#245 – How to Format and Distribute a Book, Twin Lights Ride 2023, Oppenheimer and the Imitation Game
In this episode I speak about a few things I left out of episode 244 of the Pod, related to how to format, copyright and distribute your own book. I also speak about taking part in the latest Twin Lights Ride in Highlands, NJ by Bike NY. I also speak about this summer’s blockbuster film, Oppenheimer.
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Links referenced in this episode:
Check out my Short Story collection: Melted Cold – https://amzn.to/3LXeM8K
Where to Copyright your work: https://www.copyright.gov/registration/
Self-Publishing site for Amazon: https://kdp.amazon.com/
Scrivener: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/store/scrivener?tab=macOS
Vellum: https://store.vellum.pub/?via=joanna98
BikeNY Twin Lights Ride: https://www.bike.nyc/events/twin-lights-ride/
Oppenheimer: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/
The Imitation Game: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/
Keefe D on Him & Orlando Anderson Pulling Up to 2Pac's Car, Shots Fired (Part 14): https://youtu.be/x3uoB8zvLdI?si=r3JIsz0iNH_5DGsV
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Check out my Books
Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way
Melted Cold – A Collection of Short Stories
http://www.spuntoday.com/books/ (e-Book, Paperback & Hardcover are now available).
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] What up folks, what's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast. The only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode 245 of the Spun Today podcast, and in this episode, I'm going to share a few things that I accidentally, absentmindedly, left out of episode 244, which is the previous episode of the Spun Today podcast, where I broke down how to write a short story collection.
There's a few key things that thinking back on the episode I left out that are important to share
for anyone who's interested in.
Publishing their own book.
I'm also going to tell you guys about the Twin Lights Ride event
which is a cycling marathon hosted by Bike New York
that I recently took part in and let you all know how that went. Spoiler alert,
I [00:01:00] actually completed this one. So, shout out to me. I'll tell you guys all about how that one went.
And lastly, I'm also going to tell you guys about watching Oppenheimer.
The recent film by Christopher Nolan. So please stick around for all that good stuff
But first I wanted to tell you all about a quick way that you can help support this podcast If you so choose. Your support means a ton. I really really appreciate it It helps keep the lights on here at the proverbial Spontaneous Studios Motivates me to continue putting out these episodes where I hope that you either gain some knowledge from
Enjoy it in some way, shape, or form can pick up on a tip or trick to apply to your own creative outlets
or just listen for entertainment and to help pass the time. Either way, I really appreciate it. I love doing it. So I appreciate each and every one of you who take the time to listen
and motivate me to continue putting out episodes and do more of what I love, which is writing. So if you'd like to [00:02:00] help support, here's one quick way that you can do just that. And then we will jump right into the episode.
How to write a short story collection continued. So in episode 244 of the Spun Today podcast, the previous episode before this one,
I wanted to put together a comprehensive how to take an idea.
All the way through to fruition of becoming an actual book for sale. So I told you guys about where I've gotten certain ideas from where they came from in a specific collection of short stories that I recently published called melted cold available now at spun today. com forward slash books forward slash melted cold.
All the links where you can purchase, you can find there. Or just search for it on Amazon. So I told you guys where the ideas for each story came from, then broke down how I physically begin writing pen to paper, [00:03:00] free writing style to work out the idea. And then once I have a
good direction of where the story is going, once it feels right,
I move over to writing on the computer on a writing program called Scrivener.
And I take deep dives into each of these sections,
if you will, during episode 244. So if you didn't hear that, go back and listen to that. Cause it would be helpful.
Then I broke down how I self edit using a program called pro writing aid and other similar programs that exist are out there. But the one I use is pro writing aid.
I also formulated my own
story structure To help make sure that I have a certain key story beats
and elements within my story, an inciting incident,
a climax and resolution that tie into that inciting incident, et cetera.
I also shared in that episode 244 how I used a professional editor for the first time.
I broke down [00:04:00] my approach for cover design. Going through a digital design service called 99 designs
or a graphic design service. Rather,
I shared my ideas for promotion after the book is published and for sale by leveraging tools chat, GBT for writing sales promo sales, copy
using Facebook and Instagram ads, Amazon ads, Spike ads via a company called written word media, which has a free book, see promotions and bargain books, see promotions, et cetera. And I broke all that stuff down, but I skipped there towards the end. A couple of key things that again, I thought of in retrospect that I wanted to add in.
