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I should explain that my backyard backs up to at
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least three hundred acres of conservation land. There were these
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incredibly heavy footsteps up there. I paused the music because
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I just was unusual, and it's very unusual. None of
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my neighbors go into that backwoods at all. So I
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paused the music in the footsteps continued for two more times,
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and then they stopped. And so I'm sitting there on
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the porch kind of reaching for my phone trying to
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get the voice memo app and I'm sort of waiting
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for something to start up again, and nothing did. Second
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night that I actually got better audio on. They were
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like like somebody had two rocks and was clicking them together.
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And this was couldn't have been more than fifty yards
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away from where I was actually sitting.
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On the porch, broadcasting scenes, broadcasting scenes, planning troop in
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the Minds of the Pino.
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John Murrz is a US Air Force veteran, a martial artist,
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an author, and the host of The Weekly Strange, a
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twice weekly podcast covering cryptids and UAPs and law, civilizations
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and the supernatural. But here's what separates John from most
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people in the space. He doesn't just study the strange
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from behind his desk. He's been sitting on his porch,
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backed up to three hundred acres of conservation land where
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something fifty yards away started clicking rocks together in the dark.
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John is what he calls a skeptical optimist. He's not
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here to sell you a conclusion. He's here to ask
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better questions. And his theory about where sasquatch and other
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cryptids are actually hiding is going to make you look
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at your own neighborhood very differently. Today we're getting into
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suburban cryptids, lost civilizations, Why academics bury the researchers who
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get too close to the truth. And the one thing
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John says, people in the paranormal world understand that the
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rest of the world has completely forgotten. So, John, you've
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lived several lives already. Man, it's so author veteran podcaster.
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Which one of those shapes the others the most?
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Who I would say the fact that I'm a veteran,
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the fact that I've been in martial arts for forty
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almost forty five years now. It taught me early on
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about how to persevere in the face of challenge, and
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that has gone a long way towards sort of propelling
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me in different areas of my life. We were talking
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before the show started. My personal motto is who dares Lives,
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which is taken from the British essays who dares wins motto,
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and I am somebody that wants to experience as many
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different things in life as possible. My father passed when
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I was twenty three years old, so his death is
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sort of informed every decision that I've every sort of
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interesting pathway that I've walked in my life has been
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informed by his passing. So I want to do as
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much as I can.
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Yeah.
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I fell into acting in twenty fourteen because as a writer,
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I'm constantly chasing new experiences and I had an opportunity
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to do a photo shoot and at the end of
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the photo shoot, the camera guy was like, Oh, you
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should really get representation. The camera likes you. I was like, dude,
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I write books, you don't have to blow smoke up
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my ass. It's totally He's like, no, no, I'm being serious,
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and then you know, before I know it, I'm in
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a mini series on the History Channel called The Cars
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That Made America, and then I'm in a Whitney Houston movie.
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And it's just it's that attitude of just being open
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to different experiences is it's wild. And I have a
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great life. I'm recently a sarcoma survivor. I announced that
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on my show just on Sunday, found a strange lump. Yeah,
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thank you man, found a strange lump in my back
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about nine months ago. Fortunately it was entirely contained within
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the muscles. So they kind of snipped the top, snipped
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the bottom, lifted it out like a sausage and put
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it aside. I didn't wow. That's yeah, all the while
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still bringing the still bringing the episodes out. It's been
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it's been a crazy couple of the last couple of
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nine months there.
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That's wild. So what really was your gateway to this whole,
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like the idea of your show, you know, like what
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what was the what was the gateway to that to
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this world of high strange?
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So I was a kid, and I so I was
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born in sixty nine, So I remember very vividly seeing
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the promotions, the advertisements for In Search of with Leonard Nimoy,
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and you know it's the surgeons, the surgeon's photo of
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locke Ness and then you know it was the Patterson
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Gimlin film, and I remember just being honestly captivated by
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that and going to my parents and saying, what is
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what is this show? Like what did first of all,
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what's that creature? And then what's that creature?
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Oh?
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You know, it's supposed to be this this big hair
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guy that lives in the woods. And I was like, what, well,
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what you know? And that was it. I was off
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to the raisins after that. It was It was very
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much I used to have in the early seventies. You
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could get your kid's bedroom furniture that was made out
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of heavy duty cardboard, and I can remember having a
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little nightstand that had three drawers on it that you
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could pull out and I would literally snip newspaper clippings,
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and the top drawer was for UFOs, the second drawer
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was for Bigfoot, and then everything else went into the
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third drawer, and I would just constantly stuffed things aside
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in there. And so I've been addicted to it for
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for as long as I can remember. It's it's only
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you know, in the last couple of years that I've
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actually been able to really sort of devote some time
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to exploring it to a respectable degree.
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Yeah. Right, have you ever had an encounter I have?
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I have something, I love it, I've done something something. Yes,
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there's something that. Yes, last year, my wife and I
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we have a nice three season porch that we like
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to sit out. We play music out there. We've got
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you know, the lights. We set it up during COVID,
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so it's we call a club VIP and you know,
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we sit out there, have a couple of cocktails. And
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she had gone in to get a to get a
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refresh on her drink, and the song that was playing
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was coming to an end, so there was that dead
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space between music, and all of a sudden, I just outside,
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and I should explain that my backyard backs up to
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at least three hundred acres of conservation land. There were
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these incredibly heavy footsteps up there, and I paused the
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music because I just was unusual, and it's very unusual.
