This is the sixth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.
Today, our author is Hollywood actor, humorist, woodworker, and New York Times best selling writer Nick Offerman. He sat down with us for an interview in September of 2016 at the Goebel & Company Furniture woodworking shop in St. Louis, Missouri.
“Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop” is only one of 4 books that Nick has penned or helped pen. But his work as a writer isn’t what the Illinois native is best known for. Most people know him as the character Ron Swanson from the hit TV show “Parks and Recreation". Ron Swanson is a self-described “man’s man”. A hairy, bearded man. A flannel wearing, Canada and France hating political libertarian man. And while Nick Offerman embodies that role for the camera and has shades of his true self show through, like his love of working with wood, Nick, the real person isn’t one dimensional. In this wide-ranging interview, we’ll hear about how he spends his time in real life his wife, fellow Hollywood actor Megan Mullally, with his very real woodworking shop in southern California, and we’ll learn how his midwestern roots have shaped his life and his book “Good Clean Fun”.
Our host and interviewer this time is Angie Weidinger.
HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri. With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.
Host of this interview - Angie Weidinger
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Photography - Spot MPG
Video Editor and Graphics - Gregg Kopp
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon
Podcast Host - Rod Milam
Special thanks to Goebel & Company Furniture
You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors
This is the sixth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.
Today, our author is Hollywood actor, humorist, woodworker, and New York Times best selling writer Nick Offerman. He sat down with us for an interview in September of 2016 at the Goebel & Company Furniture woodworking shop in St. Louis, Missouri.
“Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop” is only one of 4 books that Nick has penned or helped pen. But his work as a writer isn’t what the Illinois native is best known for. Most people know him as the character Ron Swanson from the hit TV show “Parks and Recreation". Ron Swanson is a self-described “man’s man”. A hairy, bearded man. A flannel wearing, Canada and France hating political libertarian man. And while Nick Offerman embodies that role for the camera and has shades of his true self show through, like his love of working with wood, Nick, the real person isn’t one dimensional. In this wide-ranging interview, we’ll hear about how he spends his time in real life his wife, fellow Hollywood actor Megan Mullally, with his very real woodworking shop in southern California, and we’ll learn how his midwestern roots have shaped his life and his book “Good Clean Fun”.
Our host and interviewer this time is Angie Weidinger.
HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri. With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.
Host of this interview - Angie Weidinger
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Photography - Spot MPG
Video Editor and Graphics - Gregg Kopp
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon
Podcast Host - Rod Milam
Special thanks to Goebel & Company Furniture
You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors
This is HTC media. The following program contains content and language that some listeners may find objectionable. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 3:welcome to talking with authors, a program dedicated to speaking with some of the bestselling authors around covering many different genres. I'm your podcast host, Rod Milan for ATC media. With the help of independent bookstore, left bank books and the St Louis County Library, we're able to sit down with amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. By the way, you can also watch video versions of most of these interviews by going to ATC media.org today, our author is Hollywood actor, humorous woodworker and New York Times bestselling writer, Nick authored. We spoke with him as part of a tour for his book. Good clean, fun misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman woodshop by penguin random house books. We did this in September of 2016 at the Goebel and company furniture woodworking shop in St Louis, Missouri. Now. Good, clean fun is only one of four books that nick has pinned or help pen. But his work as a writer isn't what the Illinois native is best known for. Most people know him as a character. Ron Swanson from the hit TV show, parks and recreation. Now Ron is a self-described and self-evident man's man, a hairy bearded man, a flannel wearing Canada and France hating political libertarian man. And while Nick Offerman embodies that role for the camera and has seeds of his true self show through like his love of woodworking, nick, the real person isn't one dimensional.
Speaker 4:I'm also a massive sissy. I'm an artist. You know, I look like a sheriff or something, but I'm really a ballerina.
Speaker 3:And in this wide ranging interview we'll hear about how he spends his time in real life with his wife, fellow Hollywood actor, Megan Malali with his very real woodworking shop in southern California. And we'll learn how his Midwestern roots have shaped his life and his book. Good, clean, fun, all of that. And more from actor and writer. Nick Offerman on this episode of talking with authors from ATC media and AGC books. Here's our host and interviewer this time, Angie Weidlinger,
Speaker 5:welcome to go along. Company furniture in their woodshop. I know it's not your wood shop in La, but we thought the smell of sawdust would kinda set you at ease.
