Sarajevo Ghost

Kia don't lie, they scream but they know us, don't forget, the bones don't let go.

Chattel stretch long, the secrets get long, and the creak keeps the whispers you thought were your wrong.

Are you really digging for peace, or is that just a lie, tell to help us sleep?

Welcome to the Wrecking Yard, I'm Jerry Wayne, Longmar. Y'all are presumably still y'all.

All are welcome here in the Church of Internal Combustion. We just asked that you show up with an

open heart. It's a cold church today. Y'all know I'm down here in Houston, Texas,

Saturday. I decided to go ahead and film Saturday because we may have power outages and who knows

what all is going on tomorrow. We don't get a lot of freezes down here, so when it does freeze,

it gets a little sketchy. Our infrastructure is not built for it. That's all I know what to tell you.

I know there's people in the Midwest like, oh, I still bell hay at 20 degrees bare-ass.

Nothing but a Seneca cigarette to keep me warm. Wives out having a baby in the field

and the 20 degrees with a T-shirt on. I get it. I know. We don't have this crap down here. It throws

everything off. If you've watched the news at all in the past 15 years, Texas Power Grid

is run by a bunch of oligarchs who don't really give a shit about putting any money into it,

trying to fix it. They've done a little bit here and there, but we just never know. It's

a crap shoot down here. We never know. Last freeze, massive power outages all over Texas.

We're hoping that ain't the case this year, but we're all trying to kind of prepare for it too.

I've been, me and Ms. Rachel just went out. She's got some flowers that her great-grandma

opulent planted on the back of the house. I can never remember the name of these things.

Forget me tomorrow's, but don't forget me today's or some bullshit like that. They got some weird

name like that. Forget me yesterday and the present. Forget me yesterday and tomorrow.

I don't know. Yesterday, tomorrow and the other day. There's something like that.

Some kind of flower like that. Anyways, the shock could be enough permanently killed

them. So we've been wrapping them with painter's plastic and put bricks on the ground and stuff

trying to insulate the roots. I hope it saves the yesterday, tomorrow, and the other days,

whatever they're called, and wrapped up the azalea because we've got a huge azalea,

and they don't fare well when it gets dry. I mean, they're pretty hardy,

actually cold plants, but we just still want to take a chance.

I don't know. It's not a good reason for me to just be out and be cold. I'm still shivering

on the inside. I had to finish right, I finished writing this episode on the porch because

that's my quiet place. That's where I like to go sit right, but it's about 40 degrees out there

and wet. My fingers feel like ice. Somebody's laughing in Illinois right now.

It's been a good week. Just doing stuff around the house, working on content,

working on the Wally bottoms, working on everything I get my grubby little hands on.

I did. I just took another show. I don't often take a lot of shows in Houston,

but if you're in the Houston area, February 6th, I'll be at, I think it's called the Williamson

Brewery over on Wakefield, and I'm going to pop it. It's a pop-up show they're doing,

and I'm going to show up and do a 25-minute set. So if you're in the area, man, check out my

Facebook. There's tickets on there. If you go to my link tree, there's tickets on there.

Nakadotcha show is continuing to sell like gangbusters. That show is going to sell out.

So if you're thinking about getting tickets to Nakadotcha's February 28th, I'm not trying to bully

in the buying time saying I would buy them now because there's just not going to be any left.

That show is going like gangbusters. I think we're already half capacity

and a month out. You know what I mean? That's crazy. The Austin show, March 6th,

I'll be in Austin at the Balkan Gas Company. That show is selling really well too,

so if you want to see me in Austin, jump on those. They're surprising. I have not tried to do much

in Austin, so I didn't know what my market was going to be there, but it's surprisingly selling

really well. Really well considering it's right next door to Joe Rogan's Club and

everything over there sells well. So I feel pretty good about coming in clutch on that one.

I got to go have, I went and had lunch with my good buddy David. Y'all know David. You love David.

I went and had lunch with David. I hadn't got to talk to David much over the holidays. I was just

slammed and I hate talking on, I'm just not a phone person. Okay. I'm a great,

let's go to lunch guy. I am a shitty call you back on the phone. I don't like talking on the phone.

One, I'm deffering shit. I can't hear very good on the phone. If I do got my headphones in and

they are working right that day, then yeah, I can hear pretty good. I feel so disconnected on

the phone. I'm just not, I've never been a phone person. I'm not a phone person. Okay.

But go have lunch, sit down, break some bread, chit chat. That's nice. And we, it looks like always

we'd David to sit down somewhere to have some lunch. The food ain't important,

but what is important is we're going to sit there about two or three hours bullshitting

every time, you know. And we had a good time. He was telling me all about his love life and

how that's going. Can't imagine being our age and having the date. It just sucks.

But I'll screw it. He'll spend all this time telling me about his dates. I mean,

obviously in the same girl for a little while, you know, she's crazy. No less crazy.

That was good to laugh. We had a good time. I made plans. So David's my buddy. I'm buying

that Chevy Avalanche for and I'm really excited about it. So that Chevy Avalanche he's got.

It's a 2006. It's an LTZ. That's the fully loaded decked out. It's got a sunroof,

all that good shit, leather interior, bow stereo and things been kept in pretty good shape. It's

pretty clean. There's a New Year's Eve. Somebody hit the bed of it and there's a scratch on the

bed, but no like body damage or anything. So I don't really care about that. Chipped one.

He had just replaced the mirrors on it. Somebody chipped it when they hit it,

they chipped the mirror, which sucks.

But that thing's pretty clean. Needs a little bullshit. Needs motor mounts.

Just a little crap. Needs the brake booster leaks on it. The cool thing, but so the truck

comes with a parts truck. It's a Chevy Tahoe same year model. And the Avalanche is basically

like a Tahoe on a suburban frame, but in the back it's got cool spring suspension just like Tahoe.

So it's kind of a unique vehicle as opposed to like the pickup truck, but it works out to have

this Tahoe because it's Tahoe what happened with it. The guy brought it in transmission shop.