So after you write your story, after you have it edited, after you have your cover design ready,
How do you get your book or let me take a step back. You need to get your book in the correct format, also called [00:05:00] like interior design by some, but the correct format
for the different versions that your book will be available in, whether it's an ebook, whether it's a paperback or whether it's a hardcover. or all of the above. Cause you have that flexibility and you have that option, those options when you self publish,
which I personally love. Options are a beautiful thing
to quote the illustrious poet Jadakiss. So in the past for my first two books, I used the same writing software that I use Scrivener to format my books.
Which Scrivener definitely can do.
Now it is a tedious process. And you kind of think like, you know, what's so hard about it? You have everything written already. Just, you know, change the size or the margins or something that. And
Export or, you know, save as a PDF or something like that. But it's definitely not that straightforward.
And there's a lot of [00:06:00] little...
Aspects of formatting that you don't pay mind to unless you are actually doing it within a book, like the style of how the chapter headings are, or where you add the numbers of each page. Are you going to have them on the top? Are you going to have them bottom? Are you going to have them centered in the bottom?
If you have the numbers on the bottom and or on the top, are you also going to have the author name on the right hand side of the page
next to the page number, or on the left hand side, are you gonna have the title of the book on the left hand side or on the right hand side? Are you going to have the title of the book on the left hand side and the chapter or, what have you on the right hand side?
You have to factor in your line spacing. You have to, Factor in your font style. And if it fits with the genre of
story that you're writing,
you have to add, you know, page breaks or dingus marks where I love that, that word dingus [00:07:00] dingus marks where appropriate
and have them stylized in a certain way. Do you want just to like the three asterisk standard, or do you want to add a little flair to it and have a little squiggly line or a little design or something, so on and so forth.
For your eBooks, you have to have a table of contents formulated for print books. You have to make sure that your story begins on the right hand side of the page. So you have to have a blank page where appropriate
same thing, you know, blank pages necessary so that your dedication page could be on the right hand side. So your, your quote, if you have one can be on the right hand side, your acknowledgements, you want them to start on the right hand side. Then the sizing of your paperback, because there are different size options available.
The color of the pages, whether cream or white,
the gloss of the cover, whether glossy or matte.
So there's a lot of these little design elements that you have to consider and factor in. Yeah. [00:08:00] And again, Scrivener, which I use for my first two books, definitely has those options available, but they're not as very user friendly. So I took hours and hours and days even when trying to learn how to use the formatting within Scrivener.
And if you've tried it in the past, although again, it's helpful, it's there, I used it.
It is frustrating and it's not user friendly and I would export, you know, I would go through all the motions and update everything I think I needed to update
for my export and then export it. And then I would look at it,
look at the export and the proof of it and something would be off and then I would have to go back and redo the, you know, 18 steps it took just to change that one thing. That didn't come out right, then I would change that and something else would break and it's just a back and forth clunky kind of design in terms [00:09:00] of its formatting.
Now again, that's to say nothing about its capabilities within writing itself. It's
beyond impressive and amazing when it comes to a writing. Program in and of itself. So the fact that it has the
formatting functionality is a plus. It's a nice to have, but it's definitely not a selling point, in my opinion, for the program itself.
So for this book, I opted to use a service called Vellum.
Vellum is a formatting first program that you can also write in, but it's the reverse of Scrivener. It's writing functionality.
is there, but isn't, you know, impressive by any stretch, but it's formatting functionality is amazing. Now it is a little pricey where Scrivener, for example,
The cost of Scrivener [00:10:00] is 60 and then if you want to add the functionality where you can use it on your phone as well and it syncs up with your computer, which again, I spoke about in episode 244 and thought was definitely very helpful and useful to me. It's an extra 25 bucks, 23 bucks
and you pay that and I think it lasts years. I've had to pay that twice. Ibel? Yeah, just twice, ever since I've been writing. And that, that's just when they, , if you buy Scribner 3.0, for example they come out with a new version, like
3.1, 3.2, 3.3, et cetera, and you get all of those for free. But once they move to a new version, like a 4.0, Then you would have to buy that version or just continue using your old version
So I think originally I had like the 2. 0 and then I want to purchasing the 3. 0 but again 60 bucks and you you have [00:11:00] the you know writing program on steroids and
the added plus of a formatter a Frustrating formatter now on the flip side of vellum is pricey. It's 250 However, it is a one time, full access, forever purchase. So, if you
are planning on, you know, giving writing a go, I would say start, and by writing I mean, , writing for, , publishing and public consumption.
And you want to put books out there and stuff, I would say start low. Start with something like Scrivener. If at all, because you honestly, you could do it with like Microsoft word. It's just again, with these tools, the functionality and, and the options that you have make it easier. So you can have less of that.
