Episode 29: Transcript
"We'll remember the ones we've lost, but we're forging new ground." - with Jeff Bogle
Doug French: So this is a different church book group.
Magda Pecsenye Zarin: I am in two church book groups, a Norwegian Club book group, and now I'm in a local book group here in Massachusetts. You don't really need to tease me about it because Mike likes to tease me about it.
Doug: I'm just kind of perplexed by the 10 in the morning timeframe.
Magda: It's on Zoom and we meet at 10 every Tuesday morning for an hour and we read one chapter of the book every week.
Doug: What are you reading?
Magda: We are reading–I can't remember the exact title–How To Have Fun, The Book of Fun, something like that, by Catherine, I think, Price. She's a researcher who researched like “what is the essence of fun?”. Her theory is that most people are spending a lot of time doing things that make us feel accomplished, or that we think we should do, and we say we're having fun doing them, but that actually having fun has different, sort of, specific characteristics, and that we would all be better off if we spent some time doing things that are genuinely fun instead of obligations, which is, I think, completely worthy, right? That's the really nice thing.
Doug: Eventually, you're going to find out that fun is a social construct.
Magda: Well, she might say that, right? The first chapter was like, “let's set out the definition. What is fun?” And a lot of the things that people say, “oh, that's fun.” What they really mean are “that's pleasant. I'm getting feedback for doing it. I think it's entertaining, but it's not genuinely fun.”
Doug: Or if it's a Facebook comment, it means “I got nothing else to say.”
Magda: Yeah, exactly.
Doug: “Oh my God! Fun!” I would read a book about fun.
Magda: I'm not necessarily endorsing the book. You know, I'm only three chapters in. Right, like she can totally go off the rails. But I think just the idea of trying to define what's actually fun versus what something that you think you are supposed to say is fun. I think that's worthwhile.
Doug: So this is exactly what should have been devoted to a complete episode of Northern Exposure.
Magda: So have you started?
Doug: I've been flipping it all over. Yeah, remembering my greatest hits. One of my favorites.
Magda: So wait, you just you've been flipping all over?? You didn't start with Episode One?
Doug: No, I know them all already. Why would I want to watch them all in order? That's not fun. I just finished the one when he flings Maggie's burnt piano.
Magda: Oh, yeah. I almost said “no, don't give away a spoiler.” But it’s 34 years old.
Doug: So Chris Stevens even spouts off the whole idea of, like, “the self is that which is becoming” and the whole nature of what art is and what fun is. You know, the art isn't the thing you fling, it's the fling itself.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: Well, you know what, then let's just introduce, you know, let's just hope that the TV rights to Jeff's book happen.
Magda: Do we want to talk about the football game at all or no?
Doug: Sure. I mean, yeah, because our guest for this episode, Jeff Bogle, would have zero interest in college football. Jeff's more of a soccer guy. He'll drive to see 11 soccer matches in 10 days because he has that screw loose. Well, I don't have to tell you this place was a madhouse.
Magda: Oh my gosh, I'm sure. Like, it was like Mr. Brightside all night.
Doug: I made a point of driving home through campus.
Magda: Oh boy, that's questionable decision making, Doug.
Doug: No, no, no, it was fine. It was fun because we were all just honking and it was a party. And true to form, we were speculating which would cause more burnt couches, whether if they'd won or if they'd lost. Because you may remember, we've had a couple of March Madness finals that Michigan lost and a lot of couches were burned that night.
Magda: I kind of feel like Ann Arbor is less of a couch-burning city than a lot of them.
Doug: I thought so too, but burn they did. When they lost to Louisville, there were all these couch carcasses all over campus the next morning.
Magda: Couch carcasses.
Doug: All right. So what do you want to do? Do you want to talk about Jeff at all? He's an honorary 50-year-old. He's about to turn 48, but he's lived a 50-year-old's life. So he came on and talked about a lot of stuff.
Magda: He's somebody who I think is just like, in a lot of ways, he's kind of an everyman. And he was just talking about figuring out how to navigate the holidays now that he's lost his dad and his brother. I think that's something that comes up a lot when you're around 50. You've lost one or two or three key people and holidays are different. And what do you do? Do you just try to carry on having them be the same as they always were with these big losses? Or do you try to change into something different? Do you have transition years of different things? And so I thought that was an interesting discussion with him about the way they as a family are navigating it.
Doug: And it's a weird time too, because his kids’ generation, they're all old enough to be young adults, but none of them is a parent yet. So when you have holidays, which are normally built around kids and there are no kids of a certain age to kind of build around that and you're all just a bunch of adults trying to figure out what's next when you've got a couple of big missing pieces at the table, you know, it's hard to be around people enjoying each other's company when the person you love most is gone.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: Now that his father has passed, they sold his childhood home and his mother now lives in his building. Within pop-in radius.
Magda: That's like a real true Seinfeld episode.
Doug: Can you imagine if Joan or Sylvia could just pop in at a moment's notice?
Magda: Oh boy. My mom wouldn't pop in though. She'd make me go pop in on her.
Doug: I don't know, she'd pop in. She called us on Christmas.
Magda: Good for her.
Doug: Yeah. And yeah, and my parents are like, “Oh, wow. Hello.”
Magda: That's funny.
Doug: But I also love the idea of how he just put this idea into the world via the thing that used to be Twitter.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: And got an agent and got a book deal. And now the next six months of his life, he'll be tearing around the country interviewing cats.
Magda: Really, really, if only it was that he was interviewing cats.
Doug: Right, but I mean, why not? He said he loves cats, as do I, as do you. But he gets to have this experience now. And the best part is his village of a family, his wife, his ex-wife, is they're all going to pitch in and help him pull this off because of all the stuff he normally does for his family when he's around, he's not going to be around a lot.
Magda: Right.
Doug: And fun fact, I was talking to Jeff, he had just gotten divorced and he was looking at dating apps in a hotel room in Denver. And he was like, “why is this app matching me up with women in Denver? I don't live here.” And I said, “well, you should check the app settings. You probably have it set for ‘women near me’ and you should set it for Philadelphia.” So he's, “Oh yeah, duh.” And he went over and he changed it to Philadelphia and this woman popped up and he's like, “Oh!” First person who popped up as soon as he switched his settings over from Denver to Philly. And now that woman is his wife.
Magda: Oh, that's really sweet story.
