The Assassin's Bathtub - Episode 10

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Assassin's Bathtub" — The Musers The Podcast, Episode 10

Host: Cumulus Podcast Network
Date: August 27, 2025
Guests: George Dunham, Craig “Junior” Miller, Gordon Keith
Episode Theme: Passions and Obsessions—A Deep Dive with Gordon Keith

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Overview

In this episode, The Musers dig into the concept of passion and obsession, centering the conversation on Gordon Keith’s eclectic and often hilarious (sometimes poignant) list of lifelong interests. After previously covering Craig Miller’s love for cycling, the spotlight turns to Gordon, whose pursuit of stories, objects, and knowledge leads to a candid, funny, and occasionally profound exploration of what it means to follow one’s curiosity through life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining and Chasing Passions

[02:38–04:50]

• The crew discusses what it means to be passionate about something, and how passions shape (and complicate) lives, especially in the context of relationships, time investment, and self-discovery.
• Gordon: “The only way that I've ever learned anything is by chasing my passion... and then just chase to the ends of the earth learning about it.”

2. Gordon’s ‘Obsession with Backstory’

[05:15–13:34]

• Gordon’s true passion emerges: a nearly compulsive need to unearth stories—objects, people, and especially history in the personal sense.
• He describes tracking oral histories of houses he’s lived in, interviewing previous residents, and documenting their stories.
• Notable Quote:
  • “I hate that the world is a world in which people's lives disappear into the ether because their stories disappear into the ether.” — Gordon Keith [09:21]

3. Learning Through Passion—ADD, Hyper-focus, and Curiosity

[07:08–10:00]

• Gordon opens up about having ADD:
  • Hyper-focus allows for deep dives into specific interests, but makes “regular” learning (and deadlines) difficult.
• Both George and Craig remark on the breadth (but not necessarily depth) of Gordon's skill acquisition, from house repairs to guitar brands.

4. Comedy, Writing, and the Terror of the Blank Page

[13:49–20:29]

• Early passions for comedy (Monty Python, SNL) segue into an obsession with writing, both as craft and as outlet.
• Gordon admits to struggling with the anxiety of writing, especially under deadlines—even as a published newspaper columnist.
• Notable anecdote: Confronting the imposter syndrome and how “fear can be a tremendous motivator.”
  • Craig: “Fear has been a great motivator for me to not look ridiculous during a segment.” [19:46]
  • Gordon: “I love writing… but I hate writing. I love having written.” [16:41]

5. The Redliner Syndrome—Procrastination and Motivation

[22:44–26:38]

• Group confesses to routinely missing deadlines, especially for tasks that don’t spark true intrigue.
• Craig recounts: Writing a last-minute philosophy paper (while drinking beer), earning an A+, and learning “you can put it off to the very end and still do okay.” [24:39–25:23]
• Gordon discusses “creating your own assignment” as a survival tactic he’s used since childhood.

6. Jack of All Trades—Collection Mania

[31:16–34:54]

• Gordon owns “around 200” typewriters and “probably 100” guitars, mostly in storage at his late parents’ house.
• Reveals an oscillating relationship with his collections; interests fade and return cyclically, underscoring the restless, exploratory nature of his passions.

7. Music as Mathematical and Emotional Obsession

[27:35–30:44]

• Reflection on performing in bands, and the later-in-life appreciation for music theory and the interconnectedness of writing, rhythm, and mathematics.
• Gordon: “Music is a fascinating bit of math that mixes with art... I start seeing, you know, math and, and music are interrelated, and music and writing, prose is interrelated because there's such music that's in good writing.” [28:31]

8. The Quest for Perfect Tools—And What Really Matters

[36:01–38:12]

• Chasing the “perfect” guitar or typewriter is ultimately a distraction from doing the real work: “The perfect one is the one you use.”
• The search becomes a way to avoid confronting the real calling—writing, creating, performing.
  • Gordon: “People like me, they'll do anything they can to keep from facing God, which is... what kind of words can I make come out of my mouth?... I'll spend an eternity going to pawn shops to find the guitar that will eventually get me in a position to actually get the assignment done. But just don't make me have to do the assignment now.” [36:01]

9. On Wisdom, Suffering, and Self-Acceptance

[38:19–42:51]

• Wisdom comes through suffering; hard-learned lessons about the futility of certain pursuits, but also the value in lived experience.
• George shares: Gordon’s advice during a period of deep grief: “So is life. And it's up to us to live that life the best we can, man.” [39:06]
• Gordon reflects on self-criticism, existential self-doubt, and the need to “uncrop the picture” of one’s life to see the good with the bad.

10. The Lee Harvey Oswald Bathtub—Obsession with Detail

[47:40–63:33]

• Gordon’s “outsized interest” in the Kennedy assassination is dissected, especially his purchase of a bathtub from an Oswald residence.
• He resists the label of “conspiracy theorist,” seeking a rational, logical approach to high-profile history.
  • Gordon: “My passion is just trying to get people to think about it in a new way. But, yes. Guilty, guilty, guilty.” [63:42]
• Personalizes the tale—relating to Oswald’s hardscrabble existence, the tragic ordinariness, and detailing moments like him leaving his wedding ring before the assassination.
• Notable quote:
  • “It would be in a landfill, yes.” [On saving the bathtub] [58:19]
  • “He was a guy who was trying to patch together a living for his family, who also had these delusions of grandeur...” [59:37]

11. Summary, Self-Awareness, and Wrap-Up

[64:02–64:46]

• Gordon amusingly declares his new passion: “Getting the hell out of here.”
• Next episode: Focus shifts to George Dunham’s passions.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Gordon Keith:
  • “I have an obsession with backstory.” [07:08]
  • “There's no secondhand wisdom. Like wisdom only can come from you.” [38:36]
  • “People like me, they'll do anything they can to keep from facing God, which is... what kind of words can I make come out of my mouth?” [36:01]
• Craig Miller:
  • “That taught me a terrible lesson that you can put it off to the very end and still do okay.” [25:24]
  • “Fear can be a tremendous motivator.” [19:46]
• George Dunham:
  • “You say stuff like that all the time. And I think that's because you have researched and read and written.” [39:58]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Opening Banter & The Burden of Texts: 00:00–02:38
• What Makes a Passion? (Roundtable): 02:38–05:15
• Gordon's Obsession with BackStory: 05:15–13:49
• Comedy, Writing, The Blank Page: 13:49–20:29
• Deadlines & Procrastination: 22:44–27:02
• Music and Interdisciplinary Passions: 27:35–31:16
• Extreme Collecting (Typewriters/Guitars): 31:16–34:54
• The Futility of the ‘Perfect’ Tool: 36:01–38:12
• On Grief and Life Wisdom: 38:19–42:51
• Lee Harvey Oswald/Assassin’s Bathtub: 47:40–63:56
• Outro / Next Episode Teaser: 64:02–64:46

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Tone and Style

Absurd, witty, self-deprecating, and at times unexpectedly moving; the Musers’ chemistry allows for playful teasing, deep dives, and raw honesty, with Gordon’s self-effacing delivery driving much of the episode’s charm.

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For New Listeners

This episode delivers on the Musers' reputation for mixing off-kilter humor with real insight. Their conversation traverses the ridiculous (bathtub collecting) and the deeply relatable (imposter syndrome, grief, the search for meaning). If you’re new to The Musers, this episode is an excellent introduction to their style: equal parts laugh-out-loud funny and quietly reflective. If you ever wondered how many typewriters are enough, or what impels someone to save a historic bathtub from the landfill, you'll find answers—and much to ponder—here.