Those frustrating periods of
having to learn how to format things and
it just makes your, your writing process, your formatting process, your publishing [00:12:00] process, more efficient these tools. So. Yeah. I would say definitely start with something Scrivener
and once you , in my opinion, you know, graduate up to, all right, I've put out a couple of books. I'm going to continue doing this. Let me invest in that. I would definitely recommend using vellum. I used it for the first time with this book, my third, and it was so seamless. I thought formatting, I was dreading, Honestly, having to go through it to format all the different formats, the ebook, the paperback and the hardcover.
And I had heard of vellum via Joanna Penn, shout out to Joanna Penn.
And I was like, fuck it, let me, let me check it out. Let me see if it'll actually help with the formatting.
The price definitely gave me pause, but Again, it's something I plan to reuse for always, right? For as long as I'm doing this, which I don't see [00:13:00] myself stopping writing.
So I invested in it and am happy to say I was able to, again, go from dreading formatting. Cause I thought it was going to take days and days and hours to relearn what I did with the last book and what worked, what didn't. And look up my notes that I wrote to myself on how not to fuck it up so much, so on and so forth.
So I went from that to using vellum and in like
an hour or less, I think I had every single thing completely formatted instantly.
It's so user friendly. I pretty much export my story.
Or I had my story rather already in Microsoft Word format. My final draft. From my editor and I upload that into vellum and then there in vellum you have a side by side you see on the left your different options and on the right you see a preview of how it looks so if i'm formatting my ebook i have you [00:14:00] know my manuscript on the left hand side and then on the right hand side i see a little mock of a kindle or something like that or if i want to see a kindle fire or something like that.
A Kindle white or an Apple iPad, I could toggle through or an iPhone, so on and so forth. You can toggle through the different views and you'll see that on the right hand side. So it's a split pane.
And on the left you have
very easy, straightforward, clean functionality. You click on the chapter or story title, you label it as the, you know, story title. You label the acknowledgement section, it knows what to do with everything. It gives you formatting capabilities. If you want to change fonts, it has preloaded styles.
So you can say, you know, applied, you know, X, Y, and Z style to the entire book.
You play around with the numbering of pages, options, stuff that. Then at the end, you select what you want to export for. So you pretty much check off [00:15:00] all the boxes, you know, ebook, paperback, what size paperback It's eight by five eight and a half by five and a half so on and so forth a hardcover option And it completely then you just click export And it completely exports everything into a folder on your desktop or you know, wherever you point it to And you have your finalized files There and ready to go It's so simple, so straight forward.
I definitely, definitely recommend if you again are willing to put in that investment
into your writing or when you're willing to put in that investment into your writing.
It's such a huge time saver and for more importantly frustration saver
that it's very much so worth it. And for down the line time, I know it's, it's great for creating box sets. So when you have a series of books, like for example, fractal, why not my time travel novel is book one of a projected three [00:16:00] book series. I'll be able to create box sets for sales very easily just by dragging and dropping each book into vellum and then it'll, you know, create that box set for me so I can put it out for sale.
So that was definitely a big piece the formatting, which I left out from episode 244. So you have your story, you wrote it, you got it edited, you got it formatted. You have your cover ready to go.
So what is next next, which I also kind of left out was putting your books out for sale.
Now, how do you do that and what should your approach be? Where do you put it for sale?
So before Amazon was the, the only game in town for self publishing,
you know, at this level now with the success of self publishing through Amazon, other companies have followed suit and. You can put your, your [00:17:00] books for sale, through Apple,
Barnes and Noble,
companies like Ingram spark, so on and so forth.
A great place to start. And I could be biased cause it's where I started, but it's also where, you know, it's the biggest game in town again, Amazon. I definitely recommend going through them initially.
