Sziasztok, Jánó vagyok. Közép-Európa első világra szóló podcast csatornáját hallgatjátok Magyarországról. Ez a Budapest.fm. Hi, my name is Ray, and you're listening to the number one podcast station in Central Europe, Budapest.fm, podcasting to the world from Hungary. No matter who you are or where you live, everybody, and I mean everybody, is addicted to something. Felevettem kettőt, láttam a tükörképemet a falon, vágtam, fűtött vettem, fogat mostam, WC-n ültem, gitároztam és vártam. I just happen to be addicted to Hungarian history. Hétvégénként hatkor keltem, a padlót mostam, az ételt mertem, és eltanultam az összes dumát, és láttam rajtad az egyenruhád, és vártam. Rád vártam, tudod, mindenki függ valamitől, mindenki függ valamitől, tudod, hogy mindenki függ. Álmodj rólam, ahogy én is rólad, álmodj rólam, ahogy én is rólad, álmodj rólam. Úgy, ahogy én is az érettségit, a fehér blúzok, a boroskólák, a vodka… Welcome back, folks. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back with Vizzlyuk Budapesten. Here I am with my good friend Tom Bean, a.k.a. Bob Thomas. How you doing, Tom? Very, very good. Very excited to be back in the studio with the wonderful Willie Wallace. And it's very good to have you back. It's good to both be back. I mean, I just got back to Hungary two weeks ago. Been settling in out in the suburbs, Leányfalu, a lovely little village. I'll tell you more about that in just a bit. But that song that was just played on the video, Mindenki függ. I found this. I didn't really find it. I was shown this Hungarian rapper from the early 2000s. He's not really even a rapper. He's a songwriter, a singer, a musician, apparently a bit of a lunatic, but an amazing, amazing, amazing musician. And his name, or his band's name, is Hiperkarma. And I've been crushing that music all week. Mindenki fúg, that song, that's my favorite. Mindenki fúg is basically, in Hungarian, mindenki meaning everyone, and then fúg is like to depend. And it's basically, the lyrics of the song are everyone depends, everyone's addicted to something. And I think, yeah, that's a pretty interesting concept. Is everybody addicted to something? I would say that it's probably healthy to have something that you're so passionate about that you would say you're addicted to it. But I would think that some people actually aren't addicted to things, and that is what leads to their, I don't know, unsurety in life, maybe. So they're lacking in addictions. Or they replace— so if you don't really know what you're addicted to, like what you really want, you end up replacing that with some kind of, I don't know, filler addiction, like drugs. Yeah, that might be. So there's good addictions and there's bad addictions. I mean, it really depends. I think addiction is sort of a loaded term in and of itself because it's sort of foisted on you by what society deems to be an addiction. Whereas a brilliant musician or a brilliant actor or a brilliant really any type of artist or brilliance in any field, you have to be a little bit addicted to that field and constantly be searching for that feedback. But then if you're searching for it in certain pursuits, not even necessarily ones that are chemical, because it could be a gambling addiction. You know, you could be the best gambler in the world, but when does it become an addiction versus just being something that you're really interested in? When you're really interested in something, like really into it, you know, you enter like a different state. When you fall into doing that thing to your utmost, you fall into like a high or some kind of crazy state. And so I think that it's, you know, like drugs, alcohol, it also like puts you into a similar kind of like altered state of being in the same way when you're super focused on something. So speaking of, I'm getting a little bit of a cottonmouth here already. So we've got these, the Cusqueñas, the beer from the Andes, imported from Peru, just polished off. I think this is the rival, the imported Cerveza Cristal. Cold of the Andes. I think they say cold as the Andes. Cold as the Andes, exactly. And then this is Cusqueña, a dark lager, so might as well pop this open. Oh, that's the thing, the Cristal's—it is a twist-off. Oh, dear me. I was so excited to have the Cristal twist-off, and then I just got a slippery grip. Egeschegedra, egescheged tekra. Meaning, Kinnek, who's ever out there watching. Egescheged, egescheged. Right. I always find that to be the case, is that when you go to a country, there's always like two types of beers, and you can be like, this guy or that guy. I believe I just saw a conversation about this the other day between the esteemed scholar Tiago Alves from Portugal and another guy who I don't even remember who it was. Tiago Alves, the footballer? Tiago Alves, the footballer. Yeah. And he was talking about—oh, right, he is an esteemed scholar though in his spare time, I believe—and he was talking about how in Portugal there's either Super Bock or you can have Sagres. And I was a Sagres guy. I don't know about you, but I made the caveat that I like the Super Bock in its stout, in its dark form. That's always—you always got to go dark, light. I think there's always different winners. I was in Aldi the other day, and they have a beer called the— It's like agres or something. Never seen it before. And it's just, I was reading the label and made in Portugal. I guess Lidl—I was in Lidl. Lidl is a Portuguese company, and they have, like, beers I've never seen before. Well, that's all Portuguese beers. Oh, really? I think. They must have just signed a new deal with them. They're importing them like hotcakes, I guess. But that's also another indicative example of what I was talking about, which is that you're either this guy or you're that guy, or girl, this girl, that girl, or whatever of the 340 other pronouns there are these days. Yeah. But either way, you're one or the other. And that's truly an identifier besides, like, gender or sex. It's something as simple as, are you a agra guy, or are you a superbuck guy, are you a little guy, or are you an Albi guy? And what's the answer? Homegrown. Homegrown guy. Wow, look at that, fishing it out of his pocket. That's why we love you, Tom. You think outside the box. When I found this, like, are you a dark beer or light beer guy? I was in Guatemala, and my friends from college—our friends always joked that he was a descendant of conquistadors, Rodrigo, sorry, Rodrigo, but his family had hands in the national beer company of Guatemala. And when I went to go visit him, that was the only beer that was there. Just that company's beer was the beer that you could buy. And there was, like, four different kinds, and everybody drank