Was B.P. Kelso Engineered to Write?

Episode 160 features B P Kelso. Who is among many things, an engineer by trade, a scriptwriter, an author, and a dad.

We discuss storytelling, adaptation, reading, always learning and much much more.

Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode

BPKelso.com

PlayingwithPlays.com

AgentPalmer.com

–End Show Notes Transmission–

–Begin Transcription–

00:00:00:05 – 00:00:23:17
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer. Dot Rock doc shows that just maybe simple plan can be perfect. Eruption did not ignite a fire in my Crichton loving heart. And Chris and I have moved on to a few smaller projects, but we still talk about some of the larger ones. This is The Palmer Files episode 160 with BP Kelso, who is among many things, an engineer by trade, a script writer and author, and a dad.

00:00:23:24 – 00:01:01:03
Agent Palmer
We discussed storytelling, adaptation, reading, always learning, and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.

00:01:01:08 – 00:01:20:46
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 160th episode is BP Kelso Brandon, as he is also known in some circles, is a storyteller. He’s adapted Shakespeare, Greek tragedies, and classic literature for young performers, be it the classroom or a camp. He’s also just released his first novel.

00:01:20:46 – 00:01:41:17
Agent Palmer
More to come, as you’ll hear called The Night She Said Hatchet and Alzheimer’s. Mom utters a cryptic word that unearths a cold case thriller. Her son must solve. As for what you’re about to hear in this episode, it’s his origin story how he got into adapting the classics, writing his novel, reading, and the need for filling the many buckets that make up who we are.

00:01:41:26 – 00:02:05:59
Agent Palmer
Plus, being brief, using your real name and just how important is storytelling in any industry? All that and more is coming your way shortly. But first, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen to or afterward, you can find all related ways to contact Brendan and myself in the show notes. The night she said hatchet can be found on his website, BP kelso.com, and his library of melodramatic scripts for kids can be found at playing with plays.com.

00:02:06:12 – 00:02:21:08
Agent Palmer
Don’t forget you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s lift the curtain and get on with the show.

00:02:21:13 – 00:02:41:34
Agent Palmer
Brendan, we were talking about names before we started recording. Recording because as you write things and publish certain things, you go by certain names. And as a guy who publishes stuff on the internet that for the longest time was Agent Palmer. It’s not until I launched this podcast that anything really has Jason Sturgeon like my real name on it.

00:02:41:39 – 00:02:55:25
Agent Palmer
I want to ask the first question, which is not why. Depending on what you write, you change your name, but why do you use your real name? Asking is a guy who decided not to. Now, I,

00:02:55:30 – 00:03:13:29
BP Kelso
You know, I started writing, like, 20 years ago. I didn’t really think about it and didn’t think much was going to come of it. And so I just use my name and just kind of went with, and I’ve always loved my wife. It’s kind of a love hate relationship. I hated my name when I was a kid. I think we all did this right as Brandon.

00:03:13:29 – 00:03:36:48
BP Kelso
I was always Brenda, and, I never, I got in so many schoolyard, fisticuffs that I just didn’t like it. And then I had I. So somehow I just sort of leaning into it around 14 or 15, and then I just started working on my signature, like, what would that be? And like, I had this flow and I’m like, okay, I’m going to make this name something someday.

00:03:36:53 – 00:03:42:17
BP Kelso
And so, you know, I kind of stuck with it. And, you know, I kind of made a deal with myself. And so here I am.

00:03:42:31 – 00:03:50:35
Agent Palmer
Okay. And so it’s it’s Brendan when like, what’s that? What’s the delineation? When’s it Brendan, when’s it be okay.

00:03:50:35 – 00:04:16:05
BP Kelso
Brendan is I mean, I’m just Brendan. But, Brendan. P Kelso is I write Shakespeare for kids scripts, Greek classics for scripts, and, for kids. Sorry. It’s early, so my words aren’t exactly coming out straight. Good. But the main thing is it’s they’re scripts for kids. I’ve got 47 of them now. And that’s just what I’ve always been.

00:04:16:05 – 00:04:35:20
BP Kelso
That’s been the author name for that. Okay. But then, you know, Covid hit and when Covid hit, basically every theater in the world shut down. Yeah. And when every theater in the world shuts down and your playwright, your kind of your business goes from here to here and very quick. And so my buddy, Kenny looked at me.

00:04:35:20 – 00:04:53:30
BP Kelso
He said, you didn’t look me. We were. He’s in Florida. He’s like, you know, hey, you you know, he could write a novel. You’ve talked about it a couple times. He’s like, you know, it’s still storytelling. And like, I it’s different type of storytelling. I’m not sure. So I just wrote down I had kind of a concept of this kind of spy thriller in my head.

00:04:53:35 – 00:05:16:34
BP Kelso
So I wrote down, a couple of chapters and read them to my wife and were like, wow, I, I’m actually not not too bad at this. And like, so I kept going with it and then eventually I finally, of a few months here I will or when you hear this, you know, it’s been out. So I have a, you know, my brand new debut novel.

00:05:16:46 – 00:05:30:35
BP Kelso
You know, I’ve been in the writing world for 20 years. Yeah, but writing scripts. And I have a complete, you know, database of teachers and educators I literally work with around the world. But this is a different beast. Okay. So, you know.

00:05:30:48 – 00:06:04:26
Agent Palmer
There are a lot of a lot of questions. So I feel like we’ll start with the hardest one. First, which is they’re they they are, they are still. Is that your friends? Right. Storytelling is storytelling, but they are different beasts. Having done it now, like on the other side of the looking glass, like, do you go back and go like, well, I didn’t have the time until Covid because obviously you had a little more time, but is this something like, oh, okay.

00:06:04:26 – 00:06:15:17
Agent Palmer
This is, this is opened a new door. So now this is the first of many I’m going to try and make time to write more of this, you know, this kind of storytelling that.

00:06:15:18 – 00:06:39:32
BP Kelso
Absolutely. I love I just love writing in general. I love, I love writing scripts for kids because when I get feedback or I see kids before my plays, there’s just there’s nothing cooler than seeing you open the doorway to kids, to both love theater drama as well as, Shakespeare and Greeks, you know, the classes out there and they’re playing hamlet, or they’re playing Odysseus or whoever.

00:06:39:37 – 00:06:57:34
BP Kelso
It’s just it’s really cool just to see them get into it. And they feel like they own that character for life. And but, you know, when writing a novel and telling the story and kind of getting in somebody’s head and kind of weaving it a different way, it’s an it is, it’s a it’s a different kind of high in a sense.

00:06:57:34 – 00:07:14:30
BP Kelso
And somebody asked me a few weeks ago and they said, you know, hey, what do you like to do as a hobby? I’m like, I like to write, okay, but that’s your job. I’m like, I know I love my job. Yeah, that’s cool. You know, I mean, I wish we all had this problem, but it was just it’s it’s so cool.

00:07:14:30 – 00:07:34:55
BP Kelso
I mean, I’ve already written 1 to 3 other books. They’re all kind of like in the back. Q right now. Okay. And part of the logic at the beginning was I wanted to have kind of a Q so that I would launch them every few months just to get kind of like that algorithm kind of flow thing for like Amazon.

00:07:35:00 – 00:07:56:33
BP Kelso
But then I started realizing I’m like, you know, a life short, who knows what’s going to happen. I love this story that I wrote because it’s very it’s very meaningful because it’s about my mom and I, but it quickly turns to a fictional thriller. But a lot of it was cathartic in the beginning. Therapeutic in the sense of just how it starts off.

00:07:56:33 – 00:08:21:18
BP Kelso
Yeah. But the other stories, they’re, they’re they’re, you know, one of them is going out to my beta readers in the next month. And that’s a horror thriller, which I don’t even I don’t even read horror, but it kind of came out because I was reading Stephen King’s book, on writing. Yep. And, my whole logic in my head was, what if Stephen King, you know, we consider him the greatest horror writer.

00:08:21:18 – 00:08:37:36
BP Kelso
What if what if he actually only was so good because he was possessed by a demon? And then my mind just kind of started spinning, and the next thing you know, I could not get this thing out of my head. I was writing a different story, and I’m like, okay, I have to get this out. Yeah, I wrote it.

00:08:37:36 – 00:08:45:35
BP Kelso
And then I got back to writing my other story because it was just so there was so, like, alive in my head. All right. So it’s just fun.

00:08:45:35 – 00:08:54:18
Agent Palmer
We have to go back because I know it’s on your website. But for people that are just finding out about you now.

