The Man Karl Rove called Dutch - with Special Guest Gary Reed

Like previous guest Bob Jump, Gary Reed is unveiled to the world as one of Sam's secret weapons from his career.

Gary Reed is a copywriter who has written ghost books for corporate executives, books for veterans, and is one of the best fundraising copywriters in America. 

Sam and Gary discuss Gary's unique career beginning as a ice cream store owner to going to work for Karl Rove as a copywriter, and later working for hundreds of clients nationally.

And in the final rapid fire question period; Gary being Gary, completely turns the tables  on Sam and shows why he is one of the best in the business. 

Transcript

Gary Reed Podcast
Sat, 4/9 4:32PM • 39:30
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
write, letter, gary, people, cowboys, Karl, karl rove, favorite, campaign, money, candidates, job, interview, copy, direct mails, phil gramm, story, finance director, politics, voice
SPEAKERS
Gary Reed, Intro, Sam Fischer

Intro  00:00
Welcome to cowboys, not Eggheads, home of the Brave, not home of the fearful. The world needs more cowboys and fewer eggheads. We're everywhere podcasts are found. So tell your fellow cowboys, and let's keep the conversation alive on Facebook and Twitter. And now, cowboys, not Eggheads with Sam Fischer.

Sam Fischer  00:33
A while back I had a guest by the name of Bob jump. And Bob was one of my mystery guests in the sense that no one knew who he was. But it was very important to my career. Very important behind the scenes. And my guest today, Gary Reed is exactly the same way. Gary Reed is a one of the very few copywriters, political copywriters in the United States of America. Gary specializes in fundraising copy. And I imagined that if one of my listeners got a letter in the mail from a candidate from a party, asking for funds, there's a very good chance that my friend Gary Reed wrote that letter he is written copy and all 50 states, for many national organizations, we're not going to mention any of Gary's clients. But we I, many of my clients benefited from the work of Gary Reed. And I'm just really excited to have Gary on, Gary, Welcome to cowboys not eggheads.

Gary Reed  01:38
Yeah. Thanks, Sam. I'm looking forward to it.

Sam Fischer  01:40
You are a mystery guest. This is —if you ever been on a podcast, does anyone know who you are? Gary, other than the political hacks like me,?

Gary Reed  01:49
you know, my first job and in politics, I was told, as a staffer, you stay behind the scenes, you're not supposed to be in the limelight, you're not supposed to take credit. You sort of seen and not heard. And that's always been my philosophy is just just to stay in the background. Just do my job.

Sam Fischer  02:10
And I think that's Gary, I think that's why you and I always got along so well over the years. I mean, I can't I don't know how many years we work together. But it's been more than 10, I'm sure. Maybe 15. And we both had the philosophy that it wasn't. It wasn't about us ever. It was about whoever we were working for. And I always feel like you and I kind of checked our egos at the door. I'm not even sure you if you have an ego, Gary, I'm sure you did. And I think that's what made you so good. Is that you always did you always do very well for your clients, because you assume you assume that voice of that client. Let's back up for a second. How does one get from running an ice cream stand in Iowa to becoming one of the top copywriters in in in politics? How does that work?

03:08
Well, first of all, thanks for the compliment. And so my, my dad was the executive for American college testing. And he got very, very sick. And we had to make a living. So we bought a Baskin Robbins ice cream store. And after about where was this at? Where was this? Downtown? I was sitting it's right. I was rescued by what campus? Okay. And so this is what

Sam Fischer  03:35
this is the 50s Then Gary, or since the

03:38
late 40s. Right? That's exactly right. So

Sam Fischer  03:43
no was it the 70s? I don't know. It was sound nice a

03:47
bit mid 70s bought the store in 1970, involved in 76 as a volunteer, and then that led to a staff job for the congressman from Eastern Iowa, that staff job as a field staffer led to being his finance director next cycle.

