Discover
Above Average IntelligenceA Chat With "Poet Laureate" of the CIA Ops Office Cadre, David McCloskey
Above Average IntelligenceA Chat With "Poet Laureate" of the CIA Ops Office Cadre, David McCloskey
A Chat With "Poet Laureate" of the CIA Ops Office Cadre, David McCloskey
Update: 2024-10-23
Share
Description
“Everyday is a three legged stool of fear, joy and self-loathing:” our favorite espionage author David McCloskey (Twitter: @mccloskeybooks) joins Marc to discuss his new book “The Seventh Floor” and the painful yet rewarding process of writing a best selling novel. Plus, CIA pranks, friendships forged in training, tradecraft that is (almost) real, and more on our favorite case officer, Artemis Proctor. And finally, woe to David’s Cleveland Indians.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Comments
Top Podcasts
The Best New Comedy Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best News Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Business Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Sports Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New True Crime Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Right Now – June 20The Best New Dan Bongino Show Podcast Right Now – June 20The Best New Mark Levin Podcast – June 2024
In Channel
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States00:00
00:00
1.0x
0.5x
0.8x
1.0x
1.25x
1.5x
2.0x
3.0x
Sleep Timer
Off
End of Episode
5 Minutes
10 Minutes
15 Minutes
30 Minutes
45 Minutes
60 Minutes
120 Minutes
Transcript
00:00:00
October is here and that means it's time for pumpkin patches, apple cider, chili weather and staying informed ahead of the election right around the corner.
00:00:10
There is no better place to stay up to date on the latest headlines than the DSR Network and there's no better way to enjoy our podcast than by coming a member.
00:00:19
DSR members get access to exclusive content, our discordant slack communities and ad-free listening experience and more.
00:00:27
Right now you can get 30% off your membership by going to the DSRnetwork.com/buy and using code "buy".
00:00:37
That's the DSRnetwork.com/buy and use code "buy".
00:00:42
We hope you enjoy the show.
00:00:46
This is Above Average Intelligence, a production of the DSR Network.
00:00:54
Each week host Mark Polymeropoulos is joined by leading voices in the intelligence community for expert analysis on the biggest security challenges around the world.
00:01:08
Welcome to the podcast.
00:01:12
I'm Mark Polymeropoulos and this is DSR's Above Average Intelligence Show.
00:01:20
Today I am very happy to welcome as my guest actually coming back yet again, Mr.
00:01:25
David McCloskey, the author of Damascus Station, Moscow X and the just released seventh floor, which is an outstanding book and we'll talk certainly about that today.
00:01:37
David is a former CIA analyst, any former consultant at McKinsey and company.
00:01:42
We're not going to say anything about McKinsey.
00:01:43
Don't hold that against me, but it has a bit of an interesting name.
00:01:48
The agency because the reorganization and we could, as many people say, is that McKinsey killed the CIA but that's not your fault.
00:01:56
No, McKinsey is a legendary company.
00:01:58
Just made some probably poor recommendations.
00:02:02
While the CIA, David wrote regularly for the President's Daily Brief, delivered classified testimony to congressional oversight committees and brief senior White House officials, ambassadors, military officials and even Arab royalty.
00:02:13
There you go.
00:02:13
He worked in CIA field stations across the Middle East, threw up through the Arab Spring and conducted a rotation in this counter-terrorism center focused on Syria and Iraq.
00:02:21
During his time at McKinsey, David advised national security aerospace and transportation clients at a range of strategic and operational issues.
00:02:28
Again, not the CIA reorganization.
00:02:30
He holds an MA from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, where he specialized in energy and the Middle East.
00:02:37
David, welcome.
00:02:38
Once again, you know we are friends.
00:02:41
I love this book where we actually did a book event together at politics and prose where I was very honored to moderate.
00:02:47
This, that was a ton of fun, although I did get after that, I was sick if you remember, I ended up getting walking pneumonia and I was in bed for a week.
00:02:53
Well, I was, you know, you told me you were sick and I was very careful to not shake your hand that night and I did not take whatever horrible illness you had back.
00:03:03
It's been kind of licked your fingers or hands after you took hands.
00:03:06
But we got to start off.
00:03:07
There's a lot to talk about.
00:03:08
We're going to, this, this podcast today is certainly designed to talk about your book.
00:03:12
I'm all about promoting this, but we do have to kind of, I guess, put a little book end.
00:03:18
No pun intended as we're talking about books.
00:03:21
Maybe the death now of your beloved Cleveland Indians who are no longer playing beaten by the Yankees.
00:03:28
A team I despise.
00:03:29
Joe or Luciner is very happy because he's Yankees fan.
00:03:33
I'm a Red Sox fan.
00:03:34
I don't think that the Indians had much of a chance though.
00:03:37
But tell us that here's the most important thing.
00:03:39
Tell us about your going to what to game three.
00:03:41
What that was like.
00:03:42
Yes.
00:03:43
Well, I, Mark, first of all, thank you for having me.
00:03:46
Second of all, I'm now regretting saying thank you, given the McKinsey and company mentioned plus the discussion of of Cleveland baseball.
00:03:55
I feel like I've been punched in the gut over the course of the weekend watching my beloved Cleveland baseball team go down to the Yankees.
00:04:02
The hated New York Yankees is my grandmother who was a lifelong fan.
00:04:06
I always called them.
00:04:07
You know, I was trying, so he's the thing.
00:04:12
Game three for those who don't know.
00:04:14
It was probably, I think it was probably the most epic last minute come back in Cleveland baseball history.
00:04:22
I've never seen anything like it.
00:04:23
I mean, two outs in the bottom of the night down to and they came back and then wanted it extras.
00:04:28
I was able to save my dad to that game, which was a ton of fun.
00:04:30
We both flew there.
00:04:31
So it was fantastic.
00:04:34
Like all good Cleveland sports experiences, it's then followed by a colossal failure and total collapse to actually move through.
00:04:44
I am the way I'm dealing with this is I am just trying to tap into the energy of the game three win and enjoy that and those memories and and just accept that high as opposed to dealing with,
00:04:57
you know, I've actually had to cleanse my Twitter timeline because it's all just one so-to-home runs in the, you know, the top of the tent that I can't, I can't watch it, Mark.
00:05:06
I cannot watch it.
00:05:07
It makes me physically ill to watch Yankees hitting all runs.
00:05:11
Well, I, I share that kind of feeling more propulsion.