Speaker 4:Yes. It's, it's not this, uh, they have, um, a drooling at the square footage and the, the size of machines that have here.
Speaker 5:How does this compare? I mean, I know in your book you have, you actually have a blueprint of your shop. I mean, does it, how does this compare?
Speaker 4:Well, uh, you know, these guys are apparently grown ups. They have a forklift, which means they're wiser than us. W W w w some day when I, when I herniate one more disc, then I'll get a forklift. Um,
Speaker 5:so you were just teeth hoeing pure muscle stuffing or how are you getting stuff into your shop?
Speaker 4:You get as many hands as you need, you know? Yeah. There, there are slabs that used to just require my brother and I that are now a four person slab as we age. But, uh, the, I I feel like, you know, I'd like to move in next door to these guys and we'd get along very well and I probably learned something every day from them.
Speaker 5:So what's great about your book is you have, I mean, there's a part memoir in there, part tutorial, some pieces of wisdom from your Sensei in it. But the tutorials go from, uh, Kazoo to a beautiful bed too. I mean, it's the whole gamut isn't it?
Speaker 4:It is. I mean, you know, um, somebody working at a shop like this probably already knows everything that's in my book. But the fun thing about woodworking books and the reason I tried to make this one fun is that I'll read books where I already know that I can make the projects in the book, but you always pick up, we all are goofy in a slightly different ways. So you can usually pick up at least three or four new ideas where you're like, well this is, this fly was pissing me off. So I, I, uh, you know, sprayed a bunch of, uh, Sherlock on a and my, my dad, you know, instead of using a, a wedge under a door, he installs hook and loops on his doors cause he's old and he doesn't want, he doesn't want to bend over and mess with a wedge. So just little farmer tricks like that. Uh, I always like picking up,
Speaker 5:well I'll say, I mean I am not a woodworker, but all the men in my family yet maybe all the men in my family are, but I still enjoy the book because of the stories that are in it. With the people that you work with, what do you call them that you call them? Your, uh, teammates and Sawdust. Okay. Yeah, we're calling lot of stuff that night. One of the nicer things.
Speaker 4:Yeah. We generally call it, refer to them as the elves because the world likes to think that, not, not even that I'm making everything at the shop, but they actually like to think that it's my TV character making stuff at the shop, which of course is impossible. And I'm, I very openly always say, you know, like, uh, I w I was on Stephen Colbert the other night and they say, um, nick made us these coasters and I said, actually, uh, the fellow named Chris in my shop made those and you know, it's my shop with people making stuff in it. Right. And they always cut that out because you know, it's better showbiz. Right. Um, that's the idea is we have these elves at the shop where I'm sitting here, you in St Louis, they're making this stuff right.
Speaker 5:Oh. And when you get to meet them in the book and they have these great profiles by both you and them and, and they, they seem really like funny, witty people. Their grades or their hand chosen. Very cool. So you said something just a minute ago that I wanted to ask you about. I mean, you've been in so many movies, so many shows, and yet I think probably most people know you is Ron's wants him from parks and recreation or at least that's top of mind. Probably
Speaker 4:chocolates. Yeah. He's top two for sure. That I had her, the George Lopez show.
Speaker 5:Right. So joke. So Ron Swanson and I know a lot of, I only did eight of those, so that's probably not you do the math. So Ron Swanson though, I mean there's a reason that people think that you are hand because a lot of who you are went into that character, right. Including the woodworking.
Speaker 4:Uh, sure. And, and I, uh, portrayed him with this body and voice and so that makes sense. You know? Um,
Speaker 5:cause there's even the episode where you talk about the Yoda light character, Christian Becks for sure. Who's in your book, there's in the book. So there's some parallels there.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah. The, I mean it's, you know, I, I'm a real person living my complicated life. Uh, you know, Ron is a, is a, uh, sort of super heroic comedy character written by Brilliant Harvard Writers. And so when people say always the same as Ron Swanson, I'm like, I w I wish my life were one 10th that simple. But I'm, you know, I'm a human being and he's like a brilliant drawing. Um, that I, I just got to like devoice, you know, so even, even in the creation of him, uh, I'm, I'm thrilled that I got to speak those lines. But, um, you know, recently there's, there's been a lot of talk in the election and I, um, I was getting a lot of grief from people about who the character Ron would vote for. And instead of, I, I would never deign to try and answer such things myself because I don't feel like he's my property. So I asked my boss, Mike, sure, the creator of the show, will you please write a little thing of who Ron would vote for so I can tell, you know, so I can get these people off my back. Right. And I, so we did it and I, I put it on Twitter and it angered a great many people who had claimed Ron for their own sort of ignorant and nefarious, uh, political bent. You know, they, they even were simplifying, uh, uh, a simple man. So, you know, I, yeah, I, uh, um, I, I've played so many different people. I understand that people know me. The is Ron and that's great. I mean, it's great to have a part that is that effective,
Speaker 5:but isn't it frustrating? I mean, do you get tired of people? I mean, I'm sure people say, Hey, it's Ron Swanson. I mean, does that get old?