Sam Fischer  04:07
So Gary, I didn't realize that you that you were a finance director, and that's how I started which is admirable place to start in politics, right? Yes, it's all about you're kind of the Chief Officer of funding the campaign. So it's your responsibility. The only thing you worry about 24/7 is how much money comes in that day. And so it's a great way to start. There are many ways to raise money I'm sure you did them all. But that's how you got started as finance director and I'll let you take it from there.

04:36
In in a campaign is as you know, there's one person raising money there five 610 people spending money, so it is a lot of pressure. And just to make the pressure a little bit harder. More intense is this particular Congressman I worked for did not take PAC money. He didn't He didn't take out of state money. He didn't like to do events, he would never in his wildest dreams make a personal call, oh,

Sam Fischer  05:09
marketing one evil. So there's one thing left.

05:13
So. And one more thing is he is, whatever the minimum, wherever the maximum contribution was at that time, he would take half of that, but no more. So it was a challenge. And so what we did was, we wrote a lot of third person letters, whoever was the County Chairman or county finance Chairman, we would write the fundraising letter under his or her voice. And as as you know, the more specific the letter is, the better. And so we would include the county's name and population and voting trends. And we would get the letter as personal as we could. And the results were pretty darn good. We were able to make up for all of those kind of quirks in the candidate had he came from old money, he wasn't comfortable with money. And so we were able to meet the budget and and in, win the race, do what we needed to do.

Sam Fischer  06:13
I don't, that's amazing, Gary, because I don't think you could get away with that formula anymore. The budgets are too high mail's much more expensive. That was back then you could do those types of deals. So that clearly explains you were writing all the letters right? It wasn't anybody else. didn't hire a consultant, you you are writing letters and you're probably stuffing them in house and all that good. Wow.

06:39
Nothing, nothing glamorous about it. It is writing the letters getting them approved. Stuffing stamping and sealing and, and then on your fingers.

Sam Fischer  06:53
I didn't realize that. That's really interesting to me. So clearly, you move on from campaigns, what was what was next in your career? What was the next step

07:02
redistricting took, brought a new Congressman into the Iowa City area. So this would have been 82. And my job kind of stayed the same, except I did some speech writing some voter contact me all that type of thing. But my my title, which is my favorite title, is I was the direct mails are I like that, and I thought about putting it on my business card. So whatever, whatever writing needed to be done. I did national targeted campaigns really, really tough campaign against a woman who was the vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and, and we want to close one, but up until election day, we didn't know whether we're going to win or lose it was that close?

Sam Fischer  07:53
Wow. And so at some point you go to work for the true direct mail guru Karl Rove is that right?

08:00
I did that would be 1990 are much later, much late or close down. We were for the longest time we had it really a near monopoly in the ice cream business on campus. And that started to change. More and more competition came in, we were making less and less money. And so I wrote to Karl Rove, I sent him some samples. I told him I was coming down. And we'd met. And I don't think I don't think I knocked his socks off. I didn't. I wasn't computer literate. And but our job interview was interesting. You kind of know, Karl. And so this is not going to be a surprise. But the job interview was he had just seen Tom Hanks in big and he has a photographic mind. And he did the dialogue from big and I listened. I listened and I laughed. That was our job interview. It was different. It sure was different. But I but I got the job. And I was down in Austin for about a year and a half.

Sam Fischer  09:09
Wow. And so Karl obviously had a at that time was what Karl Rove and company I believe is named Exactly. And I knew Karl from a distance. So I would have been finance director of the Nebraska Republican Party about that time, I think he had a stellar reputation of being kind of the guy particularly for Texas. So all of a sudden you are writing for multiple candidates. Correct. My belief.

09:36
Rick Perry had switched from Democrat to Republican and he was running for agriculture Commission against Jim Hightower.

Sam Fischer  09:44
Now you're the only guy in America that I know that could write a compelling letter for someone to become Agriculture Commissioner.

09:52
In a Texas campaign, you see how many times you can insert the word Texas or Lone Star State into a two page fundraising letter, the more the merrier. It's a different mindset in Texas. Proud, grandiose. It was just fun to do it. We did, Phil Gramm. Karl did most of the

Sam Fischer  10:15
writings of Phil, Phil Gramm is one of my favorite politicians of all time, the old Dickey Platt test.