00:08:54:23 – 00:08:55:11
BP Kelso

00:08:55:15 – 00:09:25:57
Agent Palmer
How did you get into adapting the classics for children. Because that is not like first of all, full disclosure, I never thought about you in the royal sense. Like, I, I always thought like, oh, these plays were written many, many long, long centuries ago. And then we just put them on like I never thought, like, oh, somebody has to adapt this, or like somebody has to modernize it or like, just.

00:09:26:02 – 00:09:43:24
Agent Palmer
And look, I was I was in theater. I mean, I was more stage, but or behind and crew but like, I never thought about it. So educate me. First of all, how did you get into it? And what’s it, what’s it like to adapt?

00:09:43:29 – 00:09:57:34
BP Kelso
I got into it because I was fiddling around with this hamlet script, and this is like 20 something years ago, and my wife has a middle school, was teaching middle school at the time, and she’s like, hey, I got these middle school kids. I need to do something with them, you know? Hey, can you play with that hamlet script with them?

00:09:57:34 – 00:10:20:04
BP Kelso
So I said, sure, we had fun with it. And then next thing you know, my son was born, and, I, I’m an engineer by degree, by the way. You know, I’m not English. Was. I don’t even know English is my first language, but my teachers would probably disagree. Okay. And it was more of a, love hate relationship with English for a long time.

00:10:20:15 – 00:10:40:38
BP Kelso
But then I saw that I just still loved writing. I just love getting the thoughts out. Yep. So, you know, practice makes perfect. And, still not perfect, but practice. So it’s, I go in and I write it, and then my son is born. So I just quit the job because I’m an engineer by degree, and I did not care about what I did.

00:10:40:39 – 00:11:04:45
BP Kelso
And in my adios needs things curious and working. And I’m a problem solver, so I love engineering in that aspect. So I just took a step back and, decided to just watch my son be the stay at home dad. You know? But, you know, at that time, 21 years ago now, it was a, let’s see how many movies I can watch.

00:11:04:45 – 00:11:25:33
BP Kelso
You know, he’s asleep most of the day. Yeah. And then my wife comes home and she encourages me. She’s like, you know, let’s let’s try to make a little money here. And so, she helped sign me up to the, Parks and Rec just to do this. Hamlet. I called it hamlet in the can then. And I started and I did it with the kids, and I really, she’s like a savant when it comes to running camps.

00:11:25:33 – 00:11:42:03
BP Kelso
So she coached me through it all, and I did it with the kids. And the kids loved it. And the kids literally came up to me and they were like, they’re like, what are we doing next? What are we doing next? Midsummer. And then I literally went home that weekend, wrote it, and we did it the next week.

00:11:42:08 – 00:12:03:37
BP Kelso
But at the same time, this homeschool mom came in, watched our hamlet, and she said, this was fantastic. She’s a you’re coming up north and you’re doing this with my kids. I said, well, you know, you’re kind of 20 miles away. I don’t know. She’s like, I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. Yeah. Like, okay. I’m like, so I started doing it with them and next thing it was Romeo, Juliet, Macbeth, Caesar.

00:12:03:37 – 00:12:25:27
BP Kelso
And then I actually had to get a real job because this other fun and although, like, I was getting paid some money for it, just, you know, it was not doing what I needed to do financially. So it kind of went to the back of my mind. And that was in 2003. Between 2003 and 2005. So we’re in that zone.

00:12:25:32 – 00:12:47:39
BP Kelso
And then, went to, work. I worked at a company called slime. We made, tire sealant and was very mom and pop, and it was it was a blast, but it was very entrepreneurial and very marketing driven. So I learned I was, in charge of product development and R&D, and I just, I learned so much about marketing from that perspective.

00:12:47:39 – 00:13:08:03
BP Kelso
Just a different way to do business. And my mind, I was like, okay, I still had this hamlet yep, Shakespeare thing. But what I realized in teaching the two classes, both the homeschool and the one I did is, you know, the homeschool kid class. I had like seven kids, but the Parks and Rec when I had 14, I’m like, how do I make one script?

00:13:08:06 – 00:13:27:27
BP Kelso
Because scripts always have like nine kids or nine people and nine actors, like, how do I make it? So it works for both. I’m like, wait a minute, I did. I made it work from 14 down to seven. How about if I somehow make this thing flexible? Okay, any teacher could do it. Yeah, it’s an afterschool program. And so I came up with this concept.

00:13:27:27 – 00:13:44:36
BP Kelso
If you open up any of my books, you’re going to look at it and you’re going to see there’s three plays in each book and one for a small group, medium group and a big group. Okay. And the big group has like most of the characters you’ll find in whatever story it is. Yeah, the small and I’m like getting ready characters and we’re just making it work.

00:13:44:41 – 00:14:07:22
BP Kelso
But then I tell you who you can double up. So a lot of them, you can do it between like seven kids up to like 20 kids, and you have any number in there. I’ve got a script that’ll work for you. But that was my model. Yeah. And so, publish on demand, Kindle really wasn’t a thing yet, but Publish on demand was.

00:14:07:27 – 00:14:23:15
BP Kelso
And so print on demand. And so I did that for the first one. Took me the longest thing. It took was two years just to get the right cover because I it took me a long time to really I’m kind of anal about my product because I look at it as a product. Okay. I’m like, what does it look like?

00:14:23:15 – 00:14:48:15
BP Kelso
What’s the message? It’s got it. It’s got to say the right thing. And, and, and of course, I had none around here to show you the, Yeah. Why would I, but I, so I did that. I said, okay, I’m gonna launch it, and if it takes off, then I’ll write the next one. Okay. And I remember one day, like three months later, I’m going and checking my sales on my phone, and I was sitting in front of a Starbucks.

00:14:48:15 – 00:15:13:07
BP Kelso
And next thing you know, it’s it’s 75 units. And I’ve been selling 1 or 2 here and there, but then suddenly 75 and it really hit me that in one shot some I’m assuming school bought 75. They spent 750 bucks for my books. Like Holy cow, people really actually pay and like this. And then from there it just kind of snowball.

00:15:13:07 – 00:15:35:07
BP Kelso
I just it was a hobby, you know, for between 2008 and 2015, it was like I just kept launching like one, maybe two year. Okay. And then in 2015, I kind of had enough momentum. We’re talking about adopting, and somehow I say, I’m not doing this by myself. And I’m like, all right, let’s just let me give it a shot.

00:15:35:07 – 00:16:02:01
BP Kelso
So in 2015, I left corporate because by then we weren’t mom and pop. We were corporate. And that was starting to kind of rub me the wrong way and then went to, just started doing this, and then I started pumping out like 3 or 4 a year and teaching it after school programs, in schools, doing my own summer camps, tons of different ways.

00:16:02:05 – 00:16:23:21
BP Kelso
And to answer the last part of your question, do I enjoy it, I love it, yeah, I, I love especially in the script because the scripts are smaller. My plays are like about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on which one how you’re doing it. But it’s like I love nuances in each line to try to get the right feel, the right texture, the right humor, everything in there.

00:16:23:26 – 00:16:36:49
BP Kelso
Because my plays are melodramatic and the tragedies are funnier than the comedies, especially when we talk Shakespeare because kids love to melodramatically die on stage. I mean, they just love to get out there and just fall over.

00:16:36:51 – 00:16:38:36
Agent Palmer
Time to ham it up. Yep.

00:16:38:41 – 00:16:56:02
BP Kelso
I literally and they love it. And once I did that, I kind of leaned into it. My auditions. I’m like, give me your best death. And the kids will all line up and they’ll just boom, boom, boom. And it’s it’s funny. I can see who the hams are. I can see, you know, who’s a little more shy. And then I cast accordingly.

00:16:56:02 – 00:17:11:14
Agent Palmer
So, so I, I want to go back before I go forward. Why were you messing around with hamlet to begin with? I mean, it all starts because you’re messing around with hamlet. Like what? What what possessed you to be like? I think I’m gonna play around with this.

00:17:11:19 – 00:17:23:20
BP Kelso
You know what? And I school, I hated Shakespeare, okay? This again was not my thing. And and and, you know, 90 few still ass today. 95% of kids hate Shakespeare. Know that’s.

00:17:23:21 – 00:17:25:18
Agent Palmer
Probably. Yeah.

00:17:25:23 – 00:17:41:37
BP Kelso
You ask adults and adults still today will be like, I don’t understand them. You know, they don’t. My head. My brother in law came over and he read in one sitting, which took maybe an hour for him. He read Macbeth, Caesar and Hamlet. Just one of my versions. Yeah. He’s like, I finally understand.