He just replaced all the suspension on it and the transmission was just trash on

and they tore it all down and the guy was on hospice care and he said he didn't

want to spend the money on rebuilding the transmission. He just abandoned the truck.

So David put a lean, the shop put a lean on it. David bought the truck from the shop.

The Avalanche came in the shop. They thought it had a transmission problem. When it got in

the shop, they found out it was engine failure. Had the little 5.3 in it and it was an experience

of engine failure. But that 2006 is before they did the DoD AFMS. So whatever the engine

failure was it would have just been actual catastrophic engine failure. So what they did

is they took the 5.3 out of that Tahoe and they put it in that Avalanche because it only had

about 36,000 miles on that engine. Engine run pretty good. It was a low mileage engine

that somebody had put in the Tahoe. It's a long story. Say that the Avalanche basically

has a real low mile engine in it. It's got some like I said the brake booster leaks,

but the brake booster on the Tahoe is good. I'm just going to switch them out.

The EBCM that's the one they've mounted up under the body on the frame. It's triggered in

bad response too. We're just going to take that off the Tahoe switches. It's a lot of both.

I'm going to take suspension off the Tahoe, put it on the Avalanche suspension. It's just

worn slap out and you can just hear it. You can feel it when you drive it. So we're

going to replace all that. So I'm going to cannibalize these two drugs to make me

my top. But I think this is going to be my last pick up. So I'm trying to take some care.

I'm 48. I just don't see myself buying a lot more. I like the GMT 800 platform. It's easy

to work on. Just looking for something that'll be good for me to take up and down the road

cheap, easy enough to work on. It's not a problem.

Anyway, I got to get that Mazda sold. Get that out of here. But I hadn't been really serious about

selling the Mazda. So now I'm about to crank up the pressure and get that booger moved on down

the road since he's ready for me to take possession of the Avalanche. He was holding

on to it because he was doing some car shuffling and stuff. He wasn't quite ready to let it

go yet. But he's done the shuffle. He's ready to let go. We had a great time at lunch.

It was nice catching up with him. Y'all don't know. I mean, you will now. But

my credit's pretty shit. I've been cleaning up. I've been working the past couple of years to

like really clean it up and it's up and down that kind of stuff. But when I needed a loan

to work on this house, I was having trouble getting a loan and David let me borrow like 30 grand

with, you know, a pretty reasonable like 12% interest, you know,

pretty reasonable interest better than I could qualify for

so that I could remodel this house so we can move into it and give up our apartment

after Rachel's younger brother just totaled this place. Just made this destroyed the place.

Anyway, it was old house already and out of date, but then he just

he went through the house and just destroyed ship. So we had to go down the bare bones.

Which very remodeled a home, you know, 30 grand don't go far. I spent about 18 of it in the

kitchen and the kitchen still ain't done. But the cool news is, is I'm about to make the

very final payment on that way. We're at the end of that loan and I'm paying that loan off and I feel

pretty good about that. So I want to sit down and chat with David about that kind of stuff.

It was a good day, man. It's always good to sit and see you, buddy.

We're just doing a little freeze prep around the house and I wish, you know, I'm

I wish folks,

I mean, I went,

dude, there's people camped out at Costco this morning. Like people are panicking.

And that's always, I mean, I know the cold's coming.

You know, all the way the people on TV are

sharpening their adjectives. Costco looks like the apocalypse just called ahead.

But we all just need to take a breather right now.

Panic don't keep you warm. Panic don't keep the lights on. Panic does not put soup in a bowl.

It just makes the shelves empty. Empty shelves don't mean there's no food.

It just means somebody got scared faster than you. And the truth, you don't survive a Texas

freeze by out shopping your neighbors. You survive it by out thinking the weather.

Fill some jugs of water. Charge your phone. Charge all your devices. Find your blankets.

Make sure the pets are inside. Make sure you got a way to heat. But nothing propane inside.

Check on the old folks around. That's it. That's the whole playbook.

You don't need 48 rolls of toilet paper. Make the cold snap. You need heat,

hydration. Somebody knows you're there. It's not personal. It's just weather.

But how you respond is personal. Be the calm one. Be the prepared one.

Be the neighbor who doesn't hoard but shares. That's how we make it through.

You know, we talk about a lot of different things I'm hearing.

Though I can't say his name, I've been reading a lot of...

Boy, I'm gonna screw it up. I picked at this. Been reading a lot of his stuff.

He was one of the stoics I was not very familiar with. I've been reading Xeno

and I picked it to this and I've been trying to kind of like work some stuff out in my head.

It was somewhere over the holidays. I seen somebody do a stand-up set and

it might have been my friend Bill. And he was talking about his parents.

And he was talking about the day that he realized they didn't know any more than he did.

And I've really been taped that stuck in my head. I don't remember the rest.

I'm not gonna try to recreate his bit, but I remember it's been in most recent years

that I realized that my parents were full of shit. I mean, most people are.

Most people are full of shit.

It was because I realized I was. And then I was like, I'm their age. I'm the age they were when

they were raising me. And I don't have half the answers for my kids. There's been

a lot of discussion about, I'm not gonna get political on you guys, but

we live in a time where there's a lot of discussion about a lot of things right now.

One of those things is ice and people being deported and all that stuff going on in Minnesota.

And of course your kids have questions and I don't have the answers to all those questions.

I don't have the answers to why this is happening. I'm not out to condemn anybody.

I'm not.

But none of it feels good. And it's a hard thing to explain to kids.

And I realized I was just full of shit. I just realized that. I don't know anymore

than what I get fed to me and what information is available to me. And that's really the boat

we're all in. None of us know all the truths and can say anything with any kind of clarity.

And I think about like, I'm pretty honest with my kid. I'll tell him when I don't know something.

My son, my younger one, he's autistic. He likes facts and knowledge and order and he gets

really pissed when I don't know something. And sometimes we'll go Google it together and

figure it out together. Don't tell me you don't know. Well, I just, I don't buddy. Sometimes I

don't know. My dad was one of those that always had to have an answer. But as a result, I got a lot

of false information from the old man, you know? Because he just wanted to have an answer rather

than look like he didn't have an answer. He told me a lot of shit over the years that just

don't, it just don't add up, you know? And it's stuff that I now know is not true.

