Scott Bowles, Journalist

For more than twenty-five years, he’s been a critic and reporter at newspapers including The Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Detroit News and USA Today. 

He’s a wizard with words, wit and writing.

In 2000, in an effort to cure his juvenile diabetes, he became the recipient of a controversial kidney and pancreas transplant, the side effects of which can be as terrible as the disease.

Here to talk about that, and so much more, in a moving, and poignant episode you won't want to miss, is journalist Scott Bowles.

Transcript

Daniel Scherl:   0:04
Welcome to the Memories of a Moonbird podcast where we explore the human life through infinite forms of travel.

Daniel Scherl:   0:13
Hello, friends and welcome to the Memories of a Moonbird podcast. I'm Daniel Scherl. Today on the show:

Daniel Scherl:   0:19
For more than 25 years, he's been a critic and reporter at newspapers including The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Detroit News and USA Today. He's also been a frequent contributor for networks, including G4 and CNN. He's interviewed some of the most famous and successful people in the world, some of which are considered Hollywood royalty.

Daniel Scherl:   0:40
He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of a newspaper veteran and first grade school teacher. He moved to Detroit in the first grade and stayed there all the way through college, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Russian History from the University of Michigan. Today, in addition to being the internship coordinator for UCLA's Journalism Extension Department, he's currently the film and television critic for screenpicks.com and the editor of HollywoodBowles.com. It's an understatement to say that he's a wizard with words, wit and writing.

Daniel Scherl:   1:10
In 2000, in an effort to treat his juvenile diabetes, he became the recipient of a dual kidney and pancreas transplant, the side effects of which could be as terrible as the disease itself. It was an experience that changed his life forever, and he wrote about it in his book "The Needle and the Damage Done." Living with the transplant meant drastic life changes, including two post transplant illnesses:  Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome and Atrial Fibrillation, the combination of which has substantially limited his ability to travel, Thankfully here to talk about it and so much more. Please welcome journalist Scott Bowles.  Scott, welcome to the show!

Scott Bowles:   1:46
Thanks very much for having me.

Daniel Scherl:   1:47
I appreciate you being here, So let's jump right in. We're gonna get to all kinds of interesting stuff, but I'm curious. What were you like as a kid?

Scott Bowles:   1:54
You know, that was hard to tell because I was always in my father's shadow. It seemed like my entire childhood was defined for me without ever being told who as being defined. I was always left to go with Dad on assignment, and Mom would later call it getting the lead in your blood, and I finally realized what that meant where by seventh grade, I remember telling my career, counselor, I'm going to be a reporter. I knew the high school paper I was going to be a reporter for sort of frightening to have your future laid out even your mind that way.

Daniel Scherl:   2:33
How old were you at this time?

Scott Bowles:   2:34
Seventh grade. And to this day I've never done anything but right.

Daniel Scherl:   2:40
Why Russian history?

Scott Bowles:   2:42
Dad told me, Go to school to learn what you want to learn and that the time is old as I am. The Cold War was going on was fresh enough in the memory of society. I just wanted to hear the Russian side of it. I would have professors who were Russian claimed the Khrushchev was misquoted at the U. N. It was the greatest education I could have gotten, and I just did radio and newspaper at the college. In my off time I treated that is my social life. I hated frat life was no partier, So holding away with my news pad and a microphone was a perfect way to spend the extra hours.

Daniel Scherl:   3:27
Do you think that you actually fell in love with writing? I know you talked about your dad kind of thrusting it upon you. But is it something that you truly believe you fell in love with or you were

Scott Bowles:   3:37
told to? D'oh! That's the chicken and egg question. How do you know when you convince yourself you're happy? And when do you know you're really happy? And what's the difference? I really believe it's what my mother said, that I was given these sort of tidbits of dad as a reporter and dad used to speak. I don't know if your father did this about his career, but he used to say, The greatest thing about reporting is that you couldn't tell anybody in the world to screw off. And it's true. It's not. It's true Now the corporations have become a part of them, but I got to see the freedom that he got to have on the job. He would go talk to people and occasionally getting arguments, always get into dialogue and then go back and write about it. And for Christ sake, he got paid for that and the notion of having that freedom of being able to tell authorities. Screw you. I'm gonna write this. I don't believe you. I believe this is true. It's amazing to give someone our age, as were in our preteen years, that view of autonomy, that you can be what you want and that your future is guided by you. And in a weird way, he never said a word. But he let me see and think about the number of careers that are out there. How many do you think you could get? I think you're in one of those rare fields. I know I am where if you have the ability, they don't care where you got it from. You're a good writer and they can see it on the paper. That's proof enough

Daniel Scherl:   5:25
that the director, they don't care how you were trained. If that's right, exactly

Scott Bowles:   5:29
because they know that you're going for something that's almost it's not tangential. It can't be touched the same way the Supreme Court would rule. I can't tell you what pornography is, but I know when I see it well, that's kind of the truth of our career. If you show that you're naturally curious if you show that when you go out and you really want to know what your partner is saying with a guy at the party is telling you he does, and you can find that interesting and you can green something from that life. Well, your reporter, the beauty of reporting is all of us do it every day in our lives. We go home at the end of the day and we sit at the table and we explain what happened in our day. Well, that is straight news reporting that is Choe choosing the lead story and telling it in the natural news story. The way we talk naturally is the way we communicate through journalism.

Daniel Scherl:   6:33
So do you think that when let's say a couple's relationship breaks apart and most the time, I think it's a communication breakdown. Essentially, what you're saying is not to put words in your mouth, but you're saying that if if a relationship breaks down, then the communication breaks down. Essentially, they're not interested in each other's news anymore.

Scott Bowles:   6:50
Well, think about would ultimately, if we think about what drives them apart. If you're a reporter and you're listening to both sides, you would say there's a real communication gap. If you were to ask either one of them it's because one of them leaves a towel on the floor. When they go to change that, we get so wrapped him up in the microscopic. We can no longer see that larger picture. And one of the beauties I think of film and of writing story and journalism is that it forces you to take that full yard step back because you have to tell the story. You can't of involve yourself with the details too much of that story that you need to recount for someone else. What happened in the clear and concise way? That's what human history is. I mean, if if it wasn't some guy telling another guy, you know, it turns out this spear downs a zebra pretty well. Well, that's how society moves. That good journalism was

Daniel Scherl:   7:58
essentially because this city citizenry, yeah, and this speaks to something that I've often told people, which is every single thing you believe to be true is because someone else told you it was true, like, you know, and people try to fight me on this, but it's like no, even the scientific things if someone says to you this dish is healthy view because it contains these five things, and it does this to your blood pressure and you choose to believe it. You didn't go into a lab and actually run those tests. You're you're trusting someone else's knowledge. And I'm not saying you shouldn't trust that. I mean, you know, in general, we should trust our knowledge, especially science. You know, before we get too far off course, though I want to ask you, as far as traveling goes, did you travel with your family when you were growing up? Besides going out with Dad and doing stuff