00:17:41:37 – 00:17:43:19
Agent Palmer
What the story is.

00:17:43:23 – 00:18:01:11
BP Kelso
And I’m like, yeah, and you know, when you really understand hamlet. Hamlet is a great story. I mean, all of the Shakespeare stories are great stories and they’re great characters. I mean, the guy, the guy, you know, kind of had a gift for writing a little bit. Yeah, just a touch. But he, It’s such a great story.

00:18:01:11 – 00:18:22:01
BP Kelso
So I just said, you know, why don’t I make it so that I can understand it and just, you know, so I just started just fiddling with it, and playing and like I said, I like to write. And in my mind, writing a play was easier than writing because you’re doing just lines and just words. And then you as an actor are paying.

00:18:22:01 – 00:18:49:20
BP Kelso
I always tell teachers, I said, you know, I only am half of the art project. I write the script. Yeah, you the director and you the actors, you layer and all the other color in there and you make it happen. So that’s why it’s, you know, I’m tangent ING a little, but that’s like for my scripts, I’m never verbatim on the scripts with the teachers and stuff because the kids are it’s first of all, theater should be about creativity and learning how to be creative.

00:18:49:25 – 00:19:16:18
BP Kelso
And you can only do that if you don’t have shackles holding you to a certain way to do things. Yeah. So I mean, they follow the script just by nature. But if lots of times kids are like, hey, can I do this? What about that? I had a kid once. It’s it’s funny, we were doing Jungle Book, and in my Jungle Book, there’s a line and it says, hey, Mowgli, Shere Khan’s waiting for you down at the ravine.

00:19:16:23 – 00:19:40:00
BP Kelso
And all the kids that I was reading it with, they started giggling. And I’m like, you know, I’ve done this like four different times. Why? Why are they giggling? So we read it again and they just kind of giggle again. I’m like, all right, stop. Why are you guys laughing? What’s funny? What do I missing? Yeah. And they said, well the ravine and and what I didn’t click in my head is in our little county, San Luis Obispo, we have a water park called the ravine.

00:19:40:02 – 00:20:03:55
BP Kelso
Okay. And so in their mind, they saw Shere Khan on a floatie going down a water slide. Yep. Now that context would not fly anywhere else but in our county in our audience flies. Perfect. I was I ran with it. I’m like, this is perfect. Yeah, let’s do it. And so next thing you know, in the actual play, Shere Khan walks out in a big pink flamingo floatie.

00:20:03:56 – 00:20:04:42
Agent Palmer
Knife.

00:20:04:47 – 00:20:23:51
BP Kelso
And Mowgli is like, dude, you’re still in your floaty. Oh, sorry. Runs, throws it back stage comes out. But that was the creative nature. I mean it made it their own. Yeah. So they I mean this is something they will never forget. They’ll carry that on. They’ll also know that hey my ideas are good. I can run with them.

00:20:23:51 – 00:20:26:51
BP Kelso
And half that’s building confidence in kids. So yeah.

00:20:26:51 – 00:20:55:30
Agent Palmer
I, I immediately think of and it’s not just Shakespeare but I think of like classics, meaning things we were forced to read in middle and high school. And I go, well, you know, there’s ten things I hate about you. There’s clueless, you know, there are. And I know for my generation specifically that that specific Romeo and Juliet is, is held in high regard because of the music and not because of the content.

00:20:55:35 – 00:21:28:28
Agent Palmer
But ten things I Hate About You and clueless are just good stories that are based on classics that, again, when you talk about people not getting Shakespeare and I think a lot of people don’t know those are based on classics, right. And so there is a lack of look, not everybody’s a movie buff. Not everybody cares where things come from or what they’re based on, but they’re it’s it’s odd to me that in 2001, fellowship of the ring comes out and everybody knows it’s based on a book.

00:21:28:33 – 00:21:55:19
Agent Palmer
But prior to that, in the previous decade, clueless comes out. Nobody knows. It’s based on, you know, like ten things I Hate About You. Nobody knows that taming of the shrew. Like, there are just these gaps from the written word to movies that or plays in general that seem astounding to me because I grew up with. And so I thought everybody like, I just assumed everybody knew.

00:21:55:19 – 00:22:16:07
Agent Palmer
So when people discovering like, oh, this is a book like that, I was like, you didn’t. You didn’t like what? Like there. And I know everybody’s circles different, but just generally how we got to a point where, like, no, clueless is based on something, it’s not wholly unique to itself. It’s, it’s it’s updated, it’s modernized. It’s in the 90s.

00:22:16:07 – 00:22:21:56
Agent Palmer
But it’s not its own thing. And so what has bones?

00:22:22:05 – 00:22:36:37
BP Kelso
It has the story bones in it. Yeah. It’s funny, I go into schools all the time, and when I talk to kids, I’m like, how many of you really know the story of hamlet? I may get 1 or 2 kids. Raise your hand. These are sixth graders. Fifth graders, whatever. Yeah, but then I’m like, how many of you guys know The Lion King?

00:22:36:37 – 00:22:45:00
BP Kelso
Yeah. Oh, I’m like, yeah, you know hamlet. Yeah. But like you do. And then I explain it really quick and then like, oh, you know, so.

00:22:45:15 – 00:23:15:51
Agent Palmer
That yeah, there’s a very big, kind of important, I guess. I guess this goes back to storytelling, right? Like it is kind of universal. So. All right. If you were an engineer by trade and that’s what you went to school for. And you were kind of, you know, science track, I would, I would guess was the love for writing just, a hobby in the background, or was this a late moving discovery, like.

00:23:16:02 – 00:23:40:02
BP Kelso
Late, totally late blowing. Totally. And it was. It’s weird, cause I had I’ve always had a difficult time reading part of that’s, the dyslexia. But I don’t really deal with dyslexia anymore. But it just comprehension for me was really difficult for a long time. And, I think I was 21. I came home from college, and when I got home, my parents were gone on vacation whenever I was just bored.

00:23:40:02 – 00:23:59:11
BP Kelso
And they had some paperbacks on the shelf, and one of them was, Patriot Games by Tom Clancy. Okay. So I’m like, you know, and I don’t know, I, I’ve always tried to read and it just always just failed for me, but then I just decided to pick it up and like in the first chapter, like, hooked me, like, you know, I’ve never been hooked like that.

00:23:59:18 – 00:24:17:13
BP Kelso
Okay, I it and I burn through that thing, like in a week, then like, what’s the next Clancy? You know, where’s where’s he going? And so I read the next one. And literally over that summer, the each week boom, boom, boom. And I think up until like some of some of our fears or something like that, because I was the last one he wrote at that time.

00:24:17:17 – 00:24:35:43
BP Kelso
Yeah, obviously a few decades ago. But, you know, I was like suddenly hooked on reading, but then that his like, voice was in my head, and then I had this, like, weirdo story in my head. So I just kind of, like, wrote it down on paper. I’m like, it’s kind of fun storytelling. And so it just kind of went there.

00:24:35:43 – 00:24:57:12
BP Kelso
So I always knew it was in here, and then just kind of let it go. And then, as I do product development, one of the things you do is you pitch a lot, okay? And you know, you have a new idea or a concept for a new product, and you got to pitch it to the exact and you got to set it up so they can pitch it to sales, and they got to set it up so they can pitch it to the customer so somebody can buy it.

00:24:57:12 – 00:25:24:45
BP Kelso
So I can actually build a product. But that’s storytelling as well. That’s, you know, you’re creating a you’re creating a story to sell to somebody. And you know, and so I would I craft these reports all the time. And in that world I learned a lot about making things efficient. Like my words, make it, clear, precise, but also that I can get the point across quickly.

00:25:24:54 – 00:25:40:58
BP Kelso
Yeah. I remember I did I worked at Sony for a small period, and I turned in this report to my director, and it was like 2 or 3 pages. He literally picked it up. He looked at it, he said, okay, that’s great. Put it down. We’ll use it. But you got to make it only one page. I’m like, what?

00:25:41:03 – 00:25:58:41
BP Kelso
Are you kidding me? So I go it down, I’m like that. But then everything that was important, he’s I know it’s important to you. I have a question I can ask you now. You make it easy for me to read because I read these all day long. So I learned. I went back, learned how to craft something down, say the same thing, but just craft it.

00:25:58:46 – 00:26:21:58
BP Kelso
And then, you know, Twitter came along and it really forced you had to craft. Yeah. I thought, cool carefully. And if you spend a lot of time doing it, it was really a skill. And then now in my the place, you know, I have a specific workout and so a lot of times if I get over that workout for any particular script, I mean, I’m cutting and I’m figuring out, you know, okay, I wrote it in nine words.