And they have certain free promotion tools which you can use, which I'll get into in a bit, but
you literally essentially go to a site called kdp. amazon. com. KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing. So kdp. amazon. com. And I break this down in that free PDF, by the way, that I have available on my site that I mentioned during the last episode. At Spuntoday. com forward slash other, I believe
you go on that site and it'll walk you through everything you're going to, you know, type in a certain metadata, things like the, the name of the book, the subtitle, the name of the author, the [00:18:00] name of your publishing company, if you have one
shout out to Spuntoday publishing,
you know, your story description
Your book categories, you know, think of that as the section in a bookstore where your book would sit. So is it a fiction? Is it a non fiction? Is it general fiction? Is it urban fiction? Is it sci fi? Is it fantasy? So on and so forth. And then you upload
those exports that you got from Vellum. Those formatted versions of your book that you exported from Vellum or from Scrivener. Or from whatever formatting tool you used, you upload that into the website and then you upload a JPEG of your book cover if it's the ebook or the PDF of your cover design, which includes the front cover, the spine and the back cover
and you submit it. And then I think it takes like 24 to 48 hours or something like that for Amazon to review. To make sure. There's [00:19:00] no issues with your work,
you know, essentially that you're uploading what you're saying you're uploading
and it shows you a rendering right there in real time, when you upload it, it shows you a proof of a paperback version of your book and you can scroll through it to see how it's going to look when it's printed. It gives you the option to order author copies or proof copies so they can print one, ship it to you.
Which I definitely recommend. And essentially you, once it's for sale, once it's live you get an email and say congratulations, your book is available on Amazon. They send you a link, click on it, and then it's pretty cool to see your book up there for sale. Now there are different approaches in terms of what you decide to do in terms of staying exclusive with Amazon.
Which essentially means your book is only available on Amazon. Your ebook is only available on Amazon.
And the benefit of that is that one, it is the largest bookseller already. It provides you with promo options such as, you know, for [00:20:00] five days a month, I believe it is, or for five days a quarter you can put your book out
to sell for free. The ebook and that'll entice folks to, you know, just download it for free, read it, you know, you know, learn more about you as a writer, put you on to, to more people hopefully get some reviews on your book, you know, folks, you know, if they didn't pay for it, they some may feel more inclined to at least review your book and the more people that read it, you know, it's a numbers game.
The more people that read it, the more exposure you get, the more chances for reviews you get.
So on and so forth, then when it's no longer, no longer free, the idea is that, you know, this book that's highly reviewed has a bunch of positive reviews. You know, let me purchase it, you know, down the line.
So that's definitely a plus. It's also by staying exclusive with Amazon, you are part of their Kindle selected program, which I personally don't have, but I know it's a big thing within the reading community. Where folks [00:21:00] essentially pay a subscription to download every ebook that Amazon has within, you know Kindle unlimited to download it and read it for free.
So you have exposure to all those people that that's what they want. You know, they just want to download free books and read them. That's what they pay their service fee for.
Now, what that means is that you can't put the ebook. for sale anywhere else. You can't put it on Apple. You can't put it on Barnes and Noble, Ingram spark, so on and so forth. So it's kind of a catch 22.
Now for my first two books, I started exclusive with Amazon and then I went wide as they call it. So the first two books are available everywhere. This new book is just exclusive with Amazon again for now. I think it longterm I'll probably
Go wide with it as well, but I just really want to target and hone in on the marketing aspects for this book and those tools that I mentioned, those free promo tools that, you know, you align, [00:22:00] align with your spike book promotions and Amazon ads and stuff like that are, are really helpful in terms of, of reach and, and getting eyeballs on the actual book.
So. Yeah.
There's definitely that. And as always, I'll continue to, you know, keep you guys posted on
what I decide to do down the line, how the, how things are progressing, what worked, what didn't work in terms of promotion. So hopefully if you are in the same space or interested in it for whatever reason you can gain something from it.
Something else that I did for this book that I didn't do with the first two is purchase my own ISBNs.
ISBNs think of them as social security numbers for books. They are the unique identifier
for books that are for sale and
it's not necessary to do. Again, I didn't do it for my first two books. Amazon and a Barnes and Noble and Apple and all these places offer you a free ISBN. If you
Publish through their, [00:23:00] their site, they'll assign the, their own ISBN. The catch with that is that it does, your books will say, you know, published by Amazon or Barnes and Noble or so on and so forth,
which again, is not a big deal, but, and it doesn't change ownership of the book or, or any, anything like that.
But if you do want to own your own ISBN
to tie it in with your own publishing. Company. For example, then you can definitely do so by going to Bowker B O W K E R. com. And they have, you can purchase one ISBN. You can purchase a bundle of ISBNs, whether it's a group of 10 or a hundred and they have different bundles. I brought up a group of 10, which was also a bit pricey, 295.
but it's ISBNs that you, you know, own for life, attach them to your books and they're the unique identifier of the actual book.
Now, [00:24:00] interesting thing about ISBNs, each format of the book, which I think is, I don't know, I don't like it, but I get it, but also don't like it. Each format of the book requires its own ISBN. So the same exact book, If it's an ebook, it needs its own ISBN. If it's a paperback, it needs its own ISBN. If it's in a hardcover, it needs its own ISBN.