Scott Bowles:   8:44
now, that was the good argument for not to get into that field. The dad was the type that would work 36 hours straight on a story and would stay at the paper overnight. But Mom was very much an independent woman. So every summer we would get in the car and drive to the Deep South, where we were from originally before we moved to Detroit to show us where we were from. And Mom was of that school that while she was Southern, she was very forceful and decided, you know, if your father is gonna work on it, we're still going to take that vacation so we would pile into a VW bug and Dr Down to Charleston down to Atlanta, where my family was from. And I've come to realize that these things that were travel I didn't really see his travel, but they were the greatest experiences and that that is the secret to travel that if you measured me by by the lateral miles I moved, there wouldn't be that many. I've certainly parachuted into someplace in a reporting capability Jeff Dahmer's apartment in Milwaukee and Columbine and all of that. So they've been places we we can talk to. But I realized, actually on this last staycation that we are all going for the same place. Every place we go, we are headed for the same direction, and that place is where memories a retched, where you are having what I call a heaven now moment that if you're doing something and something were and somebody were to ask you if I were to recreate an after life that you could make better than this, what would it be? And you have trouble answering that question, Will, you're in the middle of the heaven now Moment you are we talk about the Halsey on days. Well, this is the house eon day. That is the health C on day. Where we're all going is to that place where we hope will remember it forever where we hope that we will come upon that wet cement and make that mark might be something that we've seen during travel. But it might not be. It might be an epiphany that we had during a staycation. It might be a realization we had when all we had to look at was ourselves when you had nothing but introspect as a view. But we're all headed for that same place, something that we're going to recall that I remember you had recently gone to Australia. Well, the only thing that makes that something to you is that you were of the mindset. I'm gonna collect memories here. You were of the right mindset and we get that way with travel. For some reason, we prep our brains. We're going to see something new. We're gonna experience something new. So we consume it. Knew when the truth is, we consume things new everywhere we are, I realize that it perhaps it was because I was doing stories. Perhaps because I'm such a boring guy. Look for something interesting, but that if you really look for what is different about this moment, you'll find something. You'll find somebody acting a little bit different or a little more comfortable or revealing a little more something almost infinite testable. But if your brain is primed for that the way we are for travel, I'm going to a new country. I'm gonna have my eyes open, the camera and my brain. They're going to capture your

Daniel Scherl:   12:27
saying lunger everyday life.

Scott Bowles:   12:29
That's right, and you can't do it every day. Nobody can be expected to, but just having that as a practice that, you know, I'm I'm gonna look at what happened and really weigh whether anything's knew. It may not be. It may be like every other day, but it's surprising when you put even a modicum of thought behind it. How much is actually revealed?

Daniel Scherl:   12:53
Well, what do you like most about traveling

Scott Bowles:   12:56
the imagination of what it must be like to be in those moccasins? For instance, on a story it was wth e Jeffrey Dahmer's story, and I was diabetic at the time and I was flying. The deadline was popping and I began to have an insulin reaction. That happens when your blood sugar gets too, though it happens commonly with diabetics. And so I just sat on the patio. I couldn't do anything. The press is going crazy. Ah, walk around back. Just sit. My sugar has to get normal and a woman comes up and asks if I'm okay. I tell her I'm diabetic. She's diabetic. She leads me up and just shares her life. Well, that's travel in a way that it wasn't even intended. The intention was to get a byline outta Milwaukee, so we could say we were there. But what happened was for about 30 minutes, this woman opened her life to living across the hall, living with this smell so empirically it became a good story because it revealed something new. But in terms of the heart of travel, in my mind, travel is almost pearls before swine. If you're not at in or interacting with the people who were there,

Daniel Scherl:   14:21
my father always said it was. It's to commune in the humanness of other

Scott Bowles:   14:25
Exactly, and there's a universal element toe, all of it that you confined, but you find that people with same they move in the same small neighborhoods in the same small circles that they always did. But the reality is just a little bit different. When I was in Atlanta, I had been working on Iron Man the big movie for the paper, and began talking to my uncle. Lin was telling him about it and he said, Is that a new movie? That's one of those moments where you have to stop and think, Wow, if you're out of L. A. What you're doing is really not that important. The world really does revolve around little silos that you'd be best suited to learn a little bit about

Daniel Scherl:   15:12
Yeah, I mean, there's all these people around the world that do things every day. Micro tried to do this with dirty jobs, to show as a great show to show that there are incredible people doing stuff every day that you don't have no idea what happens. I work the night shift at a gas station when I was in high school, this Ohio gas station in Seoul, in Ohio, You know, when you when you work 10 at night, seven In the morning, you see a whole different side to the planet, and these truck drivers would come in and they would bring a giant 32 or 64 ounce thermos. And all they wanted was some coffee for the road. Does have a long haul ahead of him, right? And the owner was this kind of a jerk, and he said, Make sure you charge them for every kid that 64 ounces. You charge them for a pot of coffee and these guys would come in and I'd fill him up full to the brim and just go immense 40 cents. And I just I'm not gonna These guys were hauling around all the shit that makes our lives happen. And I'm not charging $3 for coffee. Keep him alive. You know, it's That's the Robin Hood in me. But let's talk a little bit about the transplant. The diabetes doesn't. You brought it up. You had a transplant. A dual transplant. Uh, was it controversial to do the procedure?

Scott Bowles:   16:19
So what? The time, I guess it might have been controversial, was a police reporter for The Washington Post. And the funny thing about boast is that it is so cutthroat and in a way it's a CE. Cruel is the disease I had had. I had diabetes and, truthfully was dying to it. And so I was doing this doing stories about the worst that city committed every day. You had to go into mourning and pick up the reports that would let you know all of the murders, all of the rapes, all of the aggravated assaults. And you'd have to go through and choose the goriest one and write about. Then you'd have to travel to that neighborhood. Ask would happen and you get another horror story. So you come back and write that story and the whole time my health is fading. My diabetes is getting worse. I'm a terrible diabetic. I work at night. Do not watch sugar the way I should. And with that schedule, it's really hard to. And so it literally feels like everything is dying that the city is dying. My beat is about the dying. I'm dying and I'm being overly Maccabee here, but But that's the sense. So I finally tell the paper during a shoot out of all things, so I call the editor. And I'm thinking I'm gonna making a life change. Life is just too negative. So I call it in. And then by the time I get back, I have finished in my mind the cover letter I'm gonna send to USA Today. It's, Ah, glitzy, colorful joke of a paper compared to the post. But I kind of decide I'm going to stop focusing on death and a few days later, my eye vision doubles don't know why. Everything that I look at, there are two of after I've made this call. So I begin to do some research and I look up the eye and I look up what causes it, and it's a long story. The short of it is, through the course of it, I discovered this thing called pancreas transplants. My doctor never said a thing, but I begin to read and discover in the Mayo Clinic that they have begun to do bankers transplants, and if they're successful, you're no longer diabetic, and suddenly all of the eye problems I've am having all of the problems with diabetes. If the transplant works, it's gonna be successful. So I fly to the Mayo Clinic and just on my own decide. I'm gonna enter the wait for these two organs Now they say it's experimental really doesn't begin until 2008 and it's 2000. So even they say we're flying by the seat of our pants. We think we know what's required, but you need to know that you'll be interviewed a lot. That this is somewhat experimental, but a year and 1/2 come pass and my cadaver match just shows up. I'm in New York doing a story about how cab drivers are getting shot during the story. Get the call your organs. Aaron, you have 24 hours to get to Minnesota bomb. So what you do if you're on the list is you call everybody, you know you call. Whatever airline is up at that hour doesn't matter the cost, because the clock is now ticking and they tell you the Oregon is cooling in a cooler and in about a day goes bad and so literally hopped. A flight that morning flew to Minnesota, and then they began the transplanted before they did. I remember asking, Do you think this is worth it? Because there's a moment, particularly when it comes to the kidney and transplant and surgery where you ask yourself and my good right now and you do have to kind of its assess. How good's my life? Yeah. How bad is a gun? Am I is sick is I thought I was when I asked for the transplant, or was I so desperate? I made that call in haste. And you really do have this moment where things freeze and you suddenly have to decide Well, what is motivating you? Was it fear initially and reason now, or is fear now taking over the reason previous that you were involved in this? In a way, it's just a coin toss. Well, what

Daniel Scherl:   21:19
was it for you? Which one do you know?