10:22
Boy, that's right, you know, in a typical candidate might have three, four or five things on his schedule in a day. And Phil Gramm had 11. And he, and he worked his tail off, and he had an easy race. We used every single list that we could think of, because they all made money. And I think ultimately, we sent to people who were bought grapefruit, your fruit of the month, grapefruit buyers, we bought that list. And it made money. Everybody knew Phil Gramm and loved him. He had a distinctive voice. And everything we touched,

Sam Fischer  11:04
he would have been easy to write for us why? Well, Karl took it and you didn't, right? Yeah, that's

Gary Reed  11:08
right. Yeah, that's right.

Sam Fischer  11:12
What did what was the one thing that you learned from Karl, working from Karl, that you took with you for the rest of your career? To help shape? It

Gary Reed  11:20
was a great question.

Sam Fischer  11:22
I have a follow up funds to it. So Oh, okay.

11:25
I don't I don't know if it answers it. He wrote, like a lawyer would write it was. It was linear. It was logical. It was like building a case for sending a contribution. And my style was more flowery, emotional, folksy. So folks, so between the two of us, we certainly had it covered. But his style wasn't mine. And mine wasn't him. His. But I guess that was that was sort of the thing I took away from it is that there are a lot of ways to get the job done. You know, and anyway, I guess that's, that's what I would say.

Sam Fischer  12:06
Yeah. Yeah. So you had a bit of a collaboration? I'm sure when he edited your letters, he probably made you a better writer. I mean, I'm, I'm reminded of the scene I'm sure you've seen, I hope you've seen the movie river runs through it. Yes. Where the editors are good. In the scene from for our listeners, there's a scene where the young writer who later becomes a professor, his father was a strict, you know, what Presbyterian minister or something and made him they would. They would make him right. And then he'd write a story. And then he tear it up and you say, half as many words and you keep doing that. And so I sort of picture Karl Rove as sort of an editor like that, in a way. I mean, that he wasn't eliminating copy, but he was making you a better writer by by the fact that he was your boss, maybe?

12:58
I think that's true. And that's exactly the kind of editor he was, is less is better. No extraneous words. But on the other hand, he said, I mean, this was in the days of fax machine, sometimes he would be working from home, he would fax over the start of a letter, and he would ask for, you know, does this work? What should we do instead? At the tail, it was at pork. I mean, I think it was 90 campaign. And Ronald Reagan was still beloved. And we had a couple opportunities to write letters under his signature one for Bill Graham, one for a guy by the name of Bill Cabinas. And he asked me to write those letters since that was kind of the Reagan style folks seem emotive things like that, right. And I wrote a letter that that he that he loved, and when Karl loves something or hates something, you hear about it throughout the office, other end of the office, but you hear him and he was he was just cackling and loving this letter. And so anyway, but next week, he called me Dutch. So I had Reagan's nickname, but but it tough, tough boss. Absolutely brilliant. Just, and one of the best people I know anybody that's lucky enough to know Karl Rove is unfortunate person because he is he has a good heart as brilliant as his mind is his heart as is just as good.

Sam Fischer  14:37
So this show is called cowboys, not ache heads. I was thinking about this actually last night. What is Karl Rove? I think he's my astronaut. I think he's right in the middle, don't you? Yeah, I do. He's got a left him he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't have a formal education. I just I just I just finally in my room and interrupted my guests again, but he doesn't have a formal education in the sense he's not an Ivy League guy, but Boy does that guy read. He's a student of history. And yet he has a real authentic love for the West. Anyway, well, maybe maybe I'll send him this podcast and maybe I can get him on as a guest someday, who knows? You know,

15:19
he would, he would, he would do it in a heartbeat. And he's, he's got one hemisphere was spraying that's a cowboy the other hemisphere  is Egghead, and he is

Sam Fischer  15:30
ABS Shut up in an astronaut, Karl, you should have been an astronaut. So I was getting the rest. Now that we sent all these nice things about Karl was the most challenging thing about working for Karl Rove,

15:42
you know, it was kind of at a tough point in my life, we'd had some losses in my family. I was horribly, horribly depressed. So every, every day, I thought I was gonna get fired. And it's hard to be creative, hard to be creative when you're depressed. And so that was the tough part. It wasn't Karl. It was kind of my mindset. But he would make changes to my letter, and it would be like the end of the world. And that was the hardest part.