Speaker 4:No, I mean, even people I know mistakenly call me Ron, uh, and they're like,[inaudible]. Sometimes they'll say, did I call you Ron five minutes ago? I say, yeah, you did. It's okay. It's really okay. You don't mind. It is okay. Sure. I mean, it's, they don't mean anything bad by it and it's the world telling me I got very lucky with a job. So,
Speaker 5:talking about some things that are different. I know in one of your books you say that unlike Ron Swanson, you've never been in a fist fight. Right, right. Anything else that he was like, these are very, like you said, you're more complicated. Anything else?
Speaker 4:I, uh, you know, run, run lives by like six rules any, any lives in one place in Indiana. And he's never, we always said that he'd never been out of Indiana that one time he drove across the Illinois state line and had got sick. Um, he threw up and returned back, but, um, never done that obviously. So yeah, like, you know, his, his view of the world is, is incredibly myopic. Um, and maybe, you know, I sort of grew up in that, in that situation and I couldn't stand it. And so that's how I went into the arts and I ended up moving to Chicago and then Los Angeles. Um, and uh, you know, so my views are much more complicated. Uh, um, I'm down with both France and Canada. I think they're great. Um, especially Canada. Like, I always want to want to go to Canada to do like a book tour or something or a humor tour. The audience always says, we're like, we're sorry you hate us or we love you even though you think we're terrible. And I always say, no, I, I love Canada. And I think Ron, if he ever got there and saw that it was just lakes and canoes and bears, he'd be in Moose and you'd be like, oh, maybe perhaps I misjudged this country. Um, but you know, I'm also a, uh, a massive sissy. I'm an artist. You know, I, I would rather really look like a 50. That's exactly, that's the conundrum is that I look like a sheriff or something, but I'm really a ballerina. Really. How so? Literally, I'm an incredibly graceful ballet dancer.
Speaker 5:I had no idea. Complete revelation.
Speaker 4:I don't think it could come across in my energy, but
Speaker 5:you might have to have you show off some of your skills later on. Maybe.
Speaker 4:Maybe the next episode.
Speaker 5:There you go. Stay tuned. Are you talking about Illinois? Which is where you're from, which is the great state. Just across the river from here. Um, how's it feel to be back in the Midwest? You drove yourself to this interview. Most people have someone else drive them. You drove yourself and
Speaker 4:yeah, I like driving and having someone drive you cost money also. Um, but I, I also, uh, my, this, it's not really a secret, but my major weaknesses, I have terrible motion sickness. So I actually really always prefer to drive, cause even if I ride in the passenger seat, I get carsick. So, so that's, I'm also a weak leg, uh, unlike Ron, um,
Speaker 5:so many things about[inaudible]
Speaker 4:it feels wonderful, especially because it's October 20th and I started this book tour in Boston, in New York, and I was all excited. I brought my warm clothes and being from Illinois, I love a brisk fall and living in La, you never get that. And so, um, it's very unseasonably warm, which must have to do with that Chinese hoax, uh, global warming thing somehow. I don't know if they're using blow dryers or what, but it was super warm, which was a bummer. Uh, so finally I got to St Louis and it was chilly and I was thrilled to pieces. Okay.
Speaker 5:Glad we could provide that for you. Yeah, it's good to be home. Is there something about being in the Midwest that puts you at ease? I know you've been an, like you've said, you've lived in so many places, visited so many places, but is there something about coming back to the Midwest?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Yeah. I, I've, I've done a lot of work, um, in the Midwest and in my career and really, you s you walk out of the airport and just the humidity hits you and if it's warm out then it's a bummer when the humidity hits you. But even so, it still feels like coming home.