Transcript

[George Dunham]

Mama.

[Gordon Keith]

Papa. Mi cuerpo crece a un ridmo alarmante. Il arro PA que me comprenora. Me quedara muy pe quena muy pronto. Conos precious de la vuelta menos son riemas.

[George Dunham]

Hold on.

[Gordon Keith]

I got a text. It's important to stop the job. Read text.

[George Dunham]

You never read mine.

[Gordon Keith]

You text me sometimes. I don't know. See, can you do a thing where you block people to where you don't actually see their text, but they don't know it? So it looks like you're still into the friendship.

[George Dunham]

I think they would know it.

[Craig Miller]

Why is it 5050 at best? If we text you, Gordo, we're going to get a text back. Why is it 50 50?

[Gordon Keith]

Because a text is an imposition. It is you being rude to me by demanding my attention at a time when I'm probably up in an attic running Romex through bingo. What? Through bingo? No, I just. I hate you guys. Don't hate text. Ever. Not really.

[George Dunham]

If it's from you guys, I assume that somewhat important and I text you back.

[Gordon Keith]

It doesn't feel like someone's putting you out by requiring an answer from you.

[George Dunham]

God.

[Craig Miller]

Talk about first world problems.

[Gordon Keith]

I mean, you think our great grandfathers had to stop the plow every single time they got a text? And the ox is getting restless up ahead of him as he's trying to bust the earth.

[George Dunham]

You're not your grandfather. Text us back. Jerk.

[Gordon Keith]

The Musers The Podcast Episode 10 the Assassin's Bathtub welcome to the Musers the podcast. We're three guys. We've been friends for over 300 years now, and we've been doing a radio show together in Dallas Fort Worth, basically since Jesus got bar mitzvahed. So this is like a long time. But fortunately for you, we're now doing a podcast, and we'd like to introduce ourselves. I'm Gordon Keith.

[George Dunham]

I'm George Dunham.

[Craig Miller]

I'm Craig Miller.

[Gordon Keith]

That is a bunch of pros talking right there. Okay, so on our last episode, Craig, you talked about your life's passion, which was riding the bike. And it was full of great storytelling and funny moments. And I hope that if someone missed it, that they go back and listen to it, because it really was fantastic. And today it falls on me to talk about the things that I love. Can I guess we're going to get to that?

[George Dunham]

Okay.

[Gordon Keith]

Because before we get to that, I do want to say that I've always found it really fascinating to find out and hear about other people's Passions. Because we get this one life. And what we get in life is time. And what we spend our precious time on is very important. It says a lot about the person. And the problem is we waste a lot of time on our passions. But is that really wasted time if you're pursuing something that you love?

[George Dunham]

No, I don't think so. Because it makes you. I'm thinking that it makes you happy.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

And fulfilled.

[Gordon Keith]

A lot of times if someone is married and what makes you happy oftentimes makes a lot of people around you unhappy. Yeah, that can happen.

[George Dunham]

And I could see why. Typewriters, playing bass and owning a tub.

[Gordon Keith]

You're already guessing.

[George Dunham]

I could be seen as somewhat odd by a partner.

[Craig Miller]

It's an interesting point. I would say there's a balance there somewhere. You need to do what makes you happy in your spare time and makes you feel fulfilled in life. Or like, for me, with the bicycle, I have felt like it's a blessing my entire life.

[George Dunham]

Sure.

[Gordon Keith]

It keeps you fit.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah. To have this hour or two hours or three hours every day to go out and to connect with nature, to keep myself healthy, to sort through my problems. But, yeah, if I were going out for eight hours every day and not paying attention to my family, there is a tipping point there somewhere.

[Gordon Keith]

And we all know the weird guy that lives down at the end of the street who has no family, that collects, like, old dolls from the 1950s. And we all think that that guy's creepy, but that's his passion. So it is kind of strange how passions really define a person, because I love finding out that, hey, here's a business guy. But yet his passion is poetry or something like that. Something that's against. Type of. And when it came up, what is Craig's passion? I think that everyone who's ever known Craig would have guessed exactly what you would say.

[George Dunham]

Yep, exactly.

[Gordon Keith]

Now, when it comes to me, as Georgio has often he jumps the gun. You know, he has.

[Craig Miller]

I can't help.

[Gordon Keith]

I have that little coitus interrupt this. This is a problem that he has in his life.

[Craig Miller]

That's why he could never play in the NFL, because he was always jumping offside.

[Gordon Keith]

Always. So I'd love to hear your guesses as to what my passion or passions are.

[George Dunham]

I said typewriters, playing the bass and owning a bathtub of a famous assassin.

[Gordon Keith]

Okay, all right, that's out of left field. I have no idea what you're talking about there.

[George Dunham]

And maybe writing. But, yeah, those are my guesses.

[Gordon Keith]

All right, Craig, your guess.

[Craig Miller]

So you are Tough to nail down one passion, I would say. If I had to guess, I would just say a broader music. And then the other thing I would say would be you're interested in history, but that's also very broad because you're interested in the history of a house that might be in your neighborhood or that you're living in. You're interested in the history of people, whether it's your friends or strangers. I'm not really talking about world history. You're just interested in history of common things. And I've always thought that was kind of a passion of yours.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. And we've seen you switch from old cars to rewiring a house to lawnmower repair. Yeah. You seem to spend your time crazy person some of those things, which I think is. I think that's one really cool thing about you. You wonder about something and then you learn about it and you get good at it. And I would say very few people can do that because, like me, I get frustrated if I'm not good at it. I. I just assume, well, I'm never going to be able to figure this out, so I'll just let somebody else rewire my house or fix my lawnmower.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah. If somebody asked me, does Gordo have a passion? I would say it's the passion of the day. Whatever you're interested in that day, yes.

[Gordon Keith]

Boy, you guys are all right around it. I mean, I think none of that was wrong because the only way that I've ever learned it, like, I love learning things, and the only way I've ever learned anything is by chasing my passion. I, for whatever reason, if I, you know, I've had been diagnosed as add, part of that I still have a hard time accepting, but it certainly makes sense because I wasn't good about learning stuff in school. I was really good at learning stuff that I would get interested in and then just chase to the ends of the earth learning about it. So I do follow my curiosity or my passion to the, to the very end, to the nth degree. And so my hyper focus, which is kind of a byproduct of add, is you get really focused in and locked on. In on something, and then you can't really pay attention to the rest of your life because you get so hyper focused on it. And yes, I get on some subject that I get crazy about and chase down and learn everything I can about it. And Craig, I think you're the closest on finding the river that all these tributaries come off of, which is that I do have this Obsession with backstory. And you touched on one that I had on my list that I was going to talk about later, but might as well talk about it now, which is that I always loved hearing about. I love talking to old people. I love hearing an old person's story. And I probably go beyond what even other people do when they hear old people's story and that I have to then research for them and then find out they mentioned that they. I don't know. Yeah, I bought my first car at this dealership that was down there. And then I have to find out what was that dealership and then learn the name of it and the history of it. And then I learned what was this little town that this person stopped in where they saw a house fire that they busted in and saved an old lady out of.