Sam Fischer  16:17
Yeah. Wow. Well, that's a very honest answer. Interesting. Now, tell me why you Why Why do you like to write, it's a very special case. But a lots of people can write but my listeners don't understand is the kind of writing that you do is a very, very specialized. It's a niche, it's very difficult to write copy for fundraising mail, why do you enjoy it so much?

16:49
I, it's maybe the same reason that like you might like to mow your lawn is you got a project, it gets done, you have that sense of completion. And and that's, that's a nice thing. And the challenge is, we're composing a letter. And when people get in the mail, we're asking to do something that they never would have dreamed of doing before they got the letter, which is write a check. They're doing something that's counterintuitive. They're sending a 25 contract dollar contribution to a multimillion dollar campaign. But feeling like they're making a difference in in a sense they are but still it's a it's a drop in the ocean. And so I like the challenge of, of overcoming those obstacles. Calling getting that call to action, tapping into an emotional responsive chord that people have, and getting them to do something that they never would have done before. Our donors are, are my age. And I'm 68 they're conservative, they're patriotic, they're religious, they want to leave a legacy. And so my job is to write a letter that's, that's sincere, but taps into those powerful emotions and, and in, in a way, it's, it's rewarding. The other thing is the camaraderie of working with people. Years and years and years, those relationships, those bonds are strong, just because you're working on projects together, and you're talking about difficult clients and candidates together and you've got these war stories. I love that camaraderie that sort of bond of brothers and sisters that that I have.

Sam Fischer  18:47
Yeah, I did, too. That's I always said that I had a love hate relationship with with, with my, with my career path. And the love part of it was what you just described as kind of the, the foxhole mentality or the a lot of times you have to respond quickly to things and, and, you know, if we have to respond to something quickly, you know, in mail, it's really got to be quick because it takes you know, from a point of inception to the point that somebody has it in their hands is going to be at least 10 days. I mean, by the time you all everything that goes at least 10 days, probably three weeks. And so it's not something you do normally to respond to something quickly but the point is that it's got to be really quick and and it was something that you always you know, you always turn stuff around so quick. I mean, you could turn stuff around in an hour, it's very easy for you to write it's very natural for you to right now there there is a there is a and I don't mean to embarrass you, but there is a wives tale that you told me once and I want to clarify if this is true or not you He wants to told me that you do some of your best writing on a legal pad, you don't you don't use a typewriter, you don't use the computer that you write long form on legal pads and that you'll, you'll lay on your living room floor on your side and just write now, is that right? Or is that a myth?

20:18
No, it's right. I've done it that way. For the longest time. I have mountains and mountains. So eight and a half by 14, rolled legal pads, mountains of them. And I read a lot, not nearly as much as Karl, but I read a lot. I find lines and words and quotes and ideas that I like, and I write them down. And so I'm never ever going to have writer's block, I can go to those and find the perfect. So

Sam Fischer  20:53
you do refer back to your old copy sometimes.

Gary Reed  20:58
Sometimes…. not.

Sam Fischer  21:00
I find that you really don't, or I never thought that you ever recycled anything. I think it was just it's permanently put in your head somewhere the right thing to say at the right time. One of the things I think I introduced you to was a show on History Channel called swamp people. And you, you told me that you you will watch the show and just take notes. Because these folks are so authentic. I mean, there's no pretend about them. They're about as real as it gets. And, you know, you take notes, you know, which I found to be fascinating.