00:05:13
Again, Joe, our producer is in the background.
00:05:15
He's going to try to edit all this out.
00:05:17
Good luck, Joe.
00:05:19
But you know, but in the end, I don't think they have much of a chance.
00:05:22
The Yankees are this, you know, team that has been, you know, of course, purchased, bought, spending that's right.
00:05:27
It is truly the third Reich of the baseball world.
00:05:30
Well, they're playing the Dodgers the same thing.
00:05:32
So this is the battle of the halves versus the halves.
00:05:34
Now, of course, as a Red Sox fan, we used to be in this company, our owners.
00:05:38
So cheek now that we are like the Tampa Bay rays.
00:05:41
But anyway, I'm going to watch, I think it's probably going to be the most watched world series in history.
00:05:46
You have the two coasts with massive media, uh, followings and the star power is, uh, it's stunning.
00:05:52
I will say, um, uh, Major League Baseball was praying that your Indians did not win.
00:05:58
Oh, yes.
00:05:59
Yeah.
00:05:59
Now, absolutely.
00:06:00
I mean, the, the baseball, I'm more and more convinced that baseball gods do exist and that they, they really do hate Cleveland baseball.
00:06:08
I mean, the world series last, you're going from last year's, I actually enjoyed the world series last year, uh, Ranger Steinman Bex.
00:06:15
Major League Baseball did not.
00:06:17
Major League Baseball now has the best possible outcome you could go for it.
00:06:21
And hopefully it'll actually be entertained.
00:06:22
You know, it won't reach a regional kind of game to now.
00:06:25
This one that's, uh, that, that's pretty stunning.
00:06:28
And, uh, well, I'll be watching.
00:06:30
I think it starts, uh, next Friday.
00:06:32
I wonder how much those tickets are going to cost both at Yankee Stadium and Dodger Stadium.
00:06:35
It's going to be something else.
00:06:38
The Dodgers, ALCS tickets, by the way, we're going, uh, upper deck.
00:06:41
I believe we're going up about a grand.
00:06:43
Yeah.
00:06:43
So I think the world series will be significantly more, although, so, so this year, I managed to go to, to, uh, to Dodger Stadium.
00:06:50
I was there for something down in LA and I just jumped on stubub and went, that's a gorgeous place today's game.
00:06:56
Oh my God.
00:06:57
And then I went to Yankee's Red Sox, um, before the end of the season, um, called up some of my old friends in the government in, uh, in New York and they got us tickets right behind home plate.
00:07:06
And that was as much as I hated being there, Yankee Stadium very nice as well.
00:07:10
Now, again, but I'm taking it subway.
00:07:12
It was just, uh, a nightmare.
00:07:15
I lived in New York City for a while.
00:07:16
I remember that anyhow.
00:07:17
All right.
00:07:17
We're going to get to your book, The Seven Floor.
00:07:19
Um, uh, again, it's a, it's a really great honor to have you here.
00:07:23
Congratulations on the book.
00:07:25
Um, as you know, I'm one of the, the big fans, not only of the book overall, um, but a couple of things, you know, the kind of how you kind of, you know, you get that feeling of, of what it's like to be at,
00:07:36
at the agency, lots of anecdotes that I think probably many people have kind of fed you some of the fun things, whether it's the hot dog machine or, and we'll talk about kind of the, the hijinks, the pranks.
00:07:46
Um, but, but there's a, there's a character in the book that I love and you know this and that's proctor.
00:07:52
Um, at one point, I think I, I, you might have used it in one of your blurbs.
00:07:56
I said, you were the, no, I think it was that you were the Nobel, or no, the poet laureate, the Nobel laureate, the poet laureate, the operations officer, but, but proctor also, I think it was something you didn't use your editors didn't use, but I said that's the kind of officer that we all wish we wanted to be because she doesn't give a shit,
00:08:11
but it's this character development, um, which is incredible.
00:08:14
So, so you did it again.
00:08:15
So first and foremost, what's the book about?
00:08:17
Um, uh, obviously this, the title of the seventh floor, pretty, pretty revealing, but, uh, but give us a sense of, uh, of what the book is, uh, is all about.
00:08:26
Yeah.
00:08:27
So, you know, and I share, Mark, your, uh, love for Artemis Proctor.
00:08:31
She's my, by far, my favorite character to write and, you know, the book in some, some degree was an effort to sort of tell her story, right?
00:08:39
I mean, she's kind of been at somewhat of a secondary character in the first two books.
00:08:45
And this one is, is fully hers.
00:08:47
So, it's, you know, it's a modern mole hunt at the end of the day.
00:08:51
It's a story about essentially proctor, he's running this unit of fictional unit inside Russia house called Moscow accent.
00:08:59
There's a Russian who shows up in Singapore with a secret that he's trying to sell.
00:09:03
She sends an officer out to go meet this guy in a course proctor, you know, it wouldn't be a good opening to one of these books without one of her operations going totally sideways.
00:09:13
So the officer gets bagged by the Russians, held for a number of months, traded back in a spy swap and he comes back and basically has this, you know, insight that the Russians have in asset to double agent that they're running on the seventh floor illegally.
00:09:29
So the executive suite, which of course, you know, well, and the story there really becomes one of proctor and her friend Sam Joseph, who readers, if they've read the first couple books,
00:09:40
remember him from Damascus station, they're working through a short list of suspects that is basically proctor's best friends and some of her most sort of cherished and beloved.
00:09:51
Enemies.
00:09:51
And so it is a bit of an espionage who'd done it.
00:09:54
You know, we're trying to figure out who is the mole, who are the Russians running.
00:09:59
But I think, you know, as I wrote the story, it also became one about just kind of what's it like to work at CIA over a long period of time to work with your friends,
00:10:11
to work with people who start off as friends and become something else.
00:10:14
You know, I think it's probably the book that's most of the three that I've written so far that's kind of the closest to trying to tell the story about the kind of not just the operations of CIA,
00:10:26
but it's on the cultural code, the moral ethic, and what it feels like to work there.
00:10:31
You know, and that's one thing that certainly kind of I think was, you know, was shining through.
00:10:36
And you know, we all think when we first joined, whether you go through kind of your new analyst training or your case officer training, you know, there's a group of people when you walk in the door and you EOD,
00:10:47
you enter on duty and, you know, and those people very often stay your friends for the entirety of your career, you know, sometimes people go in different directions.
00:10:55
But that's the extraordinary thing about the book is that there's that kind of that was woven into this.
