108 Comments
Comment deleted
November 17, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
author

Hey, wasn't Robin Cook a doctor? The novel "Coma" rocked my world.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
November 16, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

I started working at age 9. Prolly cuz I didn't have MTV until I was a teenager.

I have a PHD in slave to the grind.... .

Expand full comment

Theres honor in work, no matter what type of work it is. Anyone who tells you otherwise has never been in a survival situation and has no perspective on the matter. Keep your head up.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
November 17, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Excellent! Apologies if I misread that. Uni wasnt for me either.

Expand full comment

Who pays their student loans?

There is no payment due on mine cuz of Biden I think. All payments are "voluntarily" now.

Expand full comment

My only regret about work is not being able to stay home with them as babies. Both delivered by C-section, against doctors orders, I was back at work physical jobs 2 weeks after giving birth each time.

It's hard to explain but people back then just sucked alot of shit up .........

I would like to state for the record that it was the Millionaires work ethic that attracted me to him and not money. Omfg he was such a scrub at first because he does hardwood floors......

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
November 17, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

He's the owner of a hardware flooring business his father started. His father was the smartest man I ever met in my life. He invested $20k in Pratt & Whitney when they first went public. It was like hitting powerball today at 1 billion when he did it. The return on investment was massive. I got to work for his Dad in the family business too. I miss him.

Expand full comment

P.S. the kinds of homes the Millionaire does in Connecticut are probably similar to watch I envision Chuck lives in. Our house is huge but pales in comparison to the homes he does. He's even hired to do people's summer homes in NH and Maine. And their first homes are usually in Manhattan. I never gave a shit about those people.....I can't stomach fake....

Expand full comment
author

My house was previously used as the headquarters of the world's largest Christian homeschooling textbook publisher. All concrete floors and fluorescent lights.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
November 16, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

My idol....You, Tony.

Not Karl

Expand full comment

I’m the most useless one: a music degree lol.

Expand full comment

I can write a killer essay about Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross though lol

Expand full comment

I'd read that <3

Expand full comment

I’ll probably do the Social Network next but Mank seemed more suitable for my college. I’m trying to get my college to put Reznor and Ross in the Music Lit curriculum.

Expand full comment

was about to say that! lol my last year at uni turned out to be the year the pandemic had begun. so i’m now a proud (?) owner of a music business degree that means jack shit in the industry that is still in absolute shambles post-covid.

maybe i should’ve listened to my mum and become a lawyer. at least i’d have something to write about.

Expand full comment

Oh I wouldn’t say useless, and you aren’t the only one here to study music

Expand full comment

Thanks, to me I cherish it. It just seems unappreciated in society.

Expand full comment

Everything of real value is unappreciated in society, because society worships the fairytales of money and the economy, and beauty, compassion and nature don’t seem to amount to squat.

Expand full comment

Our culture generally has some really messed up values.

Expand full comment

I miss music sometimes but writing suits me better. Never had that obsession for an instrument that the real musicians have.

Expand full comment

Someone continually writes that the master's in library and information science is useless and/or that the profession is dying. My favorite was the one that said instead of being a librarian you should be a food scientist. I quite like being a librarian and think we'll be around awhile yet...

Expand full comment

Cold calling, not letting your ego get in the way, learning to take rejection, and not taking things personally are great skills to possess. It was a B2B telemarketing job for me. Selling truckloads of new GM cars between dealers.

Expand full comment
author

Agreed.

Expand full comment

Also, adaptability. Rigid things break.

"Be like water." -Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

Expand full comment
author

My most proud quote:

"I've never fit anywhere, not like coffee fits in a cup." From 'Damned'.

Expand full comment

Bunch of hendecagon shaped pegs in this workshop.

Expand full comment

"I am Jack's Gallbladder" because I hear Ed Nortons voice when I think of it. And paint me a schizophrenic because he's got such a sexy voice in my head!!!

Expand full comment

I literally have a “B.S.” degree in Theatre.

Expand full comment
author

Hey, so does Chelsea Cain, who then got a graduate degree in Journalism and went on to write bestselling thrillers. There is hope!

Expand full comment

English degree pending. Future employment in the fast food industry likely.

Expand full comment

Don't sweat it too hard. I have a BS in English and have gotten to do plenty of cool things with it.

Mostly argue and convince my way into any position I want.

Expand full comment

You might make it into retail. I could see you selling hundred pound suits very eloquently and articulately.