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Doug: That's the point though, right? I mean, when you're in your 50s, you have to prepare or start being prepared for getting these messages of catastrophic things that have happened. I mean, Facebook now is full of, “my friend died, we got divorced, my friend is really ill and could use some help.” And in fact, I've seen three of those today. So we're not quite at the stage where we have to go out and buy the black suit. That's what my parents talk about. It's like, yep, you got to get the black suit and get ready to wear it a lot. But that's something I think you have to–
Magda: I went through a phase maybe 10 years ago where I was really upset about the passage of time. Apparently there's a term for it when people are just, like, anxious about time passing and about not being young anymore and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I didn't know how I was going to handle it because I just felt like I was going to spend the rest of my life just being upset about getting older.
Jeff Bogle: The only thing we definitely are going to do, I guess, well, until we stop getting older, which is part of what we're going to talk about today.
Doug: We are. We are going to talk about the end of aging. Actually, what I do want to talk about first, though, because as long as I've known you, you are a world-class pasta-flinger in terms of finding gigs out of nowhere, in terms of trying something and seeing what happens and reaching out to someone on Twitter. And then within the year you have a book contract, that kind of thing.
Jeff: Just that. Yeah.
Doug: Yeah. And I've told Magda about this book, which is going to be out in a couple of years. The manuscript itself is due in six months. And you're essentially going to go around the world viewing cat bars.
Jeff: Just cats, just hanging out on the street.
Doug: Just buying cats a drink.
Jeff: Yep. A bunch of cat treats in my back pocket to attract street cats to me to be photographed.
Doug: That seems somehow unethical. There's got to be a disclaimer in the back, I hope, that explains in the appendix.
Jeff: No cats were harmed, but they were definitely fed during the making of this book.
Doug: But they were propositioned. The real story is how did you get your book agent? And how did social media come through in a way that, you know, you wouldn't necessarily expect it to?
Jeff: Well, yeah, it was good old Twitter. I got back from a trip, and I was on a cruise ship that took me to Istanbul in Greece, two very famous cat locations. And I was home, tired, laying on the sofa, and had this thought. Speaking of flinging pasta, maybe this was the tagliatelle of my repertoire, but my Uber. I think I'm going to sell, pitch a book that's all about traveling to hang out with cats and ways you can convince your cat that you still love them best, even though you have like 300 photos of other cats on your phone. I think I've tweeted 60,000 things, which is disgusting. That was one of them, but probably the best tweet I ever sent because immediately, I mean, it didn't go viral. Nothing really crazy happened, but people were like, people I know were like, I'd buy that. I'd pre-order that right now or ha ha ha. One person who I didn't know,
said, “I'd buy that.” I think that's all she said. And I looked at her profile. And it said, literary agent. I was like, Oh, interesting. So I responded, I'm like, “as an agent or as a customer?” and an annoyingly long time went by. maybe like an hour. Oh my god, oh my god, she wrote back one word: “Both.” And I'm like, Oh my god, I think I think I got something here. I've got at least one pre-order there and possibly the agent who will help me make it pre-orderable.
And so I looked her up at that point, not just on Twitter, but looked her website up and saw what she represented, what kind of books because not all agents do all things. She did nonfiction lifestyle stuff, nothing. I mean, there isn't a genre for street cat books. I don't even know. I'm not. I have a book. I don't know exactly where this book belongs in the world. But she represented a lot of things, weirdly, that I do, like mocktails and sober entertaining, activity books, picture books, lifestyle, and she's a cat person. So I was like, this feels so kismet-y, if that's the right non-word word. I'm like, this has to work. She doesn't know it yet, but she's going to be my agent. And at that same time, I frantically turned that tweet laying on the sofa into a book proposal. So I spent about 48 straight hours just writing a proposal, wrote an introduction, table of contents, sample chapter, got my thoughts together of what it would look like, what it would be, which is essentially three things: the locations where you can hang out with sea street cats, cat cafes all over the world from I've been in them in Dubai and Paris and Montreal, and then the organizations on the ground and the people on the ground who trap, neuter, and release, and care for all of these amazing animals that make this possible. And I sent it to her along with my dad activity book, which I've already had a proposal, and my picture book manuscript, which is still the best thing I've ever written. And she liked everything, but really liked the cat book. And end of list. And I should include my publisher in that list because that would be weird. And Running Press, A, the imprint of the Hachette Group, one of the big fives.
So agents work with you then to help you build that manuscript or tweak it or whatever. I guess agents do different things. And then she put it out to 12 publishers on a Monday. I was told this process could take like six months before I hear anything. Within four hours, three of them wrote back saying, “this sounds right up our alley. We're really excited about this.” Whoa. I'm like, uh, holy crap.
Magda: That's kind of crazy, isn't it? It's very great.
Doug: This is the alchemy I'm talking about, right? He literally conjured a deal out of the ether.
Jeff: Yeah, I mean, it's all about just like, just being yourself, being your authentic, awkward, passionate, earnest, weird self in as many public venues as you can. But in this case, a fourth one came along and liked it a couple days later. So I'm like, I got four, I just started freaking out. About a week or two later, one of them, the Running Press, who I eventually signed with, had some questions. I answered those questions. And they wanted a phone call with me, a Zoom call. And we did that. I was very nervous, but it went well with the editor who I will now be working with. She liked the idea. She's a cat person, thank goodness. And they made an offer about a week after that. And the offer was nice. I came back a little bit higher than we met in the middle. So the whole bit, film rights, everything. Film rights. It's all in the contract. The people I'll work with will be in Philly to put this together. It's going to be a 9 by 7 book, 224 pages, hardback, 45,000 words, about 150 photos. And it's going to have me going from Tokyo and Taiwan to Cyprus and Amman, Jordan to Fez, Morocco, Lima, Peru, doing what I love, which is hanging out with cats, essentially, and telling first person stories about what it's like to be there, and where you should stay and where the best gelato is near where all the cats are. And it's just a dream come true. And it just came about, again, just being having a weird idea and just not being, like, gunshy. Which at this point, Doug would laugh at me because for years I'm like, “Oh, I'm so afraid to pitch. I don't want to,” and now I'm just like “Here's something, anybody interested in this?”
Doug: Because you didn't really think you were pitching.
Jeff: True, I didn't really think I was pitching. But that is also how I pitch. I'm like, I thought of this a minute ago, and gave it that much thought. And I constructed really well. I think everything I do just, like, oozes this intense passion and enthusiasm, I guess would probably be the better word. Full sensory writing, along with some cat hair all over me at the same time.
Magda: So did you see that Turkish movie about cats?
Jeff: Yeah, beautiful movie.