one of the four different kinds. There was the light beer, the amber one, the dark one. Mine was the cabro. Cabro means goat. The goat beer. And I think it was, like, the amber beer. It was amazing. And it was really, like, it was the only one that I liked, and everybody else said the same. Like, everybody had their favorite, and they only drank their favorite. Well, South American beer culture is actually quite interesting. It's unique. It's very idiosyncratic. I mean, it obviously has a lot in common with the German beer culture because there was a lot of German immigrants that came over to South America, particularly in the 19th century and during World War II. Things like that. Either way, they brought the beer culture down there with them. But now in South America, you go down there. I went to Panama, and my friend Mike's brother Marshall, he was like the brewer at this brewery called La Rana Dorada. And they had, like, very unique beers that were sort of just, like, fun to sip on. They weren't necessarily too fancy. They don't have, like, the same sort of IPA, like hoppy nonsense that we love up in America. You're not an IPA guy, are you? No, no, no. The hops. It's ridiculous how bitter it is. It's such a not enjoyable experience for me. Well, you know, beer is one addiction. I said in that video before that I'm addicted to Hungarian history, and more than Hungarian history, because I do have quite a hankering for that almost, well, a concerning amount of the day. But the thing that I'm more interested in is stories in general and history in general, and that is really what speaks to me. And I think that you were mentioning, it was either last week or the week before, something about the idea of the cycles of civilization. And what did you mean by that? When I took a class in college about the history of Rome, and one of the things we covered was, like, how most civilizations—I think there's some word for it—it's a cycle, and they, maybe it was just in Roman history, but it went something like from a monarchy to a, I don't know, so a monarchy to a dictatorship to a democracy and then back to it. So it always goes in these cycles, I guess. Well, I believe what you were referring to was the kyklos from ancient Greek. You sent me this link a few days ago. It's a term used by some classical Greek authors to describe what they considered as the cycle of governments in a society. There you go. It was roughly based on the history of Greek city-states in the same period. The concept of the kyklos is first elaborated by Plato, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they basically came up with their own interpretation of the cycle and possible solutions to break the cycle. Since they thought that the cycle was harmful. Yeah. So the way, I mean, to give a little bit more context to what that is, is like things start as maybe a dictatorship because there's a king, and then people get frustrated with the king because of whatever reason, and then society moves in these directions where they get frustrated and they come to a solution, which is usually, okay, let's make a dictatorship or something. And then they're like, okay, dictatorship is bad because we don't get to make any decisions. Right. And then they come to a democracy, and then they realize, oh, well, like a democracy is like too slow and it's not working. So then they fall back into some cycle or whatever. Yeah, well, I think that that is More to the fact—not more to the fact, but it speaks to the fact that everything is sort of a reaction to something else. And you constantly have, you know, ancient Rome was one reaction to the thing that happened before, to the thing that happened before, in its own unique evolution and different... They actually went from the Roman monarchy to then the republic, which was more of a representative government, and then filtered down into autocracy, an empire through emperors like Caesar and Augustus and so on and so forth. So you had the old Roman monarchy, then the republic, then the empire, and then collapse. And the collapse, I guess, was sort of—and if you want to look at it in, like, a romantic perspective, people think of the monarchy as this sort of nostalgic, old, dignified thing that was based off the ancient Roman myths and the formation of the state. And you had these brave old kings that were eulogized by later authors and who looked at them as, like, a romantic fixture in the society. And then you have the glory of the republic, which was the true first representation of the ancient Greek democracy, now manifested through the filter of Rome. And then that descended into the empire, which had its incredible highs during famous emperors such as Augustus and Trajan and Hadrian, but then also had incredible lows with the collapse and the sacking of Rome by the Vandals and the Visigoths, so on and so forth. But wasn't there also a height of the Roman Empire, or I guess the Roman Republic? Because there was still—what was the highest position during the Roman Republic? There was still some kind of, like, hot— Yeah, you had, like, the praetors and the consuls and the—basically that was what Caesar was, and then he was up in Gaul with all, like, the fighting his war and whatnot. And then he was recalled back to come to Rome because they said Caesar's getting too big for his britches. What does he do? He comes in and he claims himself emperor. You see it later in things like Napoleon. Yeah, but it is—where do you think we are in our civilization right now? Like, do you think that we're in a downward cycle, or...? Are we cycling towards collapse? Well, I guess it’s hard to kind of apply that philosophy, right? Because now we have more almost like mini empires, like countries are their own little mini empires. Like, I think that was in reference to the Greek or the Romans, and that was like when it was their own little world. And so it’s probably you can’t apply the same thing. So we’re technically in sort of a democratic situation. It’s a bunch of little democratic states. But, you know, it’s up to be found out how democratic it really is. And I think, I mean, I don’t really know. I don’t think we’re necessarily going in the best direction. There are definitely better things that could happen, but I think that’s always the case. People always feel that way. What did you make of AOC’s Tax the Rich dress at the Met Gala? I have some bone to pick with you about that because I was just looking at Reddit, and the three topics that you sent me were just on Reddit in my feed, but maybe it’s just the algorithms. No, I’m probably brainwashed. Yeah. But what did you think of the dress? I don’t know, about the fact that it said ‘Tax the Rich’ at