saw it, it mostly about, like, trying to follow the plot and who are all these people? Right? And then the second time, you can look at different layers and different layers. And the show has so many layers. Every time I've rewatched it, I've enjoyed it as much or more as the previous time. Right. So that's a sign of a good show to me. So one of the things I've noticed is that almost every scene is not about what the characters are saying. The words are about a certain topic, but there's always something else that's going on, right? So, for example, Al, as a character Called Jewel. That's kind of like, you know, doing work around the saloon. And she has cerebral palsy. And he's always in words. He's always on their case, right? He's always insulting her and screaming at her. But what it's really about is he's protecting her. He doesn't need her around, right? But he knows that she'd probably have a much worse life out there than here. So he keeps her close. When she's not able to do something, he's gonna scream at her, but he's gonna take the brush from her hand and do it himself and pretend that he's showing her how to do it. But he's basically always helping her and protecting her, right? So the words may seem very. To say one thing, but the actions and the kind of subtext is something else, right? It's the same when Bullock and Alma meets. They're always talking about, oh, disclaimer that. But the real subtext is like, I like you. Do you like me? Do you like. They're negotiating something else without words every scene. To me, when I think about it, it's like it's about something else. And few shows have this many layers. And I don't know if you've kind of noticed that theme going on.
- [20:00]
B
But, yeah, to your point, his words, Al's words, like, what he's saying is completely hateful. But his actions, he's showing through his actions that he actually cares about Joel and that he's trying to. Like, that's the thing about Al. He's even like that with Trixie when he does something terrible where Trixie tries to shoot Hearst, or she does shoot Hearst, and she unsuccessfully, like, tries to attempt to murder him and fails, right? And then Hearst is this, like, crazy, crazily powerful character. Like, he's a real character. Like, he exists in real life, but he wasn't, like, this psychopathic killer in
- [20:29]
A
the world of Deadwood. I've seen this metaphor, and I love it, is people like Al and Hurst are kind of the gods of the camp, right? It's like in a Greek play where there are the gods. They're standing on the balconies above the town, right? So they're mythological figures. Yeah.
- [20:41]
B
Yep. And everybody else is on the board is dancing to the tune that they're the ones playing. But, like, even in that case where she shoots Hearst, Hurst demands that she gets killed for that, right? Al knows that he can. He's not strong enough to fight Hearst directly. And another good thing about the way Al thinks is like, he's very strategic, and he's always, like, flanking people. He's never going to fight you directly. Like, he's going to. I got to go to how he reminds me of Henry Singleton in a minute, so don't let me forget that. But in this scenario where he's just, like, he loves Trixie, right. Even though she was technically, like, one of his prostitutes. Right. And now she's with another, like, relationship with Seth's partner.
- [21:17]
A
But he respects her, but he still
- [21:18]
B
loves, and he feels a need to protect her. And she. When she's. She demonstrates that, too. Because when she's. Every. Every time she's in trouble, she doesn't run to Soul Star.
- [21:27]
A
Yeah.
- [21:27]
B
She runs to Al. Right. And so Al does. This is where it's so, like, it's heinous. Like, he winds up killing. He's like, okay, well, I'm not gonna give her Trixie's corpse. Right. So he winds up killing a. A woman that lived. That. That works for him. That looks like Trixie. Right. He murders a innocent woman to protect a woman he loves. That is. I don't even know. Like, it's so. It just throw. I don't know what to do with that. Right. Like, obviously don't innocent people. But the point is, is, like, you're thinking. I think the writers obviously wanted you to think about the complexity of his Trixie, not that, oh, he's a murderer. Like, obviously, you know, humans scorn murderers. Like, we don't like them. And so I just think that's extremely. To your point. This is not black and white. This is not straightforward. There's going to be me and you watching it having different interpretations. And probably as you rewatch it, the interpretations change because they get deeper. The reason I wanted to tie this together real quick, where something else that's very interesting about Al with other people is how much time the show dedicates to him by himself, thinking through strategies. And sometimes he's not by himself because he has this weird thing where he gives monologues when he's getting a blowjob. Right? Yeah.
- [22:44]
A
Or he talks to the severed head of a dead Indian chief.
- [22:48]
B
But you hear his strategy. So his strategy comes where he's talking to the severed head of a Native American, and also when he's essentially getting sexual acts performed on him, which, again, goes to the show. But my point being is I had a weird reaction to that in the sense it's like, oh, one thing I learned about when I read about Henry Singleton, not only the book the outsiders, but also in distant force, is how much time he just spent alone in his office, trying to think things through with what he wanted to do with his company. And in both books, they compare and contrast the way he spent his time as CEO, how most CEOs spend their time. And I think when you see the difference, like, we were talking before we started recording the importance of having time alone with your own thoughts. Right. We were talking about going on walks or exercising, whatever the case was. But then Al applies that to his business, and his business is survival. If you really think about it, he's like, you know, in my case, like, I'm not only worried about losing the Gem Saloon, I can, you know, I'm going to war with murder. Other killers. Like, he got. There was a bunch of assassination attempts like that happened in his saloon. And I think there's a message there where it's just like, okay, you see this person conducting his life. He is supposed to be this uneducated orphan, and yet he spends more time thinking through the decisions he's making in life than I think any other character that we see other than maybe Hearst, who you see him a couple times laying on his back by himself in the room, you know, just alone with his thoughts.
- [24:08]
A
Yeah. Thinking through and doing a lot to acquire the information in the first place. He's always trying to embed his people elsewhere. Right. Tricksio, watch out what Saul and Bullock are doing. You go with Alma with the widow and try to get her on dope and talk about the claim. He's sending EB to spy for him in every kind of place. Like with Glasnov and all. Like, he's always. He has this network that's feeding him the information and then the processing of it and all the monologues. The way I see it is, like, all the characters on the show are very, like, old school by definition. Like 1800s now. They can't express their emotions at all. The only way Al can talk about his childhood or anything is that when he's someone who can't talk back, someone who's like, so below him, like, in status and just can't. Can't. Like, every character can never express their emotions. Like, Al has a bunch of feelings for Trixie, but he's never gonna say it. Right. Another big theme in the show is that intelligence is currency in this town. And Al is probably the smartest person. And at first he's surrounded by, you know, nobody's on his level. The smartest person in the Gems Saloon at first is Probably Trixie. And you can see why they're so close, right? He has someone he can actually talk to. And then as much as. That's a good point, Al love Dan. Dan is like, they have this bond, right. But when Silas shows up, like Adams, Al immediately sees that this guy is smart. Right. I could do stuff with this guy that I can't do with Dan and my other henchmen.
- [25:27]
B
Right.
- [25:27]
A
Johnny's never going to be the smartest guy. So smart people in this town are so few and far between, they recognize each other. Same thing like with Miss ISS Ringhausen.
- [25:37]
B
I cannot pronounce her name either.
- [25:38]
A
Sarah Paulson plays a wonderful role where she's kind of like a Pinkerton undercover. Like, she works for, like, a kind of detective, like, private military agency. And so she pretends to be like, a little school teacher kind of type, but she's actually kind of a stone cold killer.
- [25:51]
B
Right.
- [25:51]
A
And as soon as she talks with Al, Al realizes how smart she is. And they're on the same level immediately. And they respect each other. Right. Every time someone smart comes around, the other smart people kind of like, try to see, like, can I bring them to my side? Can I? Like, it's such a rare currency in this world. And it's interesting. I. I see few shows that do it like that.
