Brian Platzer (4:34)

Foreign

Mike Pesca (4:38)

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Mike Pesca (6:59)

the new novel by Brian Platzer, the Optimists, is part As I Lay dying, part goodbye Mr. Chips. And well, I don't want to give it all away, but what was that book with eco terrorists? I think it was Vineland by Thomas Pinch.

Brian Platzer (7:13)

There you go.

Mike Pesca (7:14)

Brian is on the show. He's also, just so you know, been a longtime listener of the gist. So if you're a Brian Platzer complete, and we start talking about things you don't understand, it's this podcast itself. Hello, Brian.

Brian Platzer (7:26)

Such an honor to be here.

Mike Pesca (7:27)

Mike, how many times, because I started underlining them on page 37 and 49, do you mention or use the word optimist, optimists, or optimistic?

Brian Platzer (7:39)

I use it less than a dozen times. More than a half dozen times. It becomes almost an obsession of the narrator to appear to be optimistic. I think part of what I'm playing with is there's a guy at the end of his life who's narrating the story of his life and he's. He's struggling. He had a stroke. He can't communicate, he has a lot to be upset about, and yet he wants his last statement to the world to be an optimistic statement. So the word comes up so often, because I do think it's a work of optimism, but also that the narrator is consciously trying to exude optimism in an almost thou doth protest too much type way.

Mike Pesca (8:17)

Yeah, we don't Find out that there's this conceit that the optimistic narrator is doing this via a contraption that takes into account the stroke he had until, page, I don't know, 30 or 40. So tell me about the strategy there. When do you lay it on the reader who thinks he's just dealing with the reminiscence of a middle school teacher, that this middle school teacher has now become something diving bell and butterfly esque?

Brian Platzer (8:42)

Well, Mr. Keating, the narrator, and actually the real man who was my seventh and eighth grade English teacher, the mentor of mine, he became a reverend to officiate my wedding. All of that is true in real life. He is, in his fictional incarnation, as anxious about his book appearing to be a slog as I was as the writer of this book. So I feared that if I put on page one, this book is narrated by a guy in a wheelchair using a contraption to narrate his thoughts. I would turn off everybody, because that sounds depressing and slow. And I think that when I realized that Mr. Keating could share my anxieties as a writer, it made for a more exciting premise to me. So I wanted to delay it until I had the reader hooked. But I didn't want to hide it from the reader because I think it's an important part of the narrative technique.

Mike Pesca (9:34)

Did you study the technology that would really be used for someone in that situation?

Brian Platzer (9:39)

I did. And what was so confusing about the final decade of Mr. Keating's life in real life, as well as my attempt to articulate his voice after having had that stroke, is there's different technology for different types of brain disability. You know, I myself have a comparatively minor brain disability where I essentially.

Mike Pesca (10:02)

Where you're a huge fan of the gist.

Brian Platzer (10:05)

Exactly. That's what it shows. That's the greatest therapy phenomenon. Exactly. But essentially, I wake up really dizzy. I have to medicate profoundly, and then the medication starts to wear off around 2pm So I. I've studied neurology beyond, you know, just as a area of interest. And what was so frustrating, feeling so close to the real man? Mr. Keating was not knowing exactly what was transpiring in his brain. And there are different types of technology for different brain. Brain incapacitations, essentially. So my fictional move was to give him more ability to express himself than somebody with the ambiguity of his experience than that person could normally have. I sort of stumbled over that a little bit, but.

Mike Pesca (10:57)

No, no, no, but you needed. You needed to. Otherwise, I mean, you'd either create another complication and you wanted to tell a story you didn't want to tell a story that maximally got in the way of the story you were telling. You told the story as novel with a lot of questionable or a fair degree of the questionable narrator. I was gonna say conceit, but it's sort of baked into the whole idea of the novel. So I understand why you had to do that. It would not only be a different novel, it would be a far different and frustrating experience. And then the experience of being frustrated would become the what the novel was really about.

Brian Platzer (11:32)

Not only the experience of being frustrated, but the experience of reading the book where the Diving Bell and the Butterfly is real. You know, so it's. It's nonfiction. But I think part of the pleasure of reading the Diving Bell and the Butterfly is that just as an artifact, it's so extraordinary where because I'm in the world of novels, I need to tell a good story. So the artifact of pretending to write from the perspective of somebody who can't really tell his story, there's no victory there in the way that, you know, the Diving Bell and the Butterfly, just insofar as it exists, is a miracle.