a very rich convention, or the fact that she stole the design from some single house mom from L.A.? Did you hear that part of the story? Well, I didn’t hear that part of the story, but it’s possible. But the bigger debate, I would say, would be whether or not, like, she was—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez paints herself as this socialist working-class hero who’s standing up for the proletariat and the rights of the lower classes, and here she is at a Met Gala, which is $30,000 a seat. She says she got invited, she went for free, but the idea that she’s going there and trying to be so controversial with her dress that says ‘Tax the Rich,’ when, like, really, like, ‘Tax the Rich,’ it’s to me sort of like a meek— Message, it's like, okay, yeah, like, of course the rich should be taxed. I don't know if she was— she's like trying to act like it was this brave moment of like, uh, and then she's selling those sweatshirts on her website and all that. But then at the same time, you look at it from the other side of the coin and like people are fucking talking about it. It did its job. She got people to like talk about this all week, so. Yeah, what are they talking about? Are they saying that, yeah, maybe we should pass the legislation to tax more of the rich? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's just like playing model UN debate club. Like no one— it's sort of just like, let's not like get all worked up about policy and stuff like that. Because, yeah, I mean, it's a complicated topic. Like the rich are taxed, but I don't know, maybe they're not taxed enough, like they evade taxes and all that kind of— Exactly. Now look at us. We're talking about taxes. Who really fucking cares? Yeah, I don't care. Yeah. But the bigger element of that night, I think, was all those people wearing— you know, it's really boring stuff, and I think it's best left in the funny pages. Yeah, I don't even know what the Met Gala is, to be honest. I guess it's an expensive dance. It's like to celebrate the Met, which is a big bastion of arts and culture in New York City. Yeah, I mean, that's all right. I mean, there's a lot of places in the world for all kinds of things, but I mean, where does that thirty thousand dollars go to? The Met. So it's like a fund where they buy art and like support artists. That's kind of cool. Yeah. So, I mean, perhaps they're also celebrating, like, stealing sacred objects from colonialized civilizations. Yeah, there's a lot of that. Wear American. We stole the whole place from people. Yeah. Well, you know, the Europeans, they stole it first. America just coming up second banana. That's true. And then— but then you do look at the cycles of history, and everyone is sort of stealing from somebody else. That's sort of a continuous thread throughout the historical narrative, is that one society is replaced by another. I mean, you go back into ancient Egypt and like, what, you think the ancient Greeks, when they came into ancient Egypt, they weren't stealing stuff? They stole the stuff, and then someone else stole the stuff. So this kind of comes back to what we were saying, like, what's going to happen next? And I don't know. I don't really imagine a future where things are like wildly different. Like, I don't know, the United States is wildly different or, I don't know, like what's gonna— what do you think the next major change, like what's gonna be stolen? Like, or is that even possible in today's age? Well, perhaps the robots and the algorithms are coming for all of us, and they're now harvesting data out of our minds via the cult of entertainment that has proliferated throughout society, and particularly the cult of self-motivated entertainment, where everyone is sort of just, like, divulging these data points. Not necessarily now it's going to be a problem, but if you have all of this data harvested and memories harvested, and eventually the computers get sophisticated enough to manifest something evil, or are the computers a more pure form of judgment? They're like a tool, so it depends on, like, which way you wield the tool. I think right now, like, if you think about the biggest ones, like Facebook and, like, these social media platforms, like, they're not trying to make algorithms that are smart at doing stuff. They're trying to make algorithms that are smart at being really good advertisers, like trying to get eyeballs on their content. And so, like, I'm not that worried about those algorithms taking over the world. They're going to be really good at advertising and, like, taking people's attention. But I think that there's a— Are they leaving us, though, like in a prone and sedated and brainwashed state? Yeah, but not everybody. Like, there's still, like, there's a pretty heavy undercurrent of people who are like, ‘Yeah, social media, like, there's problems.’ Like, there's enough of people there that that's not going to be the end of the world. It's going to be the end for a lot of people, and I think there are a lot of people in that group that don't realize that, and that's kind of sad. So I think there needs to be, like, a lot of education, especially for, like, young people coming into this world. Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, it's the next stage. Back in the Industrial Revolution, they were choking down coal, so at least we're not doing that. Choking down plenty of other things, but not the coal. Yeah. You want to hear a one-minute story? Give me a one-minute story. So István Örkény, he was a Hungarian author during, like, the socialist times, 1950s, 1960s, and he wrote these stories that are able to be read in one minute. And so this one, I just opened it up to a random page, and it's called Embarrass de Richesses, which I think is what AOC was trying to do with that event. Good morning, ma'am. What can I do for you, sir? I'd like to purchase a brown hat. Any particular type? Something sporty, traditional, wide-brimmed. Which would you recommend? How about this one? It's quite versatile. Not too dark, not too light. Take a look in the mirror. Suits me very well. It's got your name written all over it. All the same, could you show me another style, please? Of course. This one will look just as smashing. And so it does. I wish I knew where one to buy. I wish I knew which one to buy. Why don't you try a third? We get a lot of compliments on this model, and it will look just as becoming on you as the first two. Indeed. And how much does it cost? They all cost the same. What about the quality? The quality, too, is identical, I can assure you. In that case, what is the difference between the three hats I just tried on? There's no difference at all. I haven't even got three