You guys are micro. This is the way I heard it episode over two or three, and it's called there's a hole in daddy's arm, there's a hole in daddy's arm. We start with the saddest story than I have ever heard, story. So sad, the first time I heard it. I thought to myself Damn somebody ought to write a song about this. Well, I did write a song, but I did write a chapter in my book about the saddest songs, I'd were heard as sung to me by the men of the course of the Chesapeake These were the guys who I mentioned earlier in the book who introduced me at the tender age of eighteen to a breathtakingly depressing collection of lamentations, sat to four part harmony, unlike anything. I've ever heard. You think tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton is sad. You think he saw

love in her today by George Jones is a Tyrker. You ain't heard nothing. Yet I'm talking about songs, so sad, you can't help. It laugh, even as you cry after that. I, with shock about why it is so. Many of us are drawn to misery set to music, and I share within the details of a nightmare I endured earlier this week a three day nosebleed that was preceded by the surgical correction of deviated symptom. This is a nose bleed that deserves its own sad song since have kept me up pretty much around the clock for three days and nearly drove me insane. So very strange conversation that includes the sudden swelling of my father's scrotum and my mother's reaction to it, which incident

you oughta be set to music as well. I call this episode. There's a whole in daddy's arm in deference to cheer for little tune called sandstone, which just might be the saddest song ever written by the late Great John Prying, stick around a hum a few bars for you scare, indeed put smile on your face. This episode number two or three of the way I heard it, and it all starts right now and by right Now I mean right after I beg you not to become the stuff of your own sad song, by paying more interest, then you need to pay on your credit cards. You can pay off your credit card balances right now and start saving money today, with a credit card, consolidation loan from light stream rate start adjust five point: nine five percent, a pr with ATO pay, an excellent credit. Think about that. The average interest rate today is over ninety percent, a pr for people with good credit that

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Both man snapped the rubber band off the envelopes and slid and other stack of mail through the slots in the front door. Ingrid heard the squire all of the tiny hinge, the Chirrup of ten on ten and the soft whoosh of a new stack of male landing on an old stack of male. Those were the sounds that she tried to ignore. The sounds that us, in a new day of grief, hungry mommy hungry. Now that was a sound she couldn't ignore in the kitchen Ingrid spread, peanut butter on toast for her to Europe,

son has the telephone jangled in its cradle, hello. She whispered. Yes, this is she. Yes, he would have been thirty one in January, you're welcome Ingrid left AJ to his peanut butter, toast and wandered back to the front door with a bear toe. She pushed aside the catalogs and bills and regarded the dozens of sympathy cards a literal pile of pity she couldn't bring herself to read but they're buried in the condolences. Ingrid saw the unmistakable handwriting his handwriting and the postmark that read September 23rd, one thousand nine hundred and seventy three. It was a letter from her husband, a letter from beyond the grave.

Fort Jackson, South Carolina September, one thousand nine hundred and sixty six Ingrid's husband- is just another private waiting in line to make a phone call home. Thanks to what the army called his issues with authority, this particular private has managed to fail basic training, and that means another six weeks away from his new bride. Ingrid will not be happy as he waits his turn to deliver the bad news. The young private does what he always does. He studies the people around him and makes up stories to pass the time that guy with the soggy shoes and the hang dog expression, for instance, maybe he's just come back from the car wash pool where he's been ordered to clean a fleet of muddy jeeps and the guy with the arm, tattoos that red hay and baby, maybe he's a new father. There

or a committed. Ladies man, who wishes to proclaim in indelible ink his unshakeable believe that women come and go, but tattoos are forever the private smiled to himself. Ingrid will love that one truth was egret found all of his stories delightful, but she never thought they would make her rich and she never imagined they would make her a widow all the same six years have gone by and now here she was her grief temporarily suspended by the shock of seeing a message from the husband she had buried five days earlier,

with trembling hands. She opened the envelope removed the pages and began to read her husband's last words, the very words she hoped and prayed. He would one day say moments later: a wash and unspeakable grief Ingrid tried to place a long distance called to her mother, but when the operator heard ingrates last name, she hesitated I hate to ask, but are you any relation Ingrid sobbed. Yes, he was my husband, oh honey, I'm so sorry all the girls down here we just loved him. You know that right we were his biggest fans Ingrid Sobs more. I know she said he loved all of you to back in line. Ingrid husband turns his

attention to the soldier immediately in front of him, the red rimmed eyes, the hunched up shoulders, the balled up fist gently tapping against the fresh

but he's on the wrong end of a deer. John call, no doubt about it. Ingrid's husband imagines the girl, on the other end, a deceitful girl, a girl who was cheated on the soldier with his best friend the call ends the phone slips from the soldier's hand and dangles in mid air. Ingrid's husband is close enough to hear the operator say: oh honey, I'm so sorry are you still there? Would you like to place another call linking back a tier, the soldier grips the receiver and pours his heart out to the operator. Ingrid's husband doesn't eve strop. He simply watches the soldier's face and dreams up a little story just to pass the time. Eventually, Ingrid's husband makes it out of the army, and