- [26:09]
B
And I love the juxtaposition between the people that are playing the game of life and people are just existing. Most of the characters in the show are just existing. They're like, they're blinder. Like, their focus is exactly what's in front of their face. Like, what is good for me. Like EB Farm. They do a great job. Like, his words and the greasy sleaziness match up with what he looks like for the first. Like, he eventually gets a new jacket, like, halfway into the series. But I kept telling my wife, I'm like, what? This guy owns a hotel? He makes a little bit of money, like, buy a different jacket. Like, but they made him look like. His physical character is a great indication of, like, the stuff, the sleaziness and the weaselness that comes out of his mouth. And to your point, Al sees him as, like, a useful idiot. Right. Like, and to some degree, I think EB Thought of Al like a friend. But even the, like, the characters that are supposed to be, like, morally upright, even though, like, Seth, obviously Bullock is supposed to play that role. But then you see him having an affair. You see him, you know, losing his temper.
- [27:03]
A
Yeah. Anger management issues.
- [27:05]
B
Yeah. You see him asking at one point, like, What. What kind of man am I becoming? Where I really feel like you just hit on. There's just a few of them are actually seeing the board as the whole. Right. And obviously George Hurst is doing that. Obviously Al is doing that. Then you have these minor characters who me and you both cannot pronounce her name. And you just mentioned her. And then to a lesser degree, like, Adam was smart, where he switched sides because he saw. He's like, oh, my boss is going to lose. And so, like, I'm on the wrong team, and if I stay on this team, that team's going to run me over. I should go see if I can provide services to Al. And to your point, Al realizes right away. So you just hit a couple of my favorite characters. So obviously my favorite character is Al. And then there's just some, like, I don't know why I like Adams. I just do. I have no idea. Like, I really like him. I like Doc. I like Doc Cochran. Oh, yeah, Because Doc Cochran doesn't take any shit.
- [27:53]
A
Yeah, well, he's seen too much in the Civil War, I think, to give a shit anymore. And he also kind of like, I think he uses his position as the only Doc in town. Like, he's like, okay, Al, you're not going to kill me because you're going to be in big trouble without the Doc.
- [28:05]
B
Without the Doc, because he's the one that has to take care of the sexually transmitted diseases of Al's employees. And he also has. He knows something that I noticed when I'm reading these books where when you come across these extremely intelligent, formidable people, usually they're also aggressive. But the worst thing you could do is not fight back. Like, they will respect you more if you stand up to them than if you just let them roll over you. And Doc, he doesn't let Cytoliver he quite remember. He's like, oh, that's it. I'm giving up. Because what they were doing with the. With the. The Chinese prostitutes that they were importing in, he's like, I'm not doing this. So he stood up to Cy Toliver. Like, he stands up to Al. He stands up to all of the bullies. And in some degree you have to describe, I think, a psy, a George Hearst and an Al as a bully. Right? They are definitely utilizing other humans to their ends and their ends only. And that kind of stops where they. Besides Trixie and some other relationships and psy with Joni Stubbs, where there's. There may be one or two people they actually care and love about. But the rest of them are just disposable.
- [29:05]
A
I think the character that has the least redeemable qualities is probably Cy Tolliver. Right. Because all the others are kind of bad guys, but you can find good sides to them. And Sy is just purely psychopath. Right.
- [29:15]
B
Sociopath, I would say him and Wolcott. Because, like.
- [29:19]
A
Well, Walcott is probably a sociopath, but he has kind of lovable qualities. Right. He has a good sense of humor. Like, as a viewer, you kind of can enjoy him on screen. Sy is more like. You kind of love to hate him, Right? He doesn't have that many lovable qualities.
- [29:33]
B
No, that's a. Yeah, that's a good point. Where before you see that he. There's hints that he was like a. That he would kill prostitutes for that you see, like a cultured, educated person. He usually dressed better and more groomed. You know, they're living in a frontier town. It's like, why is this guy look so good? He's obviously incredibly smart. If he could be George Hurst, who's one of the richest people in America at the time, his second in command. But then you see, you know, that he's got some kind of weird, uncontrollable. And then you start. He has weird. You know, and I've read a few books on serial killers, and they have, you know, some kind of, like, sexual. Like not deviancy. Like he.
- [30:08]
A
Compulsion.
- [30:09]
B
Yeah, compulsion. And like these just weird, uncontrollable relations with the opposite sex. And that comes out in his character. You mentioned another character that I like. I love Wu. I love Wu.
- [30:22]
A
Oh, yeah. He's kind of like the. The owl from the other side of town. Right.
- [30:28]
B
And their reaction to. With each other, like, they can't speak the same language. It's just. It's great. But you mentioned somebody like, I didn't really care for. I didn't even really pay attention to. But as the series goes on, like Dan.
- [30:39]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [30:40]
B
Dan is this, like, big, gruff, mean killer. But as it goes on, you see his fierce loyalty to Al. You hear about the background. Like, he's willing to sacrifice his life for his friend. Right. He goes out, fights, what, Captain Turner? Yeah. And the longer the show goes on, the more I like Dan.
- [30:59]
A
Yeah. At first he seems just a muscle, but he's kind of like a mix of like, a big grizzly bear and like a Saint Bernard. Right. It depends on the context.
- [31:08]
B
Yeah, that's a really good way to
- [31:10]
A
put it, actually, about the intelligence as currency. Another thing I love in the show is that some shows would be like, only the top players would be the smartest. And in this show, intelligence is kind of like distributed randomly, right? So when Wolcott meets Joanie, he immediately noticed that she's smart, right. And they start talking about all kinds of stuff, and they play kind of word games together, and, like, anyone could be on Walcott's level. Even though Joanie is kind of like, at the bottom of the social ladder in the city and Wolcott is at the very top. That's another cool aspect of the show. It's kind of like. Kind of like real life, Right. Anyone could come out of anywhere. Right. It's not all, like, designed by, like, in some shows where you know who's important because everybody else is a 1D cardboard piece of character, Right?
- [31:52]
B
Yeah. And to your point, you learn about them through their interactions with other people. As to your point, like, when you see Joni, you're introduced to Joanie, she's like, oh, Psy, you know, bought her essentially when she was, like, a little girl, like 14 or 16 or whatever it is. He seems to almost be, like, in love with her, kind of, you know, Psy in his weird way. Some kind of weird, yeah. But he's also, like, extremely ruthless and mean. But then she realizes, hey, she finds herself in a situation where she has no power and no control, Right. She's essentially sold into sexual slavery when she was a teenager. But then through the surviving in that environment now she's probably in that environment for 10 or 15 years, whatever the timeframe has been. She's developing a very unique set of skills. And then she can also use those. It's like a sense of resourcefulness, you know, where it's like, okay, I can't beat the men on physical power. Even though she carries a gun with her all the time, which is obviously really smart, but they're somewhat predictable in what they want. Usually, men want power, money, and sex, you know, and so she uses that to. As a way to maneuver herself. And in a sense, like, where she disentangles herself from Sai and gets people to who funded her brothel.
- [32:57]
A
It was Sai's partner, played by Ricky J. The kind of card guy that kind of left after stealing from Sai. Yeah.
- [33:04]
B
Okay. That's okay. There you go. Yeah. Because I was like, where did she get the money? I know Psy said maybe he was going to do it, but I couldn't remember.
- [33:09]
A
I think she was sitting up. But then. Then he gave her some. Some more.
- [33:12]
B
And then he. He winds up Stealing money from Sy and then disappearing, right?
- [33:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. He was supposed to die in the show originally, but they didn't end up filming the scene, so they kind of just had a throwaway line. But Sai was supposed to kill him after finding out he stole from him, but that didn't happen. Yeah.