00:11:00
And you're right, the, you know, the feelings of betrayal too.
00:11:04
I mean, I just, you know, I don't, I can't talk about in details, but there was, you know, I once worked for a boss who actually was spying for an adversary, and those feelings of betrayal are stunning.
00:11:15
I didn't like in all that much, but it doesn't matter because it's still a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, you know, I still, I mean, you know, I still keep in touch with friends who I played as you noted in the book.
00:11:26
And I we played, played in a softball league right next door at Langley Forks at that field.
00:11:30
You had, you had it as a, as a baseball league.
00:11:32
Well, tell us about that.
00:11:33
Again, totally off topic of my nose.
00:11:36
I just realized, because I love book.
00:11:37
Tell us about the famous baseball story in the book.
00:11:40
Well, yeah.
00:11:40
So I am.
00:11:41
Yeah.
00:11:41
You know, we talk about friendship.
00:11:45
And I actually think friendship became, you know, the CIA was kind of the setting for the book, right?
00:11:51
Friendship and, and the different kinds of friendship inside the CIA or just between people became kind of a, a, a theme as well as I wrote.
00:12:01
And the baseball, so there's a scene in the book in which proctor and a number of her friends, almost all of them end up being on this short list of suspects, but she doesn't know it at the time.
00:12:11
Are playing in, in, in interval baseball league at CIA.
00:12:16
And of course, as you mentioned, and I think actually when I was writing the book, I checked with you, because I knew I played an interval basketball at CIA.
00:12:21
I knew there were, there was a softball league.
00:12:24
I was like, Hey, Mark, you know, is it, was there ever a hardball league?
00:12:27
You were like, what the hell?
00:12:29
Of course not.
00:12:30
You know, it's softball.
00:12:31
But I knew in the scene that I needed proctor to be doing something sort of, you know, in a com lively fashion with her friends.
00:12:40
Like she's just having a moment with her friends where she's playing baseball.
00:12:43
But they're also needed to be a brawl.
00:12:45
This being proctor kind of felt, and I won't ruin anything, but she's essentially just come from this very traumatic experience to show up at the baseball field.
00:12:56
And so she had to, you know, sort of blow her top.
00:12:59
And it didn't feel as realistic to me to have a brawl at a softball game, although I suppose proctor being proctor, I could have come up with one.
00:13:05
It felt more like, in this case, I wanted her to charge the mound.
00:13:08
And so you, you know, you, you kind of needed someone to get hit with a hard baseball going pretty fast.
00:13:14
And so I came up with this idea of a inner moral hardball baseball league.
00:13:18
And I was able to give a lot of the mission centers kind of fun, crazy creative nicknames as a side benefit.
00:13:25
But I do think that that spirit of sort of, it's also kind of a normal place to work, right?
00:13:30
Where you have inner moral sports in a big organization.
00:13:34
I wanted that to come through to.
00:13:36
I mean, in fact, you know, the, you know, the friends I still have now, I did in 1993 and started playing in those kind of softball leagues.
00:13:45
Then I'd be I'm still, still great friends with today.
00:13:48
I can't, we're going to get to the story again.
00:13:50
I have to, I have to, of course, remind everybody about my, my, my place of work now, which is not the CIA, and nor is it MSNBC.
00:13:59
It's, it's the yet again.
00:14:01
And I'm sure it's a, it's a place where I spend most amount of time, but it's a dive bar in Northern Virginia.
00:14:05
Would you have featured in the book?
00:14:07
Yes.
00:14:07
Where proctor goes and has not entirely untrue, maybe a little exaggerated, but she has bender after bender.
00:14:16
But it, but the Vietnam was neat that you included that because that really is a place of, of lore at the agency.
00:14:21
It's a place where we have promotion parties, where it's a watering hole.
00:14:26
It's a place to go after, you know, after work, but love that you included the Vienna and I'm sure they did as well.
00:14:34
Well, I also, I will say, Mark, you know, I did have to be careful with proctor's alcohol consumption this book because in the first, in the first draft,
00:14:44
I mean, I had a reader, it was actually a, for, for analysts, she read it and she was like, you know, this woman wouldn't be functioning in some of these scenes, like she's drinking way,
00:14:55
way too much.
00:14:55
So I was like, okay, I got to go back through this and kind of make sure it's somewhat realistic.
00:15:00
And so I literally built an excel file that had every scene, the number of drinks proctor consumed and then a calculation of her BAC, you know, her blood alcohol content,
00:15:10
just to like make sure that she could actually function.
00:15:14
And so, I mean, she's kind of, you know, Vienna in or otherwise, sometimes very much alone.
00:15:20
She's, she's working through some stuff in this book and, and, you know, I mean, she's always been a bit of a hard living soul, but I think in this one, she kind of goes to the edge of,
00:15:31
you know, her body can handle.
00:15:33
Yeah, absolutely, no doubt about that.
00:15:37
Um, uh, pranks in the book.
00:15:39
I love how you included that.
00:15:41
Again, I'm sure you had lots of help from people in terms.
00:15:44
Unnamed, unnamed, sorry.
00:15:45
Actually, you know, yeah, I think in the back of the acknowledges, you said that I helped you.
00:15:48
That's tranquil.
00:15:49
Um, uh, today for the, I will actually, I, in one of the pranks, I'm not sure you revealed exactly what actually did occur, but I will talk about, tell us about the, the prank that you wrote about and I'll tell you the true story.
00:16:02
Okay.
00:16:02
So you're right, Mark.
00:16:04
So I think you're right.
00:16:06
I did, I did name you in the back of the book.
00:16:08
Again, in the spirit of, this is a group of friends that kind of just happened to be in the espionage business.
00:16:15
So, you know, I was also trying to think, I mean, again, as a writer, I'm trying to think of how can I write scenes that allow me to show that friendship that aren't just kind of two people across from each other talking at a desk,
00:16:28
um, you know, the baseball scene was one pranks were another.
00:16:32
And obviously, pranks are a significant part of CIA sort of culture.
00:16:37
Um, I was, you know, so I went out kind of shopping.
00:16:40
You were included, of course, in this conversation, but just kind of, you know, I probably had a half dozen or more conversations with farmers that just said, give me the best pranks that you've heard of or that you were actually part of.
00:16:53
And one of them, which plays a significant role in the sort of firing of Artemis Proctor early in this novel is that a bunch of, I would say,
00:17:03
questionable pictures are placed all around her office and are sort of discovered by, you know, subordinates and others who come into her office for meetings.