Scott Bowles:   21:21
It's a great question. It was simply Julie asking me, my ex wife at the time, saying You've prepared 99 months if I don't do it now than when am I gonna do it? Which is kind of a question. We all ask

Daniel Scherl:   21:38
whether it's a project that's thought now, when you know,

Scott Bowles:   21:41
exactly. And it was a 15 hour surgery. I've seen photos remember nothing, but by the time I woke up, suddenly it was a new life. I mean, I could each they were serving me a dessert. The 12 hours before would have sent me to the hospital. Now they were serving into me for dessert. And that was the hardest thing to engage in a behavior that is not adult in any way, but to suddenly realize Well, now I can have anything. Now I can choose anything on the menu. That's what they don't teach you. But the transplant is what's going to change in your mental world.

Daniel Scherl:   22:25
So you have this transplant And then how long after it did you start experiencing complications from three years, three years or so? For three years, you thought this is awesome.

Scott Bowles:   22:35
For three years I was Pinocchio. The real boy, traveled, went to Australia, did all of those things again. The thing that they don't tell you Is that what you substitute for insulin, which does not cause any illness except hire low blood sugar? Is that what you have to take after a transplant? Our meds so that your body doesn't reject your being. Ah, you need immunised suppressants and those drugs are nasty. I mean, they tastes like pills. that have been soaking in a dirty sock that's been soaking in vinegar. It is so bitter, and you take I've learned to take about a dozen at a time. For a while. You take one. Soon you learn to after a while you learn howto loose in your throat. I could probably win a drinking game about how many pills you could swallow it once, and you have no idea. But over time you begin get nauseated. First, it's a little upset. Then you notice some changes, like when you sleep a night, you get a little sicker. Well, what happens is your level, and your body is resting horizontally and the meds just settling and concentrating in your stomach. So every

Daniel Scherl:   24:02
moment you have to take these men

Scott Bowles:   24:04
for the rest of your life,

Daniel Scherl:   24:05
knowing how throughout the days it like one today or

Scott Bowles:   24:07
twice a day and then right before bed so three times a day, not as many right before you go to bed. But the effect is everything has been silted in your gut. So when you wake up, you wake up with kind of an acidic reflux. I don't wantto hope nobody's eating right now, But you just don't wake up with an appetite and little things will set you off. I've eaten with you. Where if I eat a little something, that's just a little bit wrong. Well, then my stomach just shuts down. But, you know, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Daniel Scherl:   24:45
That was gonna be my question. If you could go back in time, you would still have the surgery. I would

Scott Bowles:   24:49
be on the waiting list tomorrow if I rejected today.

Daniel Scherl:   24:55
Do you think if you hadn't had the surgery, you'd still be alive? You

Scott Bowles:   24:58
know the thing about diabetes and the thing that's toughest about it is that particularly if you're juvenile diabetic, which I waas type one. The diabetes looms over your shoulder. No matter what you do, no matter what you eat, you wonder. Will this throw my sugar off? If you exercise, you wonder with this hike, Leave me hyperglycemia HQ that what you never escape with diabetes is the mental cost of bearing it. Whereas with the transplant, you actually do forget. If I've taken my morning meds and the nausea passes by about noon, you become aware that you're feeling good and that's the to me the important state to get to.

Daniel Scherl:   25:49
Do you get terrible heartburn from this?

Scott Bowles:   25:51
Yeah, very much. But the beauty of having it and even the transplant is those quiet moments when you realize you're not sick when you realize you're well and well is a relative term. But one of the epiphanies that's come from all of this is to have that moment often in the afternoon, when health really kicks in. I don't feel any illness. My stomach's not sick. There is no reflux. Well, that's a heaven now moment. That's Elsie on day. And that's why I say, I don't know if teaching prepared me or travel, prepared me or career prepared me or sickness did maybe all of them. But I feel like I haven't least begun to grasp strangling the moment. That's what I call it, where you're in the middle of the afternoon. Time is just clicking by. Well, that's the heaven moment. That strangled moment is seven because there will come a time when you think back to that moment where all you thought about was the clock ticking or you were bored and you'll realize would an underrated emotion and value boredom is

Daniel Scherl:   27:11
I was gonna ask you. So how is it for you when you when you see people in the world that really have no perspective or small perspective on time After my father passed away, it really changed how I valued my every day. And I realized while there's only you know, not that I didn't know previously because I think I did. But you really do come to grips with the fact that, um well, I guess I said to Jolene I saw the end of the movie I first hand was there when he died, and I I see how it ends for all of us. And so knowing what's really actually waiting for us and how most of us die changed now how I live. And so you have to have had some kind of experience with this facing down. I mean, you could have died several times, and you still have to deal with all these complications from the surgery that I think gives a human being a perspective of value of time.

Scott Bowles:   28:01
Well, let me ask you, What did you find? You changed when you saw the end of the movie

Daniel Scherl:   28:08
a lot of things. The first of which, I think, is that I don't suffer people who waste my time anymore, huh? That was there were there were some people in my life who did, and on a regular basis, I let them do it. And then I very quickly put that to a close and then with myself, I actually had to look at myself and go, How are you managing the time you have left on Earth? What are you involved in? One of the things you enjoy. And I tell people when the greatest exercises I think a human being can do is to sit down pen and paper, not with a keyboard, not with a computer and out with an iPad pen and paper, and write down every single thing you love to do when you were 12 years old. And if you're not doing some of those things today, you're living life incorrectly, In my opinion, Yeah. And so I did. I wrote down. I was like, Well, I liked. I liked to play Legos. I like to build models I liked, you know, I wrote on all this stuff and no joke. There was not one single thing on that list that I was doing as an adult is including reading. Reading is one of my great passions. I was so busy working is that to make time for reading. So I just said Okay, this is nonsense. I have to start doing some of these things. And so I did. I started. I handpicked a few. Well, I'm going to dedicate myself to read, you know, at least 20 minutes a day, every day from now on. You know, uh, I'm gonna I went to the hobby store and actually bought a little model that I've always wanted to build. And, uh, I started doing that. I primed it and got the pieces cut. And so eventually help. It's a Christmas project. A winter project. Yeah, but I just started doing some of these things that made me happy as a kid. And, of course, no, no spoiler needed. I became a much happier person, you know, And life became a lot simpler. So, speaking of childhood, do you have a favorite childhood book?

