Marty Beckerman loves the gym, the 90s and being a dad

Finding Favorites with Leah Jones

Marty Beckerman, an LA-based author, comedian and new dad, is on the podcast this week to celebrate the launch of his new book The Time Meowchine: A Talking Cat’s Y2K Quest to Save the World and talk about the 90s. The 1990s, that is. We talk about how he started going to the gym as a joke and accidentally got swole, legally being able to tell dad jokes, and the 1990s.

Keep up with Marty online and buy his books!

MartyBeckerman.com

MartyBeckerman.com/#books

The Time Meowchine: A Talking Cat’s Y2K Quest to Save the World

Show Links

• What is a borg?
• High and Mighty: Being Fat with Mike Mitchell
• 90s Con
• 9/11
• Alternative Histories
• Iraq War
• Weapons of mass destruction
• Man in the High Castle
• Gore vs Bush debate, 2000

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Marty 00:00

Hi, my name is Marty Beckerman. And my favorite thing is the 1990s.

Announcer 00:04

Welcome to the Finding Favorites Podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 00:16

Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. I'm here today with Marty Beckerman. Marty and I, I believe met on a trip to Israel when you booked the hostel first, and I followed your lead, I think, correct me if I'm wrong. But Marty is here to celebrate the launch of his newest novel. Marty, how are you doing today?

Marty 00:47

I am doing fantastic. How are you?

Leah Jones 00:49

I'm good. We were maybe in a Facebook group and I feel you booked the Gordon beach hostel. And I was Marty says it's fine, I'll go there, too.

Marty 01:02

I was smoking so much hash, I don't know who booked what. I stayed at that hostel and some guy, I wouldn't even know where to buy hash. But he had a bunch of hash and he's going to go to the beach and smoke some hash. And the entire next week, I was just smoking hash on the beach with this guy all day long, just super high all the time. And this week, I'm like dude, what's your name?!

Marty 01:34

[Not audible [00:01:34]] That's the way to start an interview. I haven't smoked any hash today, I'm a new dad.

Leah Jones 01:44

You're emotionally there!

Marty 01:47

I live in California, but I haven't enjoyed any cannabis since the baby was born. Because, you got to be present. You got to wake up in the middle of the night I would have in Dakota fall asleep. I'm not even that much of a stoner. I sound like Seth Rogen and I'm not even that much of a stoner. But you can't wake up in the middle of night with a crying baby and you're still kind of high and the goal is to not drop a baby.

Leah Jones 02:17

That's a solid goal. Don't drop the baby. Don't shake the baby. Those are the top two. Feed the baby.

Marty 02:25

I could be wrong, but I feel like hash would increase the odds of dropping the baby.

Leah Jones 02:31

I feel like it would be bad.

Marty 02:35

I'm clean and sober now. My only drug is protein powder these days and Celsius. I load up on Celsius before the gym, that stuff's the best energy drink.

Leah Jones 02:49

Oh, it's an energy drink? It’s not a spiked seltzer?

Marty 02:55

No. Celsius is it's just caffeine and a bunch of B vitamins and Waratah and a bunch of I don't know what they put in it, but it's I work out harder... One of my coworkers was telling me about him it can't be that good and then I had it and I'm like it's pretty great.

Leah Jones 03:12

So I saw a TikTok this morning about how Gen Z on college campuses now make something called Borg. They go to parties and they carry gallon jugs of their own punch that they've mixed themselves. And which is like great. It means you're not dipping into a trash can of jungle juice that's the roof ease.

Marty 03:36

I thought Gen Z didn't drink though.

Leah Jones 03:39

I don't know. This is a new thing. I think Gen Z in the south still drink.

Marty 03:44

Okay, because I have some Gen Z friends who actually do kind of drink, but I went from what everything I've heard they're the more into like psychedelics, vaping and Adderall.

Leah Jones 04:01

I saw this TikTok it was a snow day at UT Austin and this girl was showing how to make a good Borg. And it was half a gallon of water, a third of a bottle of Tito's, a bottle of Meo drops for flavoring and then a packet of liquid IV and then she poured a celsius in and I thought it was a white claw. But this is more like so she doesn't get hung over and it's like a Red Bull and vodka, half gallon drink or a gallon drink?

Marty 04:33

Yeah, I don't really drink too much anymore. I drank way too much in my 20s but as you probably observed a few times. My personal theories you can't be an alcoholic in your 20s, because I think the entire test of are you an alcoholic is when you hit 30 you still drink like you're in your 20s. And I hit 30 and I'm like this doesn't feel good in the morning anymore. I'm going to tone it down. But with Gen Z, I actually really like Gen Z, everywhere I meet from Gen Z seems like they have a better head on their shoulders than younger millennials, I think. But sometimes it's difficult because I'll be talking about stuff MySpace, versus Facebook. Well, at least MySpace never destabilize society, and they're like, dude, when MySpace was a thing, I was like a baby. And what am I supposed to say to that? So that we were playing a cards against humanity and one of the cards was AJ Slater. And one of my Gen Z friends said, what's an AJ Slater? And I said, “Oh, my god, someday you'll be playing this with people younger than you and one of them will say, what's a Billy Eilish?