brown men's hats. How many have you got? Just this one. The one I tried on three times in a row? Yes, sir. So which one will you take? I can't quite make up my mind. Maybe the first. It looked very smart on you. Not that the other two didn't. Still, I think I'll stick with the first one. An excellent choice, sir. Enjoy. Kind of creepy, to be honest. I don't know if it was your reading did a great job. I was enthralled. But that was a creepy story for me. What were they talking about? Hats. He tried on three hats. Yeah, I mean, technically, yeah, they were talking about trying on hats. But was it like something about the fact that they tried to make it seem like there was three different hats that you could try, and there was only one? And so when we're walking into buy things... Yeah, I think it's like maybe capitalism. There's like one thing you're going after when you're just trying to, like, you know, retail therapy. Like, you want to buy something. You want to, like, enhance your life with something. It doesn't really matter what it is. At the end of the day, you're going to forget it. Like, you're going to forget what the thing is itself. You just went there for the— I mean, that's maybe my first take at it. What do you think? Yeah, no, I think that's very provocative. It makes me think about how the idea of free will and how choice is sort of irrelevant, because when we're buying something, we're just buying something, and it's not necessarily important to think about, like, which version is better. Or maybe it was more just, like, almost sarcastic than that. And it was just like, yeah, here's a story that's incredibly boring about a man trying on three hats, and they actually were the same hat, right? And who do you think it's, like, more about? Is it about the man coming in the store and, you know, willing to leave? Like, he, you know, experiences a ridiculous situation, tries on three hats, finds out they're the same, and actually ends up leaving with the first one? Or the store clerk that's just doing whatever they will to sell? It's probably about both, but... Who do you think is the protagonist in that story? The protagonist, I think, is the hat. Nice. You want to hear one more? Yeah, let's get one more. I will give him one more chance. Better not be about hats again. Good, good reading. Great reading. This one's a two-parter. Hello, Moloko. Excuse me. Moloko. Vi по-русски говорит. I'm sorry, I don't understand. Well, neither do I, madam. I want— Madam, that's quite a low voice. She had a very deep voice. Oh, this is a good one. We're in Equestrian Nation. A motorcycle stalls at a railroad crossing with a long line of impatient cars and carts coming up the rear. They can't pass it because a military convoy as long as my arm is approaching opposite from the direction of Fuded. The passengers of the motorcycle are a family of peasants. The father is about forty years of age. He is swarthy and squat, square-faced, and is wearing black boot pants and a snow-white shirt under a black overcoat. They must be on their way to a visit because the mother, who is sitting behind him, is also wearing her Sunday best, while their young daughter, with the two blonde braids perched on the sidecar, is all starched ruffles, laces, and tules. The earrings in her ears are set with light blue lapis lazuli stones the size of poppy seeds. The man tries to jump-start the motorcycle again. It burrs, lurches, falters. Why can't you behave? Why can't you just do as you're told? the man shouts at the machine. He is clearly very angry. He tries jump-starting the motorcycle a few more times, dismounts, circles around it, and then kicks in the starter again. May the devil take you! he yells, cursing the 250 cubic centimeter Csepel motorcycle, and you're brood too, while he's at it. He squats and fidgets with the machine. He jump-starts it again, and this time the motor gives a steady roar. He brushes off the knees of his pants and mounts the saddle. Taking its sweet time, the motorcycle rolls across the railway tracks. The man's wife pulls on her rubber-rimmed safety goggles. The couple sit up straight and proud, chins held high, as if they were great lords in a padded coach. The man grips the handlebars. His wrists are loose and his elbows are pointed straight out, the way it has always been since man came to be put on this earth, along with the horse and horse equipment too. 1956, Ezer kilencszáz ötvenhat, the year of the Hungarian Revolution. Well, you think the year is significant, I guess. Not necessarily. Oh, I thought you were saying. Two things stuck out to me, which I don't think are the main point of the story, but there were, like, two very, I don't know, juxtaposed, I guess is the literary term, or just, like, out of place. Juxtaposed is good. Which I guess this might be a term, but the military train was as long as an arm, or as long as your arm, which I guess is just a phrase to say something's really long. But also something on her that was supposed to be big, I think it was her earrings, were the size of poppy seeds. Uh-huh. Which are tiny. Or was it—maybe they were saying that they were tiny. Oh, yeah, maybe you're right. I read it, I thought they were trying to say that it was like they were wearing their Sunday best, right? And oh, maybe it's going to show that they're not. The earrings in her ears are set with light blue lapis lazuli stones the size of poppy seeds. Oh, okay, yeah, okay, so there's a lot of them. There's a lot of them, I see. That sounds very pretty. Okay, I love that. Very good visual. Very good visual. And he was fiddling with his motorcycle. But Hungary is an equestrian nation, first and foremost. I think we know that firsthand with both of our girlfriends and lovers being horseback riders. Exactly. So is that what this is about? It's about the loss of the horse in the life and a replacement with a shitty machine that just breaks down. Perhaps. Or maybe the horses would break down as well, and this is just a classic scene that has played out throughout history, which is just a guy fiddling with his horse or something. And now—but no, the horses wouldn't really break down. Yeah, right. Perhaps they would come up limp, but perhaps they were also... It really depends. I don't know. A horse would just—you would have to urge it to go, probably, I guess. The fact that my actual fiancée now—I got engaged over the summer, which was quite amazing, actually. And the word for fiancée in Hungarian, which I continuously, continuously forget, is something along the lines of menyasszonyomot, my fiancée. But then I thought vőlegény is fiancée, so I made, like, a little post saying, like, so happy to be engaged with my vőlegény, and, like, so, like, DM'd—or messaged me—and she said, What's the difference between the DM and the message? Because I know where it's a message and not a DM. They're all direct. But either way, she was like, It's not a vőlegény, it's a menyasszonyomot. That's the worst. The old language mix-up. It happens. It happens. Constantly happens. But either way, Hungary as a horseback-riding nation, that is just so cool to me. I mean, that is, like, really what gets me juiced up, is the idea of, like, the Hungarians coming in as, like, horse lords in the ninth century. And, yeah, this is what I'm telling you. So I messaged you earlier in the week, but I'm going to take this time to tell you in full that I think that there's so much—there's a space. I don't know that much Hungarian literature, and I don't read that much, but I do listen to a lot of books, and I haven't been exposed to a book like this. But I want you to start telling—