- [33:26]
B
And so you think about that. You go from like 14, 15 year olds sold into sex slavery, maybe 10 years, 15 years later, finding a way to like open her own business and have a little level of freedom. Now obviously that turned out extremely, you know, negative. Yeah. But she finds a way to survive and she demonstrates her intelligence through the. Through actually surviving in an environment where she's physically weaker, she's at a disadvantage. She doesn't have the money, she doesn't have the physical strength. And she's not like she doesn't have a team of killers like most of these people do. All the powerful people on the board, and Sai included have whether he's killing, doing the killing himself. They have people willing to kill for them. That's their version of conflict resolution. It's like, okay, well let's come to terms. Let's try to partner up on this. And if we can't do that, then we're going to go to war and we're going to settle our dispute to the death.
- [34:12]
A
Yeah. And another interesting theme about this power is that it's not used the same by all of the characters. So people like Hearst, they want the power to kind of control the town, exploit the gold and the resources. Al wants power, but mostly so others don't have power over him. Right. It's kind of like a negative. The only reason he wants power, the only political maneuvers he does in the town to kind of form this mock government in between, it's just so others don't come in and have power over him. His goal seems to be to stay free and independent. And that's interesting too. Right. Because it would be easy to have Al as the crime boss who's just thinking about money and controlling everybody else. And then it's a power struggle between Al and Sy and Hearst about who's controlling the town. But Al is kind of like doing this flip thing where he's like, no, I just want others not to control me. That's another layer that I love.
- [35:02]
B
That's a good point. And if you think about it like, why would he go from Chicago? I think that's where he was he escaped from.
- [35:07]
A
Right? I think so.
- [35:08]
B
Because he had like all those things warrants out for his arrest because he kept killing people over there. He's really good with his knife.
- [35:13]
A
I think he killed a corrupt policeman, actually. Yeah.
- [35:15]
B
Yeah. And so you think about it as I go, well, what kind of personality would go to the frontier? Right. I'm fascinated by the history of the American West. I've read a bunch of books on it because it's just, you know, it's complete. There were no laws because there was no civilization. And the stuff people did during those times are obviously the worst things that they could possibly do to each other. But think about the personality type that you have to have for a character to go out of Chicago, which is way more. And even the Alma. What's her.
- [35:42]
A
Elsa, Alma Garrett. Yeah, I think she came from New
- [35:44]
B
York, but, yeah, the Garretts, her husband, who obviously gets killed. He's in an environment he can't survive in.
- [35:50]
A
Yeah, he's way over his head.
- [35:51]
B
But what kind of person is going to leave Chicago? What kind of person is going to leave New York and then go to the frontier? You go from the height of American civilization at the time. Right. To no civilization at all. And to your point, the kind of people that did that did not like other people having control or power or telling them what to do.
- [36:08]
A
Well, you see what happens when they get, like, the barest minimum of government in the town, like when Bullock and Charlie Otter become fire marshal, and they just go into the number 10 saloon and they're like, oh, your stovepipe is, like, dangerous. People freak out. Like, who do you think you are? You're the government and telling me what to do. And like, these people came there because they just can't handle authority. Right. They just went as far as possible to get away from any kind of authorities and laws. And that's the first kind of wave of people came there. Then when it became like, oh, there's tons of gold there, then there's a bunch of people were not kind of as idealistic or driven by that. They're just driven by purely by money. But it feels like the first wave of people, like the people from the Number 10 Saloon, Al and Dan, all these people are kind of like the don't mess with my life. Right. And then the other wave of people like Hearst, and they don't care about that. They just want to go. They just don't want the money.
- [36:57]
B
So that's actually, you know, obviously Hearst is a very unlikable character. I don't think there's many redeeming qualities at all that they present to the viewer.
- [37:05]
A
He's interesting to watch and to listen to. But as a person, like, terrible, terrible.
- [37:09]
B
I think there's actual. So I always view things through, like, you know, entrepreneurship and the fact that George Hurst. I think one of the main themes in studying the history of entrepreneurship is the importance of focus. And I think that's going to become even more important in the age that we live in, because we live in the age of infinite distraction, right? So we literally have. We can fill our entire. Like, we can amuse ourselves to death every single day. And I think some of the best, like, for. Especially for founders and entrepreneurs and investors, too, it's like the ability to actually, like, focus. Put blinders on, like a horse does, right? And only focus on, like, what you're actually, like what business that you're building, what is the services you're providing for other humans. And these are the weird thoughts I have when I'm watching the show, because George comes out. George Horse comes right around. He's like, I only care about the color, right? And so that's his. His word for I want gold. I'm only focused on gold. Every other decision I'm making has to do with whether it's breaking a strike through killing people or whatever the case is, like, give me getting more gold. Now, obviously, that is meant, I think, for the viewer to be like, this guy's greedy and, you know, he's already richer than he needs to be, and he treats all the workers poorly. Obviously, that's like, the negative aspect of it. But his idea where he's just like, gold confers power. Power comes to any man who has the color, right? And so therefore, in his mind, because he wants the accumulation of power through money and control of other people, in his mind, he's like, I can't think about anything else than the color than gold. And that is. The one idea he had was like, that's actually a real genius idea because he's refusing to allow himself to be distracted off his goal. Now, we can obviously take issue with how his ruthlessness and his achievement of that goal. But I think that in terms like, if you study people that get to the top of the profession or do anything difficult, it's not like a scattershot approach. They're not working on, you know, 10 different things at once. They are focused on whatever. Whatever objective they have and the desire they have in life, they're running after that thing and not allowing themselves to be distracted. And I think that is actually one of the best lines in the entire show, where he's like, I Only care about the color.
- [39:09]
A
Yeah. For every polymath, like Ben Graham or Henry Singleton, there's way more people who are maniacally focused on one thing. Like Buffett. Right. I'm only investing. I'm only thinking about business all day long. Like a lot of.
- [39:21]
B
But even singleton. But if you ever. Even singleton, like, yes, obviously. Genius. Like, I don't think you and I can replicate him. You know, the guy could just like grandmaster chess. He could play it blindfold and like all this crazy stuff. But his focus, though, was on building making Teledyne as valuable as possible. And so he only did. Yeah, I think he started the company. He's like 43, ran it for 20 years, then, you know, goes off to his ranch or whatever. But during that 20 years, it wasn't like he was trying to be his focus. Like, I'm going to be the best I can at.
- [39:47]
A
That's a good point.
- [39:47]
B
One thing that I'm focused on. And then once he left, then he starts going on the ranch. And he had some good ideas when he went on the ranch where, like, you know, guys, I think. I think the third largest land private landowner in the world at the time in the United States, rather unbelievably wealthy. And yet he talks about in. I think it's in distant forest where he's just like. He fills out every single check that his ranch, like every single expense. He's the one handwriting the check. And he calls it a kind of discipline. And he's like, me, of course I could hire somebody else to do this. But his whole point is, like, the money is the lifeblood of any kind of organization, whether it's a private company or it's this cattle ranch. And me knowing every single expense that this ranch has. It's a kind of discipline and a form of education to actually know what's going on. So I think that speaks to his ability to focus.
- [40:29]
A
Yeah. Figure out what matters and stay close to that thing. Right. Don't create distance over time because it's more convenient for you or whatever. But then you lose track of the thing that really matters.
- [40:37]
B
Yep.