Leah Jones 05:56

What's an AJ Slater? You know him as Mario Lopez from “The Midnight”, The New Year's Eve, Rocking New Year's Eve show. He’s, their Dick Clark. Is Mario Lopez, kind of a Dick Clark now?

Marty 06:18

Is Ryan Seacrest was trying to fill that role?

Leah Jones 06:22

So all right, Marty. In the last three weeks you turned 40 became a dad and launched a new novel. At what point did you realize everything was going to hit at the same time?

Marty 06:38

I also delayed my paternity leave at work and went straight back to work. I was like, I can handle this. I can do it. Why not? And now I'm just, I don't know what day it is. I don't think I have I showered this week. But it's being a dad is cool. I like being a dad. I've been practicing dad jokes my entire life. My friends were the most dad joke guy, who isn't a dad yet. So as ready, they're actually in the hospital, the baby was losing too much weight. Or if the baby loses 10% of his body weight after being born, it's an emergency. And so for the first two days of the baby's life, the nurses just furiously feeding the baby milk. Around the clock, desperately trying to get the baby's weight back up. And my wife was pumping constantly, and I was bottle feeding and you couldn't even do the bottle the first day because that'd be a syringe. So I'm just putting a syringe in the baby's mouth round the clock every 20-30 minutes. We had to wake up there was no sleep. I mean, really one of the most intense psychological and physical experiences of our lives. Just constantly feeding this baby milk for two days straight. And we got her way to a good place. And by the end, I'm exhausted, my wife's exhausted. Neither one of us has had any personal hygiene during this time. And we're just slumped over and I'm like, “darling, you're utterly amazing”. Oh, utterly with two Ds. And my wife did not laugh. My wife did not laugh at all. And the nurse the nurse laughed, at least the nurse pretended to laugh. And she's like, “oh, dad joke, your first dad joke”. She was delighted but my wife was not.

Leah Jones 08:41

Maybe she will have been blacked out from the exhaustion and won't remember.

Marty 08:49

Ah, no, she remembers that one because I tell everybody that story.

Leah Jones 08:55

And then you just went right back to work.

Marty 08:59

Yeah, well, I had to. I delayed my paternity leave because I didn't realize in California and maybe this is a nationally, but especially in LA, apparently, you're supposed to sign up for daycare before you conceive. The wait lists are just a year long. We didn't start looking into daycare to midway through the second trimester was a mistake. So I was like, yeah, I'm going to have to delay my going back to work. So yeah, I became a dad and launched a book and went back to work and had this. I actually wasn't that emotional about turning 40, a little.

Leah Jones 09:38

Yeah,.

Marty 09:42

Part of it I remember turning 30 and I complained to everybody who would listen. I whined and whined about turning 30, I'm not my 20s anymore, I'm so old. And now it's I would do unspeakable unholy things to be 30 again, And I was even like that at 20. I have turned 20 and I'm not a teenager anymore. Who am I?! And it's like, nobody wants to hear it. One of my friends once told me there's things you can say that make you older than you are. And I feel that's one of those things complaining about a new decade. So I also prefer being an early something than a late something. I like being my early 20s not in my late 20s, I like being my early 30s more than my late 30s. So once you cross that bridge.

Leah Jones 10:38

And now you're early 40s.

Marty 10:41

Yeah, my wife was like you're in LA 40. I'm in the best shape of my life. Well, not anymore. Since we had the baby a month ago, I put on 10 pounds. When you are in LA 40, but I think in LA 50 is just a plastic surgery disaster. I'm already getting Facebook ads, or Botox, and in various injections, and…

Leah Jones 11:06

But when you moved out to LA, you did like the Marvel diet. You did the Marvel body thing, right?