[Craig Miller]

They don't remember to fill them in on their history.

[Gordon Keith]

Right. I have to be their researcher for their life. And I don't even. There are people that I don't even get in contact with again because I don't know who they are necessarily, or have contact information on them. But I have to chase down everything that was in their story because I hate that the world is a world in which people's lives disappear into the ether because their stories disappear into the ether. And I've never. There's very few people. There have been a couple throughout my life that I've met and go, that really is an uninteresting person.

[George Dunham]

Thank you for knowing that about me.

[Gordon Keith]

There's so few. Like, it's interesting to me. I've told you guys this before, meeting an old person. And I can talk with them. I'll end up talking with them for like four hours and then miss my next three appointments that I'm supposed to go to because I'm talking to them and I'm so wrapped up in this conversation. And at the end, all these people always say the same thing. I don't know why you want to know all this. Nothing interesting has happened in my life. Their self assessment is always that their life is wholly uninteresting. But yet to me, it sounds like I'm listening to an audiobook of this person's love, death, tragedy, triumph, perseverance. Person thinks that they're boring. Hey, I worked in the same job for 50 years. And to them that sounds like a failure. And to me that sounds like a triumph.

[George Dunham]

But I've also seen you turn that off too, where we have someone come up to us and say, yeah, I was. I used to work down on that dock right down there. Yep. Okay, thanks.

[Gordon Keith]

Well, that's a joke for you. Yep. Okay. We'll see you later. That's a funny joke.

[George Dunham]

Sounds interesting.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, well, I'm not thinking about that right now, so.

[Gordon Keith]

Right.

[George Dunham]

So.

[Gordon Keith]

You mentioned those houses. You know, I would live in a. I lived in an old neighborhood down by you in East Alice. And every house that I ever lived in, I not only traced the history of the house and found every news article that ever mentioned that address, I found the people that lived in there, the kids that grew up in that house in the 20s and 30s, and tracked them down sometimes in nursing homes where they lived and talked about their childhood home and heard their voices go from a dull, weary, resigned, disconnected to the world. So you mentioned their childhood house and their bedroom, and they lit up and they talked about their childhood in a way that they hadn't felt like they hadn't talked about in a while. And to see life spark back in them just with the mere memory of their life back when it was so full of vitality. And hearing them tell stories that happened in my front yard, hearing them tell about this time Santa Claus left them this on that side porch that I'm thinking about tearing down.

[George Dunham]

You know, it's like that Santa Claus went there.

[Gordon Keith]

And I even had several people in their 80s that came back and visited me at those houses and walked through and told me the stories in each individual room. It was. It was so fascinating. And I went back recently and read some of that oral history, because I took notes on everything, wrote it all down for no reason. Like, there's no. It's not like I'm going to publish this. It's not like it's going to die with me the same way it would die with them. And they told it. But I have all of this written out, you know, and it's. And I reread it the other night, and it was just so fascinating to hear their lives going through World War, hearing Jacqueline talk about laying up in her bed when she was, you know, six years old and slept with the window open because people didn't have air conditioning back then. And hearing the paper boy yelling, yelling, you know, extra, extra. And it was VJ Day and that paper landing on her front lawn right in front of that window that. That I was looking out of. You know, when it's just the aspect of that people's lives pass through these houses, and then you don't know that history unless you actually find those people.

[George Dunham]

So because of that, it's hard to Narrow down three or four things with you, because you. You've researched so many things, whether it's an old house, an old guitar, or something that shoots you in a lot of different directions.

[Gordon Keith]

So when I look back at what was kind of my first, the first few obsessions that I remember, I do remember always liking comedy from a young age and always watching TV just the same as you guys did. Saturday Night Live, NBC, David Letterman, all that, and Monty Python. Monty Python. And I became fascinated with what makes things funny. And so I really liked hearing something that tickled me and then trying to figure out, well, what made that work, and realizing, you know, okay, look at this. This is great. The economy with which they said it, the fact that they use this word and not this word is the very thing that makes it funny. And getting up under the hood and trying to figure out, well, why is this funny to me? And what did they do here in this? And that was around the same time. This is, you know, high school and then into college. And then in college, I got to reading literature, and that exact same thing grabbed me. I would read these stories, and I'd read a sentence that just flowed and had such rhythm and music, musicality to it and lyricism to it that it would read almost like poetry more than prose. And I would get up under the hood and figure out, well, what is making this sentence so great? What makes this passage so freaking moving? And writing really became. I think if I had to say what it was, it was my first love is stories. Collecting them from old people, reading about them in a novel, the story that can even be in a joke that has the twist and turn of surprise at the end, that all is the thing that's the most fascinating to me. So writing probably is the thing that I'm most passionate about, whether it's comedy, writing or serious writing. But when I started reading and getting into that, it was really strange because I kind of didn't get into comedy so much. I was much more into serious stuff, serious writing. And it's interesting to me that I had a career that kind of started in comedy on the radio. But when I got the column for the Morning News, Dallas Morning News, I was a columnist for a while. All of those. I don't know that I wrote any funny columns. I think they were all serious stuff.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I always went there for jokes and was really disappointing.

[Gordon Keith]

I know George was. Every time he would come back and say, I haven't laughed once.

[George Dunham]

Why do you think this is funny?

[Gordon Keith]

George is not supposed to be Funny. Oh, okay. All right, Switch. But so writing became something that was very, very fascinating to me. And still to this day, I think that that's probably my primary passion, and that's what makes it the most scary of all my passions.

[Craig Miller]

Is that what it is? Because I was going to ask you, why haven't you written a couple of books? Why aren't you still writing a column?

[Gordon Keith]

I love writing. I love the. Study the art of writing, and I love having written. But I hate writing. I hate writing, but I love having written.

[Craig Miller]

Right.

[George Dunham]

Is it the deadline thing that messes you up?

[Gordon Keith]

It's just. It's. It's the feeling of I'm going to get it wrong. It's the. It's the fraud feeling of I am wholly unqualified to do this, particularly in that situation when I'm hired by a major newspaper and they're expecting and they, like, featured me on their. In their paper.

[Craig Miller]

And that's not enough to give you the confidence that you're not going to get it wrong.

[Gordon Keith]

No, no. It's the. It's the thing of. I mean, I. I had to use that Jedi mind trick many times on myself because every single column that I would approach, I would say, I don't know how to do this. And I would have to go through a process of reminding myself that, wait, these people who do know about writing and publishing think I can do it, right? And I just did it for the 12 weeks before this. Why is this demon whispering in my ear that you can't do it now, though? And why do we. Why am I giving that more weight than I am? All these other voices that are saying, you can do it, and at that.

[Craig Miller]

Point, you knew that you could do it because you had done it. For many Fly by Night publications like Quick.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes, yes.

[George Dunham]

But, you know, I bet a. A number of people who are, let's say, artists or musicians struggle with that. This is something I really want to write about. And they sit down, man, where do I start? But can't write this song.

[Gordon Keith]

Here's the thing about that Georgia picture is that I think that just about every writer, whether it's a writer of a song or a writer of prose or poetry or comedy, they always face the terror of the blank page and think that they can't do it. And they feel, like wildly overmatched by the task in front of them, and they're all convinced that they can't do it or that they're frauds or that they've somehow gotten away with it up to this point, but I can't do it. Now, that is an incredibly human experience. The other incredibly human experience is being deceived that other people don't go through that exact same thing.