Telling all of this historical stuff, you know. I love what you're doing, telling, like, the historical stories, you know, and telling us what happened. I want fictionalized, like historical fiction stories about these epic Hungarian warlords. Like, I want to follow one through kid to adulthood, and I want to see what kind of crazy battles he went through, what kind of cool kingdoms he conquered, and just tell me about, you know, what kind of food, what kind of beer they're drinking in the halls. Yeah, well, that's what I'm working on now, is a collection of short stories from throughout the Hungarian history, and they're all going to have different, perhaps, point of views or narrative techniques, but there's going to be a chain from, like, you know, maybe a story takes place in ancient Rome with some Stoic philosophy, and, like, it just, you know, it could just be a story about two guys go into an ancient Roman bath and talking about Stoicism, to then going to, like, the Habsburg era and having, like, a romantic story. Right now I'm very, very fascinated by the development of the betyár, and the Hungarian betyár was, like, the Wild West outlaw that we have in America, and the betyár in the 19th century became this, like, idealized romantic vision of this man with a baju, a mustache, and he sort of was like a Robin Hood. He stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Some of them were really, really violent and, like, terrible people, but others, like Rózsa Sándor, he had a life like you would never believe, and a lot of it has been made into this myth, and we're not really sure how much is necessarily true. But if you actually follow his life, he was like a celebrity, and he was recruited during the War of 1848 against the Austrians by the Hungarians, and the Hungarians used to not really like him because he's a bandit, even though he's Hungarian bandit. But the Hungarians recruited him, Kossuth Lajos, to fight in their military band against the Austrians in the war. So he was given, like, amnesty: come be a general of the betyár group that you recruit and just go storm through the Austrians. Where do you find out all this stuff? Like, where do you find out all this information? Like, not, I mean, the war stuff I could understand, but just, like, the things we may not really know, like how nice he was, how violent he was, just as, like, running around as an outlaw. Like, who's documenting this? And is it a compelling medium, or is it just like a giant history book that you're a little psychopath? No, I went to my local bookstore in Lianfalu, which I found the other day. Lianfalu, the girls' village, is now where I live, and there's a bookstore there with just, like—I went in looking for Bechyar books, and the lady hooked me up with a book. Actually, I found it randomly. It was kind of fucking crazy, to tell you the truth. I was saying, like, all week to Alexa, chewing her ear off, Oh, I'm, like, so interested—and this is going to bore everyone else—but I'm so interested in, like, the romantic rise of the Bechyar and the development in the 15th and the 16th century, and how it's going to, like, turn into the romantic conception during Rakoczi, because Rakoczi is really—I'm thinking, like, collection of short stories, yeah, and then where I really want to channel my long-term energy is into the Rakoczi szabadságharc, the Rakoczi Revolution, 1700s. Just so much going on. Right, can't get it into now. But either way, that was what my theme of discovery was, and also, like, infused with the idea of, like, literarization—that's not even a word—but the romanticization, all this stuff of that theme. And I walk into this bookstore, I get a coffee, I'm blown away. There's books everywhere, beautiful, like, such a cool bookstore, real independent bookshop. I was amazed. In Lianfalu, there's not much, and there was this beautiful bookshop. And there, on the shelf, in the history section, like, the first book that I pull out is about short stories written by famous Hungarian authors about brigadiers and Bechyars in the Rakoczi Revolution, and it was just, like, sort of serendipitous moment, to be honest. Is it written in Hungarian? It's in Hungarian, yeah. And you read it in Hungarian? Well, today I was reading it in Hungarian, just reading it out loud, reading it to myself, trying to pick up the cadence, didn't understand half of it, and I'm going to read it through once like that. Just the practice as well. And now Google Translate is pretty fucking crazy. Like you go in and you just put your camera on top of it, translate the whole book, right? Or she would be upset with you. It doesn't do a good job. It doesn't do a good job. But there is also, like, that's what you asked me before, is like, where do you find all the information? One of my maybe, like, secret sauce things that I do is I read a lot of Google Translate. And that gives you, like, all these, like, random nerds that are writing Hungarian history webpages, and not even just necessarily nerds, but anywhere, Wikipedia in Hungarian. Obviously you have a Wikipedia page about a guy like Bethlen Gábor, who was a very famous Transylvanian prince in the 17th century. The English Wikipedia recognizes him, and it has some good information. But then the Hungarian Wikipedia, they have, like, a whole detailed—so you can piece your way and parse your way through shitty translation. Not that much fun to read, but for me that's where I learn a lot more of the details. And so this is where I would say that there's a little bit of a separation, because I don't know, my understanding of what you do now is, like, very rooted in history. Like, this is what happened. Like this is what, like, primary sources and, like, secondary sources are legitimately saying about the events