Marty 11:15

Here's what happened with that. I was in New York for 10 years. In New York, exercise is just going anywhere. I mean you're just on your feet all the time. But I moved out here, and I'm sitting in my car all the time. But all my friends were like, oh, you're going to move to LA and you're going to become a complete douchebag. And you're going to be a completely different person, you're just going to talk about your green juice and your yoga and try to become a fitness influencer. And so as a joke they started as a joke, and I somewhere got lost in it. As a joke I started putting on my social media, I was at the gym, I do a gym selfie, or #fitnessjourney, #Mondayinspiration. It's just trolling because I'm a lifelong troll. And I think trolling has become something maybe more cruel and vicious now. But trolling used to be a little more lighthearted. I think, I'm a troll for good. I just started doing all this dumb, hashtag and annoying gym selfies. And then I was like, well, this is fun. I'm just going to start doing it all the time. I'm just going to start going to the gym every day and troll some more. And I started to notice, I can see some abs. I guess the first two the upper two come in first. It's like, what is that? I've never seen that before! As part of the trolling, I'm looking into diet. You're supposed to have x grams of protein for every pound of bodyweight. Because it's not enough to work out, you got to load up on protein to do muscle synthesis and grow new muscles. And I started just going down this rabbit hole and the inner row bodybuilder sites and how to basically get swole. And there's so many male body issues, now. There were always women body issues. And now because of the Marvel movies, guys have this; young guys especially. I've never touched steroids are any of that stuff. But apparently, that's a huge thing is they all feel really insecure, because they're all trying to look like Chris Pratt and Chris Hemsworth. And it's not achievable naturally unless you have genetics. Who knows how many of those superhero actors achieve that naturally, that's a big conversation here.

Leah Jones 13:56

I don't think any of them achieve it naturally.

Marty 14:01

Right, because you look at action stars. You look at action stars in the 80s or even the 90s they look that's the most if you went to the gym naturally, every day you could probably look like that now. They don't look that buff now. But the action stars now they're on allegedly the stuff they give to cows. I mean, the hormones they give it to cows to make them more muscular and leaner for their meat. I never did that stuff. But I got about as far as you can get, naturally. I was just spending hours in the gym every day. And like I said, it started out as a joke, and then it turned into this. The sick obsession where people were, oh, your wife must be so attracted to you. And I'm like, no, she's never been less attracted me in her life. Because no woman wants to hear about macros. I was having protein shakes for dinner and she's feeling guilty for having pasta. She's a goddess! I think at one point at the absolute peak of it, I was an actual professional athlete shape in my late 30s. And it's like what is the point of this?! My friends give me like, what is the point of this?! Because it's not funny anymore. And it's not funny to me anymore. After why it wasn't even enough for me. I pinch my stomach it became this kind of sickness. And I kind of backed off it a little.

Leah Jones 15:55

You did some articles. You sold some pieces about it.

Marty 16:05

Well, no, I never sold a piece but I did actually book a professional photo shoot on a gay erotica Instagram. Where it was going to be speedos and stuff. Speedos sort of X rated, pretty spicy stuff. I followed this protocol for doing a photo shoot, which is what all the A list actors do anytime they have a shirtless scene. So basically, there's a week where you are trying to overload your body with water and flush out all the salts in your body. You don't have any carbs. You're basically trying to deprive your body of a ton of nutrients and get all the salt out. And then at the last minute, you have a crazy amount of carbs. And so all the salts out of your body, you're trying to dehydrate and you have a bunch of carbs and it's just supposed to blow your muscles up. And that's how you get that crazy, shrink wrap look. But my body couldn't handle it. And I was just throwing up the morning I had the photoshoot book. I was in the best. This was right before my 30th birthday. I'm in the best shape ever. I'm just throwing up and hurling everywhere that this is when I peek. I became a dad a week later.

Leah Jones 17:39

No.

Marty 17:41

I'm never going to have time to do this again. And I'm just hurling a horrible headache and I have to cancel my gay erotica photoshoot. I think that's the myth of Icarus. I think that's the story of Icarus too close to the sun. This is becoming entire interview. I'm not sure anybody wants to hear. Well.

Leah Jones 18:06

Let's talk about the book. Because I will say there's this week the episode of high and mighty John Gabriel. I don't know if you'll listen to that podcast.

Marty 18:18

Oh, he used to be on, I used to work for Guy Code on MTV he is one of the comedians on there. The show will get cancelled in 10 seconds today.

Leah Jones 18:27

But it would not survive today.

Marty 18:29

Maybe zero code.

Leah Jones 18:30

Gabriel, every year around New Year's does an episode with Mike Mitchell, called the fat episode where they talk about their bodies and exercise and their goals for the year. And I think what you said where there's a lot of men are starting to have the body issues that women have laid claim to for centuries. I think it’s really true. And you hear when I listen on podcast, and I hear comedians talking about intermittent fasting or that's an eating disorder. It's real close, but the ways that men frame it because it's the Marvel movies and the new body of the action star. Occasionally one of them will admit, well to be shirtless in that scene. I had to do all the stuff you're talking about for a week, and that lasts for one hour. I gotta shoot all those scenes immediately.

Marty 19:35

The funny thing was the reactions from my guy friends versus my female friends. My guy friends were so supportive. So they're this is awesome. You're so jacked, you're ripped. Oh my god, you're an inspiration. Some of them are telling me how to do this. They got in great shape. And I actually was becoming a fitness symbol. I took a couple of them to the gym and showed them my routine. I was actually their personal trainer Guys were super supportive. My lady friends were what is supposed to be my reaction to this? Ooh la la What are you? Actually one of them was you're going to trigger eating disorders and people. They were kind of more critical, either ambivalent or confused or I just say the enthusiasm definitely came more from my guy friends who are probably maybe feeling inadequate compared to the rocker Zack Brodeur.