[George Dunham]

That's unique.

[Gordon Keith]

That's unique to you. And that everyone else has it together and they feel confident, but you are deficient. You can't do it.

[Craig Miller]

Also, that fear can be a great motivator. I heard Chris Rock in an interview once say he is scared to death every time he takes the stage because he doesn't think he can do it. And it's that fear that motivates him to work hard, to dot all the I's and cross all the t's so that he'll know he's prepared to go out there. I've kind of felt that way in our radio career. Fear has been a great motivator for me to not look ridiculous during a segment. So make sure I've got this in order. Sometimes I still do look ridiculous. But fear can be a tremendous motivator.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, because preparation is a great antidote to failing. You know, if you, if you're worried about something, you have a tendency to prepare more, to work harder on it. But I mean, every single time I got ready to write a column, it was just. It's just difficult for me. It's difficult. I'm a very, very slow writer. And there are some writers that are so fast that it scares me because I think those are real writers. But then I'll read about some fantastic writer and they talk about it and they're even slower than I am when I read about it. And they. You read about their internal struggles. And those stories make me feel less alone.

[George Dunham]

Maybe the, the compromise would be, I'll give y' all five or six stories. Could be eight stories. I don't know how many just don't give me deadlines. But when I get passionate about writing about something, I'll send it to you. How about that?

[Gordon Keith]

If I said that to them, yeah. The reason that wouldn't work is because I basically probably have that deal now. And it's been like, it's been like 10 years since I did a call.

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[Gordon Keith]

That's the other thing about me, is that deadlines are the only thing that will work for me and deadlines are the thing that would frustrate them so much and that I get resentful of because I don't want to have a deadline. But I know that I need one and I know that I need one that's probably about two days before the real deadline because I will blow past your deadline.

[George Dunham]

Deadlines of things we have to get done at the station. You routinely go buy those and I understand that because sometimes deadlines just, they freak you out. Just like, yeah, I've got, I don't know what to do about that even it's a small task. Or you make it in your mind where I can do it tomorrow.

[Gordon Keith]

Were you guys always red liners like that where you went into the red to get a paper done right before it was done? Study and all that for school for sure. What causes that? Why is it. Because I did know some people who like hey, you have a project due in three months and that person would, all right, I'm going to knock that out next week because I don't want to be worried about it for three months.

[Craig Miller]

If it's something I really liked, loved, wanted to do, I would get it done early because I was excited to do it. But most schoolwork I had no interest, didn't want to do it. And that's why I just put it off to the end. So it was an interest thing for me.

[George Dunham]

You're putting off misery for as long as possible. I don't want to do it so I can even remember it was some school project, projects thinking, okay, I'll take 10 points off, I'll make a B on it.

[Gordon Keith]

I would always budget in for the late, you know.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. How ridiculous is that? Why would you penalize yourself 10 or 15 points from the beginning where the best you can make is a 85?

[Gordon Keith]

I don't know. But why didn't school teach you better how to motivate yourself or at least have discipline to do the things you don't want to do, but teach you to do. The calculation of okay, I can suffer this much 5 units of suffering now, so I can avoid the 50 units of suffering I'm going to spread out over the next three months. Like, why doesn't it teach you more starkly that that is the lesson?

[George Dunham]

I don't know. I don't know. It's just this game that we keep that some of us would play with school of just, let's just put it.

[Gordon Keith]

Off because it's so much heartache with when you're late on something, they're tracking you down, you're calling you, you're getting demerits or it's like all that stuff is all a bunch of heartache and a bunch of inner turmoil, but you're choosing that over the inner turmoil of just sitting down once and doing it.

[Craig Miller]

I learned a very bad lesson. I think it was our sophomore year in college and I was taking a philosophy course and I had a paper due that next day and it was 10pm that night and our old roommate Skip and I are sitting there. I said, I got to write this five page paper and I don't know what to do write it about. So we popped open a beer and I just started writing down the biggest bunch of BS you'd ever read. Turn it in the next day, certain I'm going to fail, then a few days later get the paper back and it said a plus at the top. And then Dr. Yaffe had written in the margin, please see me about taking upper level philosophy courses.

[Gordon Keith]

Genius.

[Craig Miller]

So I learned you can put it off to the very end.

[Gordon Keith]

That's philosophy for you.

[Craig Miller]

That is philosophy for you. So that taught me a terrible lesson that you can put it off to the very end and still do. Okay.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. And that's the way I learned to get through life. Put things off to the very last and then change the assignment to something you can do. I've told you guys that too. That I learned very early on that I was incapable of doing the work that other kids could do for whatever reason. I didn't know why that was. But the slow and steady winning the race, the tortoise like pace of progression through a semester, I couldn't do that. But I could study and ace a few tests. I couldn't do any daily homework. And so I'd always budget that in. And then a lot of times when we'd have a big project. I would just have to do something that was not. That was not assigned. I would just do a. You know, rather than give you a paper teacher, is it possible that I can perform a monologue for class or change the assignment? And I would always get graded for my creativity. Oh, look at this creative way. He didn't follow the assignment but he did this other non traditional way of doing it. And I'd get rewarded for that.

[George Dunham]

That's where special exemption Gordo started.

[Gordon Keith]

Gordo started. And then if you see it in my adult life, it's like it's all replicated because I ended up at a sports radio station with no knowledge of sports. So I had to create a job for myself at an all sports station. Once again, because I couldn't. I wasn't good enough to do the real assignment.

[George Dunham]

That's amazing.

[Gordon Keith]

So I have to create my own assignment.

[George Dunham]

But because of all of that, you know a lot about a lot of things. Whether it's literature or engine repair or wiring a house or just because one day you got interested. Or brands of guitar.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes.

[George Dunham]

What pickups sound like and what they're even called.

[Gordon Keith]

Poster child for Jack of all trades. Master of none. Know just a little bit about everything. Instead of focused and concentrating on one thing and getting really good. I'd rather be, I guess, just a little bit good at a lot of different things.

[Craig Miller]

He mentioned guitar though. And I said music. Isn't music very near the top of your list of things you love?

[Gordon Keith]

You know, as I thought about music, I have a strange approach to music. I don't think that my love of music, despite the fact of when I was younger, I was much more involved with it bands. I was a bass player and singer in a band and I wrote the songs of the band and was in multiple bands throughout my teenage years and early adulthood. But I don't think music became a passion kind of until later in my life. Which is very strange. Like I did have an interest and a passion in performing and being special. That I think that's what I was doing the band for. Because I couldn't be an athlete. You know, I couldn't excel in these traditional ways that boys were excelling in order to attract, you know, girls.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

So I knew I had to figure out some workaround. Once again, the whole concept of I have to have a workaround because I'm not good enough at face value. So that's when I started in bands and that was a way to attract girls. And then it wasn't until I got older and Got back into music that I started realizing when music is a. Is a fascinating bit of math that mixes with art, a lot of things. And when I started seeing all these things in an interdisciplinary way, like, wow, the writing that I like, look at this paragraph, look at the beats in it, look at the rhythm of the language, look at the melody of the words. And it all starts seeing. It's kind of like. It's almost like some form of synesthesia. Metaphor would be synesthesia, you know, where you, you can see colors and I mean. No, I see taste and you can taste, color, all that kind of stuff. When people start mixing the senses, I started seeing that, that, you know, math and, and music are interrelated and, and music and writing, prose is interrelated because there's such music that's in good writing. And that just fascinated me. So I got to study and all that kind of stuff and, and obsessed with that. So I got back into music in my adulthood and finally getting around to learning music theory, which I still don't understand, but I can listen to people talk about it endlessly. How. Okay, now this now transitions into the Mixolydian mode. This is Aeolian or this is. Whatever they're saying I don't even understand. I'm throwing out terms I don't quite understand. But listening to musicians talk when they can go into, you know. Oh, okay, that's. That's more of a polyrhythm there, isn't it? Yeah, no, it's more of a herta. I think that.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, it's fascinating. Really deep with it or just surface level with it, you know, just how it makes you feel. And I guess that's what you're talking about exploring why does it make you feel that way?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. That's interesting.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. And learn. Trying to figure out the patterns of. Okay, I like this song and I like this song. And then you were like, oh, okay. I know why. Because they both have the same frickin progression. That's why.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

That I respond to this particular interval when it's sung. It always gets me.