Speaker 5:Well, the humidity makes it.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I mean it's the Er, that's what you smell the first, like when you walk out of O'Hare in Chicago, it's, it's an ugly airport driveway. Like any city, but the air, you're like, ah, I know where I'm at. That's interest. I never thought about it like that. But that's a good point. And it's near the north shore, uh, neighborhoods. So the air also tastes expensive. You can tell there's, there's a, there's a Saks fifth avenue now, seven miles.
Speaker 5:Okay. Let's talk about why you wrote this book. So I heard somewhere or read somewhere that woodworking is what kind of centers you, it gets your head turned back straight I think is what you said. Um, and, and you were actually traveling a lot and doing a lot of work. I think you were doing a stage show with your wife, right? And you wanted to get back to the wood shop, is that right? Sure.
Speaker 4:I mean, when the last two years we, we have spent, uh, four or five months touring a show together. I've spent a few months touring by myself, uh, do both doing comedy. Um, and, uh, I did a play in Boston for three months. Uh, last year she was working in London and South Africa and I was working in Calgary in Atlanta and touring the country. But we have a rule that when we're never apart for longer than two weeks, which meant I was commuting quite arduously. Uh, and so we're having a good time. We're having a lot of fun doing these great jobs. But after a few years of that, we began to say, people would say, where do you guys live? And we'd say, well, we own property in Los Angeles, but we apparently live here in Budapest. Uh, and so, you know, not only was I missing the shop, I was just missing being at home and, um, my, it had the champagne problem that my career had gotten good enough. It's, it's a weird conundrum cause you're, you're taking jobs that you could never imagine saying no to. And then after eight of those years, you think, oh, I'm going to have to start saying no to these offers. I can't refuse if I want to see my home and my friends and my family. Um, and part of that was, you know, we'd go back and forth to La. It's not like we're, we're gone for three solid years and I always get to, you know, Megan gets mad cause we get home and she just wants to chill out. But it's the first morning I'm up at five and like get to the shop and make sure everybody's taking good care of my chisels. Um, and sometimes I get to be there for a few weeks and do some work. Yeah. Sometimes I'm there for a couple of days and so I just administered, you know, I'm the administrator, how's this going? Uh, and I have such a great crew because with modern technology, they're sending me pictures today of this big table we're doing and I couldn't wait to see it when I got oil on it and finally did today. And so they're very good about keeping me involved. Even one, I'm dancing around the country, but yeah, it's, you know, it's not a cognitive thing. Like I need this percentage of Woodshop, this percentage of theater and so on. I naturally became an adult performing and working in a shop and I can, I can tell when my hands start getting too soft. I'm like, oh Geez, I'm going to turn into a, some sort of Konya senti if I don't get back
Speaker 5:the hammer. So you get updates from them all the time. Then on that were working on. That's great.
Speaker 4:And sometimes it's just, I mean we're a family. I mean, so sometimes they just send me funny pictures but I, and, and sometimes like, like a family, I have to bug them where I'm like, we please have, have you cut all that joinery yet? Can I please see it so that I can give you a grade
Speaker 3:[inaudible] coming up in a moment. We'll hear more about the in workshop and onscreen and stage work of Nick Offerman plus. What if anything, he shares philosophically with his most famous onscreen character, Ron Swanson.
Speaker 4:We've been taught that shopping is something to do like walking in a park or reading a book. And when you say that, what you're determining is we could spend our hard earned money on something we don't need. We don't even know what we're going to purchase. And that like that's, that's a place where Ron and I can stand on the same small piece of real estate and say that just seems really silly.
Speaker 3:That, and even what he thinks about the way forest and nature in the United States are being taken care of when talking with authors continues from HTC media.
Speaker 6:Educate today offers an ever growing library of the highest quality video resources, curriculum, materials, and interactive programs, all of which are designed to challenge thinking, inspire creativity, and empower learning of students, educators, parents, and lifelong learners. And you can find out more about all these programs by going online to educate.today. That's educate.today.[inaudible]
Speaker 5:okay. So you, you spoke about when you get back home, and I know you've talked about how you guys are kind of not the typical Hollywood couple red carpets, glitz, all those things like you really like to your, you guys are home bodies, right? Sure. Um, read a good book like reading good books and buy your traveling. I mean, this is a show about books. What, what are you reading right now?