21:39
That was a great source. The they were true and honest, and your original voices. And you know from your time in politics, Sam that you, you get people who are cliche written, and they they're unnatural voices, they talk in sound bites, but the swamp people are absolute originals. And I one of the one of the things, you know, you write response device copy, so you write two or three sentences that drives the contribution back to the course,

Sam Fischer  22:14
which as is as important as the copy sometimes that's exactly, you know, the PS is important, the response copy is, you know, the teaser copy is important. Sometimes that stuff is more important than the content letter anyway, I'm sorry. That's right.

22:31
That's exactly right. But the swamp people wouldn't be sources of sure, you know, 2550 lines per show, that that did I was able to use or potentially use, you know, I would go to when I would go to movies, I would take a pen and paper and there might be a line of dialogue, there might be, you know, an observation and I can use that.

Sam Fischer  22:59
So your your student of people, you know, you have to be because you always assume the role of the of the person that you write for, and I'd have clients and it was I always tried to make it happen didn't always but it was really your preference to be able to interview that that whoever you're writing for for an hour and I know your interviews were famous because you didn't you didn't ask them what their favorite color was. I mean, it was it was it was they were deep conversations that maybe didn't have anything to do with politics. So what how did you those interviews, what what were you trying to get? Or what was your I guess, what was your theory behind all that?

23:41
Let's see. But it's a good question. I would say that I want him to pick up their their voice, their speech patterns, their mannerisms, you would want to ideally you'd want to get to the heart of what was important to them in life. And if you could get like a mini commencement address like they would give it a graduation, their life wisdom, what they cared about cared about. That was gold, you'd really really struck gold in ironically. I get that when I talk to first time candidates they're the ones that are pure of heart they're running for all the right reasons

Sam Fischer  24:23
and they're not tainted yet.

24:25
They're not tainted yet. They haven't they haven't answered the same question. You know, a multitude of times those are the original voices those are the ones that I like to do the best I could never ever making make a living, doing, you know, first time candidates for State Representative budgets not there. But it does your heart good to talk with those first time candidates.

Sam Fischer  24:52
So you've you've written for, for probably both cowboys and egg heads and How would you how would you voice I had Bob jump to a voiceover of a cowboy and a voiceover naked? How would Gary Reed write differently for a cowboy versus a naked?

25:11
Boy than the cowboy? Would it be? You know, like tech talking to Sam Fisher's dad, you know, it would be, it would be folksy. And it would be blunt, and it would be fascinating. There might be a story or two. And egg had, gosh, I don't know bigger words. More pretentious, less effective. They're, they're going to be a less effective politician if they're an egghead compared to a cowboy. But in both cases, I do want to pick up their voice use the words that they use. I guess that I guess that would be the answer.

Sam Fischer  25:55
Interesting. Copywriting such a specific skill and your your, you know, like I said, you're the best at it. A lot of so I think our listeners would be interested in knowing like, why, why are fundraising letters? Why are six pages a copy? And in their two sentence paragraphs? Or maybe it's a one sentence paragraph? There's lots of space? Why, why? Why are fundraising letters written in a different style than a, you know, like a grant up? You know, a letter to Santa Claus or something?

26:31
Yeah. Let's see, I would say that. You want the letter to be reader friendly. That's why they're short sentences and, and a lot of spaces, it keeps them reading the ideas that the reader runs into a block of copy that's, you know, 10 lines long, that's where the point they'll go, maybe I'll get back to this later.

Sam Fischer  26:57
You don't want to read this from a school textbook. They're done with that, like, exactly.

27:01
So you make it easy for them. They're, they're sort of, like you'd alluded to before, there are a couple of principles, the opening line has to be powerful, provocative, maybe ask a question, but draw them into the letter and get them reading. And the last last line of the letter has to be equally, you know, fascinating, provocative, a call to action. And then in between, it's kind of a mix of emotional motions, and maybe statistics, or to not a lot of them. But every single word has to be carefully chosen. Every single line has to pique their interest, in a sense of what you want to do is articulate for them. Maybe what they feel that can articulate themselves. And so they're in their mind. They're going Yeah, that's right. That's what I think that's that's why the country's going to hell in a hand basket. That's exactly what's wrong. Right. And so you need to establish that rapport with them.