Leah Jones 20:48

All right, let's talk about The Time Meowchine: A Talking Cat’s Y2K Quest to Save the World. It's your new novel. It's a time travel novel about, well, why don't you tell me?

Marty 21:04

Sure. So here would be the pitch that I could have sold out. In the distant future, not too distant but it's the worst-case scenario for global warming. The oceans can't support life anymore. There's no more rain. The biosphere has decayed. Life on Earth is dying out, humans are dying out. And so a brilliant scientist looks back at where did history go wrong? Where can we fix this? And pinpoints the 2000 election, when Al Gore, the environmentalist lost by 300 votes in Florida. And she as a teenage girl actually campaigned for Ralph Nader in Florida. So she has to go back and stop her younger self from screwing Al Gore out of the election. dooming the human race. That's the version that could have sold. My agent took this manuscript to 40 editors, who are all like, okay, I love the outdoor time travel idea, the outdoor Save The World Time Travel idea. Why does it star a talking cat? How am I supposed to market this shit? Okay, so here's the version I actually wrote. As I alluded to a second ago. The version that I actually wrote because I tried to write the first version for a year and it just felt it felt preachy. It felt liberal wish fulfillment, it felt kind of democratic propaganda. First off half the country, they're going to write this off the second they hear Al Gore. And even for myself, I'm just art isn't supposed to be partisan, it felt. Even though I actually genuinely think I was living in the timeline where Al Gore won. I think about that, probably more than is healthy. Even for me, as the writer writing it, I just felt this is partisan. It doesn't feel fun and this sucks, and I couldn't make it work. Then I had the scientists in the future, she had a cat. And I guess getting back to the marijuana, hashish portion of our conversation. I had a week of sitting on my couch and it just hit me like lighting. What if the cat's the main character? I wrote it down in my notes. I woke up the next morning. I'm like, huh, and I'm like, okay, what if the cat, I mean, this is the future, so we have brain chips at this point. And I have a brilliant adventure scientist in the story, one of the inventor scientists have created an AI algorithm that can read animal brains and translate their thoughts in English or any language? And what if the cat can talk. And we're telling the story from the cat's perspective. The cat doesn't know who Al Gore is. The cat doesn't know Ralph Nader is. Basically basing it on my cat who is an idiot. So it's like a super smart cat in the sense that it can talk, but it's kind of an idiot because it's Mike. But yeah, it's not this character is much closer. We're talking about mice now, which is the opposite of cats, but it's much more like Pinky than the brain. If I can pull it a night. It just clicked and I wrote 65,000 words over the next few months and just in this trance, I had never been in such a creative flow like this. Since I was a teenager and was really first discovering writing, and I was also at the beginning of COVID, during the most intense lockdown portion when nobody was seeing anyone. So I had no distractions. I was totally in the zone. And it just worked. The Al Gore time travel story worked with a cat and it didn't work with humans as the main character. I can't explain it. So like I said it took me a while to find an agent who would represent this. I had an agent before and they were like, I don't get this one. I finally found one who got it. And he took it everywhere, every publishing house and again, they were like Al Gore time travel story – great; a cat story?! How am I supposed to market this shit. I believe in this, I'm going to put it on the Kindle store and see how it does. And I was warned, that was bad idea. But I had already done this once before with my Hemingway book 10 years ago. And look, I don't know if I can get Lightning in a Bottle twice. But for years, I wanted to do a Guide to Masculinity, based on the life and works of Ernest Hemingway. And the 50th Anniversary of Hemingway's death was coming up. And I thought this is going to be the most amazing time to market this book. 50 years since Hemingway and my agent at the time did the same thing took it to every publishing house, every editor and they were first off, nobody your age knows who Hemingway is. I was 25 at the time. So I guess it was back in 2007 or so when I think I had that pitch. And I was I think they do know who he is because they know that Dos Equis guy. The Dos Equis is most interesting man in the world. That's Hemingway, actually I met that guy met the actor at a party. What's the Jonathan gold, something Juhi gold standard though. And I asked him this, you're doing anyway. He's, yeah, I'm doing anyway. And anyway, they get the most interesting man in the world thing. I think they're going to get the ironic over the top, Guide to masculine ego, going to war and slaughtering 1000s of animals to prove, how hairy your chest as they'll get it. And it was just rejected everywhere. And so I just put it on the Kindle store. My agent at that time told me, this will be the end of your career, so publishing after you've been traditionally published. But I believe in this. I really believe...

Leah Jones 27:42

The timing was right. It was you weren't going to wait another 25 years for a major anniversary of his death?