Speaker 4:I'm just finishing her great book that you guys would love. A called American canopy by Eric Rut cow. Um, it's a history of our country by forest. That's cool. I would fault him that he, he starts that history. History for him begins when the Europeans get here. Which, uh, I would, I would remind him that there was some, a few things going on before, before we came. But it, but it's quite fascinating and to see, uh, you know, I, I, I'm relatively familiar with how we have voraciously raped this continent of it's old growth forest. But, uh, getting the play by play was quite fascinating and, and, and very humanizing. I mean, my whole life when I see the, the lumber giant wire houser on trains and ships and, you know, stacks of, of lumber, it's always rep. I've always felt a similar emotion to seeing McDonald's or Monsanto, you know, like this is a corporate giant that's responsible for denuding a lot of our, our continent. But when you read the story of Frederick Wirehouser and how he started actually in Wisconsin, and he became very slowly, I mean, he, he was a, an immigrant who started working at a psalm mill. Then he ended up, he was just smart. It was a great business man. He bought the saw mill and then he'd got, he sort of got all the, uh, other saw mill operators to start working together in a, a bit of a union of which she was the president and he just kept growing. Um, and it's interesting, you know, to, to see those stories humanized. That's a great book. Uh, before that I read a great book by Robert Penn called the man who made things out of trees. I read a lot of nonfiction because I'm always getting ready for my next book. My wife reads a ton of great fiction or just read George Saunders new novel k just coming out in February called Lincoln in the Bardo and I think it's going to, uh, explode the planet. It's, it's a crazy masterpiece. It's, I mean, I'm a massive fan of his and I've also become buddies with him, which was a, a great, good fortune for me. That's a glowing recommendation, but it's, no, I'm telling you, he's created a new form of novel, a part of it reads a little like a play, but then part of it, it's just, it's a very clever new form of a novel and it's so imaginative. And as his short stories always are incredibly funny. But then beautifully humanistic and empathetic and F my wife and I both were astonished by it. Awesome.
Speaker 5:That's, those are great recommendations. Thanks.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I, and full disclosure, I'm a, I'm on the audio book also, so that's probably probably not as good.
Speaker 5:That's why you read it. That's why you got the earlier release. I was wondering what that connection was.
Speaker 4:The actors in the audio book aren't getting to, to read it. Actually he sent me one because we're friends and I only learned when I did the audio book, they said you're cause I was talking to the director about it and she said, uh, it's nice to talk to you about this cause nobody's getting to read it yet cause they're being very, they're, um, I dunno. I Dunno why they're not letting people read it. Um, but I, I didn't realize that I was special until then.
Speaker 5:I want to ask you something that I started to ask at the beginning, and that was, we, you know, your, I don't do woodworking yet. I enjoyed this book. And that you talk a lot about finding something that is, that you can make with your hands. And even if I don't go into woodworking, that message rings true. And those stories that you have in your book with all the different artisans that you feature, talk about why that's so important. Even talking about how if we each went home and made something house much stronger, our neighborhoods would be, well,
Speaker 4:you know, that's, that's just like, like if you asked that question to Ron Swanson, he'd have three sentences. That would be really true and incredibly funny. But that's the differences. Every, everything is much more complicated in real life. Right? And I grew up in this very s simple, frugal salt of the Earth family where we made a lot of stuff, um, because that's how my folks grew up. But also because we didn't have a lot of money. And so we, um, I suppose, you know, they were making cognitive choices to issue the, the corporate consumerism that was, you know, just starting to really creep in my childhood in the seventies and eighties. And then by the time I got into college and young adulthood, this shift happened where everyone around me could just go shopping for shoes all the time. Like my peers. I always found it so strange that my peers in the 90s would collect like different colors of tennis shoes. Um, and I don't, you know, at the time I, I found it upsetting, but now I just find it curious that, you know, our, our society and the, and the, a lot of the world is trying to ape us as quickly as possible because we sell them the idea that, that it's better. Um, we, we have this notion, uh, and Wendell Berry talks about it in my, the favor, I'll just paraphrase him cause I can't beat it. And he, he says that since the industrial revolution, we've been sold this bill of goods, that there's, there's something better for us, uh, where we're not. And that's why all the young people leave the farms now and the small farm has all been died is because we're sold th this notion that we shouldn't have to stay in St Louis and make furniture out of pieces of trees. You know, you should go to New York City and work, you know, strike it rich somehow so you can put your feet up on, on a piece of furniture. Somebody else had to sweat to make