Think about that. Like, just how many people, if you put any, if you go like, if you're on the

internet, you say anything about your losing weight or you're doing this, you'll get 150

different opinions about how you should be doing what you're doing. I thought actually car people

are bad. Actually pet people are the worst people I've been on the internet. You can't say

anything about an animal without 150 different opinions about what you should be doing with

that animal. And I'm like, you guys literally can't agree right here. Why in the hell should

I listen? If you, you know, people come to me with scripture a lot. People come to me with scripture

and want to wave scripture like a flag and bash my head in it with it at times.

But the problem with people do that most of the time they're bashing your head in with

scripture. Somebody else told them was important. You could tell they've never tried to read and

figured the book out for themselves. I've read the book twice in my life and I've spent a good

deal of time pouring over it and having some of it drilled into me. And I know the difference

between scriptures that were drilled into me that people taught me meant something

versus scriptures I figured out for myself what I thought they meant or I gleaned my own meaning from

them. But boy, people on the internet, I mean just people in general will throw scripture at you

and I guarantee you that a good portion of people throw scripture if you have never read the

book. Somebody else told them that scripture was important and that scripture meant that.

That's something somebody else put in their head. They didn't read and understand the context of the

whole book the scripture was a part of, the whole chapter of the scripture was a part of, which

people will spout Corinthians without knowing the context of Corinthians. People will spout,

it's crazy. And my parents were no different growing up growing up. My parents told me a

number of things that turned out they were working with the information they had but

you know it's okay to say I don't know. It's okay to just say I don't know. I think it is. Maybe

I might be wrong. My kids might get older and like my parents were idiots. My dad didn't

never know nothing. I don't know. But really, I think I'd rather than that they'd be like my

dad was full of shit. He fed me all kind of crap you know like because it's the way I feel

a little bit sometimes.

That's why I've really been enjoying the understanding of the epictetus going through it because it's

I'm a performer. I'm a writer. I'm a man whose life is exposed to public reaction. It's dangerous

territory for the soul. Good or bad. It's dangerous territory for the soul. So you need

things like lunch with your buddy. Keep you grounded. Keep you tied into what's real.

Epictetus would tell me you don't you don't control who laughs. You don't control who

misunderstands you. You don't control who misreads you. You control whether you told the truth in

the way you know how. That's it. That's enough.

Mr. Bob used to, I've told you a lot about Mr. Bob, but one of Mr. Bob's big lessons that he left

with me was Mr. Bob would always tell me not to kick myself in my past. Don't don't go around

kicking yourself for shit. You already screwed up. You know, if you screwed up, don't go

around kicking yourself. No good comes of that. No good comes of that. You just make the situation

worse when you do that. The best thing you can do is own a mistake and move forward and try

not to let it happen again. But just sit around and throw in a pity party and kicking yourself

in the ass because it's a mistake you made. Don't accomplish nothing. Mr. Bob taught me that.

He drilled that into my head until I understood it. And it was so crazy to me

to find Mr. Bob's words in a pictetus. Boy, I'm never going to get that name right.

But his whole thing is if you're upset, if you're upset, it's never because of what happened. It's

because of the story you told yourself about what happened. Somebody heckled you. Somebody

ghosted you. Somebody criticized you. Those are events. The suffering comes in when you add

which means I'm failing, which means I'm not enough, which means I'm losing.

That part is optional. You don't have to do that second part to yourself.

Reality hits you. Your interpretation finishes the beating. You don't have to do that part

to yourself, the interpretation part. You can just move on.

Sorry, I'm a little scattered in my little place. There's a story I read a couple of weeks ago. I

really been wanting to talk to you guys about it because it's one of the most fascinating stories

I've ever read. And it was kind of cool that it came in conjunction when I was reading all this

other stuff from the pictetus and the stuff from Zeno. And also having these thoughts about

seeing Mr. Bob's words in ancient texts like, holy shit, Mr. Bob taught me a lesson

that people have been trying to teach us for a long time.

But I read this story about this dude named Helga Meyer. I hope I'm saying that right.

Helga Meyer.

And his ghost Camaro.

There's some kind of men that only get noticed when everything's falling apart.

And I don't mean like generals or politicians, not the ones with a microphone and a podium.

I'm talking about the type of men that don't rage against the problem,

don't waste a lot of energy bemoaning the problem. Just look at a problem and go,

what can I do with what I have?

That's where Helga Meyer comes in. Helga Meyer wasn't a warlord, wasn't a movie star.

What are you supposed to be famous? He was a former special operations soldier from Denmark

who watched the Balkan war on television in the early 1990s and felt something in his chest

that he couldn't let go of. Not anger, not rage, just responsibility.

Sere Abo was being torn apart. I don't know if you've seen the images or watching or maybe

some of you might have served during that time, but Sere Abo was one of the craziest war zones

you've ever seen. A modern city reduced to medieval times. No steady power, no steady water,

food rationed, snipers on rooftops, artillery in the hills.

It's just a place where you're literally walking outside your house to get you killed.

And this dude from Denmark sees that because instead of like, oh, that's terrible. He's like,

well, I guess I'm going to Sere Abo. That's not normal behavior. It's not comfortable behavior.

That's not what most of us do when the news turns ugly.

But I suspect maybe Helga had read some of my victims. He had read the words of a crippled slave

who figured out something that the rest of the world keeps forgetting. Some things are in

your control. Some things are not peace lives and knowing the difference. Helga couldn't stop the

war. He couldn't negotiate ceasefires. He couldn't make men drop their rifles.

But he could do one thing. He could drive. He could carry food, medicine, diapers, basic

human survival. He could try to get it where it was needed.

And there's a lot more to the story. He went through the proper channels trying to

trying to get all this approved, trying to do this the right way and was pretty much ignored.

He was told it's unfeasible. It's not something we can get behind. It's not something we can do.