Scott Bowles:   29:51
You know, I was a huge fan as a child of Encyclopedia Brown. I don't know if you read that at all but everyone. I think it was the reporter in me. Everyone would have a mystery and it would be a logical question. And if you could solve them, you would win it. I was a huge encyclopedia Brown fan.

Daniel Scherl:   30:17
That's cool. That was this a seventies thing. It waas It is

Scott Bowles:   30:21
frightening to think of what we saw in the seventies, and I wouldn't change it for anything. But in a way, I feel blessed to have been born. Then I don't know if you feel this way.

Daniel Scherl:   30:34
I do. And this is

Scott Bowles:   30:36
the reason I don't know about you. But when summer came around, we did nothing. My parents worked. I was not in any summer camps, and I realized, though they had not meant to, they had taught me a great lesson. And that was how do you kill ours? Have you ever seen a millennium without a phone? They will appear naked. Yeah, And to be able to sit and people watch and to accept. Yeah, I'm here early. I've got hours to kill. I've been with people who truly seems somewhat panicked that they had time to kill. And in a way, we both grew up in the Midwest. I don't know. There's we seemed to me Mauritz ease with a quiet moment

Daniel Scherl:   31:23
and I told Somebody wants I have had more fun in my own imagination than I have in many other places. I've actually been Yes, and I think that that is something that I do worry about today's generation in that in that they're not taking enough time. Now I will give them credit and say It's some of the things they're doing are incredibly imaginative and, um and they're very cool and I enjoy taking part in those things as well. But I do. I do understand exactly what you're saying, and I kind of miss those days sometimes,

Scott Bowles:   31:51
yeah, well, and think about it. The skills that we refer to now that we used to have and are probably worse in our case. But for instance, memory, when we were Children, we needed better memories because we didn't have cell phones with numbers programmed on them.

Daniel Scherl:   32:10
But you had to remember everyone's gonna

Scott Bowles:   32:11
know exactly and addresses reading maps and the things that we will be able to say. We remember when there was no cable TV when phones were courted when numbers had to be written down on

Daniel Scherl:   32:26
to get up to change the channel on that, people

Scott Bowles:   32:29
won't believe it. And it actually makes me wonder. What will they remember when they're older?

Daniel Scherl:   32:35
Yeah, I think about that, too.

Scott Bowles:   32:36
What will they think? Back in the day, we only had a 264 terror byte computer.

Daniel Scherl:   32:44
Well, I think someday some it's very possible that someone's gonna go. What did they do before they had a microchip implanted in their head? It just did all this stuff for them that they had the heads up display appear right in front of them, and they didn't. You know, I often on the podcast talk about how much I wish we invented the transporter. And so hopefully, at some point they'll be like, Oh my God, could you imagine what it was like to have to sit in a plane? How much has traveled? Been a part of your career? It's actually

Scott Bowles:   33:12
been a good bit. It's only when I became, of all things, a movie critic that it ended. I was once known as a parachute reporter, which men, if there were breaking news, a tornado a shooting. I had to parachute into a neighborhood. So if there was

Daniel Scherl:   33:32
not literally,

Scott Bowles:   33:33
not literally, but literally whatever plane we could get, whether was a charter, an airline, whatever was the clothes closest car and get there. And it was really an exciting time.

Daniel Scherl:   33:48
No. Have you ever actually done a parachute jump out of a plane?

Scott Bowles:   33:51
Never have on. And I don't know that I would want to.

Daniel Scherl:   33:55
I have I once got that.

Scott Bowles:   33:57
Was it truly the charge? Did you have someone behind?

Daniel Scherl:   34:01
I did. I went tandem. Yeah, or the free. Well, I'll tell you, this is kind of funny about it. You trained for, like, an hour, and they teach you everything. A couple hours, Whatever was you get inside this. My experience I got inside this rickety plane where I thought something was wrong because everything had been stripped out and there was duct tape all over the plane. And I had looked at the guy and I said, Hey, I'm not trying to be rude, but why is this plane duct taped together? And he laughed. He's like, No, no, it's not duct taped together. We cover every metal surface that has a nut or a boulder. Screw anything with duct tape so nothing will ever snag on a parachute or our backpacks is justice for safety and go. Okay. And then this guy who looked like McGee Ivers drunken, weird cousin was piloting the plane and we went up thio 10 12,000 feet. And when they strap you in, there's four contact points to on the waist and two on the shoulder blades, and then they clip all four places in the he cinches everything tight, and you're so close to this person that they call it nuts to butts. You are familiar with each other that. But then the door, the airplane opened. And what they don't tell you is that an absolute massive amount of cold air comes rushing over your body because it's cold. At 10,000 feet, it's It was 90 degrees on the ground I left. It's freezing cold. You're like, Oh, my God. And then you look out the door of the plane. It looks like a model train set from above. And the first thing I thought to myself is, Why in the fuck did I agree to do this? This is so stupid, But I was I was dumb and I looked. I looked at my guide. The guy was going tandem with me. And before we actually left, I said, Hey, man, I see these videos where people do acrobatics in the air Could you flip me around? And he just stopped and smiled and went, Sure. And so I was like, But sure enough, we went out. If you want, I have a video. You we exit the plane and he goes, Whoa! Just flips me onto my back and belly and then flips me back again. And But the whole thing was over in 30 seconds, 30 seconds of free fall and then about five minutes under canopy when the parachute goes and later on I went hang gliding and I was up in the air for 30 or 40 minutes with a hang glider. And it was so peaceful and beautiful that I I tell people yet was an adrenaline rush to skydive. But I thoroughly enjoyed hang gliding so much more

Scott Bowles:   36:24
so, given both, you would choose Scott Diamond.

Daniel Scherl:   36:27
I would choose hang gliding England, England any day of the week. Yeah,

Scott Bowles:   36:30
did the hang glider I mean the skydiver pulled the quarter. Did he let you?

Daniel Scherl:   36:34
He did. So there was me and him tied together. And then there was the videographer skydiving with us and she's floating in front of me and I'm waving at the camera. And I was not paying attention because the skydiver connected to me. He reached his hand around and signaled, and I just forgot in a moment of elation, because I've seen the Earth, you know, you're seeing the curvature of the earth and its beautiful. I completely forgot that he was gonna pull the ripcord. And so suddenly you go from terminal velocity to almost very, very slow speed, and the harness pulls up on your crotch and everything is a I It was so unexpected that on the video have to show you like it is a laugh out loud. She captured the whole thing on the video of me, like basically shitting myself as they but it was cool. It was It was a really cool, unique experience. I don't think I would do it again. I

Scott Bowles:   37:26
was gonna ask you Does it work as one time life experience?

Daniel Scherl:   37:32
For me? For me? Yeah. There are so many other things to D'oh. Um, you know, if Jolene was like, I really want to do this with you. Let's do it together. I probably actually say no. I'd be like, Why don't you go and I'll be on the ground videotaping you coming down, And, um, I don't think I want to do it again. You know what? Look, I don't know about you, but as I get older and I'm 48 now, my level of risk, I still I'm still an adventure. And I still do crazy stuff that rock climbing. I'm you know, we just did that caving adventure in New Zealand. But I tend to do stuff where there's, ah, little more of a safety element and less chance of dying.