Calm briefly, he keeps writing stories, but when a J arrives and money becomes more of a concern, the former private begins telling his tails to any one who might pay to hear them turns out. Ingrid, isn't the only one who likes them? People say they feel so real. They say his characters remind them of their own neighbours, and so the former private takes his tales on the road and before long the money begins to roll in but being away from his family as pay full Ingrid, MRS her husband, a J, MRS, his dad and the man who used to write stories just to pass. The time begins to agonize over the days. He can never get back once after an all too brief visit home, he writes the story of

lonesome troubadour, who yearns to relive his favorite days over and over again people like that one to a lot then, just as his career is taking off Ingrid's husband does the unthinkable he quits in his last letter home the young writer promises to start writing different kinds of stories novels and screenplays, anything that doesn't have to be told night after night over and over again he ends his letter with this remember baby, it's the first sixty years that count and I've got thirty more to go. I love you later that same day he drops the letter in the mail, and boards are private, plain. The crashes moments

after leaving the runway five days after that, the postman on Ingrid's porch delivers the best possible news at the worst possible time. We still remember the characters. Ingrid's husband described the kid in the soggy shoes, with the case of the car wash blues, Rapid Roy, the stock boy with one tattoo. That said baby and another one. That just said hey. We still remember the roller derby, Queen the pool room hustler, no one messed with the bad,

man and the whole damn town and, of course, the anonymous telephone operators whose sweet voice com, the heart, broken soldier at the lowest point in his life. We remember these characters, not only because they feel real, but because the man who brought them to life never made at home, because his death catapulted his stories to the top of the charts, even as the characters he created insured, his own immortality. Naturally, Ingrid still has his last letter home. It's captain a box just for wishes and dreams. It will never come true. That is perhaps the ultimate love letter, a promise made from beyond the grave by a homesick troubadour who yearned to save time

bottle a teller of stories and a singer of songs named Jim Croce late, one Tuesday night in the back room, Johnny's, my high school friend chalk, and I listened as old men from the course of the chest. A peak sang the saddest songs ever written, as always the men were broken down into forums harmonizing around the square tables that held bowls of peanuts and pictures of draft beer. Things began with Danny Boy, as they always do, but then moved on to a song. I never heard before little paw. An impossibly maudlin tail of a man who must say goodbye to his young son before heading off to prison for a crime. He didn't commit little pow if daddy goes away promise you'll,

good from day to day. Do as mother says, and never sin be the man your daddy, might have been the men stared into each other's faces, as they sang and wept unashamedly good Christ. Chuck said: that's gotta, be the sad, a song ever son, but shock was wrong as little pal came to an end and other toad tapir called old folks began. Everyone knows him as old folks, like the seasons, he'll come and he'll go just as free as a bird and as good as his word. That's why everybody loves him. So the saw goes on to describe a world where all the old people suddenly drew dead, it is beyond depressing and very powerful. The song actually made me miss my grandparents, which was weird since

we're alive and well at the time, once again, the old men wept as they sang, but before anyone could mourn the death of old folks, another pitch light, blue and another lamentation began. Are you familiar with the Pepe Tune, called the little boy that Santa Claus forgot now neither reside Christmas comes, but once a year for every girl and boy, the laughter in the joy they find in each new toy I'll, tell you of a little boy who lives across the way. This little fellows Christmas is just another day I'll cut to the chase

the little boy writes to Santa asking for a soldier and a drum he's devastated when he gets neither in fact the little boy who Santa forgot gets nothing at all for Christmas, zero, zilch. Why? Because his father was killed in the war, you see the laddie hasn't got a daddy chuck, stifled nervous, giggle, sweet Jesus. He said who the hell writes a song like that. I had no answer to give him, but I did notice that many of the older men who had been listening were smiling to, even as they wept some actually chortling interesting, there's something funny about orphans and death shall shock and prison, but when old men sing about pain and loss in four part harmony, the imagery becomes exponentially

more intense, so much so that the songs collapse under the weight of their own mawkishness, leaving you with little choice but to laugh at the unbearable tragedy of it all somewhere across the crowded room. Someone blew another pitch pipe

We were treated to the story of an old man living alone for the first time in his life grieving the loss of his beloved wife. At her grave sight, he says dear old girl, the Robin sings above you, dear old girl. It speaks of how I love you. The blinding tears are falling, as I think of my lost pearl and my broken heart is calling calling for you, dear old girl, the quartet of men, who sang that song were all widowers, but there they sat weeping and smiling and drinking beer and singing into their grief in the far corner. Another pitch pipe blue and the room was treated to a jaunty rumination on crib death, I'm not even kidding it begins with a father who walks into the nursery

many months after his little girls death. I had opened wide the shutters of the long, deserted room and a flood of golden sunshine chased away. The dreary gloom while gazing round with tenderness, where baby last had laid a chance to see her finger prints upon the windowpane, how the silent tears were falling foolish tears. I wept in vain, but my heart forgot its pains as I kissed away the stains kissed away those fingerprints off the windowpane. This was an impossibly depressing tab low. Yet even more laughter rang out in the back room Johnny's as fingerprints came to its weepy conclusion. That's when it occurred to me that those men didn't sing sad songs to reconnect with sadness. They sang them to let the sad the skull,