Magda: Yeah, if they made that kind of movie, I can completely see that they could turn your book into more of a travelogue. But like the same kind of people who watch that movie would watch your thing.
Jeff: Yeah, Ethan Hawke could go to these places, if he's a cat person. “This week's episode, we're in Cyprus.” It could totally be a show. I mean, everything else is a frickin' show. Right. Why shouldn't this be a show?
Doug: Right.
Magda: Well, okay, so here's what I do know about Ethan Hawke. He was splitting up with Uma Thurman and used to walk the dog around outside Gramercy Park, and he would not clean up after the dog. That's what I know about Ethan Hawke.
Jeff: Wow.
Magda: And it's informed my view of him.
Jeff: Oh, so I've got one up on Ethan Hawke.
Magda: Yes, you absolutely do. Well, you got two. Number one, you're a cat person.
Jeff: Good point. And I do clean up after the dog that I share with my ex.
Doug: This is the important asset of When the Flames Go Up, the podcast, all of the hot goss.
Jeff: 20 years ago, did or did not clean up dog crap off New York Street.
Doug: Yes. So to sum up, Ethan Hawke had a bad day 21 years ago. And now here we are talking about it. And I wanted to stress in the whole process, I mean, we've talked a lot about serendipity and everything else. But one of the, one step that I don't want to give short shrift is those 48 hours, you know, when you got a nibble, and then had an opportunity to send your eventual agent this book proposal.
Jeff: Yeah, I also worked.
Doug: So when you put that together, was there a template that you followed? I mean, what sort of sensibilities did you use to make something that you–
Jeff: Well, I knew what a non-fiction proposal looked like. So I knew you needed an intro, a table of contents, one or two sample chapters. In that scenario, it was sample activities. And so I'm like, I guess I'll just do that. And so I did. So I gave them a flare of my writing, like in the intro, personal stuff about me, how I came to love cats, how cats entered my life in a very funny way, because I was not a cat person. I grew up thinking I didn't like cats because my parents didn't like cats, and was never around them until my first wife brought them into my life. And I said a very hyperbolic and ridiculous thing. And then like an hour later, I'm like, I'm a cat guy. I get it. I love it. I don't ever want to not have cats again. So that's the intro. And then I wrote about Old San Juan, which is a place I've been to a couple times, which largely because there's an amazing, cared for street cat population there. So I'm like, I'm going to write that one. It's the easiest one to write. And then sketched out the cities I've been to that I want to feature and what would be involved. So I initially envisioned it as a part personal and storytelling, part photography, part travel guide. So still having some traditional, “here's where to stay. Here's what the weather's like. Here's the currency, the airport,” all that typical, Fodor’s orange guidebook.
The question, when I said that the editor asked a question before we had a phone call, was would I be okay with minimizing that travel portion, sidebarring it, to focus more on the storytelling? And I said, of course, as long as it's still a part of it, because I don't want it to just be a coffee table book. I want it to serve two beasts. I want it to serve two customers. Sorry, you're not beasts, customers. I want some fantastic beasts, which is funny because that's where the name, book name came from, which I did not know. But my kids were like, you can't name it that, that sounds just like Fantastic Beasts because it's called Street Cats and Where to Find Them, which I guess is similar to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Magda: I don't think it's that similar.
Jeff: No, I mean, it's just the “where to find them,” which you can be like public urinals and where to find them. It could be anything. Yeah. Are there people like that? You can suspend disbelief enough. And then the person who loves cats like me, but wants to find them when they're out and about or wants to plan trips around. So I'm like, the travel section has to be there. We can sidebar it, make it cute and colorful, because they're like, we want to minimize that. So it ends up in the pet section, because they're like 100% of the people looking for cat books, like cats, some x percentage, 50, let's say, who are looking for travel books like cats.
Magda: That makes sense.
Doug: So when you think about that book proposal, which do you think played the bigger role? The proper format, your familiarity with what people were looking for, or the subject matter itself in terms of its uniqueness and the way you were going to present it?
Jeff: I think the latter. I think, yeah, I think less about format, more about my writing, my photos, I submitted a bunch of photos with it. And my knowledge, I think like the subject matter expertise of it and my passion for the subject. I think it's less about like, oh, did he know the margin set right? Or did you have one sample chapter or two? It's like, I'm sure they loved, like, this guy's been there. He's been out on the road. He cares about it. And he knows about it, and the format, the fact that I want to focus not just on 20 locations, but also the people, interview people, have a human interest angle. So I interviewed the famous Torre d'Argentina cat sanctuary in Rome, took pictures, interviewed one of the people there, and she was like a 30-year vet, and got the scoop on how it started and the impact it's had in Rome, and how other cities in Italy have had similar cat population problems, but that they're copying what they did and it's helping across the country and I was like, all right, this is going to be cool. Like putting this in, putting little tidbits like this and ways to help.
They had a “adopt virtually,” some of their cats you can adopt by name and they'll send you a monthly photo of them and information. I'm like cat people, I want people to be able to tangibly make a difference if they want to, and know about the good people, the cat lovers that are, that are helping these animals. The agent loved that last part. She's like, I pictured this book when you tweeted it, but I love that and was not imagining that level of granular detail. But I love that that's part of your proposal. So just having a cool angle, Doug, you know, it's all about storytelling and how you position it and how much of yourself and your heart you put in it.
Doug: Yeah, I get well, you're bringing to this some experience. I mean, not everyone can say “I've been to all these places where street cats are.”
Jeff: I've only been to half of them, but I've been to enough to have like a wealth of good photos and a good story to tell, at least to start with, with, again, with San Juan. And so I'm going to visit some of them again, and then some for the first time.
Doug: And do it all in six months.
Jeff: The manuscripts and the photos are due July 15th of next year for a summer 25 release. Um, so yeah, six and a half months to zigzag the world, and do it.
Doug: And then you have the rest of the year for rewrites and stuff.
Jeff: Yeah, to edit. Yeah, as if it's over at that point. To work with the designers to start formulating a publicity plan. To make a whole lot of, hopefully not, but I'm sure, a whole lot of edits. One of my favorite things to do for people, for myself, is to plan travel. I always joked in a past life I was a travel agent. So all of that has led up to the greatest challenge of my life. Like, so the first trip I just put together for March, has me going Philly to London to Istanbul to Cyprus to Jordan to Cairo to Morocco to Portugal to home in 17 days.
Magda: Wow.
Jeff: Two nights in every place.