Scott Bowles:   38:06
You know what's funny? That once I had to quit the job, I realized that my work became while I still love to write and hope I do it to the day I die that my job had only been become to see tomorrow. And that's why I say I I really don't like when I see somebody sick being called a hero. We have no choice. We their dire we live it's not, ah, heroic thing. And in a way it's a beautiful simplicity that my only job is to see how long this umpire clicker Kingo, that anything I never expected to get over 50. I certainly never expected to approach 60 and tow have those things become goals that I guess I'm really of the school writ small of the experience, writ small, just explored until there's nothing left with the mind. But I used to have wanted to be able to run, and I wanted to be able to do pull ups and just become fitter. And now I'm realizing I am so lucky to be who I am and to have lived a CZ long as I have that I can really take reward from them and to have a week where I don't get sick. Well, that's a really good week, and to be able to recognize it is at least healthy for me. I don't know, certainly wouldn't assumed to prescribe it for anybody. But for me to be able to mark, I'm a real believer in making mountains of mole hills. That life deserves us. Building it up.

Daniel Scherl:   40:01
I have a photograph of Jolene from when we were in Paris and she was sitting in a table and she's eating this particular chocolate dessert and she loves chocolate. But there is an expression on her face in this photograph that you knowthis woman is living purely in bliss of this. This singular moment you captured the moment of absolute appreciation of life and everything it is in this, you know, desert moment. And that's I think that's an inspiration to that's how we should try to live. It's impossible to you, but to try and live more often with that appreciation of every day,

Scott Bowles:   40:37
and on top of that, to be aware when you do and give yourself credit for doing the fact that you remember means you've made it a wet cement moment that memories forever etched in your brain. And that's why I mean, that travel is really a state of mind that all memories a memory of the last memory. It is Xerox of the most recent copy. So we're simply talking at about a different brain input, a different neural input when it comes to travel. What we're really talking about is that imprint on the mind that is never for gotten and that we need to get primed in the travel state of mind when we're not traveling. And that's the key to a staycation. That's the key to a good day off where you don't do anything you'll about ski the day and you see the beauty in the big in l Do Torino there and that it is beautiful and that you are living such a blessed first world life.

Daniel Scherl:   41:44
The other day I made a really good homemade pizza fare thee, Annick and I. There was a new sci fi show on those excited to watch, and Jolene was at work and I was I was home working and I made this food. I sat down the table, I put on this show, and honest to God, I started, like giggling about how great it was to just have a moment of great food, good TV, exact temperature, exactly where I wanted to, you know, think about Caesar Julius, Julius. Okay. He would

Scott Bowles:   42:14
be hard pressed to be happier than you were in right that moment that to sit more comfortably with food and drink right before you. Ah, visual feast for your eyes. That yeah, the greats certainly would have hires greater than we know. But I was once sitting in Vegas. It was a penthouse suite in a Jacuzzi, and I was thinking Nero would have trouble matching this being this elevated, looking over the kingdom, and it's the ability to just recognize it for a moment. It's impossible to make your life mantra, but if you can just pull out those moments every once in a while you're doing something right because look around you and you will see people lost in the grind. I call it the Nash they can't see. They can't afford to see that. Kids, you need to get picked up. It's the ability to freeze that moment. Strangle that time where the you're on the road or at home. If you strangle the moment, it'll be the same wet cement moment. Now

Daniel Scherl:   43:24
you say strangled amount, but it sounds so criminal, right? We should come up with a better Ah, what should we call it? Soak up the moment. Freeze it in amber, something like that. For the moment

Scott Bowles:   43:37
of that, it's worth preserving. That's all it is

Daniel Scherl:   43:40
fossilized. The moment.

Scott Bowles:   43:42
Yeah, exactly the recognition that this is worth remembering. For whatever reason, it deserves a place in your life.

Daniel Scherl:   43:52
Scott. I'm curious. How do you feel when you're writing? You

Scott Bowles:   43:55
know it's funny. Vontae get One said that he wasn't athletic, but he could swim and he wrote, I'm beautiful and water, and I feel like I'm presentable in words that I make a good resume. But truly, I feel like I can communicate best. And that includes personal things when I'm writing, and I don't know whether was following Dad as a kid, but you probably get this. You feel a comfort behind the keyboard, and that comfort is actually evident to readers. And if you're not comfortable, they'll sense it that

Daniel Scherl:   44:38
you do that in your personal life. Do you feel like you're Let's see you having a discussion with a friend and you want to express some things you're not sure how to talk to them? Would you rather sit down with them in person or write them an email?

Scott Bowles:   44:47
I love to talk, but I feel like I talk like a right, which also is a little bit probably a little too formal. But I really am a firm believer in communicating clearly that it is much more effective toe have a word that's communicative than is impressive. I like a good vocabulary, but the beauty of simple brevity is hard to explain. And it's something that you appreciate when you're trying to write or when you're reading.

Daniel Scherl:   45:19
No, I agree. It's

Scott Bowles:   45:20
very hard to do to have active verbs, and I think it's just a matter of being comfortable with writing the way you speak when you're behind the computer, because people understand when you talk. But people will forget what you're trying to write, so the key is to whatever the way is you communicate to write that way as well. It's the best way to show who you are.

Daniel Scherl:   45:46
So do you try to balance? You know, I would say, quote unquote taking care of the reader when you're writing and thinking of of how you're presenting it to them, or do you prefer to just stay true to whatever your expression is, and right that way or balance of both?

Scott Bowles:   45:58
I think that's a great question. I truly do try to give an element that the reader did not know So much of what I write is about a movie that they are familiar with or a star they've seen before on TV or in the movies. And so it's important if I'm doing a profile of someone to include a fact that they simply didn't know. There was once a profile I had to do with Jack Nicholson, and I was thinking, Everybody knows about Jack Nicholson. So I asked him what he liked toe watching TV on during the evening on TV, and he says, I love to be owned by nine in watch N. C. I. S was So

Daniel Scherl:   46:42
I did I think

Scott Bowles:   46:43
of the greatest actor in American movies wants to catch this silly CBS show, but it's important to him. But it was a fact that people didn't know. Andi, it doesn't need to be an illuminating fact might just be a funny fact. Once I did an interview with Sean Penn and he was eating a steak and he ordered it so raw he left blood on the plate, lifted up the plate and slurped up all the blood. Well, that was something a reader was not gonna know and not know about. Sean Penn. So I really believe in the small human things that make him relatable, that they don't know that. Then when they recall a story, they would recall that.

Daniel Scherl:   47:27
How do you like your steak cooked medium? Plus, I don't like any pink. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would you What would you tell yourself?

Scott Bowles:   47:37
Write what you like, because that's gonna end up being what you cover. And the same is probably true with everybody who's in a field that even if it's a field you're not initially crazy about, find the thing within that field that floats your boat because you'll become good and they'll see that and the law for you, more opportunities that you can't overestimate the importance of getting into the job itself. But once you're there, I would never take anything for money again. I would take the occasional beat, could go from politics covering auto because I was in Detroit and it was a popular beat. I hated auto. The idea of selling something was just not what I wanted to cover, So

Daniel Scherl:   48:26
you'd rather make less money doing something. You love them. More money covering something you can't stand.