Mike Pesca (12:05)

Yeah. It reminds me of the Neil Young album Trans, which was essentially his least well liked album. Is that a phrase? His poorest. The one that got the poorest reviews, but he still defends it as what it was, is he has an autistic son and he's trying to use the kind of electronic music that he knows is a little bit off putting to get at his son's communication. But anyway, that's not the kind of work of art that you wanted to commit to.

Brian Platzer (12:33)

No, I wanted an entertainment. I wanted something that would be.

Mike Pesca (12:36)

Now you failed. I've tell you. You failed. Horrible.

Brian Platzer (12:38)

True.

Mike Pesca (12:39)

This was a huge slog. No, you didn't.

Brian Platzer (12:42)

Well, it's rough for you to bring me on air to say that, you know, to invite me onto the show to publicly denounce the book. I thought that'd be below you, but bring it. I can take it.

Mike Pesca (12:52)

This is the new segment of the show called brickbat where we bring along a aspiring or mid level artist and just tell them the latest thing is shit.

Brian Platzer (13:03)

I'm trying to relatively unknown mid level literary writer and just to say, you know what? Give it up. It's just isn't working.

Mike Pesca (13:13)

Someone who also supports my. My endeavor. Exactly.

Brian Platzer (13:16)

A big fan of yours whose work you dislike or are there enough of us? Are there enough of sort of mediocre artists?

Mike Pesca (13:24)

So There weren't though. Brickbat hasn't aired. I've done 30, and now there are almost none left.

Brian Platzer (13:30)

Okay.

Mike Pesca (13:30)

No, it's a wonderful novel. It's. It's so fun and it has time jumps and all of the characters are really fleshed out. And especially. Oh. I especially like how you use character names. And you'll use a name that on the page, I'll say, wait, why is this character's name smashed together? And then 30 pages later, you'll understand that we, as the reader had that question and you'll explain it. So it was so well done in terms of that. You want to talk about your philosophy with character names. Since Mr. Keating is kind of a bland name, though, a real guy. Most of your other. Most of your main characters have main character energy names, but then all the side characters are kind of exquisitely, funnily named.

Brian Platzer (14:12)

Well, you know, like Kingsley Richard Madison the Third. Or like I. My. My deal with names is that they're

Mike Pesca (14:20)

all just Enid Smeal.

Brian Platzer (14:21)

Exactly. Enid Smeal was maybe my favorite. I. Names are just so silly. As a novelist like you, I. You just make a thing up and then that becomes what you call the character. So I. I think the Dickensian route of just absurdity is a little bit too, like, look at me, I'm creating names. And then just the general novelist route of, like, this is Dave and this is Mike. I, as a reader, often forget which one's Dave and which one's Mike. So again, I trying to be as generous as I can to the reader. I thought you can remember Mr. Keating because he's the guy who's telling the story. You can remember Clara because she is the one who's the story whom the story is about. Although I do give her a last name that ends up being similar to a characteristic version later on. But for the rest of them, fuck it, right? Like, give characters names that are memorable, that you can separate from one another and that maybe give you a giggle as you're reading.

Mike Pesca (15:15)

How would you pronounce the name of that other teacher who Kingsley came onto before he was married?

Brian Platzer (15:22)

Sylvia Gorog? Is that who you're referring to?

Mike Pesca (15:25)

Oh, it's Sylvia.

Brian Platzer (15:27)

It's. It's a. It's a silly. It's a. There are multiple consonants before the.

Mike Pesca (15:31)

Before the name, but again, S and a Z.

Brian Platzer (15:32)

Exactly. But it's just. Again, it's. It's memorable on the page, which is what I was looking for.

Mike Pesca (15:37)

And a palindromic last name.

Brian Platzer (15:39)

Exactly.

Mike Pesca (15:39)

Now, when I said it was entertaining, I do wonder. One of the aspects of the book That I love is that there are jokes. Not funny turns of phrase, not memorable humorous scenes, but jokes. You commit to jokes, you tell jokes, you explain jokes. And I loved it. I don't think it's cheating at all. Was a small part of that. I know it advanced the plot in many ways and Keating had tried stand up comedy but was part of that is you saying look, if this doesn't work, at least I'll give the reader 45 pretty good jokes?

Brian Platzer (16:12)

It was a little bit the opposite of that. That I first off as a, you know, middle school English teacher myself, I think the, the performative aspect of good teachers goes undiscussed. And I think that the difference between being a standup comedian and being a successful 8th grade English teacher is far smaller than one would initially imagine.

Mike Pesca (16:32)

Yeah, you have to deal with hecklers. There is not a two drink minimum. But there's lots of ADHD medication. Exactly.