Sam Fischer  28:08
Well, that's the Karl Rove making the case. It's it's getting them to agree with your position.  Fascinating stuff, man. Now, I know that you're, you're also a ghostwriter for a number of projects, including yours truly. How many books have you ghost written, Gary?

28:29
No, I don't know exactly, I'd say maybe four or five. There's some that are more kind of like thick magazines as opposed to books. So that might be a little bit more. I did some projects for the Horatio Alger. For distinguished Americans, I can't remember exactly what it is. But, but that was sort of a series of interviews with their new inductees in but they were it was like a, like a thick magazine by the time we got done. But yeah, four or five. I don't think I'm going to do anymore. I think I'm at 68. I'm tired. And I don't think I've got another book in me. There are a lot of work. Oh, my. Yeah. And, you know, like, a project that you think, Well, geez, we can we can do this in a year. Really? It takes three and it's always it's always on your mind. And so anyway, I think I'm probably done. Done.

Sam Fischer  29:31
Yeah. Well, the world never get to know which books you've written. But I know that you've written you've written books, Gary. It's it's a very, very impressive thing to be an author. So

29:44
well, thanks. Yeah. I, the thing that I found extraordinarily rewarding was maybe 15 years ago, a great friend by the name of Chuck Larson came to me with a project and The The idea was to capture the stories of the people who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq. And they had one, Silver Star Congressional Medal of Honor. Navy Cross in my job was to interview them by phone, find the best things in their story, and then write the book, write the chapters in their voice, and best people I've ever met.

Sam Fischer  30:29
And it's interesting you say that, because this season, we're gonna have several episodes that are we have military veterans that we're interviewing, what did you learn? I mean, obviously, you learned a lot from veterans, and they're all different. But what is their account of commonality?  XXX with Yubico YubiKey. I can't even say it a kid's YubiKey Kuis? Well, how do you say great, how do you say that word was like 25? Thank you, Gary. You think there was not a word that I normally use? And you can just you can see that that's true. Is there any commonality among the veterans,

31:07
they would say, they would give you the most extraordinary stories of heroism. And then they would say, I was just doing my job. I was just doing what the military taught me to do. Muscle memory took over what I did and what I got a medal for, it could have been any of my battle buddies, I sort of got the MVP, but it could have been, you know, the three or four or five people that were around me, they did every bit as much as more. These guys are, are humble. They're there. They're there. In the 29 Eight, you interviewed. We're all guys there was one woman that won the silver star, but she kind of had her own book going on. So it didn't talk to her. But these guys were humble, filled with life, wisdom, mature beyond their years. In many, many cases. They were tormented souls. As you can imagine. There was one, there was one soldier who was he was in the Navy. And he was a medic. And he was assigned to a marine squad because Marines didn't have their own medics. And this was a little guy. His name was Lewis fun. Seiko. And the Marines never thought of him as one of their own because he was navy. They were Marines. And so Marines had that kind of aura. And that they saw they, they were pretty dismissive of the sky. There, their convoy got hit. And there was one psycho was the one and only medic, and he went from vehicle to vehicle, taking care of his man. And he said, I knew I was gonna get shot. I knew I would probably get killed. But I was going to take care of as many men as I could, before that happened. And, and he did that. And he didn't didn't get a scratch. Yeah, was it wasn't hit at all, but paid a hell of a price. emotionally, psychologically. Absolutely. So he won. He won the Navy Cross, second highest medal, the land Gibbs,

Sam Fischer  33:30
and they just don't give those out. It will no.

33:34
I said, Tell me what that means to you to get the Navy Cross. He goes, not a damn thing. I'd give it back in a second if it would make the nightmares go away. Yeah, and I mean, just just such a poignant story, but I'm sure there are 10s of 1000s of them, maybe 100,000 of them just as poignant. Yeah. Best people ever knew. And when you think about people in politics, is they they take credit for things that they didn't necessarily do. Maybe Maybe that's not been your experience sale. But

Sam Fischer  34:13
well, I think I think our Google's or excuse me, I redo that. I think our listeners can Google that and find it pretty quick.