00:26:21:58 – 00:26:30:27
BP Kelso
I could say the same thing with seven. Now, this line, this line, this line. So it’s it’s it’s kind of all evolved that way.

00:26:30:32 – 00:26:44:18
Agent Palmer
All right. Well, I first of all, it’s a good thing it was Clancy, because like, if you had found like that one off author whose only written one thing you might have not like. Yeah. Strung together all that stuff.

00:26:44:23 – 00:26:45:21
BP Kelso
Right.

00:26:45:26 – 00:26:51:35
Agent Palmer
Do you are you still a reader now? Like to have you. Yes. Okay. So basically from that moment on.

00:26:51:40 – 00:27:06:48
BP Kelso
Yeah. No. And that moment on, I’m kind of a binge reader. It’s like I won’t read for like 3 or 4 months, and the next thing you know, it’s like I knock out like seven books in a month, okay? And and, you know, I might pause because, you know, I’ve, I’ve got a kid on the spectrum. I’ve got two daughters.

00:27:06:48 – 00:27:10:02
BP Kelso
I’ve, you know, I had to take care of my mom for a long time. And so.

00:27:10:13 – 00:27:10:49
Agent Palmer
And you’ve got to.

00:27:10:49 – 00:27:33:09
BP Kelso
Write like, yeah, you got to write. But then seriously, you get to write in, you get to run my business because I do everything by myself. And so that just, you know, there’s so much time and then there’s family time. And so, you know, there isn’t much time for reading in one sense. Yeah, but I can’t get better at my craft of writing if I don’t read.

00:27:33:14 – 00:27:49:14
BP Kelso
So I think, you know, the Stephen King on the page, he was so funny, was on the back of his audiobook. It said, if you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time to write. And I always found that so ironically funny. I’m like, only Stephen King would slap someone in the face going, you’re listening to an audiobook.

00:27:49:14 – 00:28:06:35
BP Kelso
And I’m telling you, if you don’t have time to read, you know you don’t have time to write. Yeah. And it’s funny, it’s subtle. And I’m not saying audiobooks are wrong or bad. I listen to audiobooks and they have their place, but I think seeing the written word is different than hearing the written word. And it completely different because you have actors.

00:28:06:35 – 00:28:15:17
BP Kelso
I mean, they’re saying the lines a certain way, and when you’re reading it, your your voice is saying in a different way. So it’s really two different avenues into your head.

00:28:15:17 – 00:28:45:58
Agent Palmer
I mean, I would argue that our generation’s, anyone who was probably 16 or older in 2001 that read Tolkien has, Gandalf in their head, that may or may not be related. And, you know, it’s not Ian McKellen. Whereas everybody after those movies, even if you read the book, you cannot read those descriptions and not see Ian McKellen now.

00:28:45:58 – 00:29:12:03
Agent Palmer
Right. And so for us, I mean, this is the thing I go back to this all the time, and I wish this is one of those time machine moments. I think I would love to know just I worked in a gaming store when I was like 14 and we’d play Magic The Gathering. It’s the mid to late 90s, and occasionally you would get on these like, well, if they made a live action Lord of the rings, who would play what?

00:29:12:08 – 00:29:31:11
Agent Palmer
And we would talk about this for hours. And this is right. Well, you know, this is not long before, but it’s, you know, 4 or 5 years before the first movie is even cast. And I would just love to know who we said for, like, I love to go back and know who we were arguing in favor of X, Y, and Z.

00:29:31:11 – 00:29:53:45
Agent Palmer
Right. And you know, we’re not worldly. You know, it’s a gaming store. So maybe there’s some kids in fifth grade and maybe there’s some people from college or some college local, you know, recent college graduates. But, you know, you can fit us all under a decade. And it’s, you know, slightly cross-generational, but not much. So like going back, like, who would we have argued for?

00:29:53:54 – 00:30:21:47
Agent Palmer
And I would argue every single one of our things was based on how we interpreted the novel, not, well, it’s Ian McKellen, right? Like it’s just I don’t think about it that way. And so you’re right, like there is in your in your mind’s eye. But and while I kind of agree, I agree in principle with, you know, you need to see the written word to write the written word.

00:30:21:52 – 00:30:53:13
Agent Palmer
I’m a podcaster, but the more I produce this show and others, the less time I have for consuming podcasts, and the more I write, the less time I have to read. Because, you know, whereas if you and I were like, I don’t know, mechanics or, you know, bakers, we could put an audio book on, we could put a movie on in the background.

00:30:53:13 – 00:31:26:15
Agent Palmer
We could listen to music. Right? Yeah. But if you if I’m going to edit this podcast, like, I can’t read and edit this part, I can’t listen to something, and that is it. If you and I are going to write, we can’t listen to an audio book. And. Right, and so it’s this very weird thing where I think your, I guess, fits and spurts of reading is more natural than mine because I will just I just forced myself to read a few pages every day, even if I don’t have the time.

00:31:26:20 – 00:31:28:58
BP Kelso
I do to fall asleep reading almost every night.

00:31:28:58 – 00:31:57:12
Agent Palmer
But on a whole I can get through. I and I still get through more books than the average person, I think. But yeah, there are times when it’s like, oh no, I’m not far behind. So I have an hour more to read or whatever, but oh my god, the amount of if you are a creator, the amount of time you have to indulge in consuming things is much less than if you’re just a straight.

00:31:57:18 – 00:32:15:42
Agent Palmer
And I don’t think a lot of creatives, I think we do, a disservice to ourselves for not like letting other people know, like it’s okay that you aren’t reading or listening to as much music, but you’re creating your own thing, so it’s fine. Like it’s okay, I think.

00:32:15:42 – 00:32:40:49
BP Kelso
I think it’s a balance too, because I think there’s buckets in your head. It’s like, I feel like when my reading bucket gets depleted, I gotta fill it up, okay? And I think that’s why I binge it. And you know, again, nothing against audiobooks at all. I mean, I, we have a place in Oregon, which is about a 12 hour drive, and I almost every time I consume at least one audiobook going up, we’re not even coming back.

00:32:40:54 – 00:33:04:45
BP Kelso
And, you know, I remember going through the Alex Cross series, just, you know, one after another, just because it was easy. It was quick. I love the story. I mean, I love binging stuff on Netflix or something because I love just watching the stories. Yeah, I love seeing I love the cinematography of how they’re being produced. And for me, for me, it’s again, it’s all about the story.

00:33:04:45 – 00:33:29:34
BP Kelso
I just love the engagement of the story. And so you got to consume it whatever you can, you know. You know, audiobooks are so big because, you know, people have a difficult time. As they get older, their eyes start bugging out. So screens become more challenging. You know, I can’t read on an actual physical book anymore because of just because of my eyes.

00:33:29:47 – 00:33:47:37
BP Kelso
So I have to do screen so I can adjust the fonts. Okay. And I, you know, I’m almost always reading with a dark background, just easier on my eyes. Yeah, but, you know, that’s what the screens allow you to do. It gives you that flexibility. You know, books you can actually print large print. And there’s people who buy large print books.

00:33:47:42 – 00:34:06:48
BP Kelso
But that’s really what, you know, your Kindle does for you. It allows you to go large print if you need to. Yes. And then you go and you. It’s funny. I’ll do, let’s say, a cold reading with, high schoolers. And they’re all literally all of them are on their phone. They’re like reading it along. And I look at their phone and it’s like, got a font for it’s it’s ridiculous how tiny it is.

00:34:06:48 – 00:34:11:55
BP Kelso
And I’m like, we’re ruined. I’m like, no, dude, your eyes are going to be burned by the time you’re like 20 minutes.

00:34:11:55 – 00:34:20:19
Agent Palmer
So hold up. That’s just the first read through, right? But at some point they move to paper so they can write notes. Correct? Or am I or is that just an generational thing? And that’s not.

00:34:20:19 – 00:34:36:28
BP Kelso
The way they do it. Part of it’s generational, part of this generational, I have I have literally gone I’ve done a cold reading with a group, let’s say ten, or are I high schoolers and printed them out and they’re like, oh, no, I got on my phone. Don’t worry about it. I’m like, but it’s right.

00:34:36:35 – 00:34:38:32
Agent Palmer
But how do they make notes? How do.

00:34:38:32 – 00:34:50:37
BP Kelso
They? They just say stuff. I’m the one taking notes. Okay. So if it’s a cold reading or one of my plays okay, I’m sorry I Sinclair. No no no no, like this would be something I wrote and then I want them to read it. Yeah. Okay. I will be listening. I’m like.