when I understood that those saddled songs took real heavy feelings and help distribute their weight and that bring me too, the saddest song I heard on that particular night, a song, my old quartet, still sings when we get together every decade or so a song, so sad, Chuck can't get through it without giggling playmates, were they girl and lad. She's home today, LAD feel sad doctor who calls whispers low when the last autumn leaves fall, then she must go lad with a tier climbs. A tree I'll keep her here, murmurs he big man and Blue sternly cries. What are you doing? There lad replies, I'm tying the leaves, so they won't come down, so the wind won't blow them away

for the best little girl and the wide wide world is lying so ill. Today, her young life must go when the last leaves fall. I'm fixing them fast. So Stay I'm tying the leaves, so they won't come down. So Nellie won't go away. Can you picture a little boy desperate to keep his playmates from an early grave tries to prolong her life by tying leaves to a tree. They just don't write them like that anymore. When I learned about Jim crouches last letter home and the family, he left behind. I thought about the little boy up there in the tree tying the leaves, so they wouldn't come. Down and I wondered if one day they might sing a song about poor Ingrid in the back room. Johnny's. God knows her story. Sad enough

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Oh I can't do it. I can't do it without laughing. It's too sad. It's simply too sad, not to laugh at well hello, everybody? This is MIKE and Chuck. The second half of the podcast known as two dudes talking is that what we're calling it now I don't know some people have picked that up. Yeah I've been reading a little bit about that, but two dudes one of whom has a weird looking knows right now and is wrestling through a narcotic haze of Em violence and the lace and then there's MIKE no Actually I was going to say there's a little Karl Malden thing going on when your nose is tilted up just a little bit. I'm like man is a lot of nostril. There way more than there used to be answer. My facebook page know that last week I finally bit the bullet and got my ceptin, put back into the middle of my face for the last forty years

so it's been not where it should be, and so getting it fixed was it. It was thing thing know it: it was called an open septoplasty and they cut my face so bad and they shaved. My turban aids and I put my step backwards- long did not all happened six days ago, and this is really the first day that I have been completely off the medication. I'm healing my nose looks different, but, most importantly chuck. That is the sound of air going through both nostrils really not experience Kevin ran led hit me in the face without history book back back and junior high well I'll, tell you it's gotta, be it's gotta, be a great feeling for you too, able to breathe, because I can't imagine how did it before I I mean I remember the one time when you are showing me the example in you. You held one

ass for you held the good nostril and tried to breathe through the bad one, and you sound like a goose. I know you now being shot was terrible. Well, it's more like the frog in boiling water. It it's been bad for a long time, but got progressively worse to the point where it was so bad. I didn't even lies it until I got a cold and whenever a cold over the last twenty years. Herself sleeping was very low, it was impossible and that claustrophobic, but when I can, get in any air at all. I can't why flat mind immediately, goes to premature burial, the cask of Lotto everything, EDGAR, Allan, POE, ever wrote and the claustrophobia and terror that for being buried alive, completely overruns. My brain and I have to sleep setting up inside just decided. You know, that's isn't way to go to the rest of my life. So now I can breathe, but

dude I'm telling you man. This was a very very difficult week and while I'm positive it's going to be worth it in much the same way, a woman is positive. She's going to grow, to love the child that she's currently humping out of her uterus and are not quite there yet, but I'm gonna go there. There I listen. I I I bore witness to only a tiny piece of this just, but I can tell you this and of your voice that you were not in a good way. Man. You are not in a good way. Well, you know what I'll tell you. The short version of the story just to show with the gang, because if somebody wants to write a sad song- which of course is what I really want to talk about button- if somebody wants to write a sad song about my knows, I'm officially putting it out there Now I would, I would gratefully gleeful

the commission, something that that that some, up in music. What happened to me on Thursday night, because the short version is, you know this major surgery, you, your nasal cavity. You know it's not it's not just your nose, it's uh! It's fist sized chunk of space in the middle of your head and what they did to me was. They they cut me under the nose, Doktor Sefton, Brian, brilliant physician, If you incisions on the inside on each side and then peeled my whole note. Back and move the sap. A man than shaved determinants. I was under four and a half hours, so when I came out of the general he gave me. Some of this Hydra code on receipt of benefit was like look, don't let the pain get ahead of you, because it's very very difficult to catch up. You know. Take these ass, directed, which I never do jock. As you know, I never take light. I take half

the pay medication. I'd I'd I'd, I dont mind paying as I understand it, but I don't like the feeling of being completely out of my head, but three days in United, taken to these things as directed every four hours and three days in, I was still bleeding not a lot. I was dripping and the doktor said there'd be dripping, he said, if it's a stream like from a false it, you know, call me gotta hospital, but you should expect some dripping. It's very vascular, part of your your head in and Europe leader anyway. What about me so I said all right out and I'm woozy and I get home and I'm kind of medicated in and the snark starts. When I say not, I don't even it's not it's, not your thinking of this snow. My grandfather's! Not! This is not your great grandfathers. Not! This is not this not the homeless

avian. You know oughta be creating this nomination of cod mucus blood it it it just so much of it man and an accumulated in both nostrils very very quickly, and it formed like a red brick wall impenetrable and yet through that wall keeping it never stopped. For for three days I was wearing like this gauze mustache. I would change it every fifteen minutes. It would get soaked with with blood soaked with blood and blood blooms when it hits tis. You were piece of God S, arms tell him. I set out looks worse than men. It is but after three days every eight seconds drip drip. It's like the tell tale heart. You know.