of the past. And like you were saying, like, your interest in Hungarian culture and history isn't necessarily rooted in the hardcore history of the thing, but the storytelling and, like, the beautiful stories that we have from back in those days. And one of our favorite authors, Bernard Cornwell—I think Cornwell? Cornwell? Yeah, Cornwell. Yeah, he has the books about the Vikings invading England, and he has a series about King Arthur in England. So it's mostly about, like, the English history after the Roman Empire and before, like, England was really formed. And it's, like, historical fiction, so it's not—the King Arthur story is, like, a completely different take. Like it's not historically accurate, but it's sort of—it pays homage to a lot of what King Arthur did, but with a lot of, what do you call, artistic license. What I think is cool about what you have an opportunity to do is that, you know, you're investigating all this information that people don't know from the English-speaking world. And it's like there's so much beautiful stories out there, and I just want you to be the channel, dude. I want to read, you know, Willie Wallace's stories about the Hungarian history and, like, these crazy Hungarian bandits. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. That's pretty much what I'm— I feel like everything that I've done is sort of ultimately in pursuit of this goal of being an author. And that's, like, my ultimate maybe motivation, as well as teaching, but really to, like, write something and continue to write things for the rest of my life. And it's a skill that is, like, I feel like I'm finally ready to manifest into something that I feel is worthy of being read. Whereas writing for me, I don't know how it is for you, but everyone writes, but it's just—it's actually when you sit down and you try to write something that you think has, like, literary value and literary merit, all of a sudden you're not, like, competing against yourself as being a better author, but you're competing against everything you've ever read. Not necessarily in the sake that it's a competition, but in the sake that, like, you read mostly the good stuff because you're not going to waste your time with the shitty stuff. So all of a sudden, like, that's what you think. That's like you have to be as good of a writer as Ernest Hemingway or something. And then you begin to maybe look at it a little bit closer and you realize that everything is subjective, and you just have to speak your voice. And even from, like, an abstract level, people really relate to, like, authenticity necessarily more over than, like, literary merit. But it's sort of a shifting pendulum, and you do want to, like, be something that you publish and something that you actually have out there in a book. It feels like it needs to be honed, your craft. Right, right, right. I mean, what I would say is, like, coming off the authenticity thing and— Like you were saying, I don't know how I feel about writing. I don't think it's just writing. Like, coming back again to storytelling. So, like, the storytelling to me is a broader, broader aspect. And, like, for you, you tell stories through writing, and you even do it through video as well. But I think what you're saying about being an author, like, doing it through writing is more challenging than doing it through video because you only have one medium. Video, you know, you have visuals, sound, like all kinds of stuff to influence. But when you're writing a book, like, you have to do it with your words, which is what makes it so impressive. But, like, storytelling is, like, crazy, like, prolific today. YouTube. Like, why is YouTube so compelling? Why are these videos? Because these people are practicing being really good storytellers. And the same thing with teaching. Being a good teacher is just being able to build a compelling arc around the content you're trying to convey. Yeah. I took one class in college, which is, like, adventure writing and digital storytelling. And there was one kid in the class who was just epic, very good at the class, and we couldn't really figure out why. And, like, finally I talked to somebody, or maybe it was the teacher who just said, like, yeah, he understands, like, he understands plot arc. Like, he understands storytelling. It's just something that comes naturally to some people. And he could just tell a story that had a really beautiful arc. And it just, you know, it had a—you followed along the whole thing. Like, it wasn't like, you know, it took you on a journey. And I think that's the compelling aspect of storytelling that's elusive and hard to do and, like, truly a skill, which is what I think you're chasing or, like, trying to hone. What do you think about this idea for a short story? A guy goes to the bathhouse in modern-day Budapest. He sits down in the bath, perhaps it's the Király Bath, and he soaks in the water for a little bit. And then he makes his way to the sauna, and he meets this sort of, not necessarily mysterious, but very stoic... And pensive older gentleman with a mustache. He's got lines in his face, and he looks a little bit like time has dealt him sort of a, well, difficult life, if not necessarily a poorly lived one. And after a little while, they get to chatting. The guy says, Why don't we go for a beer? They head down to a local söröző, and then all of a sudden, they end up going up the hill to the top of the Kisvár pitch. And there's sort of like this ancient gateway in the tree that looks like something that the protagonist has never seen before, and they enter inside, and it's like a borozó, like a wine tavern that's like built under the tree, and everything looks a little bit old and a little bit... and then all of a sudden, the protagonist gets completely shitfaced. The next day he wakes up, and he's in the middle of some sort of 17th-century storyline into Hungarian history and the Rákóczi Rebellion, and then he lives out a little adventure in that world. What I would say is, I would say that actually it should start from the transition to this other world, whatever, it should start in the bath. So, like, when you're in a bath, if it's super hot, like, you can get totally messed up. So you could even, they could even go to a modern bar, but it could be, you know, somehow the way it's told is the guy's like all foggy and doesn't really know what's happening. But there's definitely that guy, super compelling guy attitude, and he says things that will come back later. And then as this dude is in the old times, he might meet the same dude, or maybe he is the same dude, and he's— anyway. No, no, I think that's actually a good point that you made. There doesn't necessarily