00:34:50:42 – 00:34:58:51
Agent Palmer
But if but if they’re going to perform it right then they take I. I mean I.

00:34:58:51 – 00:35:10:14
BP Kelso
Just never seen them not do it with paper when a performance. But I’ve seen it plenty of times in they’re just like when I said like cold reading. Yeah, just reading the first time it’s it’s on their phone. It’s just they just it’s just easier.

00:35:10:22 – 00:35:31:50
Agent Palmer
My, my wife has been working on a novel for the better part of, well, longer than I’ve known her. And, she’s been trying to finish it up, and, she’s like, you’ve edited a novel before? I’m like, yeah, I have, she’s like, well, you can edit this. I was like, well, we’ll have to print it out.

00:35:31:55 – 00:35:56:19
Agent Palmer
She was why? I’m like, I know I can, I know I can make notes, I know I can, but I as an editor and I get this, I know I get this from my mother, but as an editor, I want the paper like, the first novel I edited, which is still unpublished. And I’m sure we’ll go through another revision with my friend who wrote it.

00:35:56:24 – 00:36:18:29
Agent Palmer
We both printed it out. We were very like. We were so excited, he finished. Undoubtedly, manuscript is holding a manuscript. Yeah, it’s. It was just the coolest thing. And editing it felt better. I mean, I, I, we have the digital thing, but, like, I can still go through because I still have it and just be like, yeah, this is where I made you know, whatever.

00:36:18:29 – 00:36:23:33
Agent Palmer
And I know it’s probably not the easiest and I know it’s not the most like.

00:36:23:38 – 00:36:43:28
BP Kelso
You know, but you see, you have a different mind than your wife than I do. And that’s the thing you get like when I was doing for hatchet, which is the book that’s out now when I was doing the beta reads. And just to clarify, in case you guys don’t know, there’s there’s beta, which they read it, it’s not really edited very well.

00:36:43:33 – 00:37:00:44
BP Kelso
Okay. The story is there. I cleaned it up pretty good. You’re going to catch things. But that’s the point of a beta read. Yeah, but the bigger picture of a beta readers kind of like 30,000ft view looking down saying, okay, I know you said this, but you killed this guy off in chapter seven and he came back in chapter 14.

00:37:00:44 – 00:37:21:26
BP Kelso
Yeah. You know, catch blatant things like that. Or the story arcs don’t make sense or, you know, wow, you really I don’t think that person would have done that. So it’s just logic. Yeah. What I call story logic. But I say I sent out 30 different copies. At least three of them were like, I can’t do this and let this printed.

00:37:21:31 – 00:37:43:41
BP Kelso
And I’m like, totally cool. You know, you’re spending two weeks of your time going through the stuff for me. Here’s 500 pages, bone. You know, I print them out and I ship them off and I give them return envelope to send back. And it’s kind of cool because then I’m flipping out page to page and they’re writing it down and, you know, so they’re but people have different mindsets of how they look at it.

00:37:43:48 – 00:38:03:55
BP Kelso
Yeah. Other people are like just digital summer paper. I’m like, okay, hey, I will work with whatever avenue works for you. Yeah. So, you know, so it’s not paper isn’t wrong, but paper for some people are just completely easier. Yeah. You can mentally wrap yourself around it a lot better. So you, I, you know, I didn’t want to, you know, boxed myself in by saying, oh, nope.

00:38:03:55 – 00:38:09:16
BP Kelso
Sorry. I’m not going to. Yeah, I’m not going to spend the 18 bucks in total, you know, to do this.

00:38:09:21 – 00:38:21:52
Agent Palmer
So so are there I mean, obviously you’ve done place and obviously now in novel. Are there other forms or even mediums that you want to tackle? Well, I mean.

00:38:21:54 – 00:38:51:27
BP Kelso
You know, it’s actually interesting you say this, and I’m going to be very careful how I say this, music. Not me. I have no, I don’t have a lick of, like, musical ability. Okay. But there’s two things that I really want to do. One is a musical. Okay. I really, I get a lot of teachers that ask for musicals with my plays, so crafting one of my plays and hamlet and turning it into a musical and already have kind of the concept and everything, and I can write the lyrics.

00:38:51:27 – 00:39:17:08
BP Kelso
Yeah, but it’s so hard for me mentally to sing a tune with words. Okay. And so it’s just, it’s just a gap of my brain has, but I, I’m aware of it. So I’ve, I’ve started working on workarounds. Part of it is my son, my son, he’s on the spectrum, but he’s amazing at guitar. I mean, he’s got gift of music, okay?

00:39:17:13 – 00:39:39:55
BP Kelso
And he’s an he’s a writer, too, so he’s an, I say, a writer. He’s he loves Doctor Seuss. He loves Disney. So he’s written five children’s books that like a very doctor ish. We went to, Autism fair, three weeks ago, and he brought 60 of his hardback books. And I’m like, okay, you know, if we just break even, I’m stoked because I fronted all the money for it.

00:39:40:00 – 00:40:00:00
BP Kelso
And next thing you know, because he’s he’s not your conventional salesman, you know, he’s just out there. Okay. And if people don’t like, you know, people are like, no, I don’t think I’ll buy it. He literally like, looks in his face. They’re like, dang it, you know? And he’s yelling, not yelling at them. But just like yelling out, yeah, you know, it’s not something you would normally do as a salesperson.

00:40:00:05 – 00:40:22:01
BP Kelso
But they people just dug him and they loved him. And next thing you know, like in 2.5 hours, he sold everything nice. Like, Holy cow, we get to do this more often. But he also has musical abilities and we’ve written a couple songs together. They’re just fun songs. One’s called the Alligator Song. But he knows how to carry the tune.

00:40:22:01 – 00:40:41:31
BP Kelso
He knows how to end it. He he can play the guitar with it. I can help him with the words. And so together we do it pretty good. So I’m kind of in the process of like, somewhere down the road to learn how to craft that so I can put it out there on like iTunes or Spotify or wherever those avenues are.

00:40:41:35 – 00:40:48:55
BP Kelso
I still got to research at all. Yeah, yeah. As another medium. Yeah, that’s another one there. Okay. Yeah. So that’s that’s kind of fun.

00:40:49:00 – 00:40:49:48
Agent Palmer
I mean, the long.

00:40:49:48 – 00:40:50:29
BP Kelso
Winded answer.

00:40:50:31 – 00:41:12:58
Agent Palmer
There’s a lot I mean, there’s a lot, though. I mean, as, as a, as a script writer, even for plays like, I mean, you know, movies, television pilots, I mean, you if you I guess at this point, I’m, I’m saying these things, but, having just known you for this conversation, it feels like, well, if it pops in your head, you’re going to do it.

00:41:12:58 – 00:41:15:17
Agent Palmer
It doesn’t really matter. I have.

00:41:15:17 – 00:41:34:57
BP Kelso
A friend. She produces movies. She’s done a few movies. Up in Seattle. And they’re all of them are independent. And it was funny. She’s like, congratulations on the book. And, you know, I wrote back to her. I’m like, it would make a great movie. Just saying, you know, and she’s like, well, I need a screenwriter. I’m like, I can write, you know, just.

00:41:35:02 – 00:41:48:07
Agent Palmer
I mean, I guess that it does beg a different question, which is you’ve been adapting others, like, do you think you’d be good at adapting your own work? Because that’s a.

00:41:48:07 – 00:42:13:06
BP Kelso
Different I’ll be honest with you. I’ve thought about that many times, and as much as I’d want to give it a go, I want to be very. I’ve always so in product development. Part of the reason I was really good at product development is I would listen to people and I would hear ideas, and I’m a very firm believer that, you know, if I have a concept of an idea, I will tell so many people all to little kids, and kids will think of things that you never thought about.

00:42:13:06 – 00:42:30:02
BP Kelso
And I’m like, oh, that’s that’s good. Or tell a homeless person I don’t care who really? Because guess what? They’re going to say ideas about it. They might say ten different ideas. And guess what? Hey, hey, that piece right there, that one piece is really cool. I’m going to take that little nugget and I’m going to put it in.

00:42:30:07 – 00:42:45:44
BP Kelso
And I was I’m always been very good at like this collaboration process. And I believe in giving credit to anybody who helps. It’s in the process. And that’s honestly probably been the hardest thing about novel writing is you’re living in a silo.

00:42:45:44 – 00:42:48:34
Agent Palmer
A lot of you’re on your own. Yeah, and it’s hard.