Scott Bowles:   48:30
There's a price reward to it anyway. that's immeasurable and it's a war. L reward that people who are driven by money, I don't think, understand or just haven't experienced yet that it really is a rare thing. I don't want to underestimate the rare nous of the opportunity that was bestowed that I can't say any of that can be replayed. But I would never change thin

Daniel Scherl:   48:59
if you didn't write. What would you do?

Scott Bowles:   49:01
Think I'd play music? Great. I'm showering. I need to listen to music. The captures the mood I want to be in. What what means? But would you play Angry is going to be

Daniel Scherl:   49:14
against What instrument would you play? Fewer?

Scott Bowles:   49:16
Oh, absolutely. An axe. A rhythm guitar. The Why listen to the rhythm instruments. I play bass guitar by ear. It's what I pick out. But everybody air got a our air guitars. Yeah, I think I would. D'oh! What

Daniel Scherl:   49:34
was the hardest thing you've had to write in your life so far?

Scott Bowles:   49:36
Without a doubt, we kept something called the Diabetes Journal, which was life on the transplant wait list, and the hardest part was accepting and writing and admitting what a lousy diabetic I waas that I cheated on my diet all the time. I was a kid. They went and had candy eye candy. They chewed sugared bubble gum. I chewed it and the editor was the greatest piece of advice. And it applies to all kinds of writing is be honest that admitting I was a terrible diabetic Immediately, I realized later created a connection with other diabetics who were also lousy. And there were a lot of us. Lot of diabetics have trouble sticking with the diet, always having guys soda. It's a pain in the ass. And I was terrible at it, and I had to admit that the reason I was waiting for organs and was a bed of my own making. We all lie in beds of our own making, and I had to be absolutely honest and writing, and it was a breakthrough moment. It showed me I need to be honest and everything I write or that correct connection never gets made. So

Daniel Scherl:   50:52
with the transplant, then, um, I know you had the dual transplant, and we talked briefly about what it would have been like if he'd only had one or the other. How hard was that decision to make of going for two instead of one. And secondly, how has receiving the transplant changed your outlook on life? Do you think today

Scott Bowles:   51:10
the amazing thing about a transplant is that not only does your health change, but your mind changes because you have someone else in your body? I mean, imagine this that the organs that keep someone alive are now in you. A year after the transplant happened, the paper kept a journal of what life was like with new organs in the ups and downs. And you're never supposed to me the donor. You're not supposed to meet the family. You can become too tight. And I got an email from an aunt who said, I think I'm your kidneys aunt. She had picked up those stories in USA Today. The death of the boy coincided with the death of her nephew, and she said, How would you like to talk to Samuel's mother? Samuel was the donor, and I immediately wanted to, and I said, but how would she feel about it? She said. I think that's the one thing that the transplant groups don't get is that parents desperately want to know that they're transplanted Children live on. It's hard for me not to tear up when I remember this, but after that, I called her on January 11th. January 11th will be the 20th anniversary of the transplant, and as far as I can tell in records, it's the longest successful kidney pancreas transplant in the nation. I don't know. The Mayo Clinic is researching it, but I called her and she said, What do you like to eat? And I was so thrown off by the folk by the question. I told her I love steak. I'm a big meat eater, she said. What kind of music do you listen to? It was as if we were on a match first date on the phone, and I realized Valerie Fliegel wanted to know the life her son was living. She wanted to know my boys in California. He's going to movies. He's eating different foodies. I was so shaken by the interview that when we were done, I walked up to the editors at USA Today because they had hired me from the post and I was known as the Parachute Reporter. You fly into a breaking news of M and I said. I will never cover another disaster for the paper. And it was the last school shooting, the last tornado, the last disaster I ever kept covered for the paper because I was alive because of a grieving mother. Here she is asking me questions about what I like to eat and what movies I see and what songs I listen to. And all she wants is some reassurance that in some way her son is alive. And for 20 years I was making a living, reporting on the grieving of the living on, and I was never gonna pray on another grieving mother again. No, I admittedly moved toe a much sillier form of journalism. But sometimes Sylvie is what we need,

Daniel Scherl:   54:33
and it's a lot more fun.

Scott Bowles:   54:34
There's a reason movies or risk and escape, and I was glad to join in that chase for a new World. Will

Daniel Scherl:   54:42
you talk about all this stuff and it makes me want to ask you, as a journalist, special with current administration and all the fake news accusations and what not? I think it's difficult to know who to trust and what to believe in, you know, with sensational headlines and click bait and all this stuff we're dealing with. How do you How do you handle that? How do you feel about it?

Scott Bowles:   55:02
I really do feel the Internet, his ruined journalism, and I'm an old school newspaper guy. But look, Trump is right. So much of the news is fake. There are some things you cannot deny. He is on two. That the power of television, the power of coming into someone's home. Trump had that advantage, for however many years he was on apprentice. He was in the home of people, Will Smith once told me, I've done Ah 100 songs, but people will always know me by the Fresh Prince Fresh Prince Song because that's what they listen to. When Will Smith came into their home? Well, what's happened with media is that everything has become, ah, barometer. We could measure how many people watched the show. We could measure how many people bought a book we were able to measure. Success will. Now what we're doing with the media is we're measuring what gets clicked on. If you click on a story, even a celebrity or sports game, it'll have you go through a slide show. While the secret of that slide show is that they're counting you for 10 counts on that story, every new image you count, every one you look at is counted as a new read on the story. So suddenly that becomes the most popular story. And it is the whole notion of Clickbait that'll come back to bite us. There will actually be a currency to printing and two vetting those tuf those air two verbs that have lost all meaning in journalism.

Daniel Scherl:   56:54
So are you upset or angry at the world of journalism today?

Scott Bowles:   56:58
Very much so. Because the rule of thumb used to be better late than never is now better never than late when I tried my hand briefly at trade reporting for the Hollywood Reporter variety, you're very competitive. We would get notes if a story would post 11 minutes after our competition will automatically, you're rewarding the wrong thing. You're rewarding to be first than to be factual, and the moment that becomes the path. It's a path to destruction, and I really believe there'll be a return that we will find that there's a benefit in the old way and hopefully draw something real from

Daniel Scherl:   57:49
where is a favorite place of yours that you have travelled in your life? I have to

Scott Bowles:   57:53
say I loved Australia because it was like as close as we could get to a time machine. They speak our language. They have our technology. They simply don't have the bodies that if you're taking a bus across the continent, the driver has to be prepared for camel and kangaroo to dart in front and be prepared to hit well. That's probably pretty similar to what escape the stage coach was like to travel a continent, not know what's on the other end now on what you're going to meet on the way about now, everything is known with America and its pretty tired Australia still has. Whether it's that deadly is standing on Earth were the funniest accent you ever heard or the way that the natives are being treated. It is so similar to the American Indian, it really is like seeing this is what America was like when we could have formulated something different.

Daniel Scherl:   59:00
And is that what makes it your favorite place? You've been.

Scott Bowles:   59:02
It truly does, because the technology is there to make the right call Australia really is, Ah, blank slate of what America could have been. And I'll be so curious what they choose.