need to be a bar involved. The bathhouse in its own right is already this medium. I was actually thinking about how it could be like, because I was thinking, okay, you know, you could focus in on one storyline and get really deep, and like I said, maybe that will eventually develop out of like a few different short stories. You find a channel that you really love and you really feel possessed by, but then if you think about just maybe the bathhouse is a medium. For time travel in general, and like the first story is this guy discovering the bathhouse, and then every time he goes back and it takes him to a new place. Or maybe that's just one type of little time travel experience that happens, and all the stories are like just built around interactions that happen in Budapest with different people necessarily. And at some point there's like a metamorphosis into a different age. I would say that there's the time travel thing is important for the beginning, I guess, to like get the reader into some. But with the beautiful thing with short stories, from what I understand, is like you can skip a lot of the pieces of, you know, traditional story. Like you can go straight to the middle. So you could try one of these short stories where the guy gets transported. But the problem with that is that like if it's such a crazy thing at the beginning, you know, it's still gonna, it's gonna take some time to build that story, and then you still have to tell a story that makes sense after that. So that's gonna become like a longer short story. So I think what's cool about short stories is, if I were to give some advice about writing, which I don't know why I would do, but like, you know, use it in its component parts. Like make a short story about that, which involves time travel, but make a short story. So you just start with, in the 16th century, with these crazy Hungarian bandits, and just be a boy that was like, I don't know, the horse, the guy's like squire or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's what's cool about the Bernard Cornwell stories. Well, I guess in the real story, he is the main. So in the Viking one, whichever that one is, the Saxon stories, he is the main character, but he's looking back. So there's a little bit of a separation from the— and in the King Arthur one, it's just the secondary guy. Like he's not King Arthur, but he's telling King Arthur's story. Yeah. Well, that's also where like you don't necessarily, necessarily need a narrative device like the bathhouse, because the story, the book is a person's bathhouse, if you will, where they pick up a book and they just want to be transported. Exactly. They don't really necessarily care that there's like a narrative tool to get there. They just want to be there. Yeah, particularly with short stories. Yeah, short stories, exactly. And because this, I'm telling you, like because this history is so novel. Just like tell the story. Like, don't even—for the first, I think that, you know, there's a wide swath of types of short stories you can write. Ones with a lot of, like, intro with the bathhouse kind of thing. Ones with something in the middle where you try and, like, tell a historical bit or something. Like, you tell it from someone else's perspective, and you just, like, tell the story from the first-person perspective as well. You know, you can try a wide swath of things. And like you said, I think a path will show up. What's it like owning a puppy dog? Ah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. So my girlfriend Vivian was in London visiting some friends this week, so it was just me and the puppy dog, and it was so much fun. Just got to wake up in the morning, let her outside, let her outside, play around a little bit, and then I worked all day. She would just sleep. And then we would go to the dog park, 6 p.m. every day. So cool to see how pumped a dog is when you build a routine. It's like, Oh, it's dog park time. Yeah, I'm, like, jumping around going nuts, like super excited, you know, sleeping all day, and then go to the dog park, runs like crazy for two hours with a bunch of dogs, and I just kind of, like, speak some Hungarian to some people, you know. Ah, let's hear a little bit of Hungarian. Let's hear a little bit of Hungarian. Akkor most csak beszélgetni angolul… Igen, igen. …mert nehéz nekem beszélni. Nem, nem, nem, nagyon jó, nagyon jó. Jobban mint az előtt, …. Yeah, yeah, kicsit, de minden héten kétezer magyar óra, és most… Most többen, többen minden hét. Igen, igen. Nem, igazából Orsi azt mondta, Oh, Tam, nagyon-nagyon okos, okos. Igen, igen, és most… Azt hiszem, nagyon érdekes nekünk beszélni magyarról. Igen, nagyon érdekes, nagyon-nagyon érdekes. Jó, jó nekünk, jó nekünk, és mert általában új dolog fejünk, mikor beszélünk új, új nyelv. Mert új útlet. Új útlet. Új útlet? Ó, mit jelent útlet? Útlet az idea. Aha, jó. Nagyon jó. Igen, köszönöm szépen. Nagyon jó tanár vagy. Egészségedre. What I was going to say, which I'll say in English about the dog park, is just that there was a guy on Wednesday showed up. He, like, cracked a beer, a little cherry beer, and I was like, egészségedre. He was like, Oh, it's like, hot week, hot week, and I was like, Oh, that's cool. And then the next day, I was so pumped. I was like, No way, the guy brought a beer. I didn't know people bring beers. So I went, got, like, a handful of beers before the dog park, and I went there and I cracked one, and then the guy was like, Oh, hey, you got a beer. And I was like, Yeah, it was a good idea. And then I was off in the corner just with the dog, and then I opened another one, and then I went back and he was like, Oh, you got a second beer. And I was like, Yeah, it's a second beer. And then I started to realize it might not be, like, a two-, three-beer kind of dog park, but that's okay. It might turn into one of those. Yeah, but the dog park isn't a two- or three-beer type of dog park at the end of the day. The first one was a radler anyway. Yeah, come on, come on, come on. What do you think about how this format's going to go? I feel like we just started to shake the dust off, sort of, from the spring, and, like, we're getting back into this podcast flow. But I think what we really want to do going forward is to incorporate as many people as possible to come and pop in in the stream with us. And now, for me, that seems like it could be really fun to, like, get some prompts from outside and just interact with people and make it sort of a live experience. I like the idea of getting prompts from outside. I like the idea of having some content set up for the, like, for the episode and bringing some other people's insight. And like we said at the beginning, it's all