00:17:13
Um, so that's one.
00:17:15
There's another one similar to that where a group of her friends, when they're at the farm, essentially break into an instructor's house and literally these pictures everywhere so that they'll be discovered by him and his,
00:17:28
and his poor wife, you know, throughout the months to come.
00:17:33
And that was obviously, that was a, that was a mark, Paulie Morapoulos special, really.
00:17:39
I mean, I adapted the setting and whatnot, but I think you were the inspiration for those.
00:17:44
The clear story behind that.
00:17:46
And I'll sanitize this a little bit, but it was, it was in a, a Middle Eastern fuel station.
00:17:52
I was on temporary duty assignment.
00:17:54
I was the deputy station chief that I was coming back and I had to brief a visiting dignitary.
00:17:59
I will say one of the top five most powerful people on the planet was, was coming to visit.
00:18:05
And the, the, the briefing was scheduled for my office and I, I was late and I had about an hour and I run in my office and what do I find?
00:18:14
Well, the case, and the case officers, and we had a really tight station because we were under a huge counterintelligence threat, threat of terrorism, all of that very valid.
00:18:22
Our embassy ended up being attacked and almost blown up.
00:18:25
But ultimately, I walked in and there's a, there's a picture and it was, it was all very hardcore pornographic material that they put in every square foot of my office.
00:18:36
The walls, the ceilings, absolutely everything.
00:18:40
And the best part about it is I walked in the front of my office.
00:18:43
They had taken, I don't know why, how they thought of this.
00:18:46
It was David Hasselhoff.
00:18:47
Remember, it wasn't even like Baywatch.
00:18:49
It was, yeah, he was at Baywatch.
00:18:50
And so it's a picture of him sprayed out a little bikini underwear and they got my badge picture from the RSO's office with my, and that's that, and they blew it up in my face there.
00:18:59
And I walked in there and it was actually funny.
00:19:01
And I was like, all right, you fuckers.
00:19:03
Get everything gas.
00:19:03
They, they tell everything down.
00:19:05
This dignitary comes to my office as I'm sitting there, briefing her.
00:19:09
I said, you know, man, would you like a cup of coffee?
00:19:12
And she said, I wouldn't.
00:19:14
I took my coffee cup a little and I had a Cornell university mug there that I carried around everywhere.
00:19:19
I don't give a shit that I, doesn't matter.
00:19:21
But, and I look down and there is a very enormous sexual organ staring up at me.
00:19:29
And I looked at it and she's like, I'd like that cup of coffee.
00:19:32
And I said, man, I think the coffee cup's dirty.
00:19:35
She's like, I don't care.
00:19:35
I really want coffee.
00:19:36
I'm like, I really can't give you this coffee cup and I took it aside.
00:19:40
And it was almost a hotter bottle.
00:19:43
But no, so, but the reason why it's really good that you brought that up is because, you know, in the hardest places at the agency, that's where you kind of these pranks, you know, happen.
00:19:52
Because that's that's kind of the bonding.
00:19:54
That's the, you know, actual bruise everybody together.
00:19:57
And that happens, you know, constantly.
00:19:59
And it's fun.
00:20:00
And then of course, you know, it gets out of hand and, you know, people have to kind of step in before it gets too crazy.
00:20:07
But those things really, really do happen.
00:20:09
All right.
00:20:09
On a serious note now, let's talk about one of the things about, again, this is your third book.
00:20:14
All of them, I think, were not only incredible stories, but there's elements of it, which I think a lot of us can identify with because you pay attention to trade craft.
00:20:23
So talk to us about that.
00:20:25
How do you throw in, you know, these, you know, these trade craft scenes?
00:20:29
Obviously, I think you're talking to people.
00:20:31
Is it important to do that?
00:20:34
How do you even get it through the agency review process?
00:20:36
But again, that element of realism, I think really comes through.
00:20:41
Yeah.
00:20:41
No, I appreciate that because, you know, I'm obviously an unreformed analyst.
00:20:45
And so I was, I was not conducting, uh, most of the operations I'm writing about, of course.
00:20:51
And so I'm, I'm kind of writing about them in the same way that I would if I were just doing the research for the book, but, you know, I think it's, it's very much the case that, uh, you don't,
00:21:01
you don't need to have lived stuff to write about it well, but you need good friends who have and who are willing to talk to you until their stories, right?
00:21:08
Um, I think, you know, for me, it all comes out of a desire to be authentic to, to character, really, right?
00:21:17
I'm, the, the protagonists or just main characters of these books are CIA operations officers.
00:21:25
And so to get their world right, I don't want to fetishize the trade graph because if there's too much of that, it frankly could get kind of dry,
00:21:36
you know, but I've got to deal with it realistically to describe how these people live, breathe, think about the world, what they do in their day to day,
00:21:47
you know, and so I, I try to be as authentic to it as I, as I possibly can, acknowledging that in, you know, in points of the story, like I'm not writing a nonfiction book about CIA,
00:22:00
so there are going to be points where I do think being absolutely 100% accurate about the trade craft or the timeline or just the,
00:22:11
the, you know, purecratic politics of, you know, the espionage business, like I'm gonna have to break that those rules in order to get the story right and to make it propulsive and readable for people who aren't looking for,
00:22:25
you know, a trade craft handbook.
00:22:28
But at the same time, whenever I do break the rules, I try as best I can to be clear that I am breaking a rule and that I know I'm breaking a rule, you know, and so I'll try to include little things where like the characters will might even acknowledge that they're doing things differently than they otherwise would have,
00:22:46
because I don't want to cheat as, as much as I can.
00:22:48
You know, and I guess, oh, what I would say on the clear inside of things, Mark, is like, I've been surprised, maybe that shouldn't be, but I've been surprised by how much the PRB has let go through,
00:23:01
you know, I don't think I am revealing any bits of trade craft that are like, wow, little earth shattering, I mean, a lot of this stuff is out there.
00:23:10
Most of what they've edited out or redacted have been like mentions of specific pieces of the organization, like courses,
00:23:20
you know, trade craft courses, the specific names of those, randomly like software programs that we would use that are actually also available, you know, in the unclass world,
00:23:31
but that the CIA has contracts for like, so kind of bizarre stuff, but like, you know, I had a little segment in Damascus Station where I describe in a good amount of detail how to build a car bomb,
00:23:42
and they didn't edit that, you know, but they edited the name of the messaging program that the case officers were using to talk to each other around it.