34:22
I passed the tax cut. I created 100,000 jobs

Sam Fischer  34:27
I did or I served in Vietnam.

34:32
These guys were just the opposite. You had to draw those stories out of them. And there was

Sam Fischer  34:39
fat. Absolutely right. Opposite. That's right. That's right. That's right. Great, really enjoyed it. So I'm gonna I'm gonna start a new segment this year and I won't do it for everyone. But for you, I want to do it. So I call it five. Actually, it's going to be six rapid fire questions. So you just have to cut you Have to say exactly what's on your mind. Okay, are you ready? Here we go. favorite ice cream. Peanut butter and chocolate. Okay. Wow. Favorite cowboy.

Gary Reed  35:12
Will Rogers?

Sam Fischer  35:13
Interesting, okay. Favorite Egghead,

Gary Reed  35:15
Karl Rove

Sam Fischer  35:20
favorite author.

35:23
Pat Conroy, Southern author, South Carolina. Love him.

Sam Fischer  35:27
Well, I'm gonna have I've never heard of him. So I'm definitely gonna check that out. Right. Okay. Favorite quote

35:35
that I might butcher it. It's Margaret Meads, is there's there's nothing that a small, committed harmonious group of people can accomplish. They're the only ones that do it. I'm butchering the quote, Sam. But that's, that's the idea. That's, I think that's

Sam Fischer  35:53
true. That's what's wonderful quote. And last but not least, favorite book.

36:00
Oh, geez. Maybe a tie For Whom the Bell Tolls? A multitude of times. And Pat Conroy was the losing season, about a basketball career at citadel. I absolutely love those. Can you Can I turn the tables on you? Can you

Sam Fischer  36:21
go ahead? What do you want? No.

36:24
I'm gonna ask the same questions. I'll forget three of them. But what is your what is your favorite ice cream?

Sam Fischer  36:32
Chocolate chip cookie dough?

Gary Reed  36:34
Who? Who is your hero?

Sam Fischer  36:39
I'm supposed to do this rapidly. Aren't I? George Lynch.

36:43
Oh, that's interesting. And what are the qualities from your mom and dad that you hope have? You've taken to heart

Sam Fischer  36:56
loyalty and integrity

36:59
What is something that Heather might tell me that would just embarrass the dickens out of you?

Sam Fischer  37:06
Oh, just some quirky ham. I can't say what they are. But some cool, very quirky habits that I have when I get I have a little restless leg syndrome. But that's that's not it. There are other quirky habits I get.

37:20
What are some of the other quirky habits that you have besides the Restless Leg Syndrome? But you listeners might be interested in?

Sam Fischer  37:31
Oh, Gary, I will I tend to pick hair from my head. Oh, well, that's maybe explains why I don't have any hair on top. And Heather …. She reminds me of that.

37:46
So you've got you know, 20 plus years of life yet to live. Last question. What do you want to accomplish that maybe it's just relax and enjoy life. But what would you like to accomplish in the next 25 years?

Sam Fischer  38:02
I want to learn guitar well enough that I can get up on stage and play a song without embarrassment. I want to be able to do a five minute comedy sketch. And I want to I don't have children but I want to be able to leave a legacy for my nieces and nephews

38:24
by the way had a great answer. You're a good man. Thanks for

Sam Fischer  38:28
your better man. My listeners just saw how good Gary is at his job because he just you know you just came up with some of the stuff off your top your head I mean, you're the best interviewer I've ever seen. So because he folks he did interview me for my book I don't know what probably three hours of interviews and he's kind of like the college professor that like lectures on on a subject and then then you have a test and the test was all over on the on stuff in the book not on the lecture. So Gary all these strange questions and you write something completely different but he gets …man well it was a real pleasure. I'm really excited that I got you in your your worldwide premiere as a podcast guest because you are a keeper my friends so you be well, it is it is

39:19
nice of you to say thanks so much, Sam. I enjoyed every minute of it. I really did.