So he quit asking permission. He quit waiting for approval. He took his own. I think it's

like a 78, 79 Camaro. It's not what you think. When you think you're humanitarian aid, you

don't think of an F-body Camaro, right? Like that's not the first thing that comes

your mind. I mean, in the worst case scenario, you might think of the night rider, but not

this Elf-Body Camaro. It's not a sensible vehicle. I mean, it doesn't have a lot of cargo space.

It's low. It's loud, but it's fast. And speed mattered more in this situation

than anything else. Convoys were getting hit left and right. Aid trucks were slow,

predictable, easy to spot, but a muscle car running at night blacked out. That's something else.

Helgi takes his Camaro to a U.S. airbase in Germany and said,

can you guys help me make this thing survive? This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do it

whether you help me or not. I'm going to do this thing. Can you help me? And that's where

the Ghost Camaro gets built. They make it pretty. They put Kevlar in the doors.

Doors are where bullets like to go. They reinforce the body. They add a run flat tires.

They put night vision equipment in it, infrared lighting, things that let him see without being

seen. Painting it matte black to reflect. I mean, to not show up as easily in imaging.

Put a battering bar, like a ram on the front, because the roads aren't roads right now. They're

covered in debris, burn cars, rubble, sometimes worse. You know, there's all kind of stuff.

I couldn't find any direct reports on exactly what they did to the engine, but I do know

they added a nitrous system to it. And it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 something

horsepower with the nitrous. But it's just a F-Body Camaro armored blacked out. He's running on night

vision, loaded with food and medicine. They beefed up the springs in the back so he could carry

more shit in the back. And the people started calling it the ghost car because it showed up and

it brought them the things they need. They knew when they saw that car coming that help was on the

way. And he drove alone most of the time, not because he's fearless, but because fewer people

means fewer variables. You know, it's depicted this thing. You can't control the sniper.

You can't control the shell, but you can't control how many lives you risk when you choose to act. So

Huggie keeps it tight. There's places in Sarajevo at the time where the safest time to move is when

the shelling is loud enough to mask your engine. People carried water and buckets like it was

1890. People rationed bread like it was a luxury. Children grew up knowing the sounds of rifles better

than birds. And he would slip in there not to fight, to feed. He didn't even carry a gun. The dude didn't

carry a gun. He did have a, they did give him a Kevlar helmet. Rumors says the Kevlar helmet

saved his life at least once, but he did carry a Bible. I guarantee he probably read it all.

He didn't go there to dominate. He didn't go there to take out snipers. He wasn't playing Rambo. He went

there to serve. That's what the Bible means. He went there to serve. Rare are those that truly

understand. He understood. He went there to serve. We're used to our heroes being kind of loud,

but he was quiet. And he pulled this Camaro into bomb neighborhoods, delivers supplies,

and disappear back into the dark for any way he could organize a way to stop it. Not because it's

magic. It's a focus. Picton has taught that the suffering comes from wanting the world to

bathe differently than it does. Helge accepted the world exactly as it was. Dangerous, cruel, unfair,

and all he asked of it was, can I get through? And most of the time somehow he did. He took fire,

bullets hit the car. They're like they say, they say his helmet stopped around that would have

ended the story. But he kept going over and over. Nobody knows exactly how many runs he made.

Not because he's reckless. He just had chosen this responsibility. And that's the part I love about

his story is that we live in a world that keeps telling us to fix everything, fix system, fix

politics, fix culture, fix the future. And that makes people freeze. Picton this would not tell

you that he would say, what is yours to fix today? Well, Helge had his thing to fix.

One road, one road, one load, one night. He didn't need to know. He wasn't trying to fix the war. He

didn't need to know how the war would end. He only needed to know where the next hungry family was.

That's the ghost car didn't end the siege of Sarajevo.

It did defect it at all. But in that city, there were kids who lived because it showed up.

That's enough.

The other part I really love about the story is after all this, he takes the car back home.

That's still his car. I've seen pictures that he repainted the orange. It took the batter and

ram off of it. Some of the crap all repainted in orange. And that car goes from being a war hero

to back to just being a car, just like that. Just a useful tool. It served him when he needed it for

this. It served him when he needed it for this. It served him when he needed it for this.

It had been a moving answer to a deep question. What does a man do when he knows he can help?

He had a plan. He knew he could help. Lots of people gave aid. He got it to the people.

Go read about Helge Myers. It's H-E-L-G-E-M-E-Y-E-R-S. If you've never read about it and

his ghost cabaret. Read about the build of this thing. Read about the way he would plot his

entrances into the city. That's some, that's next level hero shit in my book.

I think a lot of us live our lives hoping some moment like that is going to come for

us. I don't know if I've ever, I've helped in times of need. I'm not going to talk about it

because it feels like bragging, but there's been times during floods and stuff where I've gotten

involved because it felt like the right thing to do and I was in a position to be able to help.

I think that's the best we can do. I know this. There's this really old man that lives

across the street and he's my old cholo buddy. I was worried about him. I'm going to keep close tabs on

him. Hope we don't lose power and keep close tabs on the old man. Try to make sure he's okay.

he's okay.

You know

there's countless of stories like that across the world.

people just stepping up when they needed to step up.

Those are the stories that are always interesting to me.

Not so much the war heroes and the big loud and, you know,

those are interesting too.

You read about Audie Murphy, he's very interesting,

but also, he went through a bunch of shit

the rest of his life, you know,

dealing with what all he'd seen.

There's been guys, you know, back in the old days,

some of them used to be politicians.

You read about Teddy Roosevelt,

he got shot in the chest, still finished a speech.

He was a boxer, he was a soldier, you know.

We don't seem to have a lot of that, haven't in a while.

Being like the men of that type of character,

I'm always impressed by those.

Oh my goodness, here's a mess.

It's cold out here though, it's cold for me.

Some of y'all northerners probably be in here naked,

like this feels great, but it's freezing me,

but I can hardly handle it.

Good coffee and good words, that's about it.

I'm getting running up on the end of this season.

Feels crazy to think I'm already at the end of the third season.

I don't know why I decided to do 30 episodes of season,

but it feels right, but it means my season ends

at weird times of the year.