I just couldn't get to stop and by Thursday night I was, I was worried, so called the doktor. Now this point its every six seconds like Doc, every six seconds, man, there's a big fat drop of blood, would have my nose and start no worry. I face time of an eye rip off my gauze moustache and I show it and do it looked like I mean it. Looked like the blood in their looked like entrails from a small animal way was Claggett elated an awful and just comes just everywhere, you nobody said. Are you ok? So you? You know it's not a steady stream and, like I told you, you are a leader. How do you know it's, not a steady stream? It's like there's a wall of stuff and somehow the blood's getting through. So in my mind, I'm imagining there's a giant pool of blood up behind my eyes and it would be a steady stream, but it can't be so it is what it is

an hour later, every three seconds. So I call him back. The bathroom has over a hundred pieces of tissue paper, all bright red, bloody rags of everything everything it looks like the last real from carry right in its assist. It's awful and and I'm panicking. Like an anxiety attack, I'm not I'm just not at my right mind and dumb And I realize, as I'm talking to him, this piece of tissue and the blood that comes out it's the tissue, and I can hear it echoes and that's when I realize out God, hallucinating. I'm so high on Hydra Code. On that I can hear the sound that the blood is making when it hits long story short he's like look you gotta hospital. If you want

this is worse than normal, but it's not unprecedented. You just gotta get through the night. I sat there chart all night watching documentaries listening to the sound of my blood drop by drop, hitting the tissue paper completely high on hydrocodone, when in the next day he met me at nine hundred and what he pulled out of my nose. Just I'll wait for you but he to write the song that sums it up because it was just unspeakable just I got this splits in my nose right, one, India Astral these giant capsized hollow devices and all of this off accumulates around them and it just I just can't tell you man, it was. It was six days three days absolute hell one day of absolute ambiguity, followed by two days of ok, I can just I can go

through this, so they took the splints out yesterday- and here I sit before you today, with with the new a new knows- maybe some new content for a chapter of a new book, and hopefully a catchy melody for a new song. I'll tell you. I was a little worried about you because you didn't sound so good, but you are you. It sounds to me now, like you are very close to be back to normal. You, you look about, and ninety percent definitely Ike. I mean it's funny, but I can see that your nostrils are more open, seems really weird. But I see he said: it'll go pretty much back to the way it was. My nose will be Strader. It already straighter, but it it it is bigger than it was right now because it still swollen. Yet he said, look don't freak out, but over the next week it's actually

swell up inside some more as it heels and so you're not gonna, be breathing has as well as you were. You know when I took this. The splints out, but that's that's, why I just whoever rights the song make sure there's a verse in it. That captures the of the majesty of some having so much air when he pulled those splints out which I might auction off for micro works by the way, oh, my god, when he pulled those splints out the air that rushed into my brain through both nostrils. Literally made my eyes cross. It was so delicious, so delightful, and so I you know it's like. I can't describe this like trying to describe blue to align person of it good, like a cool drink of water on a warm summer day, aren't networks,

drink of water on a warm summer day. Air rushed like that. How how did the hunted music play a part of your your your trauma? Did you listened too much music? I you know. Actually, this is not the systematic good story because I knew I knew that you and I were talk about this chapter and I knew I was gonna have to postpone it. We were I do it over the weekend in real time right now. This is what is this Tuesday morning yeah the Pike asked his late by about four or five hours here, yeah and so at the height of at the height of my fever, dream at the fight of the very high drug fuelled hallucinations. Where I was listening to the blood land, I was, thinking of sad songs. I didn't play anything. I deleted listen too much music, but I got this court stuck in my mind, shock from

old song by John Prime famous country, singer and young road. Back in the early? Seventy, she wrote a tune called sandstone Sam Stone, came home, tells a story about a veteran comes home from Vietnam, he's addicted to heroin, and it John pride. Has it has a wave like the sad or the sentiment, the happier the melody sometimes he's got this this this voice that it make anything sound sad, which makes it super weird when it is, but the chorus of SAM Stone goes like this. There's a whole in daddy's arm where all them, He goes. Jesus Christ died for nothing. I suppose little pictures have big ears. Don't stop to

the years swede songs. Never. Last too long on brow. Radios now the thing again in my crawl, though, was just there whole in daddy's arm where all the money goes. I couldn't stop hearing it. And if you don't know what I'm talking about take a moment and Google Sandstone and listen to it, it is one of the saddest songs, in my opinion, ever written an aside from barbershop. Of course, nobody does it better than the country with the possible, except the blues, retired genre dedicated to itself. You know that there is nothing new regarding sad songs. If we're gonna talk about their their impact, on society but whatever reason that that little hook and that little thing

was running through my mind for about six hours. As I sat slave it on my bed, watchings, thing on history, chow! Listening. To the imaginary sound of my blood hit the kleenex downward you're from sandstone, Google, it man, I'm telling you actually dont, do it, because if, if if it gets in your crawl It will resurface at a dark moment in your life and that will become the soundtrack. Well, it's up to you tough to shake your worm, particularly one. That is depressing like that, but I knew that that you weren't fully quickly. There are some of the texts, out for mucus for just luck. Ob like what where it weighs. Oh yeah. I don't think we're gonna be able to do the podcast today. This was Friday. I'm like we never even talked about doing the podcast front, so it was was such a weird, sorry buddy. You know was going. I was toggling

can forth between various levels of lucidity yeah. You know I was never completely not true! I was out of my mind, Thursday night, but then, after that, all just variations on a theme, and you know the doctor. He he took me off the hydrocodone and then put me on something called an which is really just more of a sedative and less of an Arctic. So never fully asleep and never fully awake. There was like that time in Georgia. Far What we see is opened up to shift work except. I also had these two giant objects jammed deep into my mouth rules, so just walking around in a fog muttering sad songs, he's thinking. Oh yeah, I was supposed to talk to talk about that today. I can do it sorry Chuck can't do it today, I'm like a push it