Doug: See, have you made a travel itinerary like this before? And are you thinking like someone who is younger than you actually are? I'm thinking, I just, shouldn't you, is it possible to just factor in an off day where you can just kind of sit and stretch your toes and not be on the run writing, taking pictures, looking for information? That's got to be exhausting after a while.
Jeff: Yeah. I mean, so the funny thing about me and it, there is just the one, yeah. The one of the funny things about me that I was just actually talking about. I just had lunch with a writer. My one, I published my literary magazine.
Doug: We should talk about Stanchion at some point, but yeah, you are the editor of a new literary mag.
Jeff: And a small press, a book press, too. So yeah, that will be continuing. I'm publishing five books and two magazine issues while traveling the world in the first six months of next year.
Doug: In planes that you won't fit in physically.
Jeff: You know, I'm a svelte man.
Doug: No, no, I'm talking height, not girth.
Jeff: Oh, height, yeah. So...
Doug: It's our first “girth” reference I think in the whole podcast.
Jeff: So, one of the interesting things about me, my body tends to, up until recently, which is a bit of a problem and a concern, it gives me what I need for as long as I need it. So everywhere I go, and I do these football trips, I’m driving every day, often in the rain in England, to see like 10, 12 matches in 11 days, all across the United Kingdom. And I just don't stop. But the day I get back, I collapse. And so I have at home, I have fall apart time built in on the road, because I mean, I have two kids still, I take the youngest to school every day, and I pick her up every day. And I did this and the offer came in and bites started coming. And I talked to my ex-wife, and my wife-wife, it's like, I'm going to need you guys. I apologize in advance. This is going to take a lot from all of us. This is going to be a team effort. While I will technically be doing it alone, obviously, any parent, anything you do, you have a support system behind you, whether they're on screen or not. And so the ex will arrange her work schedule and her meetings to be able to help with pickups and Lorelei, my wife-wife will do drop off at 6:55 in the morning. And we'll get through it as a unit, which is pretty cool to have kids and wives.
Magda: It sounds like he's planning a trip to St. Ives. Like kids, cats, wives, right?
Doug: Well, these questions are all leading us into the meat of the conversation because, you know, when we talk about complicated lives, we talk about ex-wives and older children. And so you are not 50 years old yet, but it seems like you're an honorary 50-year-old because you have been through a lot of 50-year-old shit.
Jeff: Yeah, I turned 48 in January, so I think the month of this, you're hearing this, I am turning 48 very soon.
Doug: Yes, well, we wanted to have you here to celebrate your birthday.
This is, after all, the first podcast of 24, the last year of American democracy, and we had a good run.
Jeff: We did.
Doug: And especially now, because we are talking during the holidays, and there's a lot going on in your family, especially thinking about the people who are no longer here, and how your family is reacting to that. That's a topic that a lot of people are going through right now. They're celebrating their first or second holiday without their dad, without their brother, which is your case. You've been so candid about what it's like to grieve this way. I mean, your dad's been gone four years, and we podcast once from the roof of your New York City apartment so he could look down on us.
Jeff: Yeah, when I wrote my first book, The Guided Journal for Dad, 100 Questions for Dad, the intro was all about him. That's when we podded up there. The book had just come out, I think. And the whole introduction was about how I never got to ask my dad these questions. And even though I'm a storyteller, I never sat down to get his, and how much that will always haunt me. And now, so weird to talk about that, I'm the youngest of two now, but was the youngest of three. They were a year apart. So my oldest brother turned 60 in January. We all were born within a few days apart in January. My mom, too, all January babies.
Doug: Interesting scheduling there, Mr. and Mrs. Bogle.
Jeff: Whatever my parents were doing, what's nine months before mid-January? Tax preparation? That was a fruitful time for them.
Doug: “We finished our taxes. “Let's do it.”
Jeff: “Let's do it. Let's make a baby.” But for 11 years, they didn't do that. And then I came along.
Doug: They didn't file taxes for 11 years? That's not great.
Jeff: But yeah, my middle brother, Greg, I just had a really good hearty cry about him. I wrote a good Country Living Gift Guide For the Best Board Games and was bawling my eyes out, which is probably a sentence that's never been said before. But I wrote about Risk, which they wanted a mix of like classic games and cool modern games. Greg loved Risk. When I was a kid, when he became a dad, they had family game night. I'm like, I'm going to include Risk. And I'm going to, I'm going to write, the whole blurb is just going to be about Greg, just little ways to kind of keep his memory alive in these like small ways about how much he loved that game. And that he passed away very quickly from brain cancer. It was like a couple of years, a few years. But the last year was brutal, almost vegetation state and then he passed away two Augusts ago. So this is the second Christmas without him. And my sister-in-law is still struggling, obviously, like they're almost empty nesters and had so much planned for like what that was going to look like for them to travel and they invested so much into their kids, the three kids, and gave up a lot to defer it to later, but later isn't going to come for him. So. Last year, we did Thanksgiving out here in my apartment, because I'm like, let's do it out here because it's not tied to anyone. It's new. Nobody's ever been here. And it went okay. It was hard for her because I mean, this was literally three months after he passed away. Christmas, we did the sort of the same Secret Santa thing and stocking stuffers that we always do. But this year, she didn't want to see anyone for Thanksgiving. It was almost like a regression. And I understood it. My mom was upset. But I'm like, she's, they just want to be together. They're the four of them on that day.
Holidays were big for the Bogles. No matter where we were, my oldest, Mike, lives in South Carolina now, but he would come back and we'd always be together. It would start on Thanksgiving. We would be together for Thanksgiving and do all the normal stuff. And then a couple of weeks later, we'd come back together at my parents' house. Grandkids and the three brothers come back and decorate my parents' tree together. And then Christmas Day. And then like a week later, we would come together and do stockings as a separate day. And then January birthdays was like 10 days, two weeks after that, so like it was, it's an emotional and an important time of year for us, and so after this past Thanksgiving when my sister-in-law didn't want anyone around, they just wanted to be together. We're like okay. So I guess like we're probably thinking Christmas probably isn't going to happen either but then she sent out a group text like, “Hey let's do white elephant,” and my mom wasn't happy because she's like “we did that. I did that once with people,” like literally 50 years ago and she had a bad experience. I'm like okay but I kind of had it out with her like, I won't lie, like she sent some passive-aggressive text back. Like, “well, if that's what everybody wants, I guess that's what we'll do.” And I'm like, are you kidding me? Wendy's, my sister-in-law, making this massive step to have to host to have everyone over. And I'm like, she's probably picking something that we never did so that there's no memories tied to it. Nobody's gonna have any sense memory or like, Oh, Greg used to love that. Or my dad. No, this is totally new. We're moving on. We're still going to obviously remember the ones we've lost. But we're forging new ground to kind of like protect ourselves and to keep those memories compartmentalized, I guess. And I let it rip one night when I had her over for dinner. And she sent an apology text to Wendy and everybody. And so she's on board. She bought her white elephant gifts. But yes, I thought it was important. And I'm like, Wendy's, that's a huge step. Like, she's trying. She's trying to move forward. Not forget Greg, obviously. But like, let's, let's do something new. Let's make new memories. It's gonna be weird in a way because while it's awesome that it's new, it's also like, are we just like leaving them behind? You know, I get all my Christmas spirit, my Santa vibes from dad because he would be the one that would shop. He took such great pride in gift giving. And I have it and my kids have it and Greg did too. And so this is going to be like randomly giving gifts or that you don't know who they're from and then stealing and it's like, I guess there's no winning and no losing in this. I don't know. I guess in a few days. Spoiler alert, it's not Christmas yet when we're recording this. So we'll have to report back.