Marty 27:48

Well, yeah. So there's 50 years, but will people even be talking about it? Well, it turned out USA Today picked it up. They called the book a laugh out loud parody. It was in the LA Times. The New York Times asked me to write something. MSNBC asked me to come on and talk about I was on National Television talking about a self-published book. It was amazing. Hit number one on Amazon for parity. This sounds like bragging it paid for a month of rent don't get it wrong.

Leah Jones 28:29

But you were still in New York at the time.

Marty 28:31

Yeah, but then one of the major publishers came back and we're okay, let's do a second edition. Let's expand it a little and we'll put it in bookstores for real. It sold decently. I think that was just a case where, when you have an idea that you really believe in, and now there's the technology to distribute it. I think things will find their audience. Or at least they have a chance to now. So I'm taking a chance on this cat Al Gore.

Leah Jones 29:02

I love it.

Marty 29:03

This one might be too weird. I don't know. But there's a lot of cat people out there on the internet. So if you love cats, and Y2K nostalgia, which is super-hot right now. The let me tell you this is the book for you.

Leah Jones 29:19

Awesome. I will have it linked in the show notes. People can go pick it up, they should review it, they should share it with their friends. I am someone who carries deep guilt and shame for voting for Ralph Nader in 2000.

Marty 29:36

I was 17 so I couldn't vote. But if I could have voted, I would have voted for Ralph Nader. And I'll tell you, I was in such a… we talk about echo chambers now with social media. But I was in such an echo chamber then that I thought Ralph Nader had a shot at winning because all my friends loved Ralph Nader. It didn't hit me that only 3% of the electorate was going to vote for him, because everyone I knew was is this purist. Al Gore is the corporate sellout and Ralph Nader is the pure thing. And he's the one who's really fighting for what's good and right and just just those 300 votes made the difference between… I mean, look, would we be living in a utopia now, if Al Gore had won! Probably not. It's not like other countries necessarily would have changed their policies. But the United States, if we had gotten off oil 15 years ago if we had invested in electric vehicles, and renewables. I went back and for this book, I watched 2000 debates, and Al Gore is saying we need to invest in renewables, and electric technologies, battery powered cars, we can do these things. And then George W. Bush says we got a lot of coal, and we got to go after it before it's too late. We got to compete in coal. We got to get the coal out. He was an oil guy. We absolutely did see the EPA got it. And we I think we would be living in a somewhat different and better world. It might not be Utopia, but I was always fascinated by… and then aside from just the environmental stuff you get, actually this is a question the book kind of really delves into would 9/11 had happened under Gore, would the recession have, maybe – maybe not. And there's a lot of debate about that. I'm really fascinated by alternate history. I love those things like the Man in the High Castle and that Stephen King book about going back and saving JFK. Which is funny, because I guess it’s a spoiler alert. Did you read that one? Or watch the show?

Leah Jones 32:08

I watched Man in the High Castle the first season, but I didn't watch the one about JFK. Spoil it. It won’t bother me.

Marty 32:13

Okay. Spoiler alert for anyone watching! I mean, the books been out for like 10-15 years. The main character saves JFK. But then it actually leads to new nightmare future where the world winds up in a nuclear war and he actually has to go back and undo saving JFK.

Leah Jones 32:42

People underestimate how much LBJ got done.

Marty 32:46

Yeah, except for civil rights.

Leah Jones 32:49

Civil rights act, voting rights act. He was son of a bitch. He helped legislate ground things that did change the course of our country for 50 years, until they were all completely gutted in the last five.

Marty 33:06

Well, I'm totally fascinated by alternate history, like I said. I couldn't find anybody doing the Al Gore winning story. So I thought, I should do it. I should do the Sci Fi time travel version. I actually think somebody did a short story. That was just the alternate history wasn't the science fiction time travel version. And I thought, I'm sort of fascinated by sci fi. I've always loved sci fi and time travel stories. And just it seemed this was if no one else was going to do it. Dammit, I was going to do it. And I did it my way. And that involves a talking cat.

Leah Jones 33:46

Outstanding! And what is the talking cat's name?

Marty 33:50

Blink, he is named after Blink 182 who is our protagonist’s favorite band?

Leah Jones 33:55

Nice. Your protagonist is the elder millennial.

Marty 34:02

As I put it in this future, all Millennials are now elder millennials. But I do feel as an elder millennial, I'm really half Gen X. I'm half Gen X and half millennial. I personally relate to the Gen X side of me more, I think. But I don't really like Gen Z. Gen Z reminds me of Gen X in a lot of ways.

Leah Jones 34:25

Yeah. Because Gen Z was raised by Gen X.