it all started with like selling women cigarettes and vacuum cleaners because, um, when the industrial revolution happened to this guy named Edward Bernays, kind of invented modern advertising. And th there's all this great documentation where the, about how they said, we have to figure out because the factories, we can now make way more stuff than we need, which is great, but how can we these suckers to buy it? And so they created all of these slogans of like, you know, and the, the first big test was an Easter parade where the tobacco lobby hired this guy. Um, and he, he, uh, took pictures of these women smoking and a parade, which was absolutely verboten. And he put it in the paper and said, uh, like these women light up their torches of freedom in the Easter parade. And he knew that by making it patriotic then they could, people couldn't dispute it. Uh, but all the women's saw it and all he meant for them to see was that they had a Phallus of their own. Like he was, it was very, it was a very liberating moment in advertising. Of course he didn't give it. He, yeah, not only sex, but the, the power of the Phallus for women. Like you too can wield a dick if you smoked cigarettes. And the, I mean, that's pretty, he's pretty open about, that's what he was going for. And it worked like crazy. Like women's tobacco sales went through the roof and here we are. I mean, you know, and my own little window of it is, and it's, it's very complicated because I hate to just like bad mouth Ikea or catalog furniture, but at the same time I do think that the things I don't as somebody who likes the planet, uh, I don't like a furniture company whose stuff is crappy and is and is more in the world of fashion where like sometimes I've seen those catalogs. One thing that killed me was like, spring is just around the corner. Do you have your spring silverware? You know, set ready. I just thought, well that's terrible that you're suckering people into buying more than one set of silver wear. Big just be not because I don't care how much silverware you have, it's because so much of that stuff ends up in a landfill and we, we've been taught that shopping is something to do like walking in a park or reading a book. Like what should we do this weekend? Well, we could shop. And when you say that you're, what you're determining is we could spend our hard earned money on something. We don't need that at this. When we, when we decide to go shopping, we don't even know what we're going to purchase. And that, like, that's, that's a place where Ron and I can stand on the same small piece of real estate and say, that just seems really silly. Um, and so that's, that's what it's all about for me is, is recognizing the value in my own childhood and just encouraging people for many reasons to make things for themselves. Uh, the time that it occupies keeps you from shopping or from other for me, I'm not in danger of shopping is, and don't get me wrong, I will sit on a red wing work boot website all, all day. I'm, I'm as human as anybody. Um, so when I say these things, it's to me as much as everybody else, if not more, because I also love to get drunk. I love to, uh, I've, when I was younger, I lost a couple of weeks to video games and thankfully I, I, it happened in a concentrated way where I was able to say that was terrible. I've nothing to show for these two weeks. It was incredibly enjoyable. And at the end of it, the score doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You know, it was just uh, another form of masturbation, a dry sort of masturbation. Uh, you know, I have become a bit of an evangelist for it and it's, it's my method, um, for keeping us healthy and keeping us from becoming China, I suppose.[inaudible]
Speaker 2:[inaudible],
Speaker 3:that's actor and author Nick Offerman talking about his latest book, good clean, fun misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman woodshop from publisher Penguin Random House during our interview with them in September of 2016
Speaker 6:if you love theater, musicals and operas and you'd like to hear reviews of the more than 150 St Louis area productions at HGC media covers each year, make sure you subscribe to two on the isle, the podcast every two weeks you'll get to hear the well-crafted takes on all sorts of stage performances by 25 year plus reviewers, Bob Wilcox and Jerry Korski. And you'll get a lesson on how each of the works old and new came to be and how they fit in with the stage performances you love. Again, for great theater reviews. In St Louis. Subscribe to two on the isle the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you for joining us on this episode of talking with authors. Remember, you can watch most of the episodes of this program by going online to HGC media.org also, be sure to follow us on social media. Just search for talking with authors on all social media platforms and if you haven't done so yet, please rate and review this program wherever you get your podcasts. The host and producer of the video version of this program was Angie Weidlinger. Supervising producer was Julie Winkle. Photography was by spot mpg editor and graphics by Greg Cop. Production support by Jane Ballou and Christina Chasse. Dane AGC, media executive director is Dennis rigs. The talking with authors podcast executive producer is Christina Chasteen. The podcast editor was Paul Langdon and I'm Rod Myelin, your podcast producer and host special thanks to Goebel and company furniture. Again, thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time.
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