If it's an audiobook, it needs its own ISBN.
Then, when you do go wide, for example, I have four right now, three different formats published on Amazon, right? So three different ISBNs for my ebook, paperback, and hardcover. When I go wide with this book to Barnes Noble,
You know, Apple Kobo, et cetera, I'm also going to need, I can't carry over those same ISBNs on those platforms,
or at least I haven't figured out a way to do so. Cause I did try [00:25:00] to stay exclusive with Amazon as far as the ebook, but go wide with my paperback and hardcover. And which I thought was doable and I believe it is, but then I have to take Barnes and Nobles assigned ISBN and apples, et cetera. Well not Apple, Apple is just digital, but Kobo's Ingram sparks, et cetera.
And I don't want to burn the other ice bands that I purchased just to go wide with that book. So I'm, I'm still working that out. I'll let you guys know where I land on that, but. Yeah, that's something else that I did with this book that I didn't do in the past. And the last thing that I did with this book that I didn't do in the past was
do the copyright registration, which again, isn't required and necessary, but it's just an added layer of protection around your intellectual property. I first learned about it through Ada Rodriguez, the comic. Which was giving advice to screenwriters and, and people trying to get into the industry and saying, you know, she's seen horror stories of how, you know, folks pitch scripts [00:26:00] and stuff that.
And they wind up getting denied and turned back, but then writers and producers that are already in Hollywood wind up just taking their shit,
which I've definitely heard horror stories of in the past. But in different contexts, like within comedy and, and, and writers of TV shows going to comedy clubs and getting premises from comedians to write episodes of shows that they're writing on, for example,
but I never thought it with I guess I just never gave it much thought, but
I didn't think it would be, you know, as plain as, as Ada mentioned, but. Nonetheless her recommendation was to go to copyright. gov, which is the United States Copyright Office and register your body of work. And you can do that for anything any type of creative work, whether it's a movie, a script, a book, photography, et cetera. And then my editor kind of said it, , in a matter of fact way.
So it kind of reinforced the whole [00:27:00] idea of, of getting the official copyright.
And she just said it kind of in passing again, like in a matter of fact way. She was like, Oh yeah, when you do the copyright after that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we were talking about something else.
And I asked her, I was like, Oh, you mean the, the copyright. gov? Or are you referring to some other type of, you know, copyright process that I should be aware of? And she was like, no, that's, that's the one that's, that's what I'm talking about. So it kind of reinforced the idea. So I did that it's a straightforward process.
You go onto their website again, copyright. gov it's the United States copyright office and similar process to, you know, loading it on a site like Amazon for sale, for example, you know, you write the book title, your publisher, your author, name, description of the book, you upload a copy of the book and the cover.
You pay a filing fee, which is 65 bucks.
Then they process it. I think it takes something like a couple months and you have the official copyright for your book of work.
So yeah, those are some essential things that I left out. Some optional, some not, I [00:28:00] left out of episode two 44. If I think of anything else, and I'll definitely keep you guys updated. And again, as I go forth in this process, you know I, A big part of this podcast is just highlighting my quote unquote, writing journey,
both for me to be able to look back on one day and also for folks to gain some insight from that may be on the same path and
are interested in this kind of stuff.
I do have a free promotion running for melted cold, a collection of short stories.
For the ebook, which will be running from October 17th, 2023
M& M's birthday, by the way, the goat through October 20th, 2023. So if you're interested in downloading and checking out the book, absolutely for free,
check out the links in the episode notes, or go to again, sponsored a. com forward slash books forward slash melted cold. Or just search for it on Amazon. Again, [00:29:00] October 17th through October 20th, 2023, my short story collection melted cold will be available absolutely for free. The price of zero, definitely check it out.
And I will keep you all posted on
how all that goes.
The twin lights ride.
The Twin Lights Ride was a cycling marathon event that took place in Highlands, New Jersey. Takes place in Highlands, New Jersey.
It's put on by Bike New York, which puts together all these marathons throughout the year.
I mentioned to you guys a couple episodes ago that earlier this year I did the Hudson Valley
bike tour, which I had done in the past. And normally I do one of these a year. This year, my buddy Paolo and I chose to, shout out to Paolo, Spuntoday alumni,
chose to, , pre sign up for the Twin Lights ride, which we were both doing for the first time, [00:30:00] and for the first time doing two of these events within a year.
You know, similar to the other events,
This ride gives you different route options. So you have a 15 mile, a 30 mile, a 50 mile, 75 mile, and a hundred mile.