I don't know where we'll be, we're at, this is 83,

we got seven left for the end of the season,

seven weeks from now, we'll be off in March.

I'll probably take a week or two off

while I figure out what four seasons

gonna look like, of course we're gonna,

but I'm so excited that the Diwali bottom stuff

is gonna keep going, you know, but

not gonna make too many changes for season four really.

I like sort of the pattern we're following into

and what we're doing here.

I like talking about a variety of different topics.

I can't imagine.

What do you listen to?

What's on your playlist, right?

When you're driving into a war-torn city

in the dark at night, no headlights, just night vision,

a pilot in a rocket ship of a damn old school Camaro.

I mean, I gotta, back in the saddle again,

gotta be on that playlist, right?

Back in the saddle again.

Maybe a little Pantera, little Cowboys from hell.

I think that would keep my motor running.

Of course you probably had to listen to it in headphones.

Probably didn't listen to anything because he's listening

for shells and rifles and all that kind of shit.

I don't know, I don't, I don't,

I don't consider myself a brave man.

I don't consider myself courageous enough

to do something like that.

I think that would be terrifying.

I'm in awe of the people that have that inside them.

I mean, I like that.

I think we all like to think we're brave enough

when the stuff we get faced with to deal with it,

but I never been in war time, never been a soldier.

I've had guns pointed at me.

I've had guns pulled on me.

I've had guns shot at me.

I know how I reacted in those situations.

Most times fear-based.

A couple times I handed it logically and got out of the situation,

but most times fear-based.

I was raised around men that didn't exhibit a lot of fear.

I've seen engines and cars catch on fire in my dad's face,

engines blow, him jump back and holler,

but then dive right back in.

I've seen grab a fire extinguisher

and put a fire out before it gets out of hand.

I've seen him deal with some stuff.

I've seen that man deal with confrontation, deal with so much.

It never seemed scared except one time.

I'll tell you, one time I saw Popall scared.

There was a little footpath that went from the back door of his house

and it was basically just old pallets on the ground with rugs on them.

There were pieces of plywood or old signs on top of them

because their backyard would flood a little bit

and you walked on that and you walked through the fence into the wrecking yard

and then as you walked into the wrecking yard

there was the main path that went by Popall Wiley's old house

and around to the front of the shop.

Me and Popall were walking

and he was standing ahead of me

and I couldn't have been more than about seven, seven, eight years old

I was hanging out with him for the summer.

Popall Wiley was long gone.

My parents were down in Houston.

We walked out on that pathway

and when we turned Popall froze because there was a big old

sort of a brightly colored snake.

It was big sun 50 sitting right in the middle of the pathway.

He wouldn't cold up but he had his head up

and his body kind of stretched out

and Popall stopped.

I didn't know Popall.

Popall was definitely afraid of snakes.

I didn't know that.

I didn't think the man was afraid of nothing.

I barely put his hand on my chest and pushed me back a little bit

and he was like looking around.

I think he was looking for a weapon, something he could grab

and the snake got spooked.

I don't know if you've ever seen a snake jump but they can.

They can hop straight up in the air if they get spooked

and the snake that I later found out was what they call a king snake

just jumped straight up in the air

and when it did Popall Clark made a sound

that I never heard him make before or after this incident

but it was sort of a moaning howl.

He snatched me up around the chest

and we just rocketed back off into his backyard.

But that sound, he made that sound though.

Granny come out the back door trying to figure out what was going on

and he was looking around for a shovel or something

and he took off with a shovel out there

couldn't find a snake or something

come back, pissed off, he couldn't find that snake and kill it

and Granny was, she goes, what did it look like

and he starts telling her, he said it was big and like that

and Granny said that's a king snake.

It's out there all the time.

It eats the other snakes.

I don't give a damn, Jude.

I don't give a damn how many snakes that snake.

I want them all gone.

He can give a shit if that snake had other snakes.

That's a good snake, Bobby.

That's a good snake.

I don't give a damn, Jude.

I want them all gone.

I tell you, every time you go into town

he'd pick up stray cats.

If he saw a stray cat, he'd get that thing

truck and bring it home, let that cat out in the regular

and give them a little bit of food

but just enough to keep them hungry

because the cats would keep them snakes and them rats down

and he was clearly disturbed about that snake.

Ha ha ha ha.

Oof.

I feel a weird day.

I woke up feeling kind of dissociative.

I had dreams about my mother.

This happens to me, it seems like a lot of years.

Today is the day she died, January 24th.

I woke up really early this morning.

I was having a dream about her.

It wasn't nothing crazy.

She used to take me out to...

There was a place kind of close to where we lived

called Bear Creek Park

and they had some animals out there.

They had swans and stuff like that.

She used to take me to Bear Creek Park after school sometime

with my drawing pad and my drawing pencil

and let me draw...

I like drawing the swans.

Let me draw the animals but especially the swans.

The dream I had was like...

I can't remember all of it but we were sitting at Bear Creek Park

and we were just watching the swan.

The swan kept trying to fly but it couldn't.

Every time the swan tried to take off out of the water

it couldn't.

Something was happening that would come back into the water

and she was really concerned because the swan

kept saying we got to help it.

We got to do something that swan can't fly.

We didn't tell somebody something wrong with it.

Then she started crying really hard about the swan not flying

and then I woke up.

It's had my mind on a loop all day.

Ain't nothing to figure out there.

Just weird shit your brain does to you

for whatever reason my brain does to you the day she died.

It's not the day we buried her.

We buried her on her birthday, January 27th.

This week feels bad some years.

It feels bad this year.

I can tell because I'm drinking a little more than I should.

Listening to sad music a little more than I should.

It'll pass.

It'll be fine.

I ain't too worried about it.

But it's had me in a little bit of a weird state all day.

I can feel it.

I was trying to write this morning and I was kind of struggling

with that and getting off my head.

I was thinking about...

I pulled in the Home Depot parking lot and I parked

and I had a feeling so I picked up my phone

and I called the house.

Mom and Dad's...

My sister answered.

And instead of saying hello, she said,

can I tell him?