[George Dunham]

You've seen that comedian that runs through, I don't know, 20 songs and they're all basically.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, those three guys. Yeah. The axis of power or whatever they call themselves. Yeah. All the songs that have the exact same progression.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

But when you get into my passions, it's hard to differentiate between interest and passions sometimes. But I start looking at them. I mean, I've gone through clocks when my grandfather gave me his kitchen clock. It's called A kitchen clock. But it sat on the mantel in the den that I listened to throughout my whole youth. That was the clock that marked the time till Santa Claus came and you know, visit us because we always had Christmas at my grandparents house. And I just love this clock. It was made In I think 1898, or at least that was the first marking on the back of the clock of a repairman that signed the back of it, cleaned and oiled the date in 1898.

[Craig Miller]

You still have it? Yeah, still working.

[Gordon Keith]

Still working. Wow. Yeah, I got it restored and everything.

[Craig Miller]

That's great.

[Gordon Keith]

But that marked all of me and my grandfather gave me that later in his life shortly before he died. And so I went and researched that and figured out exactly when it was made, what kind it was, how many approximately make of this and all that. So I chased down a lot of object history like that. But yeah, clocks, typewriters, got way into typewriters.

[George Dunham]

How many typewriters do you own?

[Gordon Keith]

Let's not podcast anymore right now, but just guesstimate. It's probably around 200.

[Craig Miller]

Wow, really?

[George Dunham]

Okay. Yeah, that's about what I thought it was.

[Craig Miller]

Where are they all?

[Gordon Keith]

They're all at my parents house. I still have my parents house. They've passed on now but. And my mom would. I keep imagining that the only way that I can get her to live again is to make her rise from the grave with how much I've junked up her house. She'd be so pissed.

[Craig Miller]

Just stacks, 200 typewriters. What do you do? You ever go over there and bang away on them?

[Gordon Keith]

Every once in a while I'll go back through them and the thing about the things that I'm interested in is I'll get to a point where I think I'm not interested in it anymore. And it always comes back again. If I wait a few years and don't get rid of those objects, I will always get reinterested in them and have to reacquire them if I've gotten rid of them. So I've now learned to be a little bit more cautious with thinking a phase is over with me. Because the same things that I'm interested in, I get reinterested in again and again and again. Typewriters, pens, mechanical pencils. You starting to see a theme here? I like things that are associated in the accoutrement of writing. You know, books. I have so many books. I have guitars. Guitars, Yes. I have way too many guitars.

[George Dunham]

How many guitars are we standing at right now?

[Gordon Keith]

Once again, I think the podcast needs to stop right now and move forward. I don't know, it's probably 100 between acoustics, basses, electrics.

[Craig Miller]

Okay, where are they stored?

[Gordon Keith]

Once again, my mother's gonna come back from the grave on this one. Guitars everywhere, son, why don't you learn to play one guitar really well instead of a whole bunch of guitars?

[Craig Miller]

I knew you had halfway. Well, a lot, but I was gonna guess 20.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I wish.

[Craig Miller]

Wow.

[Gordon Keith]

I wish. But the good news is that I have. I don't have a taste for expensive guitars. Mine is always the same thing. I always like cheap guitars that are good values and kind of like sleeper guitars that are really great.

[Craig Miller]

Not like the Jim or say, collection.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes. Not like, not like his collection. And when I look at the guitars that I've gotten into, a lot of times I'll get focused on. It seems for the most part the majority of the guitars I have were all that were available when I was a teenager and wanted a guitar and couldn't afford this one, couldn't afford that one, and wished I could have tried all of them, but couldn't. So what I've basically done is just bought all the guitars that were out back then so I could play each one of them and have a lot of time with it to decide which one I really want. And fortunately they're cheap now because you can go in a pawn shop and find most mid-80s Peevies guitars hanging on the wall.

[George Dunham]

And I know a couple of guys like you that are just in the search for that magical sound. And it's just going to. It's going to sound. If it's an acoustic guitar, it's going to sound good in a room and it's going to sound good when you plug it in. Yeah, and I understand that to a certain extent, but after a while, it's just. Especially after you plug them in and you're playing in a bar where people are talking and the sounds bouncing all over the place. I really don't think it makes any difference.

[Gordon Keith]

It does not matter. And here's the lesson. Here's the caveat. This is what you ought to learn from the mistake of my life is that you are exactly right in buying every typewriter that was ever made to find the perfect one. The perfect one is the one you use. The perfect one is the one that gets you to the thing that actually matters, which are the words that you can put down that will transcend time generation. It'll be a great grandchild that'll be able to read your words and it sounds like you're exactly there sitting next to them. That's the most valuable thing you can do. It's not to find the perfect typewriter to get it done on, it's to get it done. And the guitar thing is the exact same way. All the time spending going to a pawn shop in BFE out here that you read online that may have this one old thing in stock that may be the perfect one that just feels so good in your hand. That's a waste of time. That drive time would be much better spent putting together two chords and a line that's so true that it breaks your heart. But we don't do that. People like me, they'll do anything they can to keep from facing God, which is. God gave me this gift. What kind of words can I make come out of my mouth? What kind of music can I make come out of my throat? And that scares me so much to face eternity like that that I'll spend an eternity going to pawn shops to find the guitar that will eventually get me in a position to actually get the assignment done. But just don't make me have to do the assignment now. Lord.

[Craig Miller]

Three hours driving to Austin for a guitar, which you've done.

[Gordon Keith]

I have done that.

[George Dunham]

Right. He did that.

[Gordon Keith]

I drove all the way down to Austin to buy this one guitar and then drove all the way back and then played it next to the one that I had, was wanting to compare it to and said, no, the one I already had. That was the better one, and then sold that one.

[Craig Miller]

All of that. To have the excuse of not having time to write that song.

[Gordon Keith]

Exactly. Exactly. All to avoid the calling.

[George Dunham]

That's amazing the way you're wired. I don't. I don't always think that's a bad thing, though, because I think you've learned a lot.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Even sound advice to give other people and to give yourself that you ignore. But you're wise because of all that. I think you're very wise.

[Gordon Keith]

Unfortunately, wisdom comes from suffering. Yes.