We signed up for the 30 mile both the Hudson Valley and the twin lights ride.
And if you listened to that previous episode, you know, that for a Hudson Valley this year, I got through. Like 26. 5 miles before both my quads just completely seized up and cramped up.
And I sadly could not finish that race. But, I'm happy to say that I did redeem myself. With the Twin Lights ride completing all 30 miles. Going back to my former riding glory. I kid. But no, it was a dope ride. It was enjoyable. Definitely one that we wouldn't do again. I definitely will. [00:31:00] The, it was a lot flatter, the terrain.
So Hudson Valley had very high peaks, very, very hilly. Hence my quads fucking completely seizing up. I think it was 600 feet more of elevation when you compare the routes. Which is definitely a lot.
And the twin ride slide wa was nice. You ride down the, the beach in Highlands, New Jersey for a long stretch of it. Actually not longer, not not as long as we thought. But, but for a decent stretch, probably under 10 miles
right along the beach, probably like seven-ish miles, I would say. And then it's all inroads, like the residential area, some parks and stuff like that, but it was definitely a nice ride. Definitely enjoyed it.
My fucking flat tire woes continue. It was flat again. Again, had to get it pumped [00:32:00] up when we got there. Now I know the issue, what the issue is.
Supposedly taken care of when I took it to the bike shop. The rim itself has some shards within it that seem to be creating a slow leak. Now when I got it changed this time at, again, the Bike New York event, with the same dude that helped me out at Hudson Valley, actually, from Trek. Same exact guy.
Shoutout to Andrew, I believe his name was. Really nice guy. He told me that the actual rubber of the tire itself is rubbing up against the tube inside the tire. And that's probably what's creating those shards that we wind up seeing and creating a very slow leak.
So they think that changing the tire itself instead of having to replace the entire rim would do the trick as well as adding something called a cloth, inner tire Inner rim thing, like a cloth tape [00:33:00] around the rim itself in the inside, then putting
the tube of the tire, then the actual tire over it. And that's very boring inside baseball when it comes to bike riding. So I'm going to try that to see if the issues persist or not. And then after that, then my option, my only option is just replacing the whole fucking rim and tire itself.
And maybe even the, I was going to say maybe even the bike, cause I've had the bike for. I want to say a decade already or more probably like 11, 12 years, but it's still, it's still great. I love that bike. Shout out to specialized, but yet that was my experience with the twin lights ride 2023 in Highlands, New Jersey.
I definitely recommend it. Check it out.
Oppenheimer was released on July 21st, 2023
it's the story of American scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer And his role in the development of the atomic bomb.
It was directed by Christopher Nolan. And let's shout [00:34:00] out the writers as we do here on the Spun Today podcast. It was written by Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, and Martin Sherwin. Shout out to... each of those writers.
This movie was great. Now, it was shot in 70mm and 35mm film. Thank you.
Which I'm not sure exactly what that means, technically, aside from the fact that they were, this film was meant to be watched on an IMAX screen. You can obviously watch it in regular movie theaters,
watch it on TV, stream it on your phone, etc. But,
technically, if things were intentionally made in terms of the film and sound, that would resonate more at IMAX. I personally watched it at IMAX,
and fuckin awesome.
I wound up watching this movie by myself, which was also an interesting experience. My first time going to a theater alone, which I've heard people do my brother's done it. I heard people love it. I [00:35:00] figured I would love it. Cause I'm, I'm kind of a, I'm like the annoying guy that's shushing people when I'm watching something.
Cause I want to hear every single syllable that's uttered.
So I figured if I'm alone, I have even less interruptions, right?
But I had planned to watch it with my best friend, Steven, weeks in advance. We got the tickets and this dude calls me literally the day of like, yo, I got to cancel. I'm like, Oh shit, what happened? He was like, Oh, I'm at the airport. I'm about to go to South Beach. I'm like, this is motherfucker.
But I guess, you know, South Beach or a movie theater. Probably not a tough decision to make, but I had these tickets already. I really wanted to see the movie so I wound up going dolo and giving it a shot. And it was a weird experience. You kind of feel like a loser walking in, you know, by yourself with no date.
But then you realize there's a bunch of people that are alone, especially in the middle of the day. It was a,
I think like a two o'clock showing or something like that in the afternoon. Like an idle Tuesday or Wednesday, whenever it was
But it was dope the IMAX at [00:36:00] the AMC in Lincoln Square I want to say in the city Lincoln Square Lincoln Center
The screen is fucking ginormous Sounds amazing
And I was really looking forward to the story that I knew know a bit about you know, I know it's the Manhattan Project and The creation of the atomic bomb and how We, the U. S. were racing against the Nazis essentially to see who can develop this technology first because whoever got their hands on it would literally quite literally change the course of the future of the world.