I wasn't expecting you to call for us to do it so there's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes. Jesus Christ died for nothing. I suppose. Oh my god are you kidding me stopping the question is what happened to us back in nineteen. Eighty four with those old man in Johnny Jones when we were overcome with fits of laughter at dusk. At a time that was I just I think I know the answer, but that combination that weird combination of masculinity and unapologetic sentiment, tears and laughter it? It all came back to me with a little help from the narcotics. Let me ask you about that because I know that story. I was there in Johnny Jones. I think it was actually earlier than eighty four, because I moved to New York and eighty four yeah. It was a

sounds about you. I just I show you: U graduating eighty one. I was eighteen one year, so we were there and eighty eighty one eighty two year, our forty year reunions it's yours. What's the other tonight No, we got most phones, ours are combined. Now, oh, that's! rights are doing an ocean city ocean city. He should go. I've got thinking, I'm gonna I'd love to address the graduating classes of nineteen eighteen, nineteen, eighty one with a little too. That goes like this theirs. I am where all the money goes. Just that image man from a kids point of view is obviously This is a year, a cocaine problem. Now I'm kidding it's a hare who probably appear but the idea of a kid. You know just making sense of it there's a whole in daddy's armed where all the money

those Gatt Jesus Christ. That's going on time so that, unlike tying the leaves yet exactly- and it's like Ingrid Right- it's, u songs! My favorite, sad songs. Anyway, all attempts to unpack, You know a moment in time, the good ones, not there, some great sad songs, to tell big Epic stories, but my favorite ones start with okay. The letter came through the mail shoot and landed, and the widow recognise the handwriting as that of her dead, husband, recently buried yeah, so no. I don't think anybody written a song about that moment either, but somebody should, while some should because it it just it blooms like blood on a tissue.

It just stretches out further and further and it keeps going and you can go deep, You go see buzz, you want, you know, but it's all in the service of unpacking that moment, a little boy see his heroin addicted veteran dad take what should be their dinner money and it into the hole in his arm. Would you do with that? You write a song, a little boy. Try to keep his play made alive by tying the leaves and a tree, so they don't come down. Are you fucking kidding because its or comes when Autumn silver she's gonna pass away. That's right! I just keep autumn here right. It's not cause the leukemia, it's not cause of the cancer, its cause, the leaves are gonna drop off the tree. So in that child, like way of thinking, you can correct the problem by tying the leaves up there so that moment gets distilled and turns in song,

It's the same thing with fingerprints. The silent tears are falling foolish tears. I what in vain, but my heart forgot its pain as I he's still way. The stains kissed away those finger prints. Pop the window pane the moment. The guy walks in he's not sure can get on with his life, for not his little girls been dead for six months and there he sees your fingerprints here. He does he he can't wipe them away, but he can't leave them there forever. It would drive him mad, so he kisses them away and then he writes a song about it. Are you kidding me there were so many. So many of those I mean it. Was just a plethora of songs that we heard kids that were so sad you couldn't help but giggle I

say yes, a plethora of at times. It though it fell they gonna sought, because Those old men did Johnny Jones. That there are a hundred people in the course of the Chesapeake back in those days, and many of them all the same songs. In fact, they all knew the same songs so for some at any time could break away and would shed harmonised what about us. We will hear the sound of a pitch pipe and then the next lamentation, would begin all. The long, deserted room, and a floor going sky.

And so it just. I wanted to write about it. Because I wanted to try and find a way to two parse, the unspeakable sadness with the inappropriate laugh and it wasn't just you and I be in a couple of dicks laughing at something it appropriate it was the men themselves who yes, yes, They sang because they too couldn't quite fully shoulder the wait. What did I call it? The up the market, so Marcus yeah great word yeah. Well, we're expressing as a ground, POE might say, melancholia yeah right. We don't use that word anymore, but it's a feeling that we love to feel people love

know you think of sad songs. That is, that an open, John Song, in order they say so much what are the other ones I somewhere them down somewhere there only you again, they sought along some blues saw saw blue everybody binding alone that at its precisely true because everybody's lived. What yeah you know no sad songs, because we live sad songs but melancholia as I understand it anyway, is different than melancholy melancholia was what in pose day. They would call what we now call depression. If you were in a state of melancholy, oh you were, you were predisposed to depression and were therefore often depressed melancholy,

is a little different. Come to me, my melancholy baby, cuddle up and don't feel blue all your foolish fears or fancy. Maybe right it's it's. That word actually appears and allow the old songs, because the feeling melancholy, as opposed to feeling depressed, is sometimes cathartic bread, and that was the other point was trying to make you there's a difference between wallowing in grief and self pity and affirmative choosing to sit down and have yourself a good cry for the purposes of just be, being released from something. Yes, I wanna at that reminds me if I want to correct something that you said about how we were laughing as we were singing, way. I remember it is that these guys, leaned in to the melancholy, leaned into the sadness they had tier.