Expand full comment
author

You should do that, then steal the secret recipe for KFC or McNuggets and sell it to a hostile power.

Or just write a book about that.

Expand full comment

Its salt, black pepper, and MSG. The 11 herbs and spices went away ages ago.

Expand full comment

I believe the secret ingredient to both is chicken.

Expand full comment

I have a BS in biology.

Expand full comment

I went for a BS in anthropology, to get a better understanding of how people work. It did give me a broad set of theories and ideas that have continued to be inspiring. I tried a few different things for a second major (bio, criminal justice, psych) before settling on a BS in computer science, and now I'm working on a Master's in Secondary Education, with a math/physics specialization (required to teach high school here in Sweden). If you want to teach programming here, you have to train to be a math teacher first (the physics is just for fun).

Expand full comment

We must be relatively close to the same age -- Woodward and Bernstein were huge influences. As was Don Bolles for me (if you remember that story). I lived in Phoenix and he was a reporter for the Arizona Republic. He was doing some investigative stories on the big liquor distributor for the state, then one day started his car and it exploded. He hung on for a few days before he finally died. That happened in the summer after my freshman year of college. The newspaper put an entire team of investigative reporters from around the country on the case after that.

I went to college as an English major, then made one of the few good decisions I ever made as a teenager. After the Bolles murder, I added journalism as a double major. I figured a journalism degree would get me a job where I could earn a living and pay the rent until I wrote the Great American Novel. Two years ago, I retired after a 40-year newspaper career, so it definitely paid off both as a career and in teaching me how to write.

Expand full comment
author

Forty years! I salute you.

Expand full comment

"What's your major?" they asked.

"Religion," he said.

Squinting. "What are you gonna do with that?"

...

Expand full comment

Joseph Campbell fan?

Expand full comment

Indeed!

Expand full comment

Im almost done reading The Power of Myth. Transcripts of the interview. Love it. Already bought the video but its very difficult for me to watch anything solo.

Expand full comment

Read The Power of Myth in prison.

A heroine addict who locked across the walk lent it to me.

Fantastic!

Then I went around telling everyone who would listen we were all on a Hero's Journey

No one got it....no one but the addict who lent it to me, of course.

We're still friends today. He's a certified peer counselor now helping other addicts get their journeys straightened out ....well, before it kills them.

Expand full comment

Thats great to hear! Err...read. I have a question: do you think I can get away with referring to prison as "the clink" in a story Im working on? In context it will still make perfect sense to those whove never been friends with ex cons.

Im really glad that guy got it together.

Expand full comment

I think 'the clink' might be popular in the UK?

It may have been common terminology in the 40's & 50's here in the States.

Most guys call it 'the joint'

And when you're inside, you call it 'my spot' -as in,

"They rode me outta my first spot before store hit. I was two weeks no-hygiene!"

Expand full comment

Another question: Chuck has stated that characters should not find redemption. After a lifetime of beating back my cynicism, irony, and sarcasm, I dont want to have those things win on the page. Maybe theres a way to have sincerity win without it being mushy?

Expand full comment
author

I said that? I've made the observation that editors seem to dislike redemption, and that romantic fatalism disallows characters achieving their original goal (but getting a different, more profound goal). But I'm all for characters getting a slight redemption. For instance, Victor in 'Choke' is unable to keep his mother alive, or to sustain the love of the masses, but he does get paired up with Paige.

Expand full comment

Redemption....

Now that's worth exploring, eh?

What would redemption look like...and to whom?

Expand full comment
author

Were those the interviews shot at Skywalker Ranch? With Bill Moyer?

Expand full comment

Yessir. I bought them online but havent watched them. You can borrow my credentials if you want to watch again. Literally just finished the book and loved it but its just a fraction of the interviews.

Expand full comment
author

I had those videotaped from PBS thirty years ago. Know them by heart. Thanks.

Expand full comment

I'm surprised not more people regret having an English Degree.

Why I chose to study a language I already speak I will never be able to explain to my dad.

Expand full comment
founding

B.S. in Graphic Design

Expand full comment

English. Then graduate work in Medieval Studies -- a degree made even more useless by my leaving the program 6 hours shy of a degree. I'll say, though, that my journalism experience, sans J-school, was a boost to my writing skill set. Brevity.

Expand full comment
founding

I have an AS in Drafting Technology 🤓

Expand full comment

I loved drafting

Expand full comment
founding

It really is enjoyable 😄

Expand full comment