Magda: Well, everyone knows it's not Christmas yet because I still have the same cold.
Doug: Part of the pain of this also is that you don't really have a choice, like the traditions have to change.
Magda: A lot of people go through a phase, especially at the age that we're at in which they decide to change the traditions, right? Because they're not working because the kids aren't little anymore, or somebody's moved or something like that. I mean, in my case, I've moved and I'm living with a whole different family now. And the kids are doing other things and all that kind of stuff. So we've sort of voluntarily changed a lot of traditions. But this idea that these people aren't around, everything's just, it has to change, feels kind of harsh and forced.
Jeff: Yeah, I mean, I guess technically we could have kept doing the thing we did. We did that last year. And that clearly didn't work for her. Like seeing me interacting with my kids at Christmas, sharing gifts, everybody. So the funny thing about this and what I, one of the things I yelled at my mom about was like the Secret Santa thing where we like only buy one gift for one person that we pull out of a hat. That's not what we used to do. At some point we changed to that financially because we used to buy, everyone bought for everyone. Christmas took a week. And I'm not even joking. It was just a little much, a lot much. And so I'm like, well, Secret Santa was new. When we pivoted to that, nobody threw a hissy fit. So like, this is more of an important pivot, because this is like based on somebody needing to like, get through it. It's going to be like more neutral, probably, and less family-oriented and more just because this is something you do with like co-workers or whatever.
Doug: How old are Greg's kids? I know your kids are late stage teens, right?
Jeff: Greg ranges from 21, I mean, I'm sorry, 19 to 25.
Doug: So how are they doing?
Jeff: Well, Greg was kind of falling apart those, those last couple of years. They all kind of put their lives on hold. Chris, the youngest one, had been wanting to join the army for years, but didn't. The oldest, she decided to get her master's locally instead of going away somewhere so she could care for Greg. Once he passed away, the youngest joined the army, went through boot camp, he's now stationed at, I think he works at Arlington National Cemetery as one of like, the guard, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier guards and like, wow. Yeah, he's no, he's a pretty awesome kid. And still so sweet and lovely. Boot camp broke him, but it didn't break who he was, which is good. So yeah, they've started to live their lives. They kind of hit play after pausing for three or three years or so.
Doug: Are they all coming back for Christmas? Do they have opinions about what this new thing's going to be or have they weighed in or are they just happy to go with the flow just to help?
Jeff: I think they're excited.
Doug: Because a younger perspective is often really helpful in that way because younger people are, they have less experience and might be more ready to help people move on.
Jeff: Yeah, yeah. So the Stanchion just had its first reading in DC and a celebration and event, and she came. So it was the first time I'd seen her in a while, and we talked about Christmas and she's excited that her mother is hosting and taking this step. I didn't talk to the other two, but if she's on board I'm sure the others will fall in line in a military sense.
Magda: I wonder if some of your mom's tension with this idea initially was that she didn't want it to be the new thing. And it doesn't have to be the new thing at all. I mean, it could be you just do it this one year and everybody hates it. Or you do it this one year and everybody loves it and you do it another year and then people decide to stop, right?
Jeff: I mean, it might be. I think she was actually just kind of thinking selfishly. And what she was saying, it was just, “I did this once a million years ago, and I didn't like it, and I don't know what to buy because it has to be gender-neutral.” And I'm like, well, first of all, that's not difficult. First of all, I'm like, Mom, first of all, gender is a construct. Second of all, like a candle, or I mean, like, I love candles.
Magda: I remember when I used to do this in a work situation, and the limit was $10. I would bring in, and these were the days when I was living in New York City, and you know, like nobody had laundry in their building, right? I would bring a roll of quarters. It's exactly $10, right? And everybody needed a roll of quarters. Mine was the most sought after thing at the whole White Elephant thing. Because it was purely transactional.
Jeff: Gender neutral! And buy gendered stuff. Buy men's cologne, if you want. Because that would be hilarious. Because if one of the girls opens it, it's going to get stolen from them. There's no wrong way to do this. Like, stop overthinking it and just buy anything you think of that looks cute in the $10 to $15 price range.
Magda: Yeah, I mean, as long as you're not buying a food stuff that contains something that people are allergic to, like you really can't go wrong in this situation.
Jeff: Exactly, exactly. It's just fun. And if you think someone specifically might like something, buy that too. They might get it or if they don't, they're gonna want it and that's gonna like spur action.
Doug: So there's no wrong way. Would it be accurate to describe your mom in any way like matriarchal? Does she like to like have the end chair at the table? The Eminence Greaves have the two ends.
Jeff: She's a pleaser. She wants to make sure everybody gets along, which is weird because that sounds very contradictory to her response. But I don't think she understood what she was doing. In fact, I know she didn't because when I called her out on it, she didn't understand like the rift, potential rift and harm that she was doing. She was just expressing herself. And she was like, I have an opinion. I was just expressing I'm like, Mom, that's what's wrong with the world. Like, you don't have to. Not everybody needs to share their opinion just because they have one. A lot of times it's best left unsaid and you just be like, recognize the global mood and be like, all right, we're just going to do this and I'm going to keep my mouth shut.
Magda: You do not have to share every thought that goes through your head.
Doug: How has your relationship with your mom evolved over these past few years? I know, I mean, I was in your apartment when you were talking about, you're in the middle of selling the childhood home. And now she lives in your complex.