[George Dunham]

You've made yourself suffer a lot.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, you suffered a lot. But, you know, the thing about wisdom is really and truly, we can read wisdom, but there is no secondhand wisdom. Like wisdom only can come from you. You can read an idea of what wisdom is, but until you experience it, you won't know it.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

And you know. Yes, I had to chase down all those things to learn that they were all a waste of time. I was convinced when I was doing it it wasn't a waste of time.

[George Dunham]

You know, because of that, though you've been able to say things that are really poignant. And I'll bring up an example last year when I went through just awful times, losing two siblings and a very close member of our family. And we were in a commercial break during our radio show, and I just said, man, I just feel like death is all around me. And Gordon just chimes in, says, yep, but so is life. And to paraphrase, he said something along the lines, yep, so is life. And it's up to us to live that life the best we can, man. Gordon, come up with that. But it helped me. It helped me get through the day. And I've gone back to that quote a number of times. And you say stuff like that all the time. And I think that's because you have researched and read and written.

[Craig Miller]

The odd thing about that is as he delivered that pearl of wisdom, he's on his laptop watching YouTube videos of Kitty cats playing with yarn.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I know. He's everything. So he's. Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

He's not fully embracing what he's telling you.

[George Dunham]

No, no, exactly.

[Craig Miller]

No.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. He's driving to Austin to get a guitar that he's not even going to play.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. I remember that day. And it's a lesson that I have to learn. Look, we all do. We all preach sermons that are for ourselves ultimately, you know, And I wouldn't know to say that had I not been through the exact same thing.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Which. When you feel like the world is all one way and death is all around you, you know, it's. It's. You know, that your mind is playing tricks on you. Your mind is cropping out the life that's around you as well.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

And it's only when you're alive can you experience grieving a death. So, you know, we all crop the world in ways that are misleading, and sometimes we do it for. In order to just get by the. I can't think about that right now element of our lives. And then, you know, other times we. We recognize that, man, everybody hates me. You know, you feel something like that is. That's an absolute, or I can't do something. And then you have to zoom out. You have to. You have to uncrop that picture to say, no, if I look at things a little bit with a wider angle, I recognize that, you know, there's a lot of great things in my life right now. I'm not an absolute miserable failure. I can, man. I can. I get in the absolute miserable failure phase all the time, and I have to have My own dialogue inside my head to talk myself out of it. You know, I always have to go through a process to not feel like I've been an absolute disappointment to myself. But as much as I haven't accomplished in life, I have to remind myself I did accomplish some things, and that's good. And when the final score comes down, I'm hoping that God doesn't look at all the things that I could have done that I didn't. I hope he looks at the things that I could have not done. And I did.

[Craig Miller]

I think that's a healthier place to be. It's a healthier point of view than the person who thinks everything they do is a massive success. They do nothing but greatness. They have outsized confidence. I think it's a much healthier place to be to think that you've got a lot of work to do.

[Gordon Keith]

I know, but don't you envy those people.

[Craig Miller]

Not really.

[Gordon Keith]

Who walk around thinking they're so great?

[Craig Miller]

No. Because I think we make fun of.

[George Dunham]

Them and I wonder if they really do think they're that great. I think they still have those voices telling the same thing of, you're not that great and you're. Maybe I think you're right and you're not up to.

[Gordon Keith]

But there are a few narcissists who probably do think that they're that great.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. Yeah, they're out there, too.

[Gordon Keith]

I always just. I always wonder what is the value of blissful ignorance? You know, someone who doesn't think about life or death or meaning that, you know, that they just kind of are in that. That, I guess, childlike state. Not as a negative thing.

[Craig Miller]

Oh, George is raising his hand slowly.

[Gordon Keith]

No, you're not in that category.

[George Dunham]

I think about it. I do. But I also kind of live like a goldfish sometimes and just kind of swim around and it's all good, you know, And I don't. I don't think I torture myself as much as you guys do, you know, about worry. And I do worry about things, Even the doing the radio show. As long as we have done it 31 years together and been in radio even longer than that. I still have those mornings where I just. Or the night before. Man, how are we going to get through this show tomorrow? You know, you still have those feelings, so.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. And why is that?

[George Dunham]

I don't. That's that interval.

[Gordon Keith]

Because we're human. Before we sat down to do this podcast, I can't tell you how fearful I was. I was like, oh, man, I got to talk about my life and my interest and what I love. I have no idea how to talk about that.

[George Dunham]

But it's been great.

[Gordon Keith]

And for some reason, your part is great.

[George Dunham]

My part has not been great. Your part's been great.

[Craig Miller]

I've been pretty good, too.

[Gordon Keith]

I was convinced before we sat down here that today was the day that we had finally run out of things to say to each other. Meanwhile, every time the three of us sit down, we always are able to get something to talk, whether it's podcast or not. It's just we all have a great time talking with each other.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

And talking about life. But for some reason, when it's my turn, I'm thinking, okay, this is when the Lord's going to come down and say, okay, you guys, you don't have words anymore, right? We just say, no, there are no words in your lungs anymore. That's it.

[George Dunham]

I guess that's done. We know it's over when we just have nothing to say to each other or ourselves.

[Gordon Keith]

And it was going to be on my scorecard when he decided to do this.

[George Dunham]

All right, we'll put Gordon down for a quadruple bogey.

[Gordon Keith]

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[George Dunham]

It's so special, these teams collide.

[Gordon Keith]

Don't miss a lineup filled with electricity. Matchups. Welcome back to college football Kickoff Week, presented by Modelo Labor Day weekend on ESPN and ABC. Also available to stream on the AllNew ESPN app. So the other things that I've been interested in, I made a list. Told you typewriters. Told you Pens. Paper. Different kinds of paper to write on.

[George Dunham]

That's wild.

[Gordon Keith]

Who makes great paper?

[George Dunham]

Ever given paper one?

[Gordon Keith]

I've discovered that when it comes to anything to do with writing, whether it's typewriters, pens, paper, it's always the axis powers that do the best.

[George Dunham]

Oh, really?

[Gordon Keith]

I don't know why that is.

[Craig Miller]

You're saying you wish they would have won the war.

[Gordon Keith]

No, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying that. But for some reason, it's always the Japanese and Germans who are. And even cars. When I get into better paper. When I get into cars. Yeah. Japanese are the ones who make the paper. And I think certain German companies do really good paper too, which is strange. I'm just saying. I'm just keep an eye on those two. I don't know what they're up to.

[George Dunham]

Have you ever thought of Japan. Second thing about paper in your life?

[Craig Miller]

No, not really.

[Gordon Keith]

You don't get into the. The grit or the gsm.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I have no idea.

[Craig Miller]

Only toilet paper. Have I given any thought?

[George Dunham]

Yeah, that's where you don't want to go.

[Gordon Keith]

Cheap motorcycles. Once again, Germans and Japanese do pretty well on motorcycles.

[George Dunham]

Okay, are you in a pause right now with motorcycles? Because I haven't heard you talk.

[Gordon Keith]

I have been in a paus because it's so darn hot.

[George Dunham]

Okay.

[Gordon Keith]

And. But I, believe me, I will get back into it. I'll get back into it with a fury. There is one particular thing you mentioned earlier in the podcast.

[Craig Miller]

Yep.

[George Dunham]

Bathtub.

[Gordon Keith]

That's. It's very sensitive. It's very sensitive. I have been accused by members of the public of being, quote, unquote, obsessed.