00:42:48:40 – 00:42:49:07
BP Kelso
Well, I.

00:42:49:07 – 00:43:02:31
Agent Palmer
Mean, the editing process itself. And when you get your beta readers, that’s a bit of collaboration. But until then, the from the first word to the last word on that initial manuscript. Yeah. You’re alone.

00:43:02:45 – 00:43:22:32
BP Kelso
You’re what you you you you can be or you can. A lot of people are just afraid to let their work out. Okay. And I’ve learned you’re doing products. I mean, I’ve had products that are just crap. And so. And when I worked at slime, there was a very blunt environment. And if something sucked, the boss came down.

00:43:22:32 – 00:43:34:51
BP Kelso
It’s got this sucks. But if something was great, he’s like, God, that was awesome. You know, you got both sides of it, and you weren’t punished either way. Okay. So you felt free.

00:43:34:56 – 00:43:35:47
Agent Palmer
To to try.

00:43:35:47 – 00:43:59:54
BP Kelso
This knowing. And when you start studying innovation and really start setting creativity, one of the things they teach you is fail fast, fail often. Okay, so you have an idea for something, create it. I don’t care if it’s a sketch on a paper. I don’t care if it’s a little paper maché 3D model, whatever. Create it and then show it to people, and people are going to be like, that’s great, but what do I put my coffee or that’s great.

00:43:59:54 – 00:44:17:01
BP Kelso
What about this? And oh that’s good, I’ll tweak that in, oh, I got to do that okay. And but the more times you iterate that, the more successful that product is going to be. In the end. Now, in writing a play, I can, you know, I’ve done so many of them now, I could craft a lot of it in my head.

00:44:17:06 – 00:44:35:21
BP Kelso
And I can see the kids, I can hear the voices. I said, act it out loud. In the novel, I have a couple close friends that I’m like, hey, here’s the concept of the story, because I start from the very beginning. Here’s the concept. What do you think? And they’ll be like, oh, what if it was this?

00:44:35:21 – 00:44:49:16
BP Kelso
I’m like, oh, that’s great. And, you know, I’ll start tweaking the story from the very beginning because the problem of writing the first word, writing the last word, all in a silo is if your story is going sideways on chapter.

00:44:49:16 – 00:44:51:31
Agent Palmer
Three, you don’t know until you’re done.

00:44:51:36 – 00:45:19:45
BP Kelso
Yeah, yeah. And that’s and that’s the same thing as, like creating a product and then putting it to market and it never sells. And you’re like, why? Well, because you spelled the name backwards and it’s like, oh, I should have seen that from the beginning. Yeah. But you know, these things, they happen. But if you can get a couple, 2 or 3 people that are confidence that you’re not worried about sharing your story and, and, and I get people are scared and worried about sharing a concept.

00:45:19:45 – 00:45:37:37
BP Kelso
But on the flip side, if you’ve thought of the idea, it’s been thought of by 100 other people already ahead of you. Yeah, I remember I invented a product, it was called, Scuff Away Painter and it was basically a pink touch. I came home one day and there were scuffs on the back of my wife’s. Like, it’d be a lot easier if there was just some little, like, two.

00:45:37:40 – 00:45:53:58
BP Kelso
But I can just paint it. And I’m like, well, every wall is a different color. She’s like, well, why don’t you make the tubes with the color? Like, And so I took like a shoe shine bottle, and then I took whatever gallon paint I put it in with a little sponge like this works perfect. It was a great concept.

00:45:53:58 – 00:46:15:38
BP Kelso
I paid for tooling, got it all done, brought it to market. And we called it Scuff Away Painter. But our practice, when we put it in the market, we just called it paint, touch up the paint, touch up, sold like crazy. And then I got into this branding, calling it paint Scuff Away. And it was so funny because it completely crashed.

00:46:15:38 – 00:46:33:26
BP Kelso
Because people are like, what’s scuff away? Okay, but paint touch up people new and you know, but that’s just not, you know, why tangent into the story. But it’s just it’s the, you know, iteration of products as they go through and you know, I’m really spinning off and I’m not sure why.

00:46:33:28 – 00:46:46:27
Agent Palmer
No no no no, I mean, I see how it connects though, because you do need you got stuck on the name. Somebody along the way could have been like, no, just keep it as it is. It’s selling well, why would you change the name?

00:46:46:38 – 00:47:09:17
BP Kelso
But I was so far in the forest, I just was like, you know, this actually, it’s a perfect name. And the logic here is the funny, you know, we talk about going back and looking at business cases. It was a great name. We had a literally a great, cool little logo that we created. But the problem was I was so far in the forest that it didn’t educate the consumer.

00:47:09:17 – 00:47:33:45
BP Kelso
Yeah. And the consumer has that much time, so I had to sell them like that. If I didn’t, they were gone. Now paint touch up. It’s generic. I cannot brand paint touch up. Yeah I cannot trademark but I can scuff away painter. So I was all hooked up on branding and owning that intellectual property as opposed to I forgot how it sells.

00:47:33:50 – 00:47:40:20
BP Kelso
And when I made that jump, I fell on my face and it died. But I learned.

00:47:40:25 – 00:48:09:24
Agent Palmer
See, and I, I like that and I think it’s probably better for you, and it’s probably because you’re a writer. We’ve all, I think writers, creatives on, on a whole have failed a lot more than most people just in, but usually in the privacy of our own home. You know, how many drafts have we started and just not, you know, you people who aren’t creative probably think, well, I mean, I’m sure there’s something good in that draft.

00:48:09:28 – 00:48:26:45
Agent Palmer
Why don’t you just keep working on it and like, you and I will be like, well, that’s 500 words. I’m not getting back. I’m just going to start over because it’s better to start over. But we have to be willing. But that’s admitting failure on that draft or whatever it is. And failure is not bad. Again, to your point, it’s not a bad thing.

00:48:26:45 – 00:49:03:41
Agent Palmer
You get to learn more from it, but the amount of just on drafts alone, whether it’s a canvas or, the written word or the printed page or a typewriter or screen like we’ve, we’ve gone through and we’ve started over again because why not? And all of our things the next time are better for it. But you you seem to be, I kind of like your philosophy of just like, you know, when it comes, it comes.

00:49:03:46 – 00:49:23:02
Agent Palmer
And I’ve. I’ve kind of been trying to do that myself, but I find myself, comfortable. Right. And I know I, I’ve. Look, having a child has, changed my processes in a way that’s made me uncomfortable again, which is good.

00:49:23:13 – 00:49:23:46
BP Kelso
Yeah.

00:49:23:51 – 00:49:51:31
Agent Palmer
You know, like, I think that, like, getting uncomfortable is important because, being comfortable is the easiest way to get stuck in a rut. And I don’t know that we we all want to do that. But you have more novels in the can then, and obviously you’re going to keep doing plays. Is is this just, you know, more and more until you get the musical going and then.

00:49:51:36 – 00:50:04:12
BP Kelso
No, no, I like right now the plays are on hiatus. I mean, granted, I wrote I launched so far, thank you very much. I launched five plays this year already.

00:50:04:17 – 00:50:07:42
Agent Palmer
Yeah. As we’re recording, that’s one of my that’s the.

00:50:07:42 – 00:50:29:37
BP Kelso
Sorry, sorry. That’s right. Yeah. And but for the next and I, you know, I went to recording. I haven’t launched, my novel yet, but I’m spending the next, honestly, two months, 2 to 3 months just working on marketing and launching and not I’m writing. I got commissioned to write one other play, so I’m going to be doing that in the in the middle of it.

00:50:29:42 – 00:50:49:09
BP Kelso
But it’s just I, I want to focus. Okay. And if to do a good job, you do need to focus. I can’t just I mean and I have my family. I’ve got to be I mean, there’s a reason, you know, I’m a 5 a.m. recording this because you know, I don’t want to compromise my family. Yeah. And because they feel it, too.

00:50:49:14 – 00:51:09:03
BP Kelso
So there’s it’s definitely a balance, you know, like I said, you know, earlier, the know this kind of my hobby, it’s my job, but it’s my hobby too. So, you know, I don’t, you know, my family is my number one thing. And so it’s, it’s, it’s it’s a balance. But then again, those buckets, when one bucket gets empty I got to go try to fill it.

00:51:09:17 – 00:51:09:52
BP Kelso
Yeah.

00:51:09:57 – 00:51:18:52
Agent Palmer
And you it this isn’t balance that happens overnight. Like this is 20 years of figuring it out. And you’re.