Where's down their eyes. They they were feeling every model in moment of it and but they were also aware that this would they were. They found something to laugh at in the midst of that fact, The thing that I was going make is that they they would finish the song they Would they would embrace the sadness whole heartedly, but the minute that they hit the last cord that's when the smiles, the shackles, the giggles ended, jokes would come in remember what did at the end- does I'm tying. The leaves right. Oh play made, come out and play with me now, don't go,

She because it's like you, know something if you're gonna write a sign that makes me feel that sad throat, then I'm gonna hit something back over the net. That says, hey man. I don't appreciate being manipulated like that, even though I kind of do no I've, I loved it man. I love those. I remember how earnest Fred could be thanking our arm, mentor and music teacher. You know where I mean he felt tat. He would give those speeches before we would go to compete to. He would give a speech to the course that we would like Patton and he would he would. You know tears, would streamed down his face. He be all emotional and everything and then and then we would lose and then he would be Well, you know I'm next time it's it's the it's! The unapologetic sentimentality combined

with the undeniable presence of masculinity. That, for me, was the most interesting thing about the course of the Chesapeake and, interestingly, the boy scouts. For me, your experience might vary boy scouts are very different troop to troop. In the old days my boy scout troop had a boxing ring and mandatory shooting lessons, and it was run by a retired drill star right. There are lots of barber shop courses out there that smear on the pancake makeup and sings IDA and it's like whatever but the course of the Chesapeake. Dude. Many of them fought in the sector. World war. Korean war, Vietnam WAR. They still shoulder to shoulder. They loved it. When Fred King made him cry, they loved to be sentimental.

But they were manly men among men and well one to the who crossed them. Yeah. These are guys who Who could laugh ass heartily as anybody and who also could cry just depending upon the mole They they just they played the full gammon and not to me is what I learn. You know what about how to know about you, but my dad, like I don't think my dad, when I was a kid told me that he loved me, I think Fred King was a first I'd, told him hum that told me tat. He loved me yeah. You know where I was different night. I didn't know that about you, you know what my dad told his son, he loved them, but he always did it with a weird kind of. What do you call a caveat? Oh really, yeah,

that's not true to say that I am not saying my dad's love was conditional, it was it was unconditional and it still is it's just that he loved his wife more right right right, and I talk to him about that on the pod cast a couple of months ago. I recall, I think, I'll talk to my mom about it and- and you know that I never took offence. In fact, I think it was one of the greatest favours he did. You know he didn't make a big deal of spelling out, but there was no doubt in the minds of my brothers and I that my mom came first him and then us anyway, digression but yeah Fred Fred King was not shy about you know I mean imagine today, imagine Fred King today. In a skill. You know putting his hands on your shoulder,

leaning in Saint, listen to me. I love you and I want to help you get in touch with something about yourself that you don't even know lives. Inside of you and then handing you music and force and you just sing it. This is same guy, who took the snare, drum and marched been down, the hallway is during the first day he- and I were too see your high. We had the same first, day. He started trying there you know back and eighteen, seventy seven I guess was, and I got inspiring people to veto students to follow him out onto the football field. Four homecoming where he taught them the school song. The people didn't even- no, they had near them to sing it. You know again that we're juxtaposition of of making music and an act

and other stuff that you know typically goes into sissy category right next to brawling fighting serving shooting. He was a golden glove boxer Fred King was yet it was you mustn't all pro running back. I believe there was a story from his previous school where he up where, where someone can, hunted and many said. Ok, let's go any act We fought a student level, the student and moved on and there was no issue because there was no calling of parents that one now it was like a cat. Can we move on now? Yes, we can. Thank God I get it, but it's that was actually that happened at Park Phil right where I went to junior high and in those days when he was teaching there. He was just out of the navy. He was like twenty four years old

five years old. He wasn't a big guy didn't have any teeth. He had lost them all playing football and boxing. So he had these. You know these fake teeth. You always wore and the in those days you can hold a kid back indefinitely, and so there were, there were kids there Technically, still in high school, who were twenty years old it up. He got challenged all the time yeah and our legendary story, confirmed by several sources. He laid a guy out flat right front from the classroom, and so I you're going to go home and tell your mom. He said no, no, and I was that anyway was a different time and you and I were lucky- you know you later to meet him and then to be ushered into this weird world, where old veterans sat around singing sad songs, weeping and laughing while buying us seventeen today,

ten year old, all the better. We track This is not an homage to that which is appropriate now, not any longer, but you know I was there for that with you but I also was there not that long ago. I think it was the year before last. You came to allay to do a speech about what it means to be a man. And you told this story, basically about any Jones and all the sad songs there, but you had the benefit of not the written word in a page, but you could actually sing them there. And what I was well. I was working this chapter in kind of thinking about this when I was invited to give us talk and that the theme, the evening was on manhood, and I ask what what what specifically do you want me to talk about it? You know