[George Dunham]

With Lee Harvey Oswald. It's like anything else. It was a fascinating story, and you dug into it and now you know every address where he lived here in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

[Gordon Keith]

Now, this is the weird intersection of, like Junior said, I'm not really obsessed with history. And that's true, you know, Like, I know a lot of guys who. That's their favorite subject, love world history and getting into historical facts and everything. This is the one little carve out to where I did get an outsized interest in the Kennedy assassination.

[Craig Miller]

Here we go.

[Gordon Keith]

Don't say here we go. I'm just. This is a little slow.

[George Dunham]

I was somewhat fascinated with it until I met Gordon. I was like, man, I'm not even to.

[Gordon Keith]

Going.

[George Dunham]

Going to talk about it with him. He knows so much more than I do about this thing.

[Gordon Keith]

The reason I got into it, same as you, Giorgio, I started off with, I'm a conspiracy theorist. Right. Because that's what everyone. If you're interested in the assassination at all, you're interested in it because of conspiracies. That's what leads every young person.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

That would get into it. We get into it that way. And so I was like that, too. And then I'd be sitting there reading the books about it. And I go, okay, well, the thing that you just said proves that there was a conspiracy. It doesn't prove it. It's just an interesting question. And then the more I read, I started going, wait, this is full of a bunch of bad thinking. Like, there's some logical holes here. And then I started reading more about, well, what's the evidence for Oswald's guilt? And I started realizing, well, that's kind of a lot of it. And then the whole Jedi mind trick that usually works on conspiracy theorists is. Yeah, which proves that it had to be a very high power that was able to manufacture so much evidence against him, that was able to manipulate time and space in order to frame him. And so that's why I got interested in it, was because it wasn't because, I don't know, I'm really into mid century Democratic presidents. Wasn't anything like that. It was that, if we're going to be conspiracy theorists, let's be good conspiracy theorists. Let's not be the annoying person who's just full of an endless series of questions that we're not interested in the answer because we've already got our conclusion. I've said this before, and I think it's the most telling. I think it's one of the most telling details about conspiracy theorists is that they never argue with each other. At least when I'm around them, they don't. They'll argue with the one lone gunman guy endlessly. And I've been at Dealey Plaza on the anniversary, and I've asked this conspiracy theorist who did it. It was LBJ in the car back behind me, asked this conspiracy theorist, no, it was Castro and his people. You know, they took him out for Bay of Pigs invasion and everything. Okay, well, what do you think? Well, is it clearly J. Edgar Hoover who was doing this because Kennedy had found out about his cross dress, whatever.

[George Dunham]

The theory is, or the guy who.

[Craig Miller]

Told you that he thought Kennedy shot himself in the back of the limo.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. Who stood up and did it himself because he was afraid that Jackie O. Was about to find out about Marilyn Monroe and he used the name Jackie O too, which I didn't want to point out that he's got a little chronology problem there.

[Craig Miller]

Right.

[Gordon Keith]

But yeah, and like they all are standing there facing me, telling me these theories that all contradict each other, but they had zero interest in disproving the other guy next to him. Why aren't you. Why aren't the LBJ guy attacking the Castro Guy, why aren't you guys disagreeing? Y' all both have figured it out, and the other guy's just as wrong as the lone gunman guy. Why is it all me? And then I started realizing there's probably some other psychological factors at work here that they want to disprove just this one thing, and they don't matter. They don't care how muddy the waters get with a bunch of conflicting conspiracies as long as it hurts the other side. That's what I meant. That's what I'm for.

[George Dunham]

It was the most fascinating story in all my history books, and I was. I was caught up in it, too. And then read that book, best evidence.

[Gordon Keith]

Or is that the one that Best Evidence? I think that's the David Lifton book about the body, that there was surgery done on the body in the. In the plane.

[George Dunham]

And, boy, I read that, I thought, okay. And plus, it was in the 60s, and you couldn't trust the government there, right? Vietnam and all these other assassinations, RFK and mlk, and it was all somehow tied together. And, yeah, so it was easy for me to buy into that. But then I met you and thought, man, he knows a lot more details than I do. I just knew a few names here and there and kept up with, but nothing like you didn't see. I think that's where your research, Gene, did you some good because it gave you some clarity that a lot of people don't have.

[Gordon Keith]

It's cost me nothing but heartache. Conspiracy people. They just want to be conspiracy people. It's not that they're looking for, like, I love it. I love having a conversation in which I have my mind changed. That is a thrilling experience for me to learn about something and go, man, you know what? You brought up such a good point that I think I was wrong in that, because I always feel like I learned something. Like I've got. I'm getting closer here, right? The worst feeling in the world is to be 25, 35, or 45 and already know everything there is to know in the world.

[George Dunham]

You're dug in.

[Gordon Keith]

You're not dug in. You've got it all. You got it all figured out. So the next 40 years are going to be nothing but boredom for you on this planet because you already know everything.

[Craig Miller]

So the moment I came to your side, and I don't even remember you being really into it back then, you were. This is 20 years ago. But I didn't dive into the whole Kennedy thing like you guys did, but I always Thought, yeah, it sounds like there could be a conspiracy theory that makes some sense to me here or there. But we had Bert Shipp on our show, who was a veteran reporter for a Dallas TV station, and he covered the assassination. And he said, we just had our 40th anniversary where all the reporters who covered that event get together and we talk about. We do this every 10 years. This was the 40th anniversary. We did an anonymous poll. Everybody was asked, do you think Oswald acted alone, or do you think there was something else? And of the 40 or so journalists that were there, as he mentioned, all of us skeptical by nature because we're journalists, it was unanimous, the anonymous vote. Unanimous that Oswald acted alone. And when I heard that, I thought, well, it's pretty clear then. Not one skeptical journalist still holds out the thought that, yeah, it was Cuba, it was the US Government, it was a suicide.

[Gordon Keith]

And, hey, there are questions about it. And I think that all those questions chase down the answers. I'm all for that. I want all the documents to be released. And I think that there may be something that would. If some evidence came out that would change my mind, I would welcome it. I'm not dug in on Lone Gunman. I'm just saying that the stuff that people are saying proves conspiracy, doesn't prove it. It sounds like it's. A lot of it is conjecture. A lot of it is you connecting dots that don't. That don't connect by logic. It's connected by will, by human will, your human will to say this is related to this. So I'm up for having my mind changed on it. We had a special circumstance here in this particular case that I got interested in because it happened in the town in which we worked and lived for so long. I mean, the fact that that world event that changed world history and world direction happened right here in our backyard in Dallas, Texas, is amazing to me.

[Craig Miller]

It's less than a mile from where we're broadcasting right now.

[Gordon Keith]

Right. And once again, combining passions and interest, I got interested. Where were the places he lived? Not just where did this event happen, but where was he? Where were the humble little hovels that his mind was churning in that led to the address changing? I don't know what you're talking about. 602 Ellsworth. 214 Messinelli. Actually, it's maybe North Neely. I can't remember. 1026 North Beckley. That's the one that was the rooming house. So going to all those and then walking through those and what's was so interesting about walking through those is sometimes you're walking through a place that's still an apartment building people still live in and you're seeing this mixture of life is going on now without a thought of what happened back then. You know, these people are in lower income housing in a depressed area. They're just trying to make it day to day. They're not at all concerned or even aware of the historical significance of the apartment that their kids are tearing through right now. They're living life because life goes on. That's what happens to life. It's the great tragedy and hope of our human existence. It's the tragedy of the person who means the most to you in the world dies. And the insult that the world would go on after that.