00:23:49
So it's been, you know, I will say though, it's been fast and it's been, it's not been intrusive on the plot or the story.
00:23:56
I agree, you know, I've read a lot of stuff and I agree with you, you know, when I try to be reasonable, give them deadlines, sometimes they come back with some strange redactions, but generally they're pretty good.
00:24:07
And because, and once you get the hang of it, it's, you know, so if it's, you know, if it's, if it's something's been in the New York Times, The Washington Post and you refer to that, it's okay.
00:24:17
And then they have some of their kind of strange idiosyncrasies.
00:24:21
They didn't like me using JSOC, but I could use SOCOM, joint special operations command versus special operations command.
00:24:27
Okay, yeah, and so, but it's stuff like that, but if that's their thing, that's okay, because you got something else in.
00:24:32
And, you know, I would, I would throw in there that, you know, other countries run, other countries, intelligence officers do run surveillance detection routes, and they guess pretty much the same kind of trade crap.
00:24:43
So, so you are able to do this.
00:24:45
But, but let's go back to the, to the story itself and because in essence, it's a mollhunt, and you think that, you know, you know, that's kind of old kind of Cold War relic type stuff,
00:24:59
but it's actually really not because these things still occur.
00:25:01
We'll look what's just happened in the news.
00:25:03
There was just a document spill.
00:25:05
Yeah.
00:25:05
To, some of the secret documents just made their way into, into, I guess, kind of a Iranian affiliated telegram chat.
00:25:14
So, there's going to be a mollhunt, there's going to be an investigation within the US Department of Defense, but how do you decide on that, you know, a good old classic mollhunt story, which is not really the genre you,
00:25:25
or the subjects you hear, or you see in kind of espionage writing today.
00:25:29
Yeah.
00:25:30
Yeah.
00:25:30
Well, I think it's kind of a shame because there's so much potential in that kind of story.
00:25:36
You know, it is a, it's a who done it, right?
00:25:38
And that's an evergreen trope in, not even a trope, but it's just a sort of an evergreen structure for a story and crime and mystery, right?
00:25:47
Is there is, there's a body like who, who's the murderer?
00:25:53
You know, it is a way to push.
00:25:55
If you do it right, it's a way to push the tension around the answer to that question all the way out into the back end of the book as far as possible, and leave the reader guessing the whole time,
00:26:07
even if you never give them any actual information to help them solve the mystery, right?
00:26:12
So, I think it's really effective on, on that count.
00:26:15
To your point on, like, it being a relic of the Cold War, you know, I think I'm actually not even, as I read and had I did research for this book, I don't even know where that idea comes from because it's,
00:26:27
you know, you're talking to a, you had a supervisor who was working for the opposition.
00:26:32
I mean, you know, we had, we've had, it's not like these kind of revelations happen every couple months, but, you know, every few years or something, I mean, there's, there's a new,
00:26:42
there, there are people on the inside of our intelligence services working for other countries.
00:26:47
I'm sure they're all right now, right now, right?
00:26:50
So, it's very much a modern feature of the espionage business because at the end of the day, I mean, the best way to wreck your opposition is to get someone inside that service who will give you,
00:27:04
you know, the juicy stuff.
00:27:05
So, that's always going to be the case.
00:27:08
And I thought, you know, so it, it felt like, hey, it's a modern story.
00:27:12
Be the story structure of just sort of a mystery is really good.
00:27:16
And then see like, for me, I was really fascinated in this idea that you could have people that you have worked with for years and years and years and even be friends with who are betraying you the entire time.
00:27:30
What, what is, I like, how do you, how do you even think about that?
00:27:35
You know, as the betrayer or the one who was betrayed, I just, I was sort of fascinated by that.
00:27:40
To me, it actually has some similarities to like domestic or kind of psychological suspense stuff where the premise is essentially like your neighbor,
00:27:51
your husband, right?
00:27:53
Who, like, who are they, right?
00:27:55
You don't know who they are.
00:27:57
That I think is eternally fascinating to us just as humans.
00:28:01
Well, one of the things that I think you were trying to accomplish in the book and you very much did is, you know, you don't know who, who actually is the mole.
00:28:10
Yeah, one.
00:28:11
And, and I know you've asked this.
00:28:13
I was bothering you constantly when you're right.
00:28:15
I was like, do you know?
00:28:16
Yeah, and, and that's a, you know, that's, um, and by the way, people who are going to claim that they knew, I think we're not telling the truth.
00:28:23
But no, but it's, it's, it's, and I think you're right.
00:28:27
That's, that's actually really good.
00:28:28
It's not predictable.
00:28:29
And, and, and, you know, this is the kind of book, too, in which, you know, you can, you can fly right through it because of that because that suspense certainly is, um,
00:28:39
it is building at one of the things that, that you tackled again is Russia, you know, that's the kind of the geopolitical setting here.
00:28:46
It's, but it's not necessarily inside Russia because a lot of this takes place in, in, in the US.
00:28:51
But I do want to note, again, again, the element of realism here is that you, you kind of introduce some Russian illegals, who are not the nicest of people.
00:29:01
And, and I, and I'll say that, think about, let's say, tactical, think about what's happening in Europe now, where the Russian intelligence services are being, you know, unmatched as not spying on Europe,
00:29:12
but in undercut, you know, undertaking, you know, sabotage and assassination operations.
00:29:17
So there's an element of truth to this.
00:29:19
And one of the things you introduce in the book here is that, you know, can Russian, could Russians do this on US soil, and of course they can.
00:29:27
Um, uh, but how did, how did you, how did you move from a kind of Russia internal then more to kind of the US as a setting or why?
00:29:36
Well, yeah, the, so interestingly, those, those illegals in the book, who I, I said, they're, they live in Dallas.
00:29:45
So I kind of imagine that was actually just living in my neighborhood, like, down the road.
00:29:50
I mean, I actually have the, the husband, uh, Peter, he works for Southwest Airlines, which is based here in Dallas, you know, he's in financial planning and analysis.
00:30:00
So I thought, and I think this is a, a, a bit of a distinction between the way I've architected my Mulhunt story and, and most of the other ones in the genre,
00:30:11
although I'm sure I haven't read all of them, so I can't speak it for a tadably on it.
00:30:15
Like, I got, I was about halfway through the, the arc of the first draft, and I was feeling a little bored.