Marty 34:29

They have the ironic sense of humor. Younger millennials they don't have any sense. I don't want to cast; everyone talks in these gigantic generational stereotypes. And look, everyone's an individual. I actually didn't just going to promote all my things promoted. I had a book called Kill videos about a generation war between baby boomers and millennials and Gen Z. A civil war along generational lines that I wrote not long after the 2016 election, because it really felt like older people were going more conservative and younger people were going very, very liberal. But then Charlottesville happened at Charlottesville was all these 1920-year-olds out with their tiki torches. And it was like, oh, maybe it's not so simple is old, conservative, young, liberal, maybe there's every generation has individuals in it, and has a spectrum of thought. So whether that thought is for good or for ill. So I think that was a learning moment in terms of judging people just by purely generations.

Leah Jones 35:44

I'm a big fan of the Gen Z kids that I know and young adults. I mean, it's wild to me that my youngest nephew is 13. I don't know if he'll ultimately be considered Gen Z or not. But I work with some 23–24-year-olds. They're fantastic. They are funny. They are digitally savvy. They are hard workers.

Marty 36:10

Yeah, they all have the terrible anxiety disorders. They're very nice. They're very kind people in my experience, funny, and they're growing up the thing that I'll get into this in the Time Machine a lot. And it's very much been my experience, talking with them as an elder millennial. We grew up, everybody thought the future would just keep getting better. This was a very pre 9/11 view. There were all these peace treaties, we had won the Cold War, peace in the Middle East, peace in Ireland, the Internet was young, all this amazing new technology. It just seemed like things lifespans were increasing. We had mapped the human genome. All this incredible stuff was happening and everybody everybody's wrong way to phrase it. Because, there were people out there who were obviously for gay people, there was still a lot of the marriage wasn't legal yet. And things weren't perfect. But I think that wildly, there was a sense that we're increasing rights, increasing peace, economic prosperity. And everybody's a lot in life was just keep getting a little bit better every year. And then somewhere, I guess there was 9/11, there was the recession, COVID. And like I said, I started this book at the beginning of COVID, when it just truly felt like the world was falling apart. There were all these fires in California. You remember that? In San Francisco, there was those images where the sky was just blood red?! Do you remember that?! The Charlottesville and Nazis marching in the streets. And then all these…

Leah Jones 38:08

[Not Audible [0038:08]] shooting, the Tree of Life synagogue, in South Carolina

Marty 38:12

…shooting. And I mean, even on the other side of the political aisle. I had friends, some of whom have very respectable jobs, that major corporation saying, peaceful protests didn't work so violence is okay, now. Martin Luther King was wrong. Violent protest is okay because the peaceful way didn't pan out. And I was that feels to me crazy! I'm a hippie at heart. I mean politically I'm more of a moderate, but I'm a hippie at heart. I would say, my problem is I have kind of a liberal heart and a conservative head, which I think Obama describing so close to that one time. I'm just comparing myself to Obama and Martin Luther King!

Leah Jones 39:07

I will use that for the promo clip,

Marty 39:09

Marty - he's just like Martin Luther King and Obama, except Jewish. Wow! Sometimes the depth of my narcissism even shocks me. There are moments of clarity that hey… The point I'm getting to is on the right everyone was there was January 6, and there were these riots and then on the left, I was hearing more and more from my friend’s violence is okay. And we have to go all out with some of those things. And I just felt horrified. I felt like the center was not holding. And that's where I really got obsessed with this Al Gore alternate timeline where things had kept getting better instead of getting worse. That really was a central theme of the book.

Leah Jones 40:02

Yeah

Leah Jones 40:16

Well, let's get into the 90s, early 2000s the Y2K's, your favorite years. The decade, the era you have been obsessed with before it was cool to be obsessed with.

Marty 40:32

Yeah, I remember in the early 2000s in my dorm room, I would still be listening to SKA music. And people were it's 2002, what are you…? Everyone's into Interpol now. And the high was, why are you still listening to the mighty fish and Goldfinger. And that had totally gone out of style. I was into the 90s nostalgia, as soon as the 90s ended, and it's so super fascinating to watch about almost 10 years ago now. I think when it really started coming back. But now you go into stores, and it's all the retro clothes and everything's baggy. And now we're getting a bit into early Y2K nostalgia where we're kind of looking at those 2000-2003 years, it's super interesting that people that weren't alive for that are so fascinated by it and kind of the way that we look at the Beatles, they look at Nirvana. Because it's the same time cycle. They look at Kurt Cobain, the way we looked at John Lennon. This guy who we never really knew in our lifetimes, but was our parents all looked up to and…

Leah Jones 42:06

[Not audible [00:42:06]] genius of our parents’ generation.

Marty 42:09

I guess they look at Dave Grohl. It's kind of the McCartney who's still hanging around.