Brian Platzer (16:38)

There is medication, but there's not the. You got to do a tight set

Mike Pesca (16:41)

and get out when the light is

Brian Platzer (16:42)

on or that water bottle is full of water. But. Right. So there is my trying to just in every way I can demonstrate the, the performance aspect to the storytelling and to. And to the way that Mr. Keating at the end of his life wants to be perceived. But I also think showing analysis is an important part of what I was trying to do. And other than maybe the Great Gatsby, which I can assume many of my readers have read, just giving people material and then having Mr. Keating analyze it was important to. And then I thought like what would be the most enjoyable way to provide that material? And jokes did it for me. I just thought that that was a way to demonstrate him as a character and give the, the reader a little piece of pleasure before than that. Hopefully double pleasure of watching a professional analyzer analyze.

Mike Pesca (17:37)

Yeah. By the way, what did the Great Gatsby call baseball? Your book? Good.

Brian Platzer (17:44)

Old sport.

Mike Pesca (17:45)

Old sport. There we go.

Brian Platzer (17:46)

Old sport.

Mike Pesca (17:46)

I was sure, I was sure that's something that you mentioned when you taught your class Great Gatsby. Do you teach the 8th graders Great Gatsby?

Brian Platzer (17:53)

No, it's in that middle range. When I teach high school, I'll teach high school kids the eighth grade. Finding books to teach eighth graders is probably a conversation for another time. But they're too old for YA literature. They're too young for sort of the masterpieces of American literature. So you're looking for books between 100 and 150 pages, including characters of their age, ideally without too much sex that they'll enjoy. And it leads to like five books. But again, for. For another day.

Mike Pesca (18:22)

Was Catcher in the Rye still on the reading list?

Brian Platzer (18:24)

So kids hate it. Whereas initially, when Catcher the Rye is. Was taught, I think they saw, they thought it like, look at this guy bucking the system, you know, like he's one of us. And now they say, why is he complaining so much? Like they. His moodiness comes off as needy and immature as opposed to, you know, a fighting the system grumpiness. It's fascinating.

Mike Pesca (18:44)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think maybe rebellion is so baked into everything that what made Holden unique makes him cringe worthy. Now it's cringe worthy. Yeah. And we've also, for the past 50 years, thought a lot more about mental health than. It's not the people in Holden's time, but the people in. In J.D. salinger's time, you know, so he was kind of inventing a character who wouldn't have been exposed to anyone caring about his inner workings, whereas that's unknown to children today.

Brian Platzer (19:14)

Well, also the brilliance of the book, you know, it being essentially a novel about mourning, goes over the heads of most of the eighth graders anyway. Like, if read as a way to, you know, process a family member's death, I still think it holds up entirely. But again, that's not why it had been taught for generations to eighth graders.

Mike Pesca (19:34)

So was the real Mr. Keating a teacher at that school or teacher at a different school you went to?

Brian Platzer (19:38)

He was so. He was my 8th grade English teacher and he fundamentally changed my vision of reading, of writing, and of pedagogy in general. I mean, until being taught by Mr. Keating, teachers to me were folks to avoid in the hallways and to try to please by studying for tests. But he was a dedicated teacher for whom it was so clear that all of this mattered so much. And he was performative, and he would spend as many minutes, far more time grading our work than it time it took for me to write it. So he encouraged me to keep on writing. I would send him in my work over the years. And then after grad school, when I came back to New York with no way to pay rent or health care, he said, you know, I can probably shoehorn you in for a class. I had been teaching at the college level, Johns Hopkins beforehand. And I kind of rolled my eyes at going and teaching 8th grade. It felt like something I had to do, and I just fell in love with it. And the real, you know, blessing of that decision was I got to hang out with Mr. Keating as his colleague for a couple of years. So I got to sit in the back of his classroom and see how, you know, we call it differentiation now, how we change the way we teach to different students based on who that student is. But that's the way he had taught forever. Giving different assignments to different kids, letting students, you know, wait before answering a question versus pushing them into doing it. And being able to sit there and watch him at his sort of. Is a masterclass. He gave me every. Every day for a couple years until I asked him to become a, you know, a reverend through the Universal Life Church to officiate my wedding. He was the officiant of my wedding to my wife a week after he had a massive stroke and was never able to speak or read or write or communicate again. So it went from him being this incredible D. Dynamic, you know, one of the most important figures in. In my life, to somebody I was visiting weekly and taking care of and reading, too, and having no idea what he was thinking or what was happening in his mind. So a lot of this book just started as notes with me trying to excise the. The demons of uncertainty, trying to figure out, like, how much of what I was telling him could he process and how much of. Of the version of him that was still in my life could I try to articulate on. On his behalf so long answer to the question. But yes. He was my teacher at the school where I currently teach. We taught together for a couple years. Then he had a stroke, and I helped care for him for the last 10 years of his life.