00:30:22
You know, Mulhunt's, I mean, almost by definition, the actual spade work is really, really boring, right?
00:30:30
I mean, it's just digging through reports, compiling up basically a giant matrix to show where there are anomalies, you know, in different types of reports and then trying to focus on why those occurred and all,
00:30:43
so it's like, it's not super thrilling stuff.
00:30:47
And I felt like I needed some chaos.
00:30:51
And so I, I, I brought these characters into the book to see what they would do, and the, the woman in particular, her name is Irene,
00:31:02
is, you know, probably a sociopath.
00:31:05
I, I'm not explicit about it, but probably a sociopath.
00:31:10
They've got this weird kind of commitment to Russia, both were, you know, raised by Russian emigrates, states, and so there's this sort of second generation immigrant thing,
00:31:21
like we don't quite sit in here, and what we're not also Russian.
00:31:24
And to me, like, that was a way to just kind of get some kinetic stuff in the book, to be honest, because I like, I like my books to sort of build, build, build, and then eventually there to be kind of this hockey stick moment where a whole bunch of stuff blows up.
00:31:41
And it felt like having Russian illegals here who have been kind of unchained to go deal with, shouldn't say too much, but to go deal with the threat was a way to get that into the novel.
00:31:51
And so I just kind of leaned into it.
00:31:53
What about the writing process itself?
00:31:55
You and I've talked over the years too, just how difficult this is.
00:32:00
You know, even getting up in the morning, what is your kind of minimum that you have to write?
00:32:05
How about taking drafts and throwing them out?
00:32:07
How about sending them to your editor and the editor tell them that they're all facts?
00:32:12
I mean, it's a labor of love, but this is hard.
00:32:16
But you've managed to do it three times.
00:32:19
It's hard, but so go over for us, maybe start off, I definitely want to hear kind of that macro level, but when you wake up in the morning and you're immersed in this block, you know, what are you, what are you thinking?
00:32:30
How do you, how do you kind of push your day and then you're weak in your month forward in terms of the planning?
00:32:35
Yeah.
00:32:36
So my process is very inefficient and I, if any listeners to this have better ideas, please contact me through my website because I could use,
00:32:48
I could use help if there's a better way.
00:32:50
You know, basically what I do is I start with an image in my head of the climactic scene of the novel, something that I think will sort of all the potential energy of the book is leading to that,
00:33:02
to that moment.
00:33:03
And once I have a sense of what that is, and now at each of the three, and I'm working on a fourth book, and it's been the same for this one, once I have some idea of that scene, and I might not actually know any of the characters involved or am I,
00:33:16
am I not even know where it is?
00:33:17
It's just, there's some rough sense of what that scene kind of feels like and what generally is going on.
00:33:24
I'll then, I will usually have that scene, I'll have some idea of a setting, right, because I think character comes out of setting and plot, comes out of character, so you kind of get out of the setting,
00:33:35
right?
00:33:35
So the setting for the first book, of course, was like Syrian Civil War, second book was present day, Russia, third book was kind of CIA, and you know, the fourth one is, is real Iran stuff.
00:33:45
And so I have a setting, I have that scene, and then literally what I do is I just start writing, and I usually try to do about 2000 words a day, five days a week, right?
00:33:54
And that's good clip.
00:33:56
So you can kind of get to, within about three months, maybe four, there's a first draft, you know, and that first draft sucks, it's really,
00:34:06
really bad, and it's hard to overstate how bad it is, you know, you've got giant plot holes, you can drive a train through, the character stuff is not dialed in, the pros isn't that great, but just something to react to.
00:34:17
And then literally what I'll do is I'll just, I'll go back through it, and I'll make myself a couple pages of notes of stuff that I know needs to get fixed.
00:34:24
I've got little things that might need to fill in with research, I'm like, I need to go and read a book on this, or I need to go and research this thing, go through it again, like just knock all that stuff out.
00:34:36
And then literally the process is just kind of rinsing and repeating.
00:34:40
And as you go, you realize that there are, you know, there's some stuff in that first draft that was okay, but almost, you know, I probably do five to ten drafts, and almost none,
00:34:52
almost none of that first kind of first couple swings at it will be there.
00:34:56
Certainly nothing that was important will really be there.
00:34:59
The characters might, but all of the kind of scenes that make the book what it is, they're very rarely in the first kind of draft.
00:35:07
And so I end up as a result thrown in a lot of stuff away.
00:35:10
I mean, it's very inefficient, you know, I mean, I write the books are, you know, hundred plus thousand words and probably write almost 300,000 of the course drafting.
00:35:17
And so the editing quote unquote, I mean, that takes like nine months, you know.
00:35:22
How do you deal with criticism?
00:35:26
I mean, so your books are fantastic, but, you know, I haven't checked, you know, I would be a little weird if I went on Amazon and checked all the reviews,
00:35:37
but occasionally you're going to get a bad review.
00:35:40
Oh yeah, sure.
00:35:41
How does that, how does that work for you in your thought process?
00:35:44
I mean, is it, do you have to kind of steal yourself for this?
00:35:47
I mean, there's, I mean, let me just, let me just throw one thing on top of every this, all this stuff, as I have you and I are totally different, different kind of venues, but as I've gone off and done a lot of TV stuff, I mean, I still have imposter syndrome.
00:35:58
Like, yeah, I was on, I was on a panel the other day with Dennis Ross, who's a gastro, you know, a legend in the Middle East, and it's at the, it was at the Hayden Center.
00:36:06
And I'm like, what am I doing here?
00:36:08
Yeah.
00:36:08
You know, and it's, it's not seaspan.
00:36:10
I'm like, what is happening?
00:36:12
And so I still have that imposter syndrome.
00:36:14
And, you know, and sometimes you screw up, sometimes there's some, some criticism.
00:36:18
How do you, and that it's interesting because coming from a job in which, you know, you do have a sense of kind of supreme confidence.
00:36:25
You know, some humility involved, but, um, but, you know, there, you know, is it, are you, are you kind of pinching yourself every once in a while?
00:36:32
Like, holy crap.
00:36:33
I'm the writer now.
00:36:34
I have these books.
00:36:35
They're all over the place.
00:36:36
I'm a little bit of a celebrity here.
00:36:38
And they're, I mean, you're, you know, you're one of the kind of this coming up, upcoming stars of the espionage business.
00:36:44
Um, so imposter syndrome.
00:36:46
How do you take criticism?