Daniel Scherl:   59:17
If you had a time machine right now, what air would you go back to? And let's say it's a special time machine that you're not going to have the butterfly effect or anything terrible happens. You get to kind of like a Star Trek episode. You're in a bubble and you just get to observe from a distance. Where would you go?

Scott Bowles:   59:31
One of my dad's stories. I would love to know what our country was like when it truly felt a constitutional crisis. I hear so much about how eventually in the Nixon impeachment, the senator's off. All parties of all Wilkes needed to face. We cannot have them that is so foreign to my thinking. Now

Daniel Scherl:   59:57
it's happening right now in this country,

Scott Bowles:   59:58
exactly, but we're so polarized it's more important to have a side than toe have a fact. I would love to see what the nation was like when that really posed a big issue. Oh my God, A president's lied power is being abused. When those questions weren't being heard in an echo chamber. It's strange, but I actually wonder, even though I was in it, I for gotten what was life like when we had three networks when we might not have actually had it. But we had a sense of what? The news? Waas. Now we have alternate effects. We don't even know what constitutes a story. I can't blame readers for being confused.

Daniel Scherl:   1:0:47
Are you a technology person? Do you like toys? And

Scott Bowles:   1:0:50
I think all reporters are that all of us want the quickest computer, the best camera, even though we can't shoot, We're all told, you have to include art with your story. So we always overspend. All reporters love gadgets, even though we can't really work him once we get past 45 just like to have him. So we can say I have a Mac. Yeah, I can use windows. So while we like to claim were advanced, truly were is backward of people as exist in America. I still shoot with my iPhone. You shoot with whatever's right there.

Daniel Scherl:   1:1:28
I didn't take my big camera to Australia by the Is that right? I just did all iPhone. That's heresy, for somebody can shoot if you were gonna give people of the world One general piece of travel advice from your experience in your life, What would it be?

Scott Bowles:   1:1:41
Recognize your wealth and that every place you go, almost every place you go. Except for the biggest cities, they would sell Children to be with you. Who

Daniel Scherl:   1:1:54
would sell Children to be with you?

Scott Bowles:   1:1:55
I imagine you could go to almost any poor, impoverished our stricken nation. And whatever your worst concern is, they would pay every penny. They have to have them yet they'll be as happy as they can be. I will never forget When Caroline, When my wife came back from Afghanistan, she couldn't get over at how happy everyone was there. And I think part of that appreciation we could come if you realize that you are coming from heaven. You are visiting from on I and you're returning toe on I and as much as you can bring back in terms of a memory, that's great. But if you can recognize your wealth wherever you are in life, whether you're very healthy, you're wealthy. If you can afford any meal that you want, might be a big credit expense. But you can eventually pay it off. You're wealthy. If you can wear anything, you want to stay warm or cool. You're wealthy. If you got on that plane, you're wealthy. And to have that understanding when you're there, the gap that skews your objective some. But to realize how lucky you are and how wealthy you are to be there. And I don't mean in terms of money, I just mean in terms is that perspective will already that cement is made for exactly where you want to be, which is that etching that thing. You'll come back and remember, I remember you had it a trip once with goulash of all things that that was your wet cement moment. Portugal Air. Nothing will be clear to you or clear in my mind. And that's what made that trip worthwhile. Was that memory

Daniel Scherl:   1:3:49
seeing as soon as you said that? I just remembered eating that goulash exactly. And now I'm not only hungry, but I'm having a very exciting reliving of that moment

Scott Bowles:   1:3:59
and listeners can't see it, but he's smiling as well. It truly puts you in the place, and that is the purpose of travel. Regardless where you're going Do

Daniel Scherl:   1:4:10
you have a favorite food?

Scott Bowles:   1:4:11
I'm an all American boy. Nothing beats a bacon cheeseburger for me. And I know in L. A. That's capital offense

Daniel Scherl:   1:4:20
f that I love burgers.

Scott Bowles:   1:4:22
Exactly. I admit I'm a cave man. Remain that way. I love I even love fast food, Major the Net. The notion that we can go up to any store, order a burger. And there it is. Imagine would a miracle more than half the world, that is,

Daniel Scherl:   1:4:41
uh and what's funny is to is that I don't wanna shit on Angelina's, but they often give me a lot of crap if they find out that I eat McDonald's and when one of my friends, like I cannot believe that you eat McDonald's of all things, I actually that day usually go to McDonald's and eat a burger just to kind of have a quiet fuck you moment more power, Thio. Look, dude, I grew up on McDonald's in the Midwest. It is a comfort food, and if I'm having a little bit of a rough day or whatever, sometimes some Makdisi French fries really hit the spot. So

Scott Bowles:   1:5:11
and there is nothing like perfectly salted Mickey, I don't care.

Daniel Scherl:   1:5:16
I agree

Scott Bowles:   1:5:16
what restaurant you go to. Whatever the brain signal is that sends sends off that endorphin, whatever the

Daniel Scherl:   1:5:25
sugar, salt and fat man, what more could you ask? The reason we're here? Do you have, Ah, favorite place you've eaten in the entire world. Some meal that stands out

Scott Bowles:   1:5:35
barbecue. And I can't find a good one here anymore. I goto hardly walk.

Daniel Scherl:   1:5:41
I was gonna say, You know how good the

Scott Bowles:   1:5:42
bagua uglies is? My one spot there used to be one in the valley and a once went to a barbecue place in Chicago. And something about a dry rib. Like I said, I am a meat eater.

Daniel Scherl:   1:6:00
Is that hamster? Guinea pig guinea. Double stuff agrees with you. Best barbecue ever happens. Actually, at this place called the Blue Ribbon Barbecue in Boston. Do you

Scott Bowles:   1:6:11
know any around here? I don't even know of any. Mr. See, Sal's was the place that closed. I don't operate That

Daniel Scherl:   1:6:17
I did. It was good. Yeah. Is there somewhere in the world? And it could be even in the United States, because they're somewhere. You've never been that you'd love to go.

Scott Bowles:   1:6:24
Truly. I don't want to go to Antarctica.

Daniel Scherl:   1:6:26
You're the third person to say that. This is Yeah,

Scott Bowles:   1:6:28
I think part of it is understanding the fleeting nous of it and the uncertainty of how much longer it's going to be here. You know, in many ways, the funny thing about travel like Venice. Soon you won't be able to invent to enjoy Venice anymore. They've been talking about how much water's overtaken that place, and it's really changed my map. I mean, I want to see Alaska. Now. I wantto see an unfettered cold. But what it's really like to be part of a frozen environment that that has become such a foreign image to me that between the California fires and the footage of glaciers melting, I almost don't see Cold America anymore, and I know it exists. But now I really want to see places that are perpetually either covered in ice or faced with the reality of almost a year long winter and what that element on earth must be like because it is seeming so foreign to me now, and sea animals surviving in winter. I think, God, I would love to see them. I would. I love to see a polar bear and

Daniel Scherl:   1:7:52
from a distance. Yeah, but no, it's that kind of thing

Scott Bowles:   1:7:57
that makes you think that portion of earth is getting rare and rare to see

Daniel Scherl:   1:8:04
what's been your most beloved trip that you've ever taken mentally. Strictly in your imagination,

Scott Bowles:   1:8:10
it's gonna sound like I'm flattering my mother and sister.