- [40:38]
A
Another great team in the show that I. I now see in a new light now that I've read the Deadwood Bible, because to me, David Milch, the creator of the show, and this is one of those show. Deadwood is one of those shows like Mad Men or Sopranos that is very centered around one person. Some shows have like a writer room and everybody contributes and it's kind of like a group effort and some Shows, it's like the voice of one person, and there's still plenty of other people helping them. Right. But it's more like the author thing. So almost every character in Deadwood is dealing with addiction and abuse. And now that I've learned about the life of David Milch, I understand why. Right. Milch was abused and molested as a kid for years in a camp, for many years in a row at a camp that he went to later in life. He was a drug addict. He was a gambling addict. I think over his career, he made a lot of money with NYPD Blue. He had, like, maybe $100 million, and he lost pretty much all of it gambling and giving it away to people around him. He was super generous. He was giving money to all his employees and people around. But the guy had very, very big problems with addiction. And maybe the root of that was the abuse. And so in Deadwood, when you look at through this lens and people who knew him say that David Milch put himself some characteristics, and Al is kind of like one of the avatars of David Milch. Right. He's not the same, but people kind of recognize some of him in there. Right. Hearst has some characteristics of David Milch, too. Milch had a bad back, so he was laying on the ground and dictating scenes, and other people were writing them. So. So when you see Hearst, like, standing on the. On the door or on a plank or something, that's kind of like a David Milch thing. Right. But almost everybody else, many, many of the women on the show, if you read between the lines, like, sounds like they were abused as children. There's tons of characters that are alcoholics or on drugs. Like Calmity Jane, like, she's basically trying to kill herself with alcohol after Bill dies. And even the Dr. Doc Cochrane, like, when he's on the job, he doesn't drink. And as soon as he punches out, like, you're going to find him drunk in his tiny hut at the end of the street. All these characters and this theme is like, it's just basically David Mills trying to exorcise his demons. I feel like. And once you see it like that, to me it feels even more like, poignant and emotional.
- [42:40]
B
How many shots of liquor are on screen throughout the series? It's like, every time they make a statement, we're gonna take a shot. It's unbelievable. And to your point, I don't know if that was intentional or not, but you're not gonna watch the show and be like, hey, you know what? I'm missing out on my life. Like, a heavy alcohol habit because they make terrible decisions when they're drunk. They destroy their health. Usually it leads to some sort of violence. And like, Calamity Jane is the perfect example. She's also one of my favorite characters. Like, her attitude, she's amazing.
- [43:10]
A
I've never seen a character like that on any other show. Robin Weigert, the actress. Like, I don't know how she does it.
- [43:16]
B
The dialogue that she has is amazing. Her attitude is fantastic. But then you empathize, and you start to like the character. And then you also. But then you realize, like, she's, like, essentially homeless. She sleeps outside most of the time. She's usually woken up in a violent manner. Like, somebody's shaking her because she's so drunk, and she's drinking an entire bottle of alcohol to the head every night.
- [43:36]
A
Or she wakes up. One time she says, I woke up, like, bruises all over me, my horse gone, and I don't know what happened. Right. What kind of life is that to lead? Right.
- [43:45]
B
Blacking out. To your point, though, that's what I love. Like, one of my. I discovered this guy named David Ogilvy when I was reading Warren Buffett Shareholder Letters because Warren Buffett was investing into Ogilvy and Mather, which is the advertising agency that David founded. And Warren's like, yeah, David Ogilvie is a genius. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I should read about him. So I started reading. David wrote a bunch of books, and I started reading all his books. I'm like, oh, I love this guy. Now I've read, like, five or six of them, and I've done a bunch of podcasts on them. But he says something that's really interesting. He says, down with committees. Search all the parks in your city. You'll never find a statue that's dedicated to a committee. And I think the best products, the best companies, the best experiences are usually come from, like, the mind and the. The energy of one person. And then they refuse to compromise. They have to recruit other people to bring their vision to life. Like David did. Right?
- [44:32]
A
Yeah.
- [44:32]
B
But what you picked up on is I was listening to Ian McShane.
- [44:36]
A
McSheen McShane, I think.
- [44:38]
B
And you know, that guy's an extremely accomplished actor. Absolutely lives a really interesting life. And he said that David the showrunner was in complete control of the narrative. And he also said that he was the best showrunner that Ian had ever worked for. And he would say, it's like, it's not just the Words on the page, but he would watch. What, like the words that he wrote and then he'd see the scenes and then he'd watch and then he would have the combination or two and he'd go back and he's like, I noticed something else. And he would change it on the fly. And he talked about that David had complete control over the entire environment. So it speaks to your point. So it's like, this is not a committee. It is the obsessive mind of a gifted writer that wanted to bring Deadwood to life and refused to compromise on his vision.
- [45:23]
A
I have so much to say about this. One of the things that made Deadwood so different is that they had this, this set, basically this 360 degree set of the town built up on Melody Ranch in California somewhere. And basically any other show you have a set for like this angle or this room or, okay, you want another angle? Well, we gotta change it. We gotta pick up a crew and everything has to be planned in advance. But when the set is already built from all angles, you can improvise, you can change things. And after a while, the actors figured out that David was always changing the script at the last minute. So they all started hanging around the ranch even when they weren't shooting. And so David would be like, oh, you're around, you're around. Let's do a scene. And then they would do something just based on what they had, right? The actors found it very, very challenging because they have these very difficult words to say, right? And they got the pages like the morning of the day off because David last night found a new. A new way to make the scene even better. So he was always changing it to the last minute. So that probably was very difficult in the moment. But the result, it's super organic. And then David would write something for E.B. right, for the season one. And then he'd watch the actor for a while. And he realized that the actor that played E.B. was super nervous. He was an anxious guy, right? He had sweaty palms in real life, so he wrote that in. Not only that, he said, oh, he's a nervous guy, he's anxious. He gave him the longest speech and so he was even more nervous. So it brought out the actor's real traits, but inside of the character, so the character seems so realistic because it was custom made for the actor. There was this feedback loop, right? All the other actors came to David and were like, the guy who does EB like he fucks up all the time, right? It takes him 25 takes to do this long speech, right? Do we need him? Right. Is he the right guy? And David was like, he can take as long as he wants, because when he gets it, it's amazing. And that's all he cared about, right? The final product, the final results. Like, if it works, it works however you have to do it. Jim Beaver, the actor who plays Ellsworth, one of the rare characters that everybody loves in the show, and I can't say anything bad about him. His wife died, I think, during the filming of the show, or not long before. And David wrote a scene for Ellsworth where he's talking to Alma and he's talking about, I used to have a wife and a daughter, and they died and this and that. And all the other actors were like. They went to Beaver and they said, how could David do this to you? Right? He's using your pain, right? He's, like, exploiting you or something. Everybody were kind of shocked, and Jim Beaver said, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. David could understand what I was going through and gave me a way to make something good out of something terrible and to use these emotions to make something beautiful and to kind of, like, process them through a character. Right. Because I think David Mills probably had so much pain in his life. He had a very difficult life. In fact, I think most of his family are, like, basically gangsters. And his father is the only person in the family that wasn't in the family crime business. Because the others said, we need someone legit in the family. So you're going to be the legit guy. We're going to keep you out of it. But all his uncles and people around, like, he had, like, he probably saw all kinds of stuff through his life, like, so I feel like he probably could understand this kind of deep pain that maybe some other writers or showrunners wouldn't. So, yeah, Deadwood was probably, like, from HBO's perspective, it was a mess because they never had scripts in advance, never knew what was going on. Everything was improvised, Everything was expensive because you have all these extras in this big set. But that's why it's unique. If they had the same process as every other show, it would probably look and feel like every other show a bit more.
- [48:45]
B
Right. So I didn't know any of that background that you just said. And what I thought of, it's like he was. David was working on something that was alive.
- [48:53]
A
Yeah.
- [48:54]
B
It's not like, okay, this is what we have written down the paper. We're just gonna stick with it. That's something I learned about Walt Disney, that I was surprised when I read his biography. It was just like, Walt Disney, you take a Mickey Mouse, you take up animation, you think of Snow White, you think of everything else. And then you realize that the thing that he was most proud of as he was dying, he said there was two things he was most proud of, that he was able to keep control. Start his company, but keep control of it because he lost control of his first company. Right. And Disneyland. And the reason was he made the point that when he made, like, Snow White or a Mickey Mouse movie or whatever, he's like, once it's done, it's just done. He's like, I wanted to work on something that was alive.