And I knew.

I knew that mom was gone.

Because it already felt like something had lifted off me.

That had been weighing me down.

It's a weird thing how you hold on to stuff like that.

Everybody deals with grief differently.

I didn't deal with it very healthy when it happened,

but I try to be healthy about it these days.

I wonder sometimes if you just get so far in life

with enough grief that it doesn't sting anymore,

that you just become used to it.

It becomes more like something that's known to you

than it is a shock anymore.

I heard a friend of mine passed away just a few weeks ago

and she's kind of...

I hadn't seen him in a while, you know,

but it was just a dude my age, you know what I mean?

That's the part that, like, jacked with me a little bit.

It was a dude my age.

Nothing crazy, no big story.

Came home from work, told his wife he had a headache,

laid down, had a brain injury,

nothing to indicate it was going to happen.

But I didn't really grieve,

but maybe because we weren't that close,

but it was just more of a couple of shit, man.

Anyway, I don't want to get too deep off and all that shit.

Sorry, I dropped that shit on y'all about my mom.

I mean, y'all know about her, but it just...

It's a weird dream, right?

I usually hate when I have dreams better

because when I wake up then I have to realize

she's not here all over again.

That's the sucky part of that.

Anyway, let's wrap this up.

Let's do some testimonials.

That was already...

Our old buddy David Beckard.

This will sound weird, but after over 3 million miles of driving,

I'm at the point where I'll go nowhere.

I do not want to go anywhere.

Weird, I know, but it is what it is.

I want to spend time with my kids, the great kids,

but I do not want to drive.

What to do?

Well, brother, you might need to get your bus pass

or Uber gift card.

I don't know how far away your kids and your grandkids are,

but if you don't go see them,

the only thing that's going to happen is you're going to miss out on them.

Look, kids' lives are busy.

Grandkids' lives are even busier.

They're trying to learn the world right now.

Their developmental processes are happening so fast.

Everything feels like a blur to them.

If you want to be a part of that,

you better go make sure you make yourself a part of that.

Because I get it.

I get it.

I get not wanting to go anywhere and not doing that,

but if you don't make yourself a part of that,

it'll just keep on happening without you, brother.

Right or wrong, that's the way the world works.

I can tell you, my father has made very little effort

to be a part of my children's lives.

Kids or teenagers don't really know anything about it.

Don't.

I mean, and that's 100% on him.

100% on him.

I have tried to include him in stuff,

but he does not make an effort.

And as a result, his grandkids don't really,

all they know about him is what they hear from me.

And I don't talk about him that often

because there's no frame of reference for him.

So don't be somebody that's out of the frame of reference,

not if it's important to you.

I know you're tired, but you know.

Get you some vibrancy.

Maybe when mama's leg heals up,

maybe she can do some of the driving.

You sit over there riding, think about them grandbabies.

At Hank Rowland.

Thank you especially for the last four minutes

of your podcast today.

After turning 40, I've had a hard time accepting

where I thought I'd be at this point in life

versus reality.

Feeling especially discouraged with myself today.

I discovered the serenity prayer and it really touched home.

Then hearing your closing statement

was like the Lord reminded me that his trials are meant to grow me.

I think you're at the age that a lot of us go,

I struggled with it heavily when I turned 40.

You know.

I would struggle with it when my pizza guy

would show up in a newer car than me.

Stuff like that.

You don't know nothing yet.

I remember there came a time where we were struggling to get by

and the average teenager was driving newer vehicles

than me or my wife.

Just because that's the position the world was in at that point.

And it was frustrating.

And then, you know, it all goes back to that.

I forgot who said it, but comparison is thief of joy.

Is that Franklin Roosevelt?

I don't remember who says that.

Comparison is thief of joy.

It's probably somebody a lot older than him.

That's one of those things I think somebody said in the beginning

that's just been handed down.

Comparison is thief of joy.

Few truer things than that will ever be said.

If you start comparing what you got to what other people got,

you're going to get disappointed every time.

Unless you just got it off, I guess.

Maybe some people can do that and get away with it.

One of my things I used to do every morning as a stand-up comic

was get on Facebook and see how much better everybody else's

schedules were than mine and really build up some hate

towards all my pure comics because they were more successful

at me getting more dates and dates than I wanted in my mind.

That's what it looked like to me.

I would give myself that little dose of poison every morning

and convince myself it was motivation and it wasn't.

It was tearing me down.

I'm glad it helped you, brother.

That's all I want to do is help folks.

That's the Croncraft Show!

Hello, buddy.

Thank you for the podcast every week, J.W.

You forgot to switch on your light for your story.

Nonetheless, a great segment and a great episode.

I was so mad when I went to edit the Diwali Bottoms episode

I realized I forgot to turn my light on.

Pissed me off.

Hopefully I won't forget it today.

We'll see.

I'm not. We're going to do that right.

Boy, I got a humding here of an episode for you today.

Get your listening ears on.

Let's return.

Yeah.

Let's return to Diwali Bottoms.

Texts.

A Ruger 6 laid upon the faded blue dash.

It's stainless steel surface reflecting the bright harvest

moon's beams onto the old man's face.

He turned the key, the starter wine, for just a second

before the Ford 300 rumbled to life.

The rustic low mellow drone only interrupted by the hollow

metallic clack of the timing chain, slapping the cover

for a few seconds before the oil pressure rose

and the tensioner took up the slack.

The engine settled into a low ebbing idle

as he wretched across to the glove compartment.

He retrieved a faded yellow cardboard box,

western and red script across the front,

accompanied by 38 special 158 grain

LSW and black typeface.

Despite the missing digits on his right hand,

he smoothly popped the cylinder out on the revolver.

His left hand already feeding shells into the empty chambers

as if he'd performed this task a thousand times.

A dull click as he snapped the cylinder back into position

and set the gleam and weapon on the bench seat beside him.

He tossed the box of ammunition back into the glove compartment

and snapped it shut before tapping a cigarette loose

from the wadded soft pack of camels in his shirt pocket.

Just a mile or two away, Carl Jr. or red,

depending on who you was,

stood in the entrance of Billy's corrugated steel shop.