Daniel Scherl:   1:8:14
Nothing wrong with that.

Scott Bowles:   1:8:15
But just in this past week, I really felt I took the best family trip that I had ever taken in the 54 years of the family, and the only travel that we took was four miles from here to go to the Japanese garden in, like Balboa and

Daniel Scherl:   1:8:39
what I realized really good place by the

Scott Bowles:   1:8:41
Oh, it was beautiful

Daniel Scherl:   1:8:43
still is, that's great.

Scott Bowles:   1:8:44
And Mom was so warmed by that by just doing it that I realize that in the same way that we were talking about, we're all trying to get to that vegetable place in our memory and that during this trip I didn't travel to a destination. I traveled to a time I traveled to when I was in middle school and junior high in Detroit. My mother and sister came here from the deep south where I was born, where they live. But the whole time we were here, it was us as we were as young Michiganders when Dad was at work and Mom was at home and the kids were under her charge and somehow that had become recreated again. And the whole time they were here, we weren't in L. A. We were in memory. We were in what we used to be, and we were old enough to be able to say, God, those were great memories and not be of the mind set that Oh, I'm sad. Those memories have gone because that's the form a family union, contagious HQ. But when a family trip is really going well, you're only going home. And that's where we were.

Daniel Scherl:   1:10:14
That is really beautiful. I would like if my family experiences were were like that. I think that's another whole park. Well, and I

Scott Bowles:   1:10:24
don't mean to intimate that they always are. But they were right now, and I realized that I was in that travel mindset. You can be anywhere, and you can be holding the wet cement, and it could be drawn for you at any time and for whatever reason on this trip is when it was drawn and the week felt like a day and it was all back to where we once were. His young people in Michigan on and we're still there. Even when we talk on the phone, we're saying what a great trip that WAAS,

Daniel Scherl:   1:11:05
And that's priceless. What's your would be? What's your security blanket item that you would take with you whenever you travel? Do you have won a recorder? It is something where you use a digital recorder now or a

Scott Bowles:   1:11:18
a digital. And my phone. My carry too. But it is an O. C. D thing. I keep two recorders. You never know when you're gonna meet somebody who's gonna be a great interview. Yeah, for a column for anything that you're writing. One thing I learned is a reporter speaking to it. Even if you're not recording somebody, just record yourself. Would you see? You will take better notes than your fur will buy paper.

Daniel Scherl:   1:11:46
I've done that. Then you listen back later on. You're like, Oh, that's right. I forgot about that guy that was sitting there with the Yeah, that's really cool. That's my Linus blanket. Scott, What's your spirit animal? You

Scott Bowles:   1:11:58
know, I think my spirit animal is a May fly.

Daniel Scherl:   1:12:02
Why is that? Because

Scott Bowles:   1:12:04
may fly. Some mayflies let live eight hours. I don't know if you know that I know the one thing. I got juvenile diabetes when I was 14. So the one thing you don't count on is anything in the future. The idea of 50 was like me dunking a basketball. It was as far fetched as an alien. But the beauty of being sick is you are always aware of when it's a good time of when you're not sick. And that, for instance, I'm now 54. Well, I can remember not thinking I'll get to 54 there. I'll get 50. So all four years will be icing in every year After that will be icing will think of a May fly head bowed hours. If you can't make the most of your life with that, what could you make it with? And to me, nothing is emblematic Maur of every second being precious than in a May fly. And knowing that I can't keep up that mindset the way I'd like, I at least can think while my spirit animal will may fly will appreciate every second. If I can get even a fraction of that, I'm doing something right.

Daniel Scherl:   1:13:31
How long do you think you're gonna live?

Scott Bowles:   1:13:33
Now, my goal is 60. I've made these very cold judgments, and my financial persons is you're making a big mistake. You're gonna live past that. I agree. You're gonna have money. Trouble? I pray for that money. Trouble.

Daniel Scherl:   1:13:50
I don't know that you have my troll, but I think you're gonna live at least until 80.

Scott Bowles:   1:13:53
And each time, Like when I hit 55 I will officially celebrate being a senior citizen, being an A AARP's definition of a senior citizen. Then when I hit 60 I'll think we'll look at all the people I've outlived. And then when I had 65 I'll think, God damn, I'm on old man. Who would've bet it?

Daniel Scherl:   1:14:19
I hope that we get to celebrate your 60th birthday party in Antarctica.

Scott Bowles:   1:14:24
Bring the mic. We definitely

Daniel Scherl:   1:14:26
will. The last thing I'd like to do with with every guest is a little game that I call 200 philosophical and life questions with Moon Bird and I have collected from friends, family and the Internet. A list of 299 Really excellent philosophical life questions. Some are good. Some are funny Summer serious. I mean, they're all good. Summer, summer poignant. Some or not. Um, pick two numbers from 1 to 2 99 You get to randomly have these sprung upon you

Scott Bowles:   1:14:53
2 47 and 1 11 Who to 40

Daniel Scherl:   1:14:58
seven and 1 11 Scrolling down here. Okay, 2 47 What have you always wanted to try but haven't found the courage to

Scott Bowles:   1:15:06
d'oh e broccoli? I cannot what teach myself? I have what's called the Larry test. I used to have this yellow lab named Larry. If I drop her on the floor and he ate it, it was edible. I dropped broccoli once. He would not eat it, and I refused to put it anywhere near my mouth. But you

Daniel Scherl:   1:15:28
mean in 54 years you've never had broccoli?

Scott Bowles:   1:15:31
Nor have I had a cup of coffee.

Daniel Scherl:   1:15:33
I've ever had a cup of coffee, actually. Is that right? I have. I have had coffee, ice cream, and I have had an iced blended which had like, a coffee extract in it. But I've never sat down and drink a cup of coffee. It smells great. Does I'm a drinker here.

Scott Bowles:   1:15:48
When the broccoli failed the Larry test to fail my test, you

Daniel Scherl:   1:15:52
Wow, I think I might. I want to see what? Get you broccoli's delicious man. I know I should eat

Scott Bowles:   1:15:58
it. Maybe one day I'll find the courage.

Daniel Scherl:   1:16:00
Okay, so 1 11 Ooh, it's a good one. If past lives are riel, what was yours?

Scott Bowles:   1:16:07
Mine was probably playing bass for Go nowhere band.

Daniel Scherl:   1:16:14
But you guys were awesome of that. Exactly. Yeah,

Scott Bowles:   1:16:18
that I would know we were great. They would know we were great when we got up there. We know they were great. We were great. And that was all The reward we got was the knowledge that we could create something with music that is a form of language I've always wish I had and the idea of someone going to a guitar, even if they've never had anything recorded in being able to play something like them, that's what I would be.

Daniel Scherl:   1:16:48
That's awesome. Scott, thank you so much for coming here and get out from this. I really appreciate you. And best of luck, and hope we get to do this again. When you're ready, bring it to Antarctica. Have a great day. You do If you'd like some more Moon bird in your life. And hey, who wouldn't head on over to memories of a member dot com or visit me on social media at memories of a moon burger?