[Craig Miller]

It's such a.

[Gordon Keith]

It's so insulting. But yet it's also the greatest gift ever that life goes on after you lose a leader, a beloved leader or a beloved spouse or your brother George, you know, like you just couldn't imagine life beyond him, but yet there is life beyond him.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I know it's a, it's a long way to say that you saw a bathtub. You went, wow, Lee Harvey Oswald used to bathe in that.

[Gordon Keith]

I want that. So, yeah, for those that don't know, I did end up buying Lee Harvey Oswald's old bathtub from one of his apartment buildings they were tearing down.

[George Dunham]

And as much as I. We all give you a hard time about that. If you had not done that, that bathtub would be in some landfill.

[Gordon Keith]

It would be in a landfill, yes. And I think I can't remember what I paid the woman for it. It was like about to be torn out and thrown away. So I think I probably paid her 100 or $200 for the bathtub, the bathroom doors, the little drawer that his daughter used to sleep in that they used to use as a bassinet, him and Marina, all that stuff was very cheap. And her little vanity, the built in vanity that Marina used and is that.

[Craig Miller]

At your parents house as well?

[Gordon Keith]

Once again, good lord. Right next to a guitar typewriter assassin's bathtub.

[George Dunham]

He stores some guitars and typewriters in it. Have you ever, I think I've asked you this before. Have you ever contacted the 6th Floor Museum and said do you guys want this because it is historic. This is what his bathroom?

[Gordon Keith]

It is. I have not is the answer.

[Craig Miller]

I bet they would not want the bathtub.

[Gordon Keith]

I don't think they would either. I don't think they would either. You know, they're trying to thread a needle with that sixth floor museum. They want to make it about Kennedy, his legacy and also about what happened. Because what happened is what people are interested in, what happened in Dealey Plaza, but they don't want to be in any way glorifying the man who took the man's life.

[George Dunham]

They're going to leave that to you.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes, I have to open up my own competing, my own spite 6th floor. But they do have a very interesting and personal piece of Oswald memorabilia there. I don't know if it's still there, but they've had for many years they had his wedding ring displayed in a glass case with the light shining down on it and everything, which. Those are the items that interest me, the personal items of Oswald. Not to the glory of Oswald. To me, what's interesting about him is that he was a man just like you and me. He wasn't this international, highly trained, almost robot minded international assassin. He was a guy who was trying to patch together a living for his family, who also had these delusions of grandeur, hoping that he could change the world. And he felt the world was unjust and he saw a way to shake up the world and he did this. And he did it on a lark. He did it after the most personal of things happened to him, which was that he was trying to reconcile with his wife. She didn't want to reconcile with him. She even said in the testimony he would have come to me the next day and he knew I would have said, yes, let's get back together. But I wanted to give him one more day of twisting the wind because I didn't think he had treated me right. And that morning when he, after she said that she wasn't ready to get back together with him was when he took that wedding ring and he put it in a teacup on the top of her dresser where she was staying, which was away from him. And all the money he had in the world was like $186 or something. And he put that up on that dresser and then he left that day and everything changed.

[Craig Miller]

Can you imagine what she thought watching the news that night?

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Wow.

[Gordon Keith]

That day when it happened, you know, that's the part that fascinates me, was them as a human being that chose absolute evil and horror. But it came out of something that was familiar to all of us. Just struggling to pay your rent, struggling this way, struggling that way, struggling with your personal relationship. And he goes and he reads. A few days before that, the president of the Free world is going to pass right up under his window. And he had a gun, and he had already tried to kill one political leader, a right wing leader here in Dallas named General Walker. And the bullet hit the window pane and deflected off. And General Walker wasn't hit but by shrapnel. And that happened in April. And Oswald killed Kennedy, of course, in November with the same rifle that he shot General Walker. But we didn't even find out about the Walker thing until after he had been captured by the Kennedy thing. And it was only Marina, the very wife that had rejected him for an extra day, that she said, hey, I think you ought to know about this, too. They found the note he had written to her that night. He went to go kill General Walker, and she said, he's done this before.

[George Dunham]

Well, so, man.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, it's crazy reading about their lives together and. And how that led up to this. But see, that's the thing, is that Oswald remains such a mystery to all the conspiracy theorists who. He's. He's like this. Almost like a. Like a Rorschach test, you know, blot. Like an E blot. Right. And you project whatever you want to on him. Yeah, but if you actually read about his life, it's so far from this masterful international trained in Russia to come over here and do this. He was a guy who shot Kennedy with the only weapons he could afford, which was this $12 rifle that was a surplus from the Italian military back in 1941. I think it was. You know, I mean, it was. He was. He led such a patchwork existence.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, he remains a mystery, but he clearly remains a passion of yours.

[Gordon Keith]

Not. Not a passion.

[George Dunham]

Just listen to the last 20 minutes.

[Gordon Keith]

My passion is just trying to get people to think about it in a new way. But, yes. Guilty, guilty, guilty. All right, so we've covered some of my interest, and I think that's enough of them because I'm.

[George Dunham]

That's amazing. That's a lot of interest. That's a lot of passion.

[Gordon Keith]

My greatest interest in life right now is getting the hell out of here.

[George Dunham]

Okay, we can do that pretty easy.

[Gordon Keith]

We can do that.

[Craig Miller]

You're passionate about wrapping up the podcast.

[Gordon Keith]

So passionate. Craig, I want to understand the mechanics of wrapping up a podcast. All right. Thanks to you guys and thanks to our listeners. We get more and more listeners all the time, including our great contingency of Singapore listeners. We're always really high on our Singapore listeners. Thank you. Thanks to Peter Welton for our producing role that we've bestowed upon him that he does so very well. And next, Giorgio. Do we have Giorgio's coming up next?

[Craig Miller]

Yes. When we come out with part three.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes.

[Craig Miller]

Part three. This series that we love, it'll be George's turn.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes. And George will tell you all about his obsession with Marina Oswald. Look forward to that.

[George Dunham]

It is kind of strange.

[Gordon Keith]

Good night.

[George Dunham]

Bye.

[Gordon Keith]

Goodbye.

[Craig Miller]

Good morning.

[George Dunham]

Good luck.

[Gordon Keith]

Yay. You made it all the way to the very end. Thank you so much. That means a lot. Don't forget to follow or subscribe on whatever your podcast player is. That's a big deal. You can also email the Musers themuserspodmail.com the Musers. The podcast will be back Wednesday and is a tired head production.

[Craig Miller]

It's part sports.

[Gordon Keith]

We have football on the brain, part pop culture. Dennis Leary, true or false. You refuse to wear a glove with men. Mickey Mantle's signature on it. The movie, the sandlot.

[Craig Miller]

The Red Sox blood. The Bruins blood.

[Gordon Keith]

They run deep.

[Craig Miller]

Add in the best celebrity interview.

[Gordon Keith]

Robert De Niro here on the Rich Eisen Show. How are you, sir? Just got over a 24 hour virus. The antidote is to appear on the Rich Eisen Show. There you go. I would have done it earlier.

[Craig Miller]

And you've got the Rich Eisen show podcast.

[Gordon Keith]

There is a medicinal quality to appearing on this program.

[Craig Miller]

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