Leah Jones 42:15

I graduated high school in 95 and college in 99. I've got a couple years on you. When I realized, when I had the moment of in 1989, I was in sixth grade. It's 20th anniversary of Woodstock. That's when peace signs and stuff started getting really popular when I was a kid. Late 60s Fashion came back. So I remember painting peace signs on my… I had like five different pairs of painted jeans. My parents didn't have much in the way of clothes leftover for us to take but they would they're just kind of shake their heads that we were stealing their fashion. And then this realization of, oh, my God, I am now the adult that my sister's kids are thrilled when they can find my sister and mine vintage T-shirts from high school. When they can find vintage treasure in my parents’ house in the attic and it's just weird to be on the other side of the culture as fashion. It's just like, don't bring back, don't over pluck your eyebrows. Don't do what we did!

Marty 43:40

I looked back at my pictures with the bleached hair, the frosted tail. I don't think that looks good in retrospect on me.

Leah Jones 43:47

It didn't look good. Wasn't good for anyone.

Marty 43:54

I know you worked on Billy Joe from Green Day. But not on me. It's super fascinating and especially now that they're getting to 2001-2003 fashion those weren't, I don't remember those were very happy years. I mean, a rack and I was in DC so there were all these anthrax poisonings and the sniper who was going around. That that might have been DC specific. Who was on the national news though. You couldn't get on an airplane without worrying about your life and they wouldn't let you stand up in the airplane for the first 30 minutes so the flight originally was… you couldn't get up at all. You couldn't go to the bathroom. They were just like, nobody's going to the bathroom on any flight! I don't know if people were wearing adult diapers or what but and that was the first 30 minutes you couldn't get up but everywhere at least see something say something announcements and people were just angry people wanted revenge. I don't want to get too much into politics again. But, even the most liberal people you knew just about wanted revenge. It was very angry time. But interestingly, the art of that time, the music, and the movies are very party heavy. The music is all club stuff and grinding, sexy, bringing sexy back and dirty party time. That I think that's what's sort of maybe attracting, I think we're kind of coming out of a little bit of a puritanical era and people are wanting to have fun, and especially with the lock downs, nobody was having any fun. So maybe that's the attraction to this kind of dirty party time. But I think part of that, coming out of we were all scared of our lives, scared out of our minds, there's sort of a desperation to some of that.

Leah Jones 45:58

Oh, I was living in Durango, Colorado on 9/11. So southwest corner of Colorado. At the time I worked at Walmart was one of my three jobs. I was working 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. on 911 and at a Walmart in the rural Colorado, where when you work at a 24-hour store; there is a point where you have to shut down all the registers for like two minutes to close the books for the day and start them again. And people were hoarding people have two or three carts, buying everything on the shelves, terrified of what was going to come next and this is in Southwestern Colorado; like nothing was going to happen to us, but we didn't know that. And when we went to shut the registers down for just to close the books on the day, people were like, you're going to raise the prices when you turn the back on, aren't you? Are you going to honor the prices? And it was the vibe of that Walmart on those next few days was just wild!

Marty 47:09

Yeah, I was in DC.

Leah Jones 47:13

Much scarier, I assume?

Marty 47:15

I think it was my first or second week of college. I think classes just started. And somehow my dorm got a bomb threat, which I'm not sure they ever found out who did it. I think it was probably just some frat boy or someone with a horrible sense of humor. I don't know. People probably assumed it was me. But it wasn't. Someone calls it bomb threat to our dorm. I think it might have been like the day after 9/11. But they evacuated our entire campus. And so someone on my dorm floor had an aunt who lived on Capitol Hill who had a condo so we're like, let's go there. Because our college was like, buy kids get off campus. We don't care where you go. Which was strange in retrospect. So we went to this guy's aunt's condo on Capitol Hill. And you can see Blackhawk helicopters flying over the Capitol dome and ambulances and it was just…, obviously, now we know how history went. And we're still standing here, but it really did feel like the apocalypse at the time. It didn't shift. That's the most obviously 9/11 shift in history. But you really think about not just the war on terror, but how much money we put into that we didn't have when the recession came that maybe could have helped bail out normal people a bit more. And really just the sense, like I was getting into before that the world was getting more peaceful things were improving. I'm not sure we ever psychologically came back from the Iraq War, especially. We talked about polarization. I think the Iraq war was really where this started where you have half the country at the other half throat, we never came back from that, in terms of being, that feeling of we're all in it together. I'm sorry, I'm being really depressing for a community. I'm sorry.

Leah Jones 49:37

That's okay. I'm just thinking about that time and I lived in Colorado, and then I moved up to Chicago in 2002. And Chicago had much more of a protest culture, obviously, and more independent media to learn about, we had the reader and we had just more access to alternative views on the war and that the war was bad in a way that there was just kind of less access to that in Southern Colorado, I think.