it's like a dirty jobs, rumination the deadliest catch rumination. I got lots of stories about manly men, doing lots of many things and they said talk about whatever you want. I said alright well, this book was in the works, and this chapter was on my mind, so I thought it would be interesting to talk about Fred King, this, this man who had this impact on you and me, and thousands of other people, thousands, I mean, I, I don't think you were living in Baltimore when he died, but you know His funeral chuck the church she was standing room only and there were probably four hundred people, standing outside with interesting was that there was a hurricane blowing up the coast. It was raining captain and people were standing out in the rain former students. Almost all and I was inside and every single person there I mean

truly like. While this is a wonderful life, the Fred King wasn't on the planet. You know none of these people would be here and we will be having this conversation, but the the point of it story visa be. The speech was to say that this this most unusual man was manly exactly because he didn't give a damn. What anybody They thought about the songs he sang and the life. He lived in the way that he lived it and two to be able to be a role model to us. The way he was and at this time, inspire so many other people with with music and so many different ways. I that's the thing I try to unpack, and so Talking about these sad songs in a book is one thing you can type the lyrics out and hope people read them. Be Google them and get some sense of it. But I really

and I was standing in front of those that crowd. You know I think Little power that first came to mind. I I mentioned it in the end, the book, but that That's on a man falsely accused of a crime, private didn't commit he's going off to prison and he turned to his his little boy, who will likely? Never? see him again and says little path. If daddy goes away, Paramus be good from day to day they do it mothers as in never cease to be the man daddy might have. I could type that out, but to stand there and sorry the vocal technique, my nose really is a hot mess it among the by tab,

I realized that standing on that stage, singing a song like that to a crowd like that was having an impact, not the same impact. That Fred you and I of course, but how many be less celebrities walk out on a stage and sing a song that was written a hundred years ago in the service of manhood, one right, so say it was a great speech. I'm saying it was a different one and probably not the one they were expecting, but it's weird mandate that there's a chapter in book called you know a manly man, a gold watch in a really big see which go Annetta, yeah yeah that don't don't ever correct me on the package to sign at that. Look, I'm still somewhat medicated, I'm tired of making excuses, but yeah aren't you

in fact, I'm really starting to lean into it. You really are you. I guess I'm still trying to figure. Now I'm nearly sixty years old and if there is some sort of play book for what it means to be a man. I think it still being written, and I personally believe that there must be a chapter in there somewhere that that tries to parse this weird. Mix of salmon, tally with masculinity. That's really all I meant to say: yes, he s the end, that's that exactly what it was. You know, and Fred was a master of that you're, pretty good at it too. But the idea of conveying emotion in a man skill in way. I think that's really that the the the thick of it is that to be a man and two p m

masculine man, but still to say something that might bring a tear to someone's eye is a skill that not everyone possesses. I don't even know if it's a skill, I think it's a choice. You know being vulnerable is what it is. You don't know me not to be ass, sensitive about it, because I don't I'm not in the pajama boy camp right, I I I don't. I don't I didn't know your was a camp of pajama boys, Google, pajama boy, you'll find them. What is it? That seems weird God? I remember now there was an ad for around Christmas and a guy that guy's wearing pajamas. I don't just google pajama boy all right. It was a thing for a while this isn't that? Ok, it's it's more about. It's more about being vulnerable and letting people see you at your.

Maybe not your worst, but maybe at your weakest and and and Fred was not afraid to do that. You know he was not afraid to cry. Yes, which is different than saying gather around everybody, I'm going to cry for you now it was never the goal. It was just a symptom of a really passionate emotional guy who's, who didn't care to ever hide his passions were motions It is interesting. How have you ever seen your dad cry twice her yeah yeah at once when his dad died and dumb a year go. I saw him weep in much the same way, I saw myself weep three days ago. I don't know that I

I don't know that I mentioned this at the outset, but this is probably a good place to start to land the plane, but why I add my worst moment this week when I was on the phone with the After listening to the imaginary, sound, a drop of blood makes when it hits the tissue. I looked in the mirror standing there, my underwear with this awful Saigon US live on the outside of my nose into split on the inside. I don't even look like myself. Recognize myself, I'm covered with blood, I'm laughing and I'm crying tears Chuck. Are streaming down my face, I'm laughing at the sight of myself, but not feeling humor at all, because this giant narcotic hey is hanging over me and my dad by

a year ago and I'm not saying anything I have already talked about on Facebook. My mother wrote a chapter about this is ice. The testicles progress, the scourge of yes, my dad he had a hydra seal, you know and Hernia Inguinal hernia and a hydra seal procedure which lead to massive swelling drainage right all that fluid I gotta go somewhere- and it goes to your screwed up that rotom swelled up like my mother's words, some sort of pineapple pineapple. No, she went through the whole litany of fruit. Vegetables, she finally settled on eggplant and she wrote about it in terms of a blackened eggplant or not Dad is a is a circumspect man. He