Billy was an excitable man carrying a few more pounds

than his slight frame or the frayed overalls he wore could handle.

His bald scalp, liver spotted and sheening with sweat

underneath the yellowed work light hanging from a rafter.

I'm telling you, Red, I know what the hell I seen.

There's been lights over in Tony's trailer for two nights now.

Billy, there's no reason for anyone to be there.

Mr. Ware already picked up Tony's stuff

and Tiffany's family already helped her move out.

They're working night and day on them pumpjacks out by the cutoff.

You're probably just seeing reflections from their lights.

Carl Jr. felt like he'd been talking in circles since he got here.

Well, just go on then.

Billy chunked the 1316th wrench he was holding

onto his workbench with a loud claim

before he turned to walk towards his trailer.

You know, Red, lots of people here treat me like I'm stupid,

but you ain't never had before.

Billy, the door was already slamming.

He managed to croak out. I'm sorry.

Carl Jr. knew Billy wasn't dumb.

He could fix just about anything on a car.

He'd been a foreman at the mill before Mr. Simmons' kids

sold all the timber tracks and mill property to Boise Cascade.

They showed up smiling with clipboards and FRCs

and promised nothing was going to change

until it did the following Monday

and most everybody was replaced by B.C. employees

and automation plans.

A few months later, Billy had had a few too many beers at booties

and tried to climb the back end of a Budweiser Semi

out on 259 on his Kawasaki.

He was still all present these days,

but he run on a bit of a delay

and certain types of folks tend to take a great deal of sport

out of mocking anyone any different from what they perceive

as how it should be.

It stung more than Carl Jr. wanted to admit,

even to himself, that Billy might think him one of those types of folks.

He certainly wouldn't admit to anyone else

that the reason he started walking towards Tony's trailer

where Billy's works.

Danny pulled off the highway

onto a washed out road just east of FM 2012.

I'd hesitate to call it a gravel road

because you'd have to go find all the gravel.

The toy and I-beam suspension lurched in the ruts

as his headlight strobe the trunks of the pines

and their open complicity of the discretion of this place.

Behind the wall of softwood a little further down the hill

sat a big old Fleetwood double wide trailer.

A rickety ramp of oak pallets

led through the swampy mess up to the door

and the neon beer signs twinkled through the windows.

This was a place for those who preferred to be left alone.

A handful of Frankenstein to Harley-Davidson's

adorned in red and gold sat in the grass lot

amidst a collection of cars and pickups

that could have been somebody's scrap pile.

Danny's new Ford stuck out like the North Star.

He pulled around the grass lot

and quietly backed the pickup next to the bikes.

A Ruger is a good heavy pistol

and it felt good when Danny palmed it out of the seat

and slipped it in his left pocket.

His dark, oil-stained red wings

loud on the oak planks before opening the door

and stepping up into a cloud of acrid smoke

so heavy you could carve it out of your face

with an open palm.

A cinderblock pony wall with low-grade plywood

sat on the uneven linoleum

where the edge of the kitchen once was.

Booze lined the cabinet, some labeled,

some anonymous and ominous,

waiting for a lucky participant.

The backers was easy enough to spy at a small card table,

too occupied with a dice game

and their drinks to give a shit

about the greasy-haired manic old man approaching the bar.

A curly, blind-headed gal

and a Hank Williams Junior tank top

that was doing its best to keep it together another night

come out of the back room, cigarette in hand.

She was on the hard side of 60

and usually looked a little dour for most of the clientele.

Still, she beamed when she saw Danny.

Long time no see, Sugar. You on Jack?

Danny forced to grin

and laid a few bills on the counters.

She poured the whiskey without waiting for the answer

she already knew.

The Jack Daniels hit the back of his throat

like warm fuel, a light in his scent

after it's up all the way down.

Honey, do me a favor and go hit the head.

I got to have a conversation with these people.

The look on his face guided her decision to acquiesce

and the smile became quite terror

as she vacated the room for a safe quarter.

Without much warning,

he pulled the heavy revolver out of his left pocket

and pointed it at the stereo in the corner of the room.

John Fogarty's voice pouring out the speaker

desperately warning those who had listened

of the dangers of gambling in Houston.

One of y'all turned that shit off before I do.

A dirty-faced fella to his left custom

and made a move that was immediately canceled

by a crushing blow from the handle of the room

against his right temple.

He just had time to whimper before his legs quit

for the evening and left him in a pile

by a stool covering his face.

One of the bikers stood up deliberately

and slowly walked to the stereo holding his drink still

and his gaze on Danny's face.

He turned the big knob to the left

until it clicked and the light dimmed.

When Danny spoke, his voice was calm.

His tone dense, his eyes searching the room for a tell.

Y'all know who I am.

You know how to find me.

He pulled a thick wrinkled bank of Overton envelope

from his jacket with his McCulloch modified right hand

and held it up.

There's $5,000 in the envelope for the first son of a bitch

who tells me who killed my nephew.

I know one of you knows something.

Don't shit happen around here.

Y'all don't know about.

He slipped the envelope back into his jacket,

dropped the pistol to his side

and knotted more to himself than then

sort of muttered,

that ought to do it.

Somebody will sell that little piece of shit out

as he turned towards the door.

What if I just cut you down right here

and take that envelope?

Come from a fella sitting to the right of the room.

He was just young enough to think he had a good idea

and probably dumb enough to try to execute it.

Danny grinned and patted him on the forehead

with the side of the revolver before whispering.

You know, I've been looking for a reason to kill someone

since I got up this morning.

That would sure solve one of my problems.

He didn't look back as he walked towards his pickup.

And now someone had told the mouthy little thug who he was.

He lit another cigarette before pulling away from the trailer

taking a quick inventory of the vehicles there

in case he seen one of them on his road later.

He suspected he might.

He might not, but he might.

Carl Jr. waved the heavy mag light

around his former friend's empty trailer.

Homicide had ended their investigation months ago

if you wanted to call it that.

Tony's cousins had raided what was left of value

after Mr. Ware had told him it was okay.