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None of my neighbors go into that backwoods at all.
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So I paused the music in the footsteps continued for
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two more times and then they stopped. And so I'm
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sitting there on the porch kind of reaching for my phone,
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trying to get the voice memo app and I'm sort
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of waiting for something to start up again, and nothing did.
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So now I'm trying to record. I'm kind of like, guys,
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I don't And this was probably about two or three
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months after I started the Weekly Strange and I'm sort
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of sitting there and I'm going, I'm hearing some stuff.
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And I don't know what it is, and.
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So forth and so on. So that was the first night,
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and then the second night that I actually got better
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audio on. They were like like somebody had two rocks
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and was clicking them together. And this was couldn't have
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been more than fifty yards away from where I was
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actually sitting on the porch. Didn't find anything in the woods,
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but very odd, and it got me into thinking. My
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working theory is that these creatures, whatever they may be,
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are actually closer to us than we think they are.
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I mean a lot of people think that you got
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to go into the deep dark woods to find them.
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I'm about twenty miles southwest of Boston, and I have
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plenty of green space around me. It's just it's just huge.
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So my whole investigative slant when I get out into
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the field is looking I call it suburban sasquatch I think,
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you know, there's a chance way, you know. So that's
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the extent of what I've had so far, just those
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two nights where it was just very odd. And I've
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been in those woods, I've been in other woods, very
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comfortable in them, and this was unlike anything that i'd
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heard previously.
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So I've had encounters in both Massachusetts and Connecticut.
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So oh really, Okay.
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I lived in Connecticut from age thirteen to eighteen and
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my family's from there, So yeah, whereabouts Fairfield and then
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new Haven as well.
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Okay, okay, yeah, so.
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Fairfield's you know, between like halfway between Greenwich and new Haven. Okay, nice, Yeah,
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So I get it. And it's all woods man, the
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whole thing's woods. It's all one giant wildlife corridor as
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far as I'm concerned, it really is. So so yeah,
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that's wild.
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It'll be interesting. So I'm coming up on a year.
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It was it was around this point last year where
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I heard those noises. So I'm going to be setting
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up the audio recorder out there and and other things
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and see if we can get something this year.
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Yeah, this is one of the things that I do.
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I go for bigfoot, I go to the out way
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out in the woods, and then I go to more
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local areas as well. So yeah, it's fun. It's definitely
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cool and gets you out in the.
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Get you out in the woods. So I appreciative of
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mother nature. How could you not?
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Could you not exactly exact?
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Although I am told that the tics around me this
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year are absolutely brutal, so yeah, that'll be something.
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I just did an episode on the Plumb Island, which
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isn't far from you either, so they're you know, and
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I live in New York now, so are you upstate? Upstate?
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I'm right outside Syracuse, so okay, great, so we get
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hammered with the ticks too, it's brill But I just
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did an episode on the conspiracy of lime disease, so
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fun times.
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Yeah, I'm the only thing I'm really concerned about with
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I mean, I should be concerned about lime disease too,
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but I'm super concerned about that thing that causes you
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to reject meat gale.
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Yes, it's the long star tick. So yeah, different tich.
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I'm told in Massachusetts, though.
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I think I've heard that too, But I've also heard that,
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like they don't talk about out of cure, but I
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think there there might be one but goes.
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All I'm saying is if I get bitten by that,
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I will literally starve to death because vegetables and I
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do not have a good relationship.
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Well, if you get off the gel, I mean, now
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I can send you to somebody that as a I
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think as a treatment.
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I gotta I gotta have my mistakes.
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You man, And I'm right there with you for sure.
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So with so with your writing, let's touch on this
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just a second. You've got you've written dozens of books, right,
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and what does fiction allow you to say?
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That?
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Like nonfiction sometimes can't.
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I think fiction allows you to take real world experience
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and inject it into a fantastical situation such lovely. You
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don't have to get security in order to publish it.
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Let's just uh, let's let's let's put it at that.
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When my first novels came out, My First Wife came
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out in two thousand and two, and I started hearing
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from certain people in certain communities, and they were they
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would they would send me email and say stuff along
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the lines and wow, you're your vampire Jason Bourne. The
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character really seems to have an interesting background. So it
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was it was, it was definitely a matter of.
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Going, oh, yeah, well, you know, I'm a writer.
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So I am a writer and I have an active imagination.
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Yes, exactly, Yeah, so I enjoy The fifth book in
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that Losson series is actually my based on my trip
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to Japan in two thousand and three where I got
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my fifth grade black belt from the grand master of
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the martial art tradition that I study. So I took
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all that experience from there and put it into the
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context of a supernatural adventure for the main character. So
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while he's trying to solve this, he's going.
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Through this Jason Borton Vami.
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Vampire character. I always tell people, Look, if you're looking
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for the great American novel, please do not buy my book.
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But if you are on a plane or you're on
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a beach and you just watch some brain candy, hey,
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I'm your guy's Yeah, it's fun, it's quick, it's breezy.
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It's amazing. That's amazing. What what inspired you to launch
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the Weekly Strange and and like whine now like which
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I mean it's been a bit, but you.
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Know, yeah, I think it's So it's a number of
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things for me, I as an as an author, it's