00:51:18:52 – 00:51:20:10
BP Kelso
When I figure it out, I’ll tell you.

00:51:20:22 – 00:51:22:32
Agent Palmer
Oh, so you still you’re still working?

00:51:22:37 – 00:51:29:34
BP Kelso
Yeah. We’re always learning.

00:51:29:39 – 00:51:53:41
Agent Palmer
You. There are three things that stick out to me from this conversation, and I’m discounting the fact that we hit it off and could have recorded for another hour or two. The first is that we both love writing, and that’s something that we both came to at different times and in different ways. But we are here to be examples of the idea that your path to loving writing doesn’t have to be constant or even linear.

00:51:53:45 – 00:52:14:18
Agent Palmer
You arrive at loving writing when you arrive, and you are welcome. If that happens at 16 or 62. The second is that getting comfortable is a good way to get stuck in a rut. Which is why the third thing we are always learning is so important, because it means that we always have new things that can jolt us out of said rut.

00:52:14:23 – 00:52:33:34
Agent Palmer
And that makes me think that wonder is the key to open the door of learning. It’s not complicated. You just have to be curious and actually do something about it. Pick up a book, talk to an expert, watch a documentary. Go to a play. Listen to something, maybe like a podcast. All of these are ways to keep learning.

00:52:33:39 – 00:52:53:13
Agent Palmer
Always keep learning. And if you learn something from this episode, all the better. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 160. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact us in the show notes the Night She Said.

00:52:53:13 – 00:53:24:44
Agent Palmer
Hatchet can be found on Brendan’s website, BP kelso.com and his library of melodramatic scripts for kids can be found at playing with plays.com. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email and comments can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.

00:53:24:48 – 00:53:58:10
Agent Palmer
Your.

00:53:58:15 – 00:54:00:28
Agent Palmer
All right, Brendan, do you have one final question for me?

00:54:00:41 – 00:54:03:14
BP Kelso
Yeah. What’s your favorite baseball team?

00:54:03:19 – 00:54:05:18
Agent Palmer
Baltimore Orioles.

00:54:05:23 – 00:54:05:57
BP Kelso
I’m sorry.

00:54:05:57 – 00:54:08:27
Agent Palmer
I get that. Yeah. Right now. That’s why.

00:54:08:27 – 00:54:09:53
BP Kelso
This year, man, tearing.

00:54:09:53 – 00:54:40:10
Agent Palmer
It up. I know, I know, so, Yeah, I get it. I get it from my father. They they they have to give you my age. They have won a championship in my lifetime, but I wasn’t really aware of it. And, Yeah. So that’s the it’s the ball. So this is the thing, right? That ball. So you can’t see all of the stuff.

00:54:40:14 – 00:55:06:32
Agent Palmer
But the ball that is visible in my background, that is a baseball that was signed, I got it signed. So I was there. I can’t I don’t have a certificate of author and it’s not one of those. I just have a good story with that one. So, I went to school, north of Scranton, and, my buddy and I would kind of sometimes go to the Scranton.

00:55:06:32 – 00:55:26:55
Agent Palmer
At the time, what would have been the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Red Barons, which was at the time the affiliate of the Phillies. That’s now the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees, because affiliations changed. But at the time, you were still allowed in early enough to watch batting practice.

00:55:27:00 – 00:55:28:19
BP Kelso
Right? I remember that.

00:55:28:24 – 00:55:58:28
Agent Palmer
And, I think it would have been Lackawanna County Stadium, which is what it was called at the time. Had astroturf, like, even into the 2000, like just good old fashioned. You’re playing on carpet on top of concrete astroturf. So if you were at batting practice, you know, like a hard ball down the left field or right field line could easily bounce into the stands.

00:55:58:28 – 00:56:24:04
Agent Palmer
Like none of this stuff is hard to do if it gets out of the cage. If you’re familiar with batting practice. So, my buddy and I got we each got a ball, we each got a ball. And to put some time into this, this is the Philadelphia Phillies farm system in 2004. 3 or 4, something like that.

00:56:24:09 – 00:56:46:43
Agent Palmer
So that ball was personally signed for me by Chase Utley when he was being held down by, I think, placebo. Polanco was at second and I was like, but this guy that we watch on occasion because we weren’t going to every game, but this guy is hitting doubles. He’s a he’s like just a doubles machine. And he he gobbles up everything at second.

00:56:46:43 – 00:57:10:49
Agent Palmer
I’m like, why is this guy down here right. Like now? Granted, he went on to win some championships with Philly and obviously he had a curse on live television that will live in infamy. And then he went to the Dodgers and became infamous in a whole different way. But I have this ball that like I, I got from batting practice and I got to hand it to him and he signed it.

00:57:10:49 – 00:57:40:10
Agent Palmer
And now I’ve got a story. And even though I’m a UN Orioles fan, I’m still generally a baseball fan. And so it’s kind of like, well, like, he’s one of those guys that I could cheer for because he played it. He was he played. I think he played it the right way. He always went 110%. You know, it’s one of those, you know, just kind of things, I guess.

00:57:40:14 – 00:57:42:19
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Are you a baseball guy?

00:57:42:24 – 00:57:43:36
BP Kelso
I’m a big baseball fan.

00:57:43:36 – 00:57:46:59
Agent Palmer
So, what’s your team? Giants. Giants? Okay.

00:57:47:10 – 00:57:52:08
BP Kelso
Yeah, yeah, I grew up in the Bay area, and the cool part about the Bay area is you have two teams that are.

00:57:52:16 – 00:57:52:34
Agent Palmer
Well, you.

00:57:52:34 – 00:57:53:02
BP Kelso
Had Nick.

00:57:53:03 – 00:57:55:25
Agent Palmer
Smart. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

00:57:55:30 – 00:58:14:30
BP Kelso
Yeah. No, no, no, I there’s actually the storm leading to that story. You know, we’re like, literally six, ten miles apart. But I grew up on the East Bay. So if you look at the Bay area, there’s a giant body of water there. Yep. And on the west side is where the giants play. On the east side is where the Oakland A’s play.

00:58:14:30 – 00:58:35:07
BP Kelso
I want to emphasize what Oakland. They’re, And so I lived right next to a Bart station, which is basically just train that would transfer goes all around the Bay area and we would ride our bike to it, hop on in, it drops you off at the Coliseum, and you just walk in, watch a game, then just take Bart back was great.

00:58:35:07 – 00:58:41:34
BP Kelso
So I saw a lot of Oakland A’s. I mean, I grew up watching McGuire and Canseco and Henderson and.

00:58:41:39 – 00:58:46:30
Agent Palmer
Also for the record, also on AstroTurf, like that was another one.

00:58:46:30 – 00:58:48:20
BP Kelso
Of those. Oh, I don’t think they had astroturf.

00:58:48:20 – 00:58:50:58
Agent Palmer
I thought the Coliseum had astroturf for some reason.

00:58:50:58 – 00:59:15:49
BP Kelso
Maybe at one time it I don’t think I think they did, but but still, what was I? For some reason my dad was always a Giants fan, so I, I actually just became a Giants fan. Okay. But I can only see them once in a while. I grew up loving Willie McCovey. He was like my hero. And then, jump forward 30 plus years.

00:59:15:49 – 00:59:37:07
BP Kelso
You know, they’re taking the A’s out of Oakland last year. And I was like, oh, wow. You know, this was kind of emotional because even though I’m not a I mean, I’m not not an A’s fan, I definitely love them. We do tons of games. But, you know, I hadn’t been to a game in years. And part of it is that ball park is just it’s just a concrete it’s not great.

00:59:37:07 – 00:59:41:45
BP Kelso
Yeah. Especially when you go to like Giants games over at Oracle Park. And it’s a park.

00:59:41:50 – 01:00:09:06
Agent Palmer
Yeah the Coliseum. Well I mean look I know they’re leaving because of the Coliseum. And there are obviously politics involved in building stadiums. But that stadium is from an era before you and me actually. Like that’s the era and, and so that the, the fact that it wasn’t updated like I love Camden Yards but people are and while I know it’s the stadium that changed baseball, people call it old now, you know.

01:00:09:06 – 01:00:18:12
Agent Palmer
And so Allen Coliseum, which is well before that, it’s just like, all right it was time. Right. And so I get it. But.

01:00:18:16 – 01:00:34:13
BP Kelso
But still I went to the my wife got me to take it, to go to the last game at the Coliseum. Okay? And I was like, super cool. And it was it was emotional. I caught myself crying there. I just because there was just so many memories. Yeah, so many things that weren’t going to happen anymore.