00:36:48
Um, you know, you know, it's, uh, do you, are you, are you walking tall right now?
00:36:53
Or are you feeling like, or catastrophizing, like, like around the corner of some, I'm going to read her this shitty book and knowing.
00:36:59
No one shows up.
00:37:02
Sorry.
00:37:03
This is like, I'm like, this is, uh, uh, I'm, I'm probably talking about myself more than you.
00:37:08
What was he going to say?
00:37:10
So wait, you being on a C-span, you know, panel with Dennis Ross wasn't on your bingo card 10 years ago, but I'm like, I don't deserve to be here.
00:37:16
Like, what am I doing?
00:37:18
Like, this is hard.
00:37:18
I was, I had a frickin nervous breakdown.
00:37:20
And it was fine.
00:37:21
And he's very nice.
00:37:22
Yeah.
00:37:23
Anyway, but you know, it's, it's kind of, all right, go on MSM because a million people who watch Morning Gel, what am I doing here?
00:37:28
I say that all the time.
00:37:29
So, all right, your thoughts on, I just threw a whole bunch of stuff at you.
00:37:33
Well, look, I, you know, um, I feel like every day is a writer, and I think it's, you know, going on TV, dude, fall, it's same category, right?
00:37:43
Like, every day is a three-legged stool of basically fear, joy, and self-loathing.
00:37:50
And, and, and, it's just a question of like, what proportion those will be in, you know, um, even days where really wonderful things have happened,
00:38:00
they're still afflicted by some amount of fear and self-loathing.
00:38:03
You know, um, because I feel like every time I confront the blank page, I have to deal with imposter syndrome.
00:38:13
I have to deal with a fear that I won't be able to replicate what I've done in the past.
00:38:17
You know, I actually am pretty good at filtering out the, the negative stuff, and I just generally as a side note on reviews, be they, I will read it.
00:38:27
Obviously, if it's a thoughtful, written review somewhere, you know, I will, I will want to read it.
00:38:35
Amazon, good reads, that kind of thing.
00:38:38
You know, I think as a writer, it's not a good idea to read that stuff because what ends up happening is either A, you read good reviews and your head swells up into a balloon and you think, oh, well, I'm amazing.
00:38:48
Or B, you read terrible reviews and then you think you suck.
00:38:51
And the reality is neither of those head spaces are particularly productive.
00:38:56
For good writing, you know, you kind of want a healthy amount of skepticism about your own talents, but you also want that coupled with confidence to always be trying to improve and be put in words on paper.
00:39:09
And that's sort of a weird balance to maintain.
00:39:11
And I think reviews, reviews mess it up.
00:39:13
I also, I mean, I saw a great interview with Quentin Tarantino a few years ago where someone asked, I mean, how do you deal with criticism,
00:39:23
your movies or any other style?
00:39:25
And he's like, you know, I just, I just tell people to suck a dick.
00:39:30
And I think I think, you know, you kind of have to have this mentality of like I'm, I'm putting my best into this thing.
00:39:40
I am trying to make the most incredible story you've ever read and put that down on paper so that you will stay up late and you will ignore family for days.
00:39:50
And you'll be thinking about the book, you know, after it's, it's done.
00:39:54
If you don't like what I'm doing, you know, go read something else.
00:39:59
And so I think you kind of have to, at least for me, it's, it's helpful to have a bit of that mentality too.
00:40:05
That's like, I'm doing something here that I enjoy because I'm writing these books as I would want to read that period.
00:40:11
Right.
00:40:11
And, you know, if you're not, if you're not into it, there's tons, you know, there's so much other content, go, go find it.
00:40:17
So I, I think, you know, for me, the, the, I really love to write.
00:40:25
Like my days, my best days are ones where I get to spend seven or eight hours just deep in, in the book.
00:40:31
That's what I, that's what I live for.
00:40:33
It's fun to have written the books and to see them up on a shelf and, you know, to have them out there in the world, but no review, good, bad ugly, whatever, no book advance,
00:40:44
good, bad ugly, you know, it's going to change that.
00:40:47
I'm just going to keep writing.
00:40:48
And I think that's the, that to me is my healthy, healthy spot of like, just get up in the morning and you're right, you know.
00:40:54
It's okay.
00:40:55
So the quote is every day is a three-legged stool of fear, joy, and self-loathing.
00:40:59
That's right.
00:41:01
You make that up.
00:41:02
I, I, so I definitely have not made up the like, fear, joy, and self-loathing combined is being part of the writer's life, but as far as I know, I think that's my quote.
00:41:11
Although I don't know, I could have picked it up somewhere.
00:41:13
I don't know who said it if not.
00:41:15
I'm happy to take credit for it.
00:41:16
No, but, you know, it's, there's, there's a part because, you know, when you do this, if you choose to be in the public eye, you're putting yourself out there.
00:41:23
I mean, there's, there is a vulnerability there and you just have to be able to kind of deal with it.
00:41:27
And anyone who says they don't care is lying.
00:41:30
Yeah, you know, absolutely.
00:41:31
Like, of course, of course, I care about the books are received, you know, and they sell and that people get to, I get to keep doing it.
00:41:39
Like, I really, I really do care, but once they're out there, you know, I'm feeling this now, the book's been out for, you know, three weeks and I kind of, there's,
00:41:49
there's, you know, I can, I can help promote it, you know, I can, I can have conversations like this and like, you know, but like, I can't do much anymore.
00:41:57
You know, so it's kind of, the world sort of has to accept the book and see if it likes it or not.
00:42:02
There's, there's, frankly, there's luck involved too.
00:42:05
I mean, a friend of mine, I wrote a book.
00:42:08
And this is years and years ago, and he was lucky.
00:42:11
He got on, went at that time there.
00:42:13
It was Bill O'Reilly, like the equivalent of Joe Rogan.
00:42:15
And the books have, it became a best seller and just from, but it wasn't in nor would it have been, but it did because there was five million people who saw something.
00:42:23
He just, there's luck involved there.
00:42:24
So, but again, it's a, it's a, it's a tremendous achievement.
00:42:29
Let me just say, again, I absolutely love the book.
00:42:31
I think readers will as well.
00:42:33
It has the kind of authenticity.
00:42:35
It has the feel of what CIA was like, incredible characters.
00:42:39
So I encourage everybody to certainly get the book, purchase it, write a great review, but most, not most importantly, but like we were saying, you never rest on your laurels.
00:42:50
So, and I know you feel this way too.