Imagine Hitler with a, with a nuke. So it's Oppenheimer.
And how he
famously quoted the Bhaktivat Gita, which is the ancient Hindu scripture, like the Hindu Bible, if you will. And he said, I'm going to paraphrase something to the effect of, I have become death destroyer of worlds. That was his impression after
creating the, the atomic bomb, I guess, you know, [00:37:00] coming to terms with the fact that he definitely changed the course of history.
But in the movie, you know, it chronicles this brilliant physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, which did a phenomenal job.
And they kind of made him seem , you know, toast of the town, a gregarious kind of physicist
that was a bit of a playboy, had a
wife, women on the side, ex wives,
I don't know how historically accurate, all that. But again, in the movie, that's how he's depicted. It was really interesting how open to different ideas he was interested or he was rather, and how even in that time he would go to com communist party meetings. You know, this is back in the 1940s when, you know, the red scare was a big thing and people were being locked up just for having, You know, being suspected of being communist and he would go just to learn and pick up on it and just grab, you know, ideas [00:38:00] of what he thought was good, it was bad.
And so there was this double edged sword with the American government kind of watching him and thinking that he might be a communist or at least a double agent of some sort. But his brilliance, he was the guy, he was bar none, the most brilliant physicist. If someone was going to be able to devise this atomic
bomb, it would be him.
So the U S kind of had to thread that needle
in terms of their suspicions about them versus what he could do for, for the country.
And I love stories that are told in, , retrospect, so it begins with him having this kind of
deposition in front of attorneys
and the government, but in this, , very remote, closed, just looks like a small classroom in school. And he, and they keep flashing back and, [00:39:00] you know, telling the story that way. I love stories that are told through that type of device.
Narrated, if you will,
because the entire time you're enthralled by the story itself that's being told in flashback, but then also anticipating how did he wind up in this room? Why is he in this room? Why are they deposing him?
So you have the scientist who's being courted essentially by all the high end universities and they want him to go, you know, to research there.
And then he's approached by Leslie Groves. Of the US military played by Matt Damon
to work on this top secret military project. Then you have Robert Downey Jr's character, Louis Strauss, which is the head of, I forget which prestigious university institution,
but he was also one of the big offers, on the table, you know, come have this slick mansion off campus. You could live there with your wife. You know, teach some classes at the [00:40:00] school, do your research here, et cetera.
And he takes the, you know, the top secret, more interesting, you know, project
and essentially they wind up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, completely remote area for miles around it. And it's where the Manhattan project was established. The Manhattan project is the name of this project that its goal is to create the atomic bomb, create a nuclear weapon. For the first time ever before Hitler and the German scientists do so, because that's their intent,
then the dilemma becomes how, how does Oppenheimer and Groves, how do they convince all the top scientists and physicists around and the people that they need, engineers, et cetera, to come move to this remote area in And Los Alamos. And they essentially decided that they had to create their own city there.
So they had to have a church or school [00:41:00] houses and move all these scientists there because he, Oppenheimer knew that they wouldn't move without their families. A lot of these people have families. You can't just, you know, pluck them out and say, here, go work on this project for a couple of years or however long it takes six months, a year.
They didn't know at that point, long story short, it wound up taking, I think like two years to develop.
And something like a billion dollars.
And then long story short, we, you know, obviously beat the Nazis to the, to the punch in terms of creating the atom bomb. But then there was this dilemma that they kept on this going throughout the film. Oh, but we know that this weapon will change the world as we know it will change warfare as we know it.
We also know, we don't know exactly what would happen with the U S having it. And other countries that subsequently wind up developing their own technology or versions of, but we do know what would happen if Hitler got his hands on it. So that was the drive
and ultimately was developed and the decision was made by then president [00:42:00] Truman while the war was still ongoing. Although Hitler and the Nazis had been defeated, but the war was still ongoing with Japan.
But by some critics, it was seen as overkill for Truman to take this action. But he did decide to drop the nukes, not just one, two, one on Nagasaki, the other on Hiroshima and literally changed the course of the world. No nukes thankfully have ever been dropped since
hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of those in terms of immediately. Amen.
Radiation poisoning afterwards and, you know, days and even years on the line.
So it's definitely a heavy movie in that sense, but amazingly made and a great historical story to, to know. I also wanted to give an honorable mention to what I thought was a very similar movie that I recently saw called the imitation game.