Jeff: 2022 was a difficult year. So I lost my dream home. I was living in Manhattan. And then I lost that because I got priced out. And about a month later, we helped my mom sell my childhood home, which was a great decision. The peak of the housing bubble and everything collapsed right after she closed. It was awesome. But then Greg passed away about a month later. And we knew it was happening. So it was like a very tumultuous summer last year. So she's living a floor down and a few apartments over from where I'm sitting right now. And my relationship with my mom was always great. I was always her favorite. And I probably still am. But it's definitely more fractious because we see each other way more than we ever did as a me as an adult. And I'm very moody. And I don't think she ever fully understood that. Because she didn't see me every day. And sometimes I just don't want to talk, sometimes I'm too short with people. So it's been difficult. My mom's like a white glove clean person. And I'm a watered-down version of her. I'm orderly, but I'm not nuts about it.
Doug: Hey man, your apartment, given the four cats you had in an apartment the size of a three car garage, I think you do a pretty good job cleaning up after yourself.
Jeff: Yeah, you would have never known there were even cats there. It's clean, it's tidy, it doesn't smell. And the home I own with my ex, my ex is not, one of the reasons we're not married anymore, is because she's not like that. And didn't really care that I was. And so, that house is difficult to go into for me and definitely for my mom.
Doug: As you get closer to someone, you see them more often. You have a new level of intimacy in terms of their moods, their triggers. And you took a trip with her.
Jeff: Yeah, I took her to Europe and we actually got along really well during that trip.
Doug: How long was that trip?
Jeff: Nine days? Moving around and then on a ship for a little bit. So like more close quarters. But yeah, we got along really well. I was more, I think it was probably me, like, well, she mellowed out and just, like, she's a busybody and she just was forced, especially on the ship, just to, like, chill out. And I was just, like, totally chilling out. And we were just both dialed down, which, which helped.
Doug: Well, so how has being neighbors with her? I mean, I kind of like the fact that you're, you're touching the third rail a bit. You're actually willing to admit foibles and appear vulnerable enough to pop off at her. So how's that dynamic shifting, especially now that she lives just, you know, she can pop in whenever she wants.
Jeff: And does. I hear the door open and then a knock. I'm like, well, that's the other way around.
Doug: Do you put a tie on the door?
Jeff: I should, I should. Dorm room rules. Yeah, it's good. It was a great idea to have her here. I mean, she's super able. We walked 60,000 steps in three days in the Netherlands and Belgium and she kept up with me. I kept up with her for much of that. She's like, you wouldn't know she was 80. So I had the idea like, you're not living with me, but like, let's get you an apartment in my complex. I didn't know it'd be in my building. Wait, wait, wait, we buried the lede here. It's like Black Mirror or whatever. My mom's name is Ellie Bogle. And there's an Ellie B who lives in the apartment complex across the street. And they go to the gym together, they hang out, they go to lunch together. They sort of look alike in that way that maybe a lot of 80-year-old women look and have the same kind of hairstyle. I don't know. But it's great.
Doug: So to sum up, the multiverse is real.
Jeff: Yes, Ellie B and Ellie B, which that's a Netflix series. She walked over across the street to join a group of ladies to learn mah jongg. So yeah, she's doing all right. I think she's grown. I think she's learned a lot about like, how I see my kids and like my thought process because we never really talked about it. I mean, I would talk about like frustrations and things on the phone when I lived out here and was like an everyday dad. But it wasn't like in her face every day. It was as I drip fed the information verbally. Because she was about 45 minutes away, her and my dad. So she didn't experience kind of like the, the laziness on on the kid's end or the thoughtlessness or like, if I have to reach out to them to like, it's Mother's Day, can you please text your grandmother? Or it's the day Grandpa died? Can you please text your grandmother to see how she's doing? Or just any day? How's life in the apartment? Can I come over and like make you breakfast?
Doug: Well, that's a hard thing. Magda and I could probably tell you similar tales. I mean, I'll tell you just from my perspective, the difference between being an intact family and a divorced family with children is there's a certain lack of control you have over how your kids act in certain situations, because in a more ideal world, you'd be a united front and say, we both agree you should be doing this right now. But there are times when, you know, I'll say “you should do this.” And I'll be like, you know what, this is Magda's influence. And it's not a judgment. It's just a situation where she and I disagree on things that should be done in certain situations. I'm just as guilty of that. So it can be that situation when you look at your kids as young adults in particular, and you see which characteristics of each parent they've kind of taken on. And sometimes you have to recognize that when your kids are acting in a certain way, you can say that's Magda's influence, or she can say that's Doug's influence and then decide how upsetting that is.
Magda: Well, I think that it's easier, and it's comforting to be in this situation when you're divorced. Because I think it would be really horrible if you were still married to the person and saw things that the kids were doing that were the other parents' influence and you did not like them. And you were like, wow, I have somehow co-signed this. Like, I think it's just easier emotionally to be like, “ugh, that's from Doug's side,” right? Or for him to be like, “ugh, that's from Magda's side.”
Jeff: Yeah, definitely. Because it's less in my face. You know, it impacts much less. And you're right, because in the years when our marriage had fallen apart, but we hadn't separated yet, there was a lot of animosity, probably on both of our halves. But like when I would see the kids kind of acting like her in ways that the same reason that I wasn't really happy being married anymore, but like, “Oh my God, can my half shine through here? Can we flip a switch and you like just power through and like the resiliency and like get through that school project even though you don't want to do it? Like, I don't want to do a lot of the work I have to do, but there's a due date and somebody's relying on you.” And so when they're not being that part of me, that's very hard for me. And it's hard for my mom.
Doug: Well, I had discussions with my mom about things like my mother is super happy to receive thank you notes and she makes a big deal about receiving thank you notes. Um, and it's just, you know, that if they haven't gotten a thank you note that will proceed to another discussion about, you know, why aren't your kids the way I want them to be? And I'm like, Mom, we're all doing the best we can here. You know, it's not first of all, they're not your kids.
Jeff: So back off.
Doug: Yeah, and, and number two, recognize that my kids have two parents and two influences and they don't always align.
Magda: Well, okay, so part of this might be the fault of my mother, who came into the 20th century 10 years ago, so, you know, only 110 years late.
Doug: Better late than never.
Jeff: Yeah, sure.
Doug: She can still handle an iPhone.
Magda: Well, yeah, I mean, my mother is, to my mother, a thank-you text, including a photo of the person using the thing she has given, is just as good, if not better, than a written thank-you note sent through the mail.