00:42:51
You're working on something else.
00:42:53
What's next?
00:42:54
There's another book in Trinidad.
00:42:56
First of all, any of the same characters are we moving on.
00:42:58
So, right now none of the same characters, like there's no overlap at all, which would be the first time, you know, the first three books.
00:43:07
There's been some character overlap between the three.
00:43:09
This one's totally different.
00:43:11
It's in Israel, Iran's story.
00:43:12
It's all Israelis and Iranians.
00:43:14
It is a facade versus the course.
00:43:16
Are you going to go to Israel for any kind of kind of, I have, so I have had a lot of conversations with Israelis, including some facade formers.
00:43:28
I had actually been very close to convincing my lovely wife to let me do a research trip there.
00:43:33
And it, we were having those conversations literally and early, I think it was late March, early April.
00:43:39
And there were the drone and missile volley from Iran.
00:43:43
And she was like, you know, our life insurance policy isn't that great.
00:43:47
Maybe you stick this one out.
00:43:49
So, I haven't been able to make it yet.
00:43:51
I would like to.
00:43:52
Now, I mean, I spend time it is real when I was back at the agency, but it has been over a decade.
00:43:58
So, it's just been, it's been, honestly, the way I've been constructing it has been very similar to the way I constructed my second book, Moscow X, which is one where, you know, I had not served in Russia.
00:44:09
I had not been to Moscow.
00:44:11
And so, I had to just have a ton of conversations with people who had.
00:44:14
But it's shaping up to be a story about essentially imagining like, what if the Iranians had the capability to hit individual Israelis inside Israel?
00:44:27
So, well, some facade officers that the Iranians want to send a message to.
00:44:31
Let's see the news today.
00:44:33
I know, actually, what is it?
00:44:35
And that just arrested seven Israelis and aspiring run by the Iranians.
00:44:40
Okay, so interesting.
00:44:42
I will have to check that out because I had seen stuff from like a month ago in which the Iranians maybe largely through sort of kind of social media and kind of stuff had gone and found Israelis who would,
00:44:57
you know, put up sort of propaganda posters.
00:45:00
I think they tried to convince one of them to start a forest fire.
00:45:04
This is full on tasking and there's all for money.
00:45:08
So, if you go back to our old world of what's it?
00:45:10
What was this silly acronym?
00:45:12
My, my, so money, ideology, coercion, ego.
00:45:17
I used this now and I talk to people like, I don't even remember getting taught that.
00:45:22
I'll, because I didn't pay attention.
00:45:24
But, but ultimately, yeah, it looks like they were recruited for money, but who's serious.
00:45:27
So, you know, so, I guess in a good way, were they waiting?
00:45:31
Did they know that it was Iran on the other end of the money?
00:45:33
Doing it for money.
00:45:34
And so, what you're doing, though, is you keep writing on subjects.
00:45:37
And it is almost by chance.
00:45:39
I mean, remember the Russians, Ukraine, stuff, but you're writing on subjects that are really relevant in the news.
00:45:44
So, I would say, if I was your editor, I would say, come on, David, get it up.
00:45:48
Now, this is going to be a floor thing.
00:45:49
This is all news.
00:45:51
It's going to sell.
00:45:52
Tell me about it.
00:45:54
I am.
00:45:55
Well, it's an issue.
00:45:56
Were they, were they Persian Jews who were recruited?
00:46:00
It was a joke.
00:46:00
I reckon.
00:46:01
Okay.
00:46:02
I don't know.
00:46:02
I got it, but it was, but it just popped at everyone's feet and everyone's like, oh, he crap.
00:46:06
If you look at social media, it's, and so, in my old kind of weird intel geeky world, like, I want to end you well too.
00:46:12
Like, you want, okay, how did they do this?
00:46:14
How are they?
00:46:14
Yeah.
00:46:14
What the trade craft?
00:46:16
You know, what was their motivation?
00:46:18
And because it goes a bit against the narrative of, I thought that the, that the Iranians would have a very difficult time recruiting Israelis.
00:46:25
It turns out, yeah, that they don't.
00:46:27
Well, one of the, one of the things, and I were getting a little out of here, but one of the things that I was interested with, because I kind of like this mechanism of, hey, the Israelis have been doing this in Iran,
00:46:37
right, for 20 years now.
00:46:40
Really exploiting a lot of the fissures and cracks in Iranians society, be they ethnic, religious, whatever, to recruit people who will do work for Masat.
00:46:51
You know, it's really society right now as fissures and cracks.
00:46:55
And so, you know, you kind of, if you're the Iranians, you know, smarter Iranians understand this.
00:47:01
It's not so hard to imagine how you can use that to recruit people who might be willing to do things.
00:47:09
So I think it seems perfectly, perfectly plausible.
00:47:13
Like good, good fodder for a spine out.
00:47:15
There you go.
00:47:16
Now, hang up after this.
00:47:17
I know you've got some more kind of PR stuff to do.
00:47:19
We get back to writing.
00:47:20
But again, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for.
00:47:23
I want to thank you again.
00:47:25
It was awesome.
00:47:26
Seeing you awesome for joining us.
00:47:28
I hope you'll consider coming back again with book number four comes out.
00:47:31
I want to thank everyone out there listening.
00:47:33
DSR will be back later this week with more of our regularly scheduled podcasts.
00:47:36
And we hope you'll join us for them and then join me again for the DSR above average intelligence show.
00:47:42
Again, David McClasky, the great author, the seven floors, an amazing book.
00:47:45
Not just because I'm in the knowledgements, although it certainly helps.
00:47:50
I mean, clearly, the point to all of our egos, all of our motivations.
00:47:54
But awesome book.
00:47:55
You've turned into a great friend, love reading this stuff.
00:47:58
Good luck.
00:47:59
And keep up kind of the kind of the what is it?
00:48:02
The book circuit.
00:48:03
The book circuit.
00:48:04
That's right.
00:48:05
That's right.
00:48:06
Well, thanks for having him.
00:48:07
You got worse to do.
00:48:08
Awesome book.
00:48:09
Thank you so much, David.
00:48:10
Thanks for having me, Mark.
00:48:11
This is great.
00:48:12
Thank you for listening to Above Average Intelligence, hosted every week by Mark Polly Meropolis.
00:48:23
Above Average Intelligence is a DSR network production.
00:48:34
(upbeat music)
00:48:36
[BLANK_AUDIO]
00:48:46