- [49:29]
A
It's ongoing.
- [49:29]
B
Yeah. I could constantly change and improve and change the direction of and redo and maybe take down this part of the park or this ride and then put something else up in its place. That sounded a lot like David's approach to the creation of a show. It's like, it's alive. Let's react. Let's optimize for flexibility. And if, as I go on, like to your point, as the seasons go on, and I understand not only more of who E.B. farnham is as the character, but also the actor portraying the character, then that's going to influence the direction of the show and more importantly, the experience of the viewer.
- [50:02]
A
Yeah. And the way the show is very theatrical makes sense when you know it's kind of improvised. Right. Because Deadwood is a Western, but, like, it's a Western where you never see, like, wide open nature. And nature is not romanticized. And the town is like the stage. And almost all of the story happens on this stage. And so the theatrical language and kind of the way people act makes sense. If you look at the town as a state. Right. That's the theater. That's where everything happens. Almost. It's very different from almost any Western I've seen, and even more so, at first, it wasn't even supposed to be a Western. When David Mirch went to HBO to pitch the show, it was set in ancient Rome. So the themes were about, like, building civilization, all the same kind of themes, but it was ancient Rome. And the HBO guys said, oh, that sounds great, but we already have a show about Rome in production. Right. I don't know if you've seen the show Rome, but that's what they were making at the time.
- [50:52]
B
Yeah, I think I've seen a couple episodes, but I didn't stick with it.
- [50:55]
A
That's another good one. But so David Milch kind of like on the fly were like, well, it could be set in dead. And he kind of like went with this idea, but he just reset it in Deadwood. Like that's the kind of brilliance that this guy had where like the guy was like, he was a kind of college professor, like reading all of the ancient classics. That's why the show is so rich in language and references and themes and all that. It's like the guy was distilling like a thousand books right into this. These rough guys like screaming cocksuckers at each other. Right. That's so unique. Right? Where are you going to find that?
- [51:25]
B
Well, the same interview I was watching with Ian macsheen. He made the point after he made that he thought that David was the best showrunner that he ever worked for and they had complete control. He said that Deadwood was the only. It was the only show that had ever combined a theater workshop with television. To your point where it's like, yeah, we have a stage, we have the wording, but we're also. He used the word improvisation and he made the point. He's like, not that we could improvise, but that David would.
- [51:49]
A
Yeah. Oh, for sure. Some of what I've read in the Deadwood book basically says that some of the actors, like Powers Boots, who play Cy Toliver, he's kind of old school and he was kind of like a star in his day. He had his way of working and he wasn't going to change for David Milch. So while the other actors were kind of sticking around just in case David needed him, he was back in LA or something. And so he probably wasn't much fewer of those improvised scenes than some of the others. Just because he didn't have the flexibility to adapt to Davis point of view, which it's totally up to him. Right. Not everybody needs to want to change how they're doing everything. But it was so unique in that way that some actors just couldn't keep up with that kind of work.
- [52:26]
B
Psy was in one of my favorite movies ever. Did you ever watch the movie Tombstone?
- [52:30]
A
I have, but so many years ago. I like, it's almost as if I haven't watched it.
- [52:34]
B
Oh, I probably seen that movie like 10 times when I was growing up because Val Kilmer, his representation of Doc Holliday is one of my favorite all time characters ever. But Cy was. I think it was Wild Bill in that. So when I saw him in Deadwood, I'm like, oh, it's Wild Bill.
- [52:47]
A
Oh, the actor who plays Wild Bill, Keith Carradine. I think he does an incredible job of being like one of those gods of the camp, right? His voice, his presence, the way he
- [52:57]
B
moves, like his beautiful hair.
- [52:59]
A
Oh, yeah. Beautiful mullet. I don't know. All the characters, like, you see them for the first time in the first episodes and they have this way of conveying that I've had a life before this, right? That there's a richness outside of the show. Sometimes just by one line, right? There's a line in the. In the Deadwood movie. It's not a spoiler if you haven't seen it yet, but like there's a guy who's getting beaten down in the street and some bystander, random bystander, says, I hope you die. I hope you die in the street like my father. And that's all he says. But that's a Milch line, right? There's a whole story in just one sentence that you can think of for a whole day. You could spin off a show for just that guy. So that's the thing with Milches. Every line, everything conveys like a past.
- [53:38]
B
I was surprised how much time, because you figure, like you have the main characters, but how much time they dedicated to people that didn't seem like the guy that kept harassing. He ends up getting kicked by a horse. He's a terrible person.
- [53:52]
A
Steve the drunk, right?
- [53:53]
B
Yeah, Steve the drunk. He's on screen a ton. Like there was some. As it went on, I was like, why are they dedicating? I want to go into if you have any information about why the show was so properly canceled, because I'm thinking, like, I didn't know HBO has had this before where they just maybe do like four episodes or four seasons or something. So when I saw that Devil was only three seasons, that's one reason I agreed to give it a shot. Because I was like, man, I do not have time. Like, I am not going to get lost in like a nine season 90 episode hole right now. I don't have time in life like that, right? And so when I saw it was three, three seasons. All right, cool. But as we're progressing through the back half of season three, I'm like, how are they going to wrap this up? And then I see the last episode, I'm like, oh, they. They don't wrap it up?
- [54:35]
A
No.
- [54:36]
B
So what? Like, they spent so much time. I'm like, I'm thinking they knew there was going to end in season three. So I'M like, why are they dedicating so much time to these theater people? Like, I was interested to see where that, like, plot line was going. So do you have any idea, like, what does it talk about in the books? Does David ever talk about.
- [54:49]
A
The story just came out. The real story just came out in the Deadwood Bible, Matt Zo Seitz found the way, like, he interviewed the HBO people. He interviewed people around David, and it's super tragic. It's super frustrating. Basically, nobody wanted it to end, but it ended because misunderstandings and egos and stuff like that, right? So there was supposed to be a fourth season. David Milch wrote a book during season three. It's called Tales from the Black Hills. And in the book, it implies that the show is going to continue for a fourth season. And then there's a page at the end that says, like, oh, the show had been canceled. Like, just added at the end. I think the guy from HBO went to David Milch and he kind of wanted to get a kind of negotiation going, like, hey, maybe for the next season, you could have, like, six episodes or maybe eight episodes, because it's an expensive show, right, with all the extras and everything, and it had decent ratings, but it wasn't like putting the world on fire, right? And I think David Milch saw that as a kind of, like, I don't know, maybe an insult. I don't know how he took it, but he took it very hard. And he was like, well, how about zero, right? And so the guy from hbo, I think it's Chris Albrecht, but the guy from HBO was like, david, don't go crazy. Like, think about it. Let's talk about it on Monday. Like, take the weekend to think about it. Like, relax, man. So David was like, shit, they're gonna cancel us. They're gonna, like, so Timothy Oliphant, who plays Bullock, I just put a big down payment on a big house and everything. And so David Milch is super protective as. Oh, shit. So David Mirch called Timothy Oliphant, and he's like, you maybe want to be careful with your house, man, Because I think HBO may be about to pull the plug or something. David started talking to the cast. And so once it gets out, the cast, like, the agent is calling HBO and people are talking about it. And so the HBO guys come the next week, and they're like. I think the way Chris Aldrich put it is, like, the show kind of canceled itself, right? Like, rumors were leaking out, and the crew, like, there's all kinds of crew Running with a show, like doing the construction and the lighting, people were talking about, we have a job next year. And in the end, because David Mirch was working on a pilot for another show he wanted to do for hbo. So I think at the time he was like overworked and working on two things at the same time. He was like, see if they want to cancel us, fine, I'll work on my other thing. But looking back, I think what both sides were saying is like, well, if we could have just sat together and talked about it, maybe we could have gotten eight episodes, right? Maybe we could have gotten 10. Maybe there was something to get other than zero. But because people reacted kind of like under emotion right in the moment, they got nothing at all. And that's the most frustrating part of this. Like, I so wish I could see what the fourth season would be like.