Jeff: Oh, that's good.
Magda: So what that has done has conditioned my kids to, when they receive something, to text the recipient be like, “Oh, this is awesome. I just did this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's a photo of it,” whatever. And my mom's been very satisfied with that. My brother and sister are really happy with that. I'm very happy with that, too. But what that means is they're not used to writing those thank-you notes, which Doug's mom wants to receive.
Jeff: No, no, but I understand what you said, because I'm like the reliable one. And I pride myself on that. I try to take everybody's stuff on board. And I feel a lot of everyone's struggle. And there's been a lot of struggle. This is not the podcast at the hour mark, we're not getting into my children's struggle, struggles, but like, it's been a difficult not only the grief of losing two people, But the other things that have happened, and I'm just like, I feel worn out with just absolutely more emotionally exhausted at almost 48 than I've ever been in my life. And I don't know if that just comes with life getting more complicated. You know, my wife's illnesses that she struggles with, my anxiety over being a freelancer of not having like, for 10 years, not having a guaranteed paycheck, and struggling to pay for things or help with things with the kids. It all is like just weighing so, so incredibly heavy on me. That a couple days ago, I wanted to meet the friend I met for lunch today, she was in town for this past week with her daughter. And I was going to meet her on Sunday night, and it was like slightly raining. And I just found an excuse not to go into Philly. And I'm a doer. I'm a person who does all the things.
Doug: I will vouch for this. You will drive to Southampton for an obscure football game and come back with a car full of mud.
Jeff: Exactly. I used to drive 20 hours round trip to see hockey matches. I grew up a Red Wings fan. I'm a crazy passionate person and will do all the things. And Sunday night, and it's not the first time it's happened recently, but I'm like, I'm going to find an excuse and I'm going to use it. And I'm going to text and I'm like, I just can't go. And I hate it. Like I hate myself for that. And my wife would tell you, “that's called listening to your body.” But I just want my body to shut up and my mind to be like, we're doing it, we're going, we're going out. But it doesn't work. And now this goes back to the trips that I'm planning for next year, and how I'm going to pull that off. And I can't call out. I can't be like, I can't send anyone a text. I can't send myself a text and be like, you know what, Jeff, we're not doing that today. Like, that's just not going to be in the cards. So I might actually take your advice. I might actually look into building an off day somewhere in there. That probably makes sense. You're probably, as with most things, you're probably right.
Doug: Well, now we've gotten to the thing I was fishing for the entire hour. Why couldn't you just come up with that in minute 13, Jeff? I mean, you made us wait so long.
Jeff: Put that on your business card. “As with most things, I am right.”
Doug: As endorsed by Jeff.
Jeff: We're getting old. Going back to putting a button on that, if we want to keep going, that's what we're gonna do is get old. And we need to start figuring out how to do that in a more responsible fashion, probably. And the way I've been living my life, which and before anybody gets any notions that is not the rock-and-roll lifestyle–quite the opposite–but it is a very “do do doer-y, don't stop until your body’s like, we're gonna lay down now, Jeff.” And then I get up and I'm just right back at it again. I don't learn any lessons from that. I'm just like, all right, I'll give you today and then I'm going to get up tomorrow and start all over again.
Doug: Well, now can we, should we, as we, I know we're very toward the end of this and really, I mean, I wish you would learn to open up more. It's been really hard to get you to share. So maybe we'll have you on next time and you'll be a bit more, you know, reserved. Yeah, maybe you'll be a bit more revealing and be willing to tell more about yourself. But I think there's also, as you age a bit, and you talk about all these things, reliable, reliability, being things to the people who need them, and how that translates to a go-go-go lifestyle as far as planning these trips. And as you age a bit, would you say that, is it fair to say that you kind of, when you let your body take a day off, is that kind of a self-care approach on a much bigger level? Because you're also saying, in my need to be manic all the time or in my need to be everything everywhere all at once, maybe it's time to pump the brakes on that a bit and let my body talk to me a bit.
Jeff: I mean, it should be what that means, but I'm not 100% ready to admit that or like to put that into action. Because I'm like, I always say, my wife's like, would you just like take a nap? And I'm like, whoever said it, like, I'll sleep when I'm dead. I have this like burning fire to like not waste, which is funny, because I waste a lot of time. People find it hard to believe. And not to, let me just go back to something real quick. And I don't want to make this about Stanchion or anything. But something really cool just happened this past, I don't know what day it is. Last week,
yeah, last Friday, this big community resource of independent literature put out their top 25 literary magazines, as voted on by writers from around the world. And I ranked fifth in the world, the fifth best literary magazine in the world. And the comments on, yesterday, I got comments, everything that people said about me, there were about 25 sentences to paragraphs about me and what I do.
Magda: Wow.
Jeff: And it's everything I've ever dreamed of hearing, because it's all about hard work, passionate, kind, thoughtful, make something beautiful, care so much. It's enthusiasm. Like I couldn't have written them better myself.
Doug: I saw that, there was one blurb that said, “It's just this one guy.”
Jeff: Yes. “It's like one guy.”
Magda: “It's just this one guy.”
Jeff: “But he does all this stuff.” And yeah, no, it's just me. Like I was I opened for submissions, Magda, for 24 hours in November. I can only open for 24 hours because people I got 1800 pieces of writing submitted to me.
Magda: In 24 hours??
Jeff: And I, each issue has about 22 to 25 pieces of writing. So I read every piece myself.
Doug: But they're getting bigger, though. They're starting to look like the Harry Potter series.
Magda: And the worst part about it is that like, some of those are bad, and you're not going to publish them, right? But like, most of them are not.
Jeff: Most of them are very good. Like a lot of the no's are hard no's. They're like, it's just not right. Or it's like, it didn't hit me or whatever reason, there's a lot of reasons. I mean, there's a lot of reasons other than it was just the worst thing I've ever read. There's some of those obviously, but yeah, a lot of it's just like, it's not for me or yeah, the pieces that I'm one reader. So like, when when Greg was dying, pieces that were just accidentally that I was reading that were making me feel things. And so it's very much like a timeline of not me because like it's voices from around the world and perspectives that I could never begin to really understand other than what I'm reading on the page, which is why it's so beautiful. So, you know, like the opening page of this new issue that comes out next month is a self-portrait from a Pakistani woman. And the piece of writing that's attached to it is all about how her traditional family doesn't see her the way she sees herself as like a modern woman. And it's, I mean, I could never produce that. And that doesn't have anything technically to do with me, but like, it still resonates with me. Pieces hit me, and there’s no telling why something will work for me or why it won’t. But I personally respond to every single person, with a “Yes, please,” or a “No, thank you.”