Mike Pesca (22:16)

So he lived for 10 years after that and no one had any idea about any of his thoughts from that moment on.

Brian Platzer (22:23)

Correct. Couldn't read, couldn't write, couldn't sign. None of the actual machines worked. And he. He, as I said, was a polyglot. He would read a novel a week in different languages.

Mike Pesca (22:32)

His.

Brian Platzer (22:32)

His whole life was performative. And then it became him sitting there as people read to him and spoke to him, and just the. The uncertainty mounted and mounted until I came home and I just wrote, like, what if he were thinking this? Or like, I wrote his side of the conversation until. Yeah, until I stumbled into a plot and realized that. That maybe he could have more agency or my version of him could have more agency and he could be the brilliant, dynamic performer of my youth, just, you know, through the mechanism of my novel.

Mike Pesca (23:06)

That's. That's really nice. Did you tell him this? That you were doing this while he was with us?

Brian Platzer (23:13)

No. What. What happened was I. I thought it would make him uncomfortable.

Mike Pesca (23:18)

I thought, I understand that. That's what I was thinking.

Brian Platzer (23:20)

Like, the downside.

Mike Pesca (23:21)

What if he objects? And then what do you do with that? And there's no way to register the objection.

Brian Platzer (23:26)

Yeah, I was. I was. I don't think blessed is too strong a word that. At his funeral, I had both his stepson and his best friend come up to me independently and say, have you ever thought about, you know, writing about Rod Keating? Like, talking about him or something? And I. I said, oh, interesting. You know, let me. Let me think about that. You know, not telling them that I already had 100,000 words of his voice on my computer at home and that those were the. The two closest people to him at his time. His wife was still around, but not in the position to, you know, make those choices for him yet. So being given that that homework assignment was. Was incredibly thrilling at the end of his life.

Mike Pesca (24:12)

What do they think of the book?

Brian Platzer (24:14)

They haven't read it yet.

Mike Pesca (24:16)

Okay, get back to us.

Brian Platzer (24:17)

That will be. Yeah, I mean, I've said. I've sent. I've sent them versions of it. I've told them what I was going to do, and they say, we're just so thrilled that his voice will live on. I have. I was with them taking care of him for a decade. At the end, I think, again, I realize this has become a theme of this, but I've earned their trust, I hope. And I. I really did everything I could to try to make the book engaging, entertaining, and honest to the real man.

Mike Pesca (24:50)

So you mentioned you have a neurological. Do we call it a disorder? I want to be accurate with. I think something happens to you neurologically.

Brian Platzer (24:58)

So I was always vulnerable, as far as I could tell, to losing some sort of neurological equilibrium. And then When I was 27, 28, I smoked pot and I was dizzy for a month, and it went away. And then in order to test me again a month later, I went through this test where they flood your ear canal with alternatingly very hot and very cold water. And I was dizzy for two years. Bedridden, totally incapacitated. Felt like I was 30, drinks in every time I woke up. I had to take a year off of teaching. All I did was try to go to different doctors around the world, around the country. Nobody could figure it out. Until finally a doctor who studies, you know, ambiguous neurological disorders sent me to the Mayo Clinic. Doctor, stop. The Mayo Clinic says we don't actually know what's going on, but if you take heavy doses of blood pressure medication, antidepressants and antianxiety meds. We can probably buy you a few hours every morning. And that's what I've got. So I'm pretty clear from the hours of eight to one or two, at which point I lose vision and I experience pretty severe brain fog, et cetera.

Mike Pesca (26:18)

Am I getting this right? It was the test that disabled you for two years?

Brian Platzer (26:23)

Initially it was the drugs and then it was the test, but the drugs

Mike Pesca (26:27)

only lasted, or the effect of that only lasted a short time.

Brian Platzer (26:31)

Exactly. So it was it was a month of dizziness after the pot and then after my ent.

Mike Pesca (26:40)

And that is the fade out. Which means that Peska plus members get to hear more of the details of how Brian lives his life, some more about how he writes his books, and I know of no greater endorsement of the entire Pesca plus enterprise, which can be subscribed to at subscribe.mike pesca.com than the fact that Brian Platzer is a member, has been a member for years. And of course I was going to interview him about this book, even independent of that it would be Paola. But just to know you'd be in the company of such esteemed, and I'll say it, inspirational figures is maybe another inducement to get the podcast with extra content and ad free and to Support our show. Subscribe.Mike Pesca.com.

Brian Platzer (27:34)

Foreign.