You know he doesn't share unnecessarily his modest to a fault. He doesn't cry dancing, question much at all, but one I went home to see him because mother said: look something's wrong. You know I mean it's not just the fact that your dad, item is now the size of an aid plan. He's he's depressed he's here he's not in he's not in his right mind. Of course he was on medicine as well right, but I now that you mention I I realise what was really happy Winning is for me three days ago and for my dad a year or so ago, we were both coming to terms with the fact that we weren't in control of our bodies our bodies were letting us down year. Something was here,

that we simply couldn't control know for me a steady drip of blood out of a nose that didn't look like my own for him, a scrotum that was such a size of an eggplant and you know somewhere the back of his mind. I'm sure he realized for his wife. This is just content galore and been open ass. My mother immediately started writing about it. She sent me an early drafts, hysterical essay, yet I re titles screwed up land ever thing became about my dad scrolling. This shy retiring circumspect, modest man when I walked into the apartment you standing there and he says Michael look at us things spit out like a key now he's going to this disease with normal, I'm like now, it doesn't look normal unless you're at the state, fair and the

a plant competition. You know what else it doesn't look normal. You drop in true right here in the living room. He was showing off his giant sorrowed. Oh now, the way you would show off you know a new tattoo if you were really proud of yes or confused by proud and confused. So I guess you know. I guess gentle listener. If you're seriously going to sit down and try and write a song about the moment, a grid saw that the handwriting on that letter from her dead, husband or the moment Micro heard the sound that blood makes when it hits a tissue. You might as well jot down a few bars about the time on row, pulled his underpants down and says: does this look normal off, because that is the sad sod

waiting to be written last name hey before we go. I want to ask you: what's the last movie seen that you made major cry or what's the one that gets you every time. Well, you know it's funny. The lock down, I think, is made more people and people. People have been more more people have been sadder in general. I think in my lifetime during the last year than ever right up, and I know that your tvs powerful. I got an answer to your question: but by way of a preface I got it, I gotta tell you: I saw Mcdonald's commercial. I knew you were going to say that I knew about eight months ago. You know the one, the old guys behind the counter he's work of your time, emits a thirty second spot, how they manage to impart, in thirty six

and the old man is a widower and he's just trying to fill his time by helping people. So we get a job. But Mcdonald's. If he asks a couple, a young kids if they want fries with that in the end young kids are so nice to the old man and the man, is so nice to the young kids, and it's just like a big MAC and fries and called him. He offers some change. They say keep that, age and I'm sitting there I'd. I realize man might my lower. Lip is doing that because the faith yes and suddenly, unlike Why does my journey tonic tastes, salting weakening in my jetted tonic on account of a damp Mcdonald's, commercial? Yes, man. I know exactly that. Feeling I did the exact same thing last year was a sad year, but it doesn't matter pandemic locked down or not at the end of saving private Ryan, when the old, private Ryan, the old man

is kneeling there at the grave of Tom Hanks knowing that he died. To save him and everybody else in the platoon basically died to save him, Tom Hanks. His last words remember: he pulls him closely. Systematic young, private Ryan earn. This make account, make it count. Now you know, sixty years later, the old man kneeling at the grave who, with his wife family behind him too. Streaming down his face and his saying was, I was a good man right. And his wife, is there to say yes, yes, you know you made it count, and then the music, of course the music swells. Behind that, I'm sorry, you know I eat, you could run it right now and I would cry and then afterwards we would laugh about the fact that work

we're a couple of dudes crying at a moment on the screen for a moment. Back room of a dive, barn, Highland town and nineteen. Eighty, two, whatever in the words of crowded house, wherever there's comfort, theirs what true words never spoken I'll tell you that there was a lotta tears in HOLLAND, town back in the day. The other was now the other work here we have. A conference call were supposed to be on yeah yeah, so we wish we need to wrap this up Q listener for listening. We really appreciate if he lies in episode. Yeah, I'm thinkin. We got more than one at this point. If we don't I'm speaking too each listener as if they're, the only one listening, because they probably the only one listening right now listener take a look around. Is there anyone around you right now Who is listening to the same thing that you're listening to probably not we're talking to you and if you like,

this share with someone else and if you don't share with someone my feeling is that more people should share things. Do not crazy about. I just really think in the interest of broadening everyone's arise. We ought not just get stuck in this fight. Star world right, but I thought this was pretty good. Give it a listen. I thought this was a little bit of okay. Let me know if right now. I know what I'm saying is you know what this one fella bit short of the mark, I'm still given it five stars and I think you should go- it five stars too, even as you listen and wallow in the sadness, the disappointment, the weirdness of MIKE's bloodbath and his dad's giant scrotum. For all these reasons, five stars for what's this podcast go the way I heard it. Thank you, Charlie, thank you and if you want to get the book

in a way I do. They know what to do. If they want your book, they download the book were people download books and then they listen to the entire book, probably audible or some such place. But it has come back here and ex wake. You listen. What couple a novel heads on packet, one painful sentence at a time for free trick, the vital way. Yes I'll, have things go with. At home, blue, chew thing, the remember the sponsor for a week or so ago? Yes, I'm getting tons of email from people was a day, love that I bade they. Let me right a commercial apparent at and I did, and now people are wondering haze, Bluetooth. And back and as well as the producer. I wonder if you have any insight. Yes, I do nothing that I'm certain to share moment. But yes, I believe they will be back for or choose of the blue. Well, if you talk to them,

Just tell them that I said I'd be up for it. That's sick! What year did there ok, peace up chairs?