- [57:17]
B
Well, not only that, like, think about it. So it ends in 2006. Yes, it goes on.
- [57:23]
A
So that is.
- [57:24]
B
That's pre streaming. Like, it's. It is. It has undoubtedly been viewed more times after it was canceled than it was being watched, you know, during. Right?
- [57:32]
A
Yeah, even during. It wasn't that bad. I thought it was canceled because it was like not getting any traction. Kind of like Firefly. But for the first year they were playing it right after the Sopranos on Sunday night. So it was getting like, I don't know, like 6, 7, 8, 10 million. I don't remember the number, but millions and millions of viewers. But it's a difficult show. So if streaming existed, you didn't have to wait for the DVDs and people could start from the first episode. It would definitely have been more popular.
- [57:56]
B
I think it's an example of something I noticed when reading these biographies that I think entrepreneurs, investors know or maybe like can learn from the past, the past experience, life experiences of other people. It's like you have to hold on for a chance to get lucky. And that usually technology, like the. The constant invention of new technologies will unlock an opportunity that you can't possibly see today. So in 2006, you have no idea that by 2022, you know, there's going to be what, billions of people paying for streaming services all over the world. And that that makes the content that you're making now, Right. Or that they were making then so much more valuable. The economic and the financial value to HBO has grown with time. Right. Because now they're not only Deadwood, obviously plays a role in this, but the amount of high quality content they have increases with time as well, and that winds up. They wind up picking up new subscribers in the future, and then that somebody might sign up for, for HBO Today to watch Fire and Blood. And then they'll go back like, hey, what? Like, the only reason I ever paid for HBO was because Game of Thrones, right? And every time when, like, they got rid of the Wire or the Sopranos or whatever, I would stop using it, right? But Game, I've been paying it for it ever since because of Game of Thrones. Now they have rehooked me with Fire and Blood and then you rehook me. Like, there's no way they could have possibly said that, hey, we're going to gain a customer because he's going to be reading an email newsletter and the guy writing the newsletter is completely obsessed with the show. And he walks four times. You know, I mean, like, it's this. Somebody had just told me this term where, like, if you're doing something over the long term. Actually, it was Patrick from Invest, like the Best that said this. His idea is like, he's going to do his podcast for the. He wants to do his podcast for the rest of his life. And I feel the same way about founders. I want to do my podcast for rest of my life. And so his point is, like, if we're playing these long term games, we can plant seeds now that don't have to reap anything for, you know, two years, three years, five years. And he calls that concept over a long period of time, infinite roi. Yeah, and so it's like, that only works if you're dedicated to not stopping what you're doing because you allow all the stuff you're doing to compound many decades into the future.
- [59:56]
A
Yeah. Building a body of work is increasing the surface area of luck, basically. Like, luck can hit you in more places because you have this huge kind of archive behind you of stuff that could become, you know, timely again. Or someone, someone finds the right thing at the right place and they make a connection to you or whatever. Right.
- [60:12]
B
I watched Deadwood for the first time, what, 15 years after it was created, and I didn't notice that show could be made today. You know what I mean? Like, if you put it on air, like, hey, we have this new thing and you just start playing these episodes, no one would be like, oh, this is in 2006. No. Damn, this is really good.
- [60:28]
A
Yeah. And streaming also makes these kind of non episodic shows so much more valuable because before streaming, you missed the first couple episodes and you start Deadwood on the fourth episode and A lot of people like, oh, okay, I'm too lost. There's no way I can get in, right? Yeah. All these shows, like, the golden era of hbo, this first golden era with, like, you know, Sopranos and the Wire and Deadwood and all that Rome, all these shows were so much harder to get into at the time because if you miss the beginning and you're like, on the fifth episode and it's like, who are all these people? Like, there's a cast of like, 30 people and they talk weird and where are they? Like, it's so much easier now to get into that stuff. So the value of the content has went up over time rather than down. That's great.
- [61:06]
B
And the. I mean, the amount of characters in
- [61:09]
A
Deadwood and they keep adding more. Right. In season three, there's a whole theater
- [61:13]
B
troupe that comes in in the last season. I had forgotten. They keep. Adams and. And Al keep fighting over Hawkeye. I'm like, who the hell's Hawkeye? Like, I had forgotten. You know what I mean? Like, I had to go back. I'm like, yeah, exactly. I was like, oh. And then he winds up popping up because he's trying to recruit soldiers in this war for Hearst or against her or whatever the case is. But, like, there's just so many people to keep track of. I'm like, oh, okay, I forgot about that guy.
- [61:34]
A
So there's a couple more teams I want to run by you and see if you. What you think of them. One of them is the way violence is shown on the show. In the book Deadwood Bible by Matt Zolus, Seiz Milch talks about how, like, he finds violence on most shows super boring. Doesn't interest him at all. So his approach was, if I'm going to show violence, it's either going to be so quick, like, it's over so quickly that it's just shocking. Right. Or it's going to be so long and drawn out that you're like, I can't take it anymore. Right. Too much. And so once in a while, like, Dan is going to just stab someone or Adam's going to pick up someone and impale him on a deer on the wall or something. And other times, it's going to be like, Dan and Captain Turner in the middle of the street, and it's like, I can't take this anymore.
- [62:15]
B
Right.
- [62:15]
A
That's one of the fights that has most affected me emotionally that I've seen on screen. Right.
- [62:20]
B
It's not often you see somebody rip somebody's eye out.
- [62:23]
A
Yeah. And drown them in a puddle in the middle of the mud in the street. And, like, it goes on forever. And these are not like, you know, Matt Damon doing a fight or something. They're just grappling and falling off a balcony and rolling around.
- [62:35]
B
Choreographed. It's like.
- [62:36]
A
It's very messy when Bullock and Al fight. It's messy, but then the healing process is messy. Like, Al is on his back for, like, episodes after the kidney stones. This episode where everybody's on top of him at the end, it's like a Renaissance painting.
- [62:50]
B
I fast forwarded those parts where Doc pulls out that long, like, steel things, like, all right, I'm going to put this up your retail. It's like, I'm not watching that. I was like, no, sir. There's no way I'm going to freaking watch that. But so your point, though, about violence, though?
- [63:06]
A
Yeah. So what do you think of it? What do you think of the approach? Like, did it. Did it land with you? Did you?
- [63:11]
B
Yeah, I mean, I just think HBO is known. Like, it didn't stick out to me in one way or the other because how violent Game of Thrones is. How violent? Like, I just saw a clip where there's a guy named. I think his name's like, Coco or something. And he, like, goes up into Sopranos and he approaches Tony's daughter, Meadow, right? And, you know, he, like, kind of, like, lightly threatens her and, like, I think, rubs her face, but, like, kind of freaks her out. And so the next part of the scene is Tony chasing that guy down in a bar, and he starts beating him almost to death. I think the guy survives with the butt of his gun. There's a guy that's trying to. I forgot the character's name. Who's trying to get Tony stopping. And every time Tony puts the gun in his face, he's like, you sit down. So anyways, he winds up taking the guy that was threatening his daughter and not only beating him, but then turning him over and opening his mouth and putting it on the curb or, like, the edge of the bar. And then they're like, no, don't do that. And he stomps hard as he can on the guy's back of his head. And the whole time he's just like, tony, you know, Tony Soprano, full of rage. This huge man gritting his teeth. He's like, my fucking daughter. My daughter. Like, just like you. Like, he's spitting stuff everywhere, like, complete rage. And then he puts his foot to the back of the guy's head, and then you just. All the next scene. The next thing you see is just teeth, like, all spread out on the floor. And then the Wire and just all this stuff like the Red Wedding. The red. The episode of Red Wedding in Game of Thrones, which people, like, they had filmed themselves watching. And all you see is people screaming with horror what was taking place. So this was definitely less violent than the Sopranos. To your point that he was doing it fast. Like, you notice that even when they're the. I think the most disturbing or the most. The most graphic forms of murder are the ones done with the blades. Because the shooting, like when Bullock and Wild Bill, they shoot that guy and they're like, we're not sure who got him first.