The window where the bartered AC unit once labored

still hung open.

The cool air a stark contrast to the last time he'd stood there.

If someone had been here, he wouldn't have been able to tell.

They'd taken everything.

Everything's got value to folks that ain't got nothing,

even curtains.

Back in the bedroom, the sliding closet doors

were lying across the imprint in the carpet where the bed once was.

There's a faded cheetah shoebox with layers of

dingy masking tape reinforcing its worn corners

laying in the bottom of the closet.

It's taped up lid askew.

Polaroid sunspotted and water damaged

scattered the carpet near the box.

Carl Jr.'s mag beam danced over a memory.

He kneeled and took the stiff photo in his hand

and lit it with the mag light.

A lanky red-headed 13-year-old version of himself

sat on his dad's tailgate with a blind, curly-headed,

shorter, thicker boy.

Between them, a brand new K-Mart tackle box

and a new Zebco rod and reel.

His mom, Alana, had taken the photo with her new camera.

It had been Tony's birthday.

Carl Sr. was standing at the door of the old Dodge

ready to take the boys out to the lake

to try out Tony's new gear.

Carl Jr. stood and slipped the Polaroid

into his shirt pocket.

He walked through the dark trailer,

something picking at the edges of his mind.

As he walked back to his cruiser,

he could make out Billy Silhouette

watching him from his kitchen window.

He pulled onto the main road,

but didn't head to the station.

He drove in silence,

aside from the occasional piece of gravel

loosening from a tire or ricocheting

off the inside of the fender.

The 318 humming quietly under the hood.

Just a mile or two outside of town

where the homes and the land got bigger,

he pulled to the side of the road,

his eyes searching until he saw her.

Tiffany's dad, at least,

all field equipment had done quite well.

The large white plantation style home

and metal roofed horse barn were evidence enough.

She sat on the trunk of her maroon grandam,

the glow of a lit cigarette passing

from her face to her hand in the dark.

He sat quietly yearning for the words

that would rewind the last 10 years

of damage between the three friends.

Carl Jr. was headed back towards the station

when the dispatcher squawked over the radio.

Be advised, we got a report of shots fired on Mill Road.

Repeat shots fired on Mill Road,

possible disturbance in progress.

He grabbed the mic and keyed up.

Unit 5 in route.

He swung the tire dodge diplomat

into a U-turn, his senses heightened.

The radio keyed again,

the dispatcher softer this time.

Red, it's Danny Ware's place.

The sleepy 318 growled to life

as he mashed the accelerator to the floor

and the pine trees became a blur of indifference.

Tune in next week for more from Diwali Bottoms, Texas.

Episode 4 in the books.

I hope you guys enjoyed that.

Have fun writing that one.

Alright, well we wrap this thing up for the day

and get me in out of this cold.

That's what I think.

I told you I've been thinking a lot about my parents.

Not in a nostalgic way,

more of a reckoning type of way.

When I was a kid I thought they had some kind of secret map,

some hidden knowledge about how to survive the world,

how to make the right choices,

how to not screw it all up.

And then I got their age and I realized something

that shook me a little.

They didn't know any more than I do.

They were guessing.

Just like me.

Just like you.

They were making decisions with half the information,

old wounds they never got to heal,

and a whole lot of fear they never learned how to talk about.

And yet, somehow, they kept us alive.

Not perfectly, not cleanly, but alive.

I talked about Helga Meyer.

He didn't know how the war in Sarajevo was going to end either.

He didn't know if the city would survive.

He didn't know if he would survive.

He didn't know if that Camaro would come back in one piece.

He just knew there were children sitting in the dark

with empty stomachs and no medicine.

And he decided that was his.

The pictures said you don't get peace by fixing the world.

You get peace by deciding what belongs to you.

The war didn't belong to Helga,

but that road did.

That run did.

That load of food did.

The freeze coming to Texas right now

is just the same kind of test, just quieter.

You can't control the grid.

You can't control the weather.

You can't control the systems that failed us last time.

But you can decide who you are when it happens.

You can be the one who panics and empty shelves.

Or you can be the one who fills a few jugs.

Charges a phone and checks on the old man across the street.

A choice sounds small.

It isn't.

That's how civilization survived.

Not by knowing everything,

not by having all the answers,

but by being responsible for something.

My parents didn't know how the world worked.

They just knew I was hungry.

They just knew I was scared.

So they did what they could.

And now it's our turn.

Not to be certain.

To be present.

Not to be perfect.

To be useful.

That's the work.

I'm rooting for you guys.

Every week I tell you that.

Rooting for you to find the ways that you can be useful.

I don't need you to be certain.

I just need you to be present.

I don't need you to be perfect.

I just need you to be useful.

And you'll find that if you focus,

this is what I have found as I get older,

that if I focus more on being present

and I focus more on being useful,

then I don't worry about those other things too much.

I just find where I fit

and where I can do work.

Every time I say work, people think I'm talking about jobs.

I'm not talking about jobs.

When I say work, I'm talking about

the things that you do with your time here on this planet.

That's the work.

If you waste all that at some job,

that's on you.

If you waste that kicking yourself for mistakes you made,

that's going to be on you.

But you could just take that work

and focus it on the things where it can actually do something.

That's what Helga Meyer did with his ghost car.

He said, I got a solution for this problem.

I can go make sure these kids get food.

I'm rooting for you.

There's room at the table for everybody.

We just all got to figure out how we fit.

I'm J.W. and I love you.

Somebody's knocking.

Should I let him lower this devil?

I had that song in my head the whole time I was writing that

The Wally Bottoms episode because I kept trying to tell you.

I couldn't figure out what's going to have Danny do

when he went in that bar,

but I didn't want it to be over the top.

Old men are dangerous in a different kind of way.

Old men are dangerous because they're sure of themselves.

I wanted to portray that.

I didn't want to be this over the top.

He's got some badass.

He's just an old man that's sure of himself.

And he's had enough.

He's grieving.

It's crazy hard on people without doing a little different.

You guys be safe.

I'll catch you next week.

Sarajevo Ghost

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