Mike Pesca (27:40)

The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser (28:01)

Safeway and Albertsons have made saving easier than ever with great savings on family favorites this week. 16 ounce sweet strawberries are two for $5 member price. And don't miss the incredible deal on signature. Select boneless skinless chicken breast value packs for $2.97 per pound limit. One plus medium avocados or mangoes are five for $5 member price. Fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in these deals. Deals won't last. Visit Safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

Mike Pesca (28:36)

And now the spiel. It's easy to take the Trump administration silly bellicose rhetoric in terms of phrase more appropriate to Fox and Friends as evidence that they are unserious people. Even today, Secretary of Defense sorry War Pete Hegseth spoke to reporters as if he were reciting lines of dialogue from a Steven Seagal movie. They are toast and they know it, or at least soon enough they will know it. It's possible that because this is just how members of the administration talk and think that there might be an actual pairing of this kind of childish sloganeering with actual see it through to the end resolve. It's possible. I do tend to doubt it. When the Bush administration was accused of being cowboys, when George W. Bush said the following phrase, I just remember.

Brian Platzer (29:36)

All I'm doing is remembering. When I was a kid, I remember that they used to put out there

Mike Pesca (29:41)

in the old West

Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser (29:44)

I wanted poster.

Brian Platzer (29:45)

It said wanted dead or alive.

Mike Pesca (29:47)

If you recall, George Bush himself took a lot of heat for just that one utterance, and he later said it was a big regret, if not the biggest regret of his administration. That phrase today would not even be in the top third of dismissive, cartoonish catchphrases used to describe a serious and deadly conflict. Bush always said, we will not tire,

Brian Platzer (30:15)

we will not falter, and we will not fail.

Mike Pesca (30:18)

And even though that is a slogan, it is a slogan that speaks to hard work and having goals that you're committed to. Donald Trump almost always speaks in the opposite way. He fancies himself a wheeler dealer and he likes to have escape clauses. He likes to preserve maximum wiggle room as a means of negotiation. He also doesn't have a deep, hard and fast commitment or maybe even understanding of the truth. It's just not part of how he will ever think. So when it comes to this mission in Iran, I think that things are becoming very clear that resolve and clarity are not practices we can ever expect from Donald Trump or those closest to him. So whatever, gee whiz, shocking awe, big bang that thrills Donald Trump at the beginning of the conflict, he will quickly lose patience for the next steps. To some extent, I guess you can argue that this is good. The MAGA base thinks this is good because a sincere commitment to that dreaded phrase boots on the ground is not what his party, or let's face it, this country wants. And while that could damn the Iranian regime, it could also very much bring down American interests with it. On the other hand, there are intermediate steps between this series of decapitation strikes and tens of thousands of US forces in harm's way. But there's no evidence that Trump has considered, let alone committed to those steps. When an unserious person, especially a venal, self serving person who always thinks of his instincts as correct, is given the power to make decisions, those decisions are will almost always be glib and superficial. So the Ayatollah and his successor may have lost their lives. In fact, they have, and that is true. But what will really change in Iran? What evidence is there that anyone, not just Trump, but members in his much loathed deep state has put forward the hard work, the foresight, the diligence, persistence required to foment actual change in Iran? Trump understands saying, rise up. We encourage you to rise up. The Ayatollah is bad. The United States wants you to rise up. But with what? Rocks, sticks, intention? Has anyone ever thought out what a rising up might mean or who among those doing the rising might be armed or in some way able to avoid being put down by the still armed Iranian regime? There's no evidence that they have. I haven't written off the possibility that this war could lead to a better outcome than simply the death of an octogenarian who, by the way, didn't always seem to be guiding the country in the strategically optimal way. I'm talking about even judged by his own self interest. There was some talk when the Ayatollah wasn't killed in June that that was by design because keeping the Ayatollah in place might have been steering Iran in the wrong direction. There was some talk of a lot of things. Now there's a lot of tough talk about toast. That's just who Donald Trump is and how Donald Trump always decides to assert himself. And that's it for today's show. Corey War is the producer of the Gist. Kathleen Sykes, she edits the Gist list. She puts it together. She slaps it up there@mike pesca.substack.com Jeff Craig edits so much of the show. You know, he's the editor of How to all those words are chopped together by him. He does our videos as well. Ben Astaire is our booking coordinator and Michelle Pesca oversees it all. Improve and thanks for listening.

Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser (34:18)

Safeway and Albertsons have made saving easier than ever with great savings on family favorites this week. 16 ounce sweet strawberries are two for $5 member price. And don't miss the incredible deal on Signature select boneless skinless chicken breast value packs for $2.97 per pound limit. One plus medium avocados or mangoes are five for $5 member price. Fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit Safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.