- [64:58]
A
My money be on you.
- [65:00]
B
Yeah, exactly. All the shooting deaths happen really, really quickly. And it was like, over and less bloody.
- [65:05]
A
We're like, it's not romanticized.
- [65:06]
B
Right.
- [65:07]
A
It's like, bang, and it's over.
- [65:08]
B
But the cutting of a throat. You know what I mean? And then, like the corpse of.
- [65:12]
A
And wu's pigs.
- [65:13]
B
Yeah. And then are sending them to. To Wu to be eaten. Have the bodies disposed of. Who was the. The character name that. That. It was the girl that Al killed that looked like Trixie.
- [65:23]
A
Jen.
- [65:23]
B
Jen, yeah. Okay. They show. They show her neck, which is in the coffin. And like, then you see they kill a lot of people in Gems Saloon by slicing their throat. And you see the amount of blood that is now left on the floor that then they have to clean up. But, yeah, I didn't consider it. They definitely didn't make it more gruesome or spend more time on it than other series.
- [65:44]
A
One of the most disturbing, violent scenes, and I'm not saying it's the worst ever, but for the show is when Sai is killing the two kids that tried to rob him. Right. The girl and the boy.
- [65:53]
B
Yeah.
- [65:53]
A
And he hit him in the head. And her skull is fractured until you see it from her point of view. She's seeing things kind of like, all wibbly and he's like, oh, like, oh, is your skull fractured? Are you? And Sy is just taunting her and. And so sociopathic. Right. And that was the service.
- [66:08]
B
I forgot about that. That actress winds up becoming really famous after that. What was the. I forgot her name.
- [66:14]
A
Yeah, she's super famous now.
- [66:15]
B
Kristen Bell.
- [66:16]
A
Kristen Bell, I think was one of her first kind of roles as she was starting. What was it?
- [66:21]
B
Product of Mars.
- [66:22]
A
Yeah.
- [66:23]
B
Yep.
- [66:23]
A
Yeah, I know that was something. I think. I think the last big theme I have for you is that the show Does a great job of showing how pain rolls downhill. So a lot of the time, some character is gonna be very angry with someone who's kind of above them somehow. Like, Bullock is gonna be angry at something Hearst said, but Bullock can't take it out on Hearst directly. So he's walking outside and he sees Ebi and he beats Eebe, right. And E.B. is angry at something, and he's gonna take it out on Richardson. Right. And all these characters kind of like if they can't get at the person they're really angry at, right? So, like, Steve the drunk, he's angry at Bullock, but he's gonna take it out on Fields and try to tar him. And this kind of, like, way that everybody is. Sometimes you're just a bystander, right? But you could be in the crosshair just because something totally out of your control. That rings true, too, in life, sometimes you're just at the wrong place, the wrong time, or you just lower down the ladder, the social kind of hierarchy, than someone else, and they're going to take it on you. And, yeah, the show. The show does a good job.
- [67:18]
B
I think it resonated with you because that's part of human nature, unfortunately. It's like, hurt people. Hurt people. Hurt people is the way I would describe it.
- [67:24]
A
Exactly.
- [67:25]
B
And, like, I experienced that with my own. You know, I've talked about this on a few podcasts. It's just like if you examine both sides of my family tree and you just have people regularly abusing their family members, their kids, and it's just like, it's distasteful and to some point, of, like, learning from books. In my own thing, it's like I'm searching for, like, mentors of people that are actually, like, good people or people that actually built good lives, because I didn't have any of those examples growing up. And one I thought of, which was really brutal. And it speaks to your point where Stai Tolliver is pissed off at Hearst because Hurst is kind of. You go from, we were supposed to be equals, and now you've completely made me your subordinate. And then you basically threaten me. And I think he smacked him a couple times or whatever the case is. And so he's sitting on the balcony at one of the last episodes, and he's looking at Hearst and he has his gun out, and he's like, I'm gonna get him back. And he doesn't. Right. He's afraid to do it. So then he turns around and, without being provoked, stabs his employee. The Opium addiction. I forgot his name.
- [68:20]
A
Leon, I think.
- [68:21]
B
Yeah. And then he just sits there and, like, watches him die. Like he just bleeds to death. And it's that. That's a perfect example where it's like, he wasn't mad at Leon. He was mad at whatever, like the. The emasculation or the subordination that Hurst had done to him, that he thought he was powerful. And then Hearst showed him what real power was and he didn't like it. And instead of processing that like an adult or like a mature person or dealing with that, they go around hurt people. Hurt people. He turned around and he stabbed this guy and killed him and took his life for nothing.
- [68:51]
A
Yeah. It's the same with Wolcott, right? When he goes and kills the prostitutes. Right before that, he was talking with Sy and Sy was trying to blackmail him. And then that angered Walcott and he was like. That's when Sy says, well, you know, I'm past surprise. And then Walcott has this great speech about, like, oh, past this, past that, but past surprise. Could it be possible? Like, let's make sure you're not past surprise. And then he goes kill people just to kind of get back at Psy in some way. Because you know that Psy likes Joni and this is Joni's place, right? And so another example of this, you know, redirection of anger that's so toxic in the world, right? Because it's, as you say, it's so true. It's so part of human nature. And the world would be such a better place if people could process when they're. They're. They're angry or hurt rather than just take it out to someone else.
- [69:36]
B
Violence is the fatal flaw of humanity, is the way I think about it. Because I've read Will and Ariel Durant. I've read a lot of their writing, and, you know, they were some of the greatest historians. They literally try to catalog human nature and the history. They dedicated their five or I think it was a five decade career just trying to examine, like, what are humans? What do we do? Like, what are the stories that show up? And they said, like, war is just. Violence is a part of nature, right? It's like, you see it, if there's humans, there's going to be violence. And they said that in all ages, men are dishonest and governments are corrupt. And as you read their work and you see those three unfortunately, like, very dark sides of humanity, the corruption, the subjugation of, you know, people like using corruption as a tool to subjugate other people. Dishonesty and violence. And I remember thinking, like, it's even hard to conceive. And I'm definitely not a naive person. I think somebody's read as much history as I have. Like, it'd be impossible if you'd be naive. You're not really paying attention to what you're reading then. But just I remember having these thoughts, like, imagine a world in which humans didn't physically harm each other and psychologically too. Yeah, yeah, but okay, I'd much rather have psychological harm than literally, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. You get like, psy stabs Leon or Bullock beats E.B. farmham to the edge of death. He took him multiple episodes and not only did like he did, he was definitely psychologically harmed from that beating. But, like, you saw eb's face and, like, hiding in the dark and all the other stuff. But, like, just imagine a world in which humans didn't engage in violence. You can't. Because what Will and Ariel Durant make in their book is, like, there is no part of human history when humans weren't killing each other. Like, that doesn't exist. Every single day that we've ever existed, we have killed each other. And it's. To me, that's why I always say on the podcast, like, you can't read a life story of somebody and not realize that humans are all me, and you included, fatally flawed. Now, hopefully, me and you never kill anybody, right? I hope so. You know? Yeah. You know, I mean, like, God forbid, even. The only thing I could ever think about doing this is like, obviously in defense of our children. Like, we're both fathers, right? And that's why I like Cormac McCarthy's book the Road. And I encourage every. Yeah, I encourage every dad to read that book specifically. And obviously, mothers have that. That maternal protective instinct as well. But there's a line in that book that I quote to my daughter all the time. The two main characters in that book. It's fundamentally, it's like, yeah, it's a post book about post apocalyptic society, but it's like, no, it's a relationship between a father and a son. That is the story. And he says towards the end, he's like, I was sent here by God to protect you. I will kill anybody that lays their hand on you. And I have a picture of that page underlined, and I save it on my phone, too. But I tell my daughter that I was like, I am sent here by God to protect you. And like, my job is to like, if need be, give my life for you. But just the idea, like, I don't want to sound like, you know, crazy, but I just fantasize about a world in which there's not violence.