Doug: No, I hear that. You know, I think it’s interesting how writing can affect you. You have no idea.
Jeff: I mean, I mean, sorry, one of the beautiful things back when we used to talk, I used to, I was started to say, like, does the world need any more of my voice? And Stanchion has been my people that look like me and sound like me have been being the voice of everything for so long. But why Stanchion is so beautiful, and I think why people like it so much, is because it's so many voices that don't often have a platform, especially not in print. I mean, that's getting rarer and rarer. So to be able to hold something and to be able to mail copies to subscribers and orders in Australia and Thailand and Singapore, a woman subscribes in Singapore and all over Australia. I think I said that already. All over the place that represents this like, top-class writing from all around the world that isn't from my point of view. Granted, I'm, I guess, gatekeeper-y in that I'm saying yes or no, but like, I'm not looking for people that sound like me. I mean, if anything, I'm looking for the opposite of that. That have viewpoints and point of views that are expressing what it's like to be a woman getting older. There's a poem in the last issue. So I wrote a piece for Good Housekeeping this summer. It's from that same cruise that I got back and sent that tweet. The same cruise that I was on was on an old cruise.
Doug: Old Circle moment upcoming.
Jeff: Right. It's about aging and it's about why we travel the world to see old crap stones in a field from the original Olympics, and mosques from 900 years ago, but we like bemoan each other and especially women in this country for getting old. Like, well, you just spent five grand to see some stones in a field, like and like taking pictures of them, like it's literally nothing. There's nothing here, and you're gonna like yell at a woman because she has the audacity to turn 38. And it's just like stop being so stupid. Aging is a beautiful thing. It's for men and women and for old stones in a field. No, I included a poem. I quoted a poem in there that is one of the best poems I've ever read. And I wish to God I published it. But I reached out to the author to solicit something from her for issue 13 because, and she sent me almost like a sequel. And it's about a woman getting older and feeling invisible in a room. And it's just gorgeous. Yeah, so it's been a joy to like, passionately pour myself into this as well. And, and to get why I brought this up is just to get that feedback, the feedback loop, because you don't, you know, you put you started a thing. And sometimes guys would tell you how much it means to them, but most of them probably didn't. And it feels so amazing to have created something. And you don't know, I mean, people order it, but you don't know if they like it when they get it. To have 20 to 25 pieces of feedback that is so on brand for me, every word of it is like, you see me, all these people somehow through a computer screen, see everything that I am. We've talked before Doug, I think about like finding your purpose later in life or at any point in life. And I found it whenever I started this 45, although it didn't occur to me until like maybe a year ago, 18 months ago, I'm like, “Crap, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.”
Doug: That's what I'm here for. Well, I kind of expected this conversation to go all over, much like a collage.
Jeff: Like my brain.
Doug: You've turned your pitch process into an extension of your brain's activity, which I think is a good thing to do.
Jeff: I do all this with no caffeine, everybody! I don't drink any caffeine. I'm just naturally like, ah.
Doug: And that's going to play well at Christmas. And we'll be thinking, I mean, I'm thinking about a lot of people at Christmas, including you, Magda, because you're going to be there with a new family and you got a lot of new stuff to absorb. And, um, you know, Thanksgiving went fine and I'm sure this will go fine too, but it's just a lot of people who are trying new things because their lives have changed so fundamentally one way or another, they're missing people. They've moved, they've remarried, they've divorced, the kids are gone. I know I'm in a place now where our son has taken off for the other side of the country and you know in a couple weeks and I'm frankly not sure when we'll see him again right and that's you know I'm so excited to see
Jeff: I'm excited for you, too, Magda, although we did just meet but I've obviously heard about you for many years, and it sounds so beautiful and how you all are integrated together and get along. But Doug, I've been so excited for this moment, because you've been talking about it, like Thomas finishing high school and like, what's next for you and what you're going to start because you're a doer. You're a starter. I mean, you started a massive thing that helped me and hundreds of dudes. I'm so excited to see what where you're going to end up and what you're going to do next in your … mid 50s? I'm trying to remember.
Doug: I am technically in the middle of my 50s.
Magda: Late 50s.
Jeff: Late, your early, early 60s.
Doug: I'm in my early 70s. Or my super late 30s. And we could have a whole podcast about the Philadelphia exurbs because Magda is a Bryn Mawr graduate.
Jeff: Oh, are you really?
Magda: I am.
Jeff: Oh, wow. Both my kids were born at Bryn Mawr Hospital.
Magda: Oh, that's exciting. I was never there, unfortunately. I never had occasion to visit Bryn Mawr Hospital while I was there.
Jeff: That's good.
Doug: Well, as I say, I'm so grateful for you. I was very glad you came on to talk about this. I think a lot about, probably too much about what it's going to be like when we have our first Christmas without a family member. I know it's soon, and it seems macabre to think about it in that way. But I really appreciate your talking about what your family's doing, what your very complicated family is doing, and talking to people about that kind of inevitability is a comfort to me. So I appreciate you talking about it.
Jeff: Thank you very much. And thank you both for having me. This has been a delightful conversation. And I know it's been a little scatterbrained as there's really no other way for me to have a conversation.
Magda: It was like three very distinct topics. Each one was cohesive within itself.
Jeff: Okay, good.
Doug: Yes, it was a Bogle triptych.
Magda: A trifecta. Okay, I gotta take a nap.
Jeff: Thank you for having me. This has been, I appreciate you both. This has been a great conversation. Thank you.
Doug: And thank you, listeners, for listening to our first episode of 2024, Episode 29 of the When the Flames Go Up podcast with Magda Pecsenye Zarin and me, Doug French. Our guest has been Jeff Bogle, who will be Instagramming a lot of cat pics over the next several months, so look out for that. We should mention too, by the way, Jeff, you're at OWTK on Instagram?
Jeff: I am, yeah, both OWTK and Stanchionzine, both of those are active.
Doug: All right, and we'll link to those in the notes.When the Flames Go Up is a production of Halfway Noodles, LLC, and is available on all the usual platforms, as well as at whentheflamesgoup.substack.com. Please subscribe there for our weekly episode, which comes out every Wednesday, and our Friday Flames newsletter, which comes out every Friday. If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, and I know many of you do, please offer us a review. That really helps us out. Thanks again for listening. Happy New Year, and we'll be back next week. Bye-bye.