01:00:34:13 – 01:00:44:59
BP Kelso
And I’ve got I got to be in this place. So and next thing you know, there was a foul ball and I went with my buddy and he like reached down, grabbed it and said, you know, I have a I’ve got a ball from that game.

01:00:44:59 – 01:00:51:28
Agent Palmer
So let me ask you this. Did you did go to some, Giants games back in the day.

01:00:51:32 – 01:00:52:15
BP Kelso
Candlestick. Yeah.

01:00:52:15 – 01:01:21:41
Agent Palmer
Yep. So what what do you remember from that. And I only ask because, like, my first games were at Memorial Stadium, they weren’t at Camden Yards. And so I still remember sitting in the bleachers in right field or like, sitting up in, like I still remember certain things from Memorial Stadium, even though it’s gone that like, you’re going to now, sadly, remember of the Coliseum but obviously candlestick it needed to go at some point.

01:01:21:50 – 01:01:34:05
Agent Palmer
But that’s the you now have you I think you kind of know a little bit about what you’re going to feel for the Coliseum because you lived through it with candlestick, right.

01:01:34:09 – 01:01:44:02
BP Kelso
Yeah. Yeah. The candlestick, I mean, but I think the difference is the Giants stayed and the A’s are gone. Okay. I mean, they went to Sacramento, which is for now.

01:01:44:06 – 01:01:50:19
Agent Palmer
Well, for now I know who dies. We record this. There’s still a 5050 chance they don’t end up in Vegas like, no.

01:01:50:20 – 01:02:10:13
BP Kelso
No, absolutely. Yeah. I’m still I’m I’m still hoping not because Vegas, you know, if you really think of the logic and you look at what’s happened with the Raiders, it’s like Vegas is a great place to go for a weekend. It’s perfect for football, really, because you can just go partying. But the problem is, is if you’re a Minnesota Vikings fan, all your Minnesota friends all get to go to Vegas at the same time.

01:02:10:23 – 01:02:17:24
BP Kelso
Next thing you know, your home stadium is more purple than it is black. And so you start becoming.

01:02:17:24 – 01:02:29:13
Agent Palmer
You don’t have to explain this to me. You know how many of know when the Orioles are bad and even when the Orioles are good? You know, how many Boston and Yankee fans come down the train and fill up Camden Yards?

01:02:29:15 – 01:02:33:41
BP Kelso
We get Dodger fans. They’re the worst.

01:02:33:46 – 01:02:47:48
Agent Palmer
You and I, you. That’s a different podcast, because I would argue that when the Phillies fans come down, when the new Yankee fans come down Boston, we’ll have to see if the Dodgers fans are truly the worst. Will.

01:02:47:53 – 01:03:09:58
BP Kelso
Yeah. No, I don’t argue. California’s a little more, laid back in that sense, the East Coasters can be a little more, blunt, abrasive, abrasive. Thank you. But it’s funny. It’s like, you know, if you go into San Francisco, you know, and into that enemy territory at enemy territory, as a Dodger fan, you know, we’re a lot more open to it.

01:03:09:58 – 01:03:16:00
BP Kelso
But if you go a San Francisco into the Dodgers, it’s there’s a little more I feel the more hatred, their.

01:03:16:00 – 01:03:19:33
Agent Palmer
Animosity or his animosity too. Nice a word for it.

01:03:19:37 – 01:03:29:34
BP Kelso
It may be, I mean, but then again, you know, I grew up, you know, my two favorite teams of the Giants and whoever’s playing the Dodgers. So. Okay, that’s, that’s that’s that’s just the way I grew up.

01:03:29:34 – 01:03:48:36
Agent Palmer
I have no look, I have no problem with that. I can say that it’s for me, it’s the Orioles. And whoever’s playing the Yankees. But at the same time, I am so anti Yankee that, when I was really big into fantasy baseball, and I was good enough to draft a Yankee, I would never put a Yankee on my team.

01:03:48:36 – 01:03:56:40
Agent Palmer
Never. I’ve won championships by passing on Yankees. I just wouldn’t do it right. And at the time when I was still playing.

01:03:56:45 – 01:03:57:18
BP Kelso
Logic.

01:03:57:28 – 01:04:15:19
Agent Palmer
It well, it’s one of those things where at the time, you know, Rivera would have been good for 40 saves and Jeter was going to hit 295. And you know, there are guys you could have counted on for numbers. And I was like, no, I cannot put a Yankee because I want to be able to root for.

01:04:15:24 – 01:04:16:02
BP Kelso
And enjoy.

01:04:16:02 – 01:04:29:51
Agent Palmer
It. And anybody on my fantasy team, and even if you know, if it’s a Red Sox like, I guess it’s okay if they get a hit against the Orioles long, then score or whatever. But like, yeah, I can’t deal with it being a Yankee. So I just couldn’t.

01:04:29:56 – 01:04:41:32
BP Kelso
There are times when the you’re you’re you’re closers going against your team and you’re like, all right, does it, do I want them to get a blown save? So I get the win? Do I want him to not so I get the points. Yeah. Well that’s the.

01:04:41:32 – 01:05:04:11
Agent Palmer
Funny part about my fantasy is I spent a lot of time drafting players from your neck of the woods from the NL West because it was just, you know, and and that’s like baseball is the great like story thing for I like I still remember we’re going to retail job. So I wasn’t able to watch Orioles games because I was working like 5 to 10.

01:05:04:20 – 01:05:25:32
Agent Palmer
But I’d be able to watch all the West Coast games with MLB.tv because I’ve had that for a long time. And I remember watching like Max Scherzer start his career with nine pitches and three strikeouts in relief. Right. Like it’s just. And I will never forget that that right. You know, it’s just. And now he’s getting paid by like 17 teams to not pitch at all.

01:05:25:42 – 01:05:28:28
Agent Palmer
Yeah baseball is a funny game. You know I.

01:05:28:28 – 01:05:45:25
BP Kelso
Always, always thought I was so bad for East coasters that are baseball fan because it’s like on the West Coast. I can watch all the games. You know, we stay up late till ten to watch all the games, but, you know, it’s on the East Coast. It’s like if your team’s back east, it’s one in the morning and your team’s.

01:05:45:26 – 01:05:45:38
BP Kelso
Oh yeah.

01:05:45:50 – 01:06:02:56
Agent Palmer
Yeah. No especially I mean that’s the thing when we Orioles go out to Anaheim or Oakland or like when interleague came out, you know, LA or San Francisco. And it’s one of those things where you’re just hoping that the game doesn’t go to extras.

01:06:03:01 – 01:06:03:41
BP Kelso
Right?

01:06:03:46 – 01:06:21:40
Agent Palmer
A game that ends at 1:00, 1230. Okay. Fine. But like a game that goes into extras in Seattle. Oh, come on, like, it’s just like, oh, like, you know, one of the it’s one of those things where sometimes you wake up and the game’s over and you’re like, who won?

01:06:21:45 – 01:06:36:08
BP Kelso
Yeah. No. Yeah. It was, was it when I used to do fantasy, when we first started out, we did points and then I moved to Roto years later. But when we do points and if I was ever traveling for work on the East Coast, you know, I’d be I’d like, fall asleep. I’m like, but then I get the paper in the morning.

01:06:36:08 – 01:06:49:49
BP Kelso
Okay. I’ll just see what the points were for the day. Like, what do you mean? The box score is not finished? Yeah, because some of them had box scores that just weren’t done in the newspaper because the games went to long print time. Yeah. Like, are you.

01:06:49:54 – 01:07:12:01
Agent Palmer
Yeah. That’s a you and I as sports people. That’s a different conversation. I there’s, that’s the one thing where it’s like I’m a big college football guy. So like the idea of, like a 9 a.m. kickoff. Like a breakfast kickoff. That seems amazing. Yeah. That’s a whole different. That’s a different podcast.

01:07:12:01 – 01:07:30:41
BP Kelso
That is that is kind of cool because I mean, you hear it’s like games, baseball games. You know, they’ll start at 10 a.m.. Yeah. And they’ll run 10 a.m.. Yeah. If you get a good Saturday or at 10 a.m. to like 9 p.m.. Yeah. And you know, I mainly follow the Giants, but still I mean, their scores going on, especially when I wasn’t playing fantasy baseball.

01:07:30:41 – 01:07:40:59
BP Kelso
It’s like I was watching every game. Yeah, yeah. You know how that is. So. So yeah, it was definitely, a different thing. But yeah, it’s so funny I love baseball.

–End Transcription–

This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).