about, like, playing this tennis match, right? We're hitting the ball back, and now I want to bring some people in and hit the ball back, see what they got to say about some of these topics that we throw out there. And, like, keeping it loose as possible would be nice, but also it could be cool to have some, like, theme days. Like, we, you know, tell people about it a week before, and we say to you, Come on, come join the podcast, come join the live stream, interact with us, engage, and we'll talk about something perhaps within a certain niche of, like, philosophy or within a certain niche. And it could be, like, maybe just a prompt. Like, we say there's going to be a segment this week, and bring your questions about history or bring your questions about movies or bring your questions about sports. Yeah, and then we could really get some cool debates going. Maybe we even give out a list of ten topics and you can just pick whichever one you want. I like that. I like that. The Car Talk. You ever listen to Car Talk on NPR? Amazing show. Two dudes, two dudes who know a shit ton about cars will call with a question about their car, and the dudes just diagnose the problem. Like, I mean, we're not that good, nor are we the experts, I don't think, in anything. Maybe about cars we could do it. Yeah, just give people really shitty advice. But I think what's cool about that show is that just, like, you know, people have something to say when they show up, and it just, like, it makes it go. So I like the idea of prompting and, you know, sticking in our wheelhouse where we can. And, yeah, having prompts will help us research ahead of time maybe a little bit. Well, I could see that being a lot of fun. I'm really excited to engage the audience and to talk to people and really, you know, step into a new realm of social media in the sense that, like, social media where it's just this monotonous, like, display of expression over and over again, it can get a little bit tiring. And it's better to be able to, like, truly interact with someone and see that there is something that you can actually The technological divide. You always think about it like, does technology sanitize interpersonal relationships? And perhaps if you're going to choose between the two on a desert island, you would always prefer to be amongst people than computer screens. But that being said, today in this world where we have the access to, like, talk to people and engage different perspectives from around the world, it's so cool to be able to bridge that through technology and use it to its, like, ultimate manifestation, which is empowering human discovery and experience. Oh, 100%. Oh my God, I couldn't agree so much more. Let's do that. Let's turn this podcast into that. But, like, let's explore ways to, you know, create genuine digital interaction today, like with the different tools that we have. And also even thinking about not necessarily the audience, although of course anyone's welcome to join at any time, but, like, thinking about channeling different people from around the world who can come into that third spot and just, like, talk about whatever they really want to bring to the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. And, yeah, there's, I mean, we don't know what it's going to be. Let's just let this thing grow into that, whatever it will be. Whatever it will be, will be. Shall we end with a Hungarian poem? Please, please. Enlighten me. Do you pick them ahead of time? No, no, no. Do you just open this 500-page book to a random page? This one's very long. It's ‘A walesi bárdok.’ I actually read it for Ray a few months ago, but let's go with something shorter. That's like a whole journey, and it's gonna— Let's do one that we can read the Hungarian and then read the English, and then we can have a quick, like, maybe three- to four-minute discussion, call it quits, and start our Friday night right. Maybe end up going to sleep. Who knows, maybe getting beers, maybe ending up in a bathhouse. Really. Hey, wouldn't put anything past the two of us, you know what I mean? Let's see how the poem goes first. All right, that one, that length looked good. Yeah, this is Arany János, and it's John Gold, Johnny Gold, one of my favorite poets. His poem, A walesi bárdok, The Bards of Wales. I actually made a Walking with Willie episode about this once. It's about a 13th century Welsh king, and it's used as an allegory for the Austrian's fantastic, fantastic ballad. I kind of want to read. Isn't that one kind of long, or no? We can read. No, no, no, no, it's too long. It's too long. No, this one. Isn't this one kind of long? No, no, come on, this is a one page read, what? Okay, here's the Hungarian first. Don't make fun of me. Hungarian poetry, it's, you know... Ki ne fén, álmaimban, gyakorta megjelensz. Korán elhullt barátom, Van-e jel sírifadon? Mutatni hol pihensz? Oh, mert hiába, kutmar, a hit nekem mese. Hogy még tán eljövend. Tudom én, mit jelent ez, ellenmondó beszéd. Igen, a hír halálod, ki mondani haboz, s hogyha nehéz, küvecsek. Nagyon szókon ne essék, szavában ingadoz. Majd elragadja tőlem, a mára dotoremént, majd amidőn elelánt, távolról-ról visszacsilант, távolról visszacsilант. Még egy csalako fent, hány bús alakban látom, ejente képedet, sírból megannyi árnyak, s kik onnan visszajárnak. Nem hoznak életet. And basically what I guess this means: János Arany, Arany János, memorials, Johnny Gold. How often, as I'm dreaming, your figure shimmers by, my friend, too early taken, your grave unmarked, forsaken. Who knows now where you lie? In vain now come the rumors of your return. I know the meaning of such fictions. I count their contradictions and gently bid them go. I know the hesitations, the stutterings of each poor tongue-tied group whose chatter means to delay the matter but stumbles into speech. Their stumbling is no comfort. Once they have all withdrawn, the rumors come to banish hope, which is sure to vanish with yet one more false dawn. Nightly I see your image in others' sorrowing, so many sad revenants, death's shadowy lieutenants. It is not life they bring. Death's shadowy lieutenants. It is not life they bring. Heavy stuff. Heavy stuff. Arany János. Arany János. I guess that sort of dictates what kind of night it's going to be. Yeah. Looks like we're ending up in a bathhouse. All right. Well, I hope that you enjoyed the show. I think that was a platform from which to jump going forward, and I'm very excited to do it with you. I don't think we even have a sip left, but egészségedre. With the proverbial beer. With the proverbial beer. Shabbat shalom, egészségedre. Enjoy your Friday nights, enjoy your weekends, and we shall see you soon. Ciao. Much love, everybody.