Now the Imitation [00:43:00] Game, also around the same time period, not around, during the same time period, during World War II, it chronicles the English mathematician and genius Alan Turing. You may have heard the term Turing Test, that's the test given to machines or AI to see how quote unquote human it is, you know, if it's human or not.
But it chronicles him and decoding the German Enigma code, which is how the Germans were communicating through this
extensive cryptic communication methods back during World War II that nobody could get ahead of. None of the allied countries could get ahead of and we didn't know where they were going to attack or how. So there was this big drive to decoding. Their communication methods so that we can be a step ahead of them and figure out where they're going, you know,
before they actually go there, etc. So very similar movie. I just thought it was fascinating how that, how these two things were [00:44:00] going on essentially at the same time.
It just really highlights all the moving parts
that were going on back then. Crazy fucking times, man. Which sadly we seem to be on the cusp of reliving, but... I'll digress.
So yeah, Oppenheimer. Phenomenal film. Definitely check it out. And if interested, also check out The Imitation Game. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing does a phenomenal job.
And similarly, between those two characters, those two historical figures, sad how things wound up for them. Oppenheimer, you know, that the whole you know, communism thing followed him. interests. And he was pretty much ostracized.
And Alan Turing was a, at that time, closeted homosexual. And it was at a time where then when it became known that
it was at a time where people would get literally locked up for, for being homosexuals.
And apparently he was
allowed [00:45:00] not to be locked up, but Had to take pills that would essentially chemically castrate him to get these, you know, homosexual thoughts and stuff out of his head. And after that I think about a year or two later, he wound up committing suicide. He was like 41 years old. So very, very sad how their stories wound up.
But again, two important historical
stories to know that I found very interesting. Thank
And the movies were done very tastefully and, and captivatingly Oppenheimer and the imitation game. Check them out.
And the last thing I wanted to mention before I wrap things up here for episode two 45 is kind of related to goats doing goat shit. The splinter a segment. I don't have a new goat to add to our list today,
but I did want to know how, I'm starting to think this list might be a bit of a fucking hex.
At first I featured Will Smith, [00:46:00] you know, for, for his body of work. And
I had just come off from, from reading his book, Will. And I liked the, just the business move play that he did with the, the Karate Kid franchise. And Cobra Kai, et cetera. And then shortly thereafter, the slap hurt around the world with the Chris Rock incident happened. Then I featured Puff Daddy recently
with him, you know, finally doing the quote unquote, right thing, moral thing. Maybe not business wise of giving the publishing rights back to all the bad boy artists. And then shortly thereafter, this whole Kifi D implicating him in the murder of Tupac thing comes out.
So I'm starting to think the goats doing goat shit segment might be a hex. Hopefully not. We'll see after the next person that's featured, but It's a crazy fucking story, right? For folks that might not know Kifi D has done, you know, public interviews. He wrote a book about this and he's been on Vlad TV a bunch of times.
I'll drop in a couple of those interviews in the episode notes. And he's known to have been one of the four people that were [00:47:00] in the vehicle that pulled up next to Tupac
in Las Vegas. After that, Mike Tyson fight where Tupac was murdered and the other three people in the car. One of which was Orlando Anderson. I believe his name was which was the dude that in the, you know, iconic footage of that Las Vegas casino lobby or hotel lobby two buck goes up to him and punches him.
And, and, you know, they have a bit of a scuffle.
That's one of the guys that were in the car and was the nephew, I believe of Kifi D which was also in the car. And he was also thought to be the person that.
Actually did the shooting,
but all the other three people, again, in that car, including Orlando Anderson, were, are dead.
Kiki. These the only person of those four that, that were there and is alive. And he has now implicated himself seeing that, and it's coming out saying that puff daddy, AKA Diddy, AKA brother love
paid him and his crew. [00:48:00] 1 million back in the day to kill Tupac and retaliation for was the perceived, you know, East coast, West coast violence that led to, to Biggie dying. So it's crazy shit. He just recently was locked up for this. And it's a thought that, you know, there are, will be actual, you know, looking into and legal proceedings to what he's alleging, which is hopefully not the case, but who knows, man, it was a crazy time.
But yeah, folks, that is episode at 245 of the sponsored a podcast. Thank you very much for listening. I really appreciate each and every one of you who take the time to do so. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Hope you gained something from it. And we'll ask you to please stick around for just a couple more minutes so you can listen to a few ways that you can help support this show if you so choose.
It's greatly appreciated. I'll talk to you guys next time. Peace.