- [72:26]
A
Well, my glass half full, optimist kind of guy take on this would be. It's kind of like the expectations we were talking about at first, right? Some people are like, oh, but the world should be like that. But it's terrible because it isn't. I tried to look at it as it used to be so much worse. Everybody was living under, basically warlords, right? Almost no one had agency over their lives. Everybody was super impoverished and, like dying from random infections. And war could break out at any time between tribes and regions. And so it used to be like 100% violence and this and that, and now it's like, I don't know, like 20% or like, it's kind of like the Steven Pinker approach of like, well, if you actually look at the numbers, it's never been more peaceful and it's so. It's still terrible. But at least I try to take comfort in the fact that we kind of like to seem to be moving in the right direction, even if it doesn't always seem like this in 2022.
- [73:17]
B
It's funny that you say this because I just finished reading Vannevar Bush's autobiography, Piece of the Action, which I referenced at the beginning of the podcast. And on the very last page, the book is on my desk and hearing you talk, I was like, oh, I just read this like two or three days ago. And on the very last page, he wraps up the book and he goes, listen, when I get down, this is 80 year old genius. That is. These are the words of an 80 year old genius. And I think there's some wisdom in them. He goes, when I get downcast, I read history. We may yet be crude, but we have come so far. That's exactly the same idea that you just expressed there.
- [73:49]
A
That's wise. That's so wise. Like, it's the same thing with, like, when people talk about how, like, oh, but inequality and these people are so rich and they're so poor. It's true. Like, this could be much better. But before everybody was poor and that wasn't good either, right? It's not like we came from a world where everybody was rich and now these bad people made some people poor and some people rich. Like, no, everybody was poor, right? So we should still always strive to improve. It's like there's no destination where we're going to be like, okay, this is enough. We can't do better. I think we can do much, much, much better than what we're doing now when it comes to things like, you know, violence and opportunity and all that. But, yeah, if I could press a button and be reincarnated as someone, like, a hundred years ago, 500 years ago, a thousand years ago, 5,000. Like, I don't think I could pick a date where I would press the button. I'd rather be alive today.
- [74:36]
B
100%. We are unbelievable.
- [74:37]
A
Like, if it was random, right? Some people look at the king of France. Oh, if I could. No, no. If you could be a random person, then. And even the king of France didn't have antibiotics in the microwave and DVDs. And, like, so the Internet.
- [74:49]
B
Yeah, like, how me and you are talking right now. No, 100%. Like, this is the best time in history to be alive is right now. Like, that's undeniable. I would not go back and be the king of France a thousand years ago. You know, that guy shitting in a bucket, like, no, thank you. I have indoor plumbing. I have ac. Most importantly, I have the Internet. Like, or penicillin or just, like, look at all. Like, no way. No way. This is the best time. Again, when people say stuff like that, like, I just don't think they've read enough history or studied enough history to ever. Like, I look at history as something to learn from. It's not something to go back to.
- [75:21]
A
Listen, David, I could talk with you all day, and we could probably do three or four other podcasts on other topics, but I'm gonna have to let
- [75:28]
B
you go anytime you want, man.
- [75:31]
A
Anything else you want to add at the end? Or any last thoughts about Deadwood or anything we haven't touched? Or what did your wife think of it? Anything else? I'm curious.
- [75:39]
B
She loved it. And she, like. I think that the fact that it didn't, like, go too difficult on the violence, to your point. And in many cases, you saw the violence after the fact. Like when they broke the strike and then they put the guy's dead body in the middle of the town, and all you saw was a knife to his chest. But, yeah, I was surprised. But again, it's the dialogue, it's the characters. It's Al. It's like, all the characters are great, but I'm telling you, like, I would just watch it just for Al. And now I know I'm going to wind up rewatching in the future. And like, I want to see it now that I knew again. When you meet him, I'm like, why is this guy fighting with this other guy? And like they're setting up a tent to sell hardware and they're trying to do a negotiation with them. And this owl guy is a hard ass. You gotta be careful how you talk to him because he's. We've already seen him kill a bunch of people. He'd try to kill a little kid, like all that crazy things. But then you understand, like I did not understand who he was as a person. Or like it's the same thing when I reread books, you know, like, you don't get it. You change. Like they're not gonna change what happens in the show, but we change as people and our understanding changes.
- [76:38]
A
Exactly. When you rewatch Deadwood for the second time, I think it's probably the more, more crucial time because like, especially like the first, like five episodes or something, it's like, you know, Al so differently, right? And then everything reads differently when you see it for the second time. So we'll have to talk about when you have a chance to rewatch it. I'm gonna put in the show notes, some stuff, like, I have more material for you. There's a podcast about Deadwood that I love. The two hosts are great friends. They're having a great time, so it's fun to listen to. And they do impressions. They are great at doing Al and Sy and every character. They basically watch the show together with subtitles on mute and they talk about it scene by scene and do impressions. And so I listen to this in the evening before going to bed, like 10, 15 minutes. Always puts me in a good mood. I'm going to put that in show notes for the listeners. There's a 25 minute video essay by Matt Zolus Seitz, the guy who made the Deadwood Bible, like five, 10 years ago, he did this video essay about Deadwood, about some of the themes, some of the scenes, some of the writing. It's narrated by Jim Beaver, who does Ellsworth. It's a great little essay. I'm going to put that in the show notes. I'm going to put links to all the books, everything. So if you or anyone listening wants to check it out, wants to go deeper in Deadwood. But I feel like this is the show. I'm going to spend like the rest of my life trying to convert as many people to at least give it a try, right? At least three episodes. And then it's not for everybody. If it's not for you, it's fine. But the people that it's for, it's really for, because nothing else is like it.
- [77:59]
B
They. It grabs them. So I told you, I told a few friends about it, and one in particular, he starts watching. He got way ahead of me, Obviously. I've been, like, busy recently with everything that's going on in my life in the last, like, two months, but he got way ahead of me and he finished it, and then he loved it so much. So not only you tell everybody, you tell me. I tell him. And so I also bought him for his birthday. His birthday was in September. I bought him the Deadwood Bible at your recommendation, too.
- [78:23]
A
Oh, nice. He's gonna love it. Yeah, it's a great book.
- [78:26]
B
He sent me a message the other day because he got hit by that hurricane. He lives in central Florida, and he was without power for a few days. He's like, I'm reading my Deadwood Bible in the conditions of Deadwood by candlelight with no electricity.
- [78:39]
A
Oh, man, that's.
- [78:40]
B
He's got his power back, though, so that's good. But, Liberty, thank you as always, for inviting me, man. I'm happy to do a podcast with you anytime you want.
- [78:46]
A
That's a perfect note to end it. Reading the Deadwood Bible in the conditions of Deadwood. I can't do a better sentence than that. It's almost a David Milch image. So, man, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for giving it a try. Right. You say you don't watch that many shows, so thank you for taking a flyer on it. I'm glad you and your wife liked it. Thank you so much. Have a good day.
- [79:05]
B
Talk to you soon.
- [79:06]
A
Bye. Bye.