Marty 50:18

If you weren't there, it's really hard to put into words this and I tried and the Time Meowchine and my silly cat book, I was against the Iraq War. It sounds like you were too. Only 25% of the country was against it. 75% of the country was for the Iraq War when it started. And now we all look back, even Republicans now, are that was a stupid thing. And they've turned against the neocon mindset. But at the time three out of four Americans wanted that war. I remember Thanksgiving and being like, I think this is a stupid idea. I think I was forgiven a bit for being 18 or whatever, at the time, but you could see the hostility it's like, people were really, really mad. If you said, this was a bad idea, because they were still in that 9/11 rage, and no one was thinking clearly about the Saddam really have anything to do. We're being told by the President that Saddam was…

Leah Jones 51:26

The mastermind.

Marty 51:28

I don't agree I said mastermind, but idea that, well, they might have had some connections, and they could be preparing for the next 9/11. And nobody knew that there weren't any WMDs. I mean, that shocked everybody. But, I remember just thinking this war is taking our eye off the ball, and it's not going to be good. And that's very eloquent of me. And to say that at that time, people really, really, really got angry at you that in a way that I mean, it was canceled culture. Before canceled culture, you were the Dixie Chicks. There were some other prominent figures who to go against at the time was, that's actually bravery. And that's why Obama was elected because Obama was the guy who said, this was stupid. And again I am comparing myself to Obama. Actually, I might change my name legally to Obama Beckerman. I was thinking about that.

Leah Jones 52:36

Could do Obama Beckerman, you could do Mari Hussein Beckerman. Barak Beckerman.

Marty 52:42

Barak Beckerman, that actually kind of has a ring.

Leah Jones 52:47

I don't know if you've seen this yet. I'm going to share my screen. I think I do know where I saw this. I've had some friends that are still obsessed with new kids and stuff. 90s Con coming up in March in Connecticut. The Rattus Celebration. It is a wild it's like full house, clueless. It is wild. How many celebrities they've got The Wonder Years.

Marty 53:17

Yeah, and now that 70s show is back as the 90s show.

Leah Jones 53:22

I think they're doing a good job with it. Have you watched it.

Marty 53:27

Oh, Jason Morrison. I thought it's a James Morrison. But is that James Morrison’s younger brother or something?

Leah Jones 53:32

Oh, maybe from Hocus Pocus and the Goofy Movie. See, Mario Lopez

Marty 53:39

Says it, Saved by the Bell, they got everybody. Wow, that is Joey Fatone.

Leah Jones 53:48

Yeah. It is a huge lineup. Oh, there's James Marsters.

Marty 53:54

Yeah, we got Buffy. Yeah, I can promote another book. And this was when I talked about, I was in the 90s Nostalgia before, it's cool. In 2012, I did a book, it's kind of a novella, long short story called 90s Island. And I originally wrote us a screenplay. And the story is that two brothers on the eve of their 30th Birthday now it'd be their 40th birthday. I actually recently updated the script, and it's their 40th birthday. There's totally solid for the 90s one works at a newspaper and one works at a record store. That's clothing. This was before vinyl saved record stores. So record stores were shutting down. So they both have jobs that are outdated. They're both obsessed with the 90s. And their dad was obsessed with the 60s and went insane from it. Their dad couldn't get over his 60s nostalgia and moved to a hippie commune and abandoned the family. But they got that from him in the same way that I got my nostalgic worldview from my dad who always mythologized and obsessed over the 50s and 60s viewed it is last golden era. So they do a Kickstarter on their 30th birthday. They're super drunk, put on Kickstarter, we're going to buy a private island, and just recreate the 90s, only 90s Music allowed, only 90 is fashion, only 90 is food. And at first, they wake up, they wake up, and they have millions and donations because BuzzFeed picked it up. It got super big on the internet. And at first, they actually do recreate this Utopia and everyone's having a blast, and they have all these retro bands. But then one of the brothers goes crazy. And starts executing people for having medicine that was invented after the 90s medicine, one person is reading Harry Potter book four that came out in 2000 and gets strung up in the village square. So the other brother has to stop him and realize he has to get over his nostalgia. And that was really the beginning of the 90s retro thing. We were talking about you go into stores now and all this stuff is super, super retro, was sort of surreal. So I wrote this as a script originally and I showed it to the few people I know in Hollywood, and they were like, Okay, so this is a fun idea. But what you need to understand is that in a book, you can make up anything you want. That's fine. Imagine anything you want. When you're doing a movie, you have to think about budget. And this scene right here where you have smells, Smells Like Teen Spirit starts playing and right here, you have a clip from Pulp Fiction. This movie's going to cost $400 million to make, Marty!

Leah Jones 56:51

It’s like Ready Player One, because it had so much more than the movie was ever able to put together. Because you can just mention rights issues.

Marty 57:01

Licensing is you're talking about something of Avatar 2 budget for a comedy. I still have hope that one could get it made somehow. I'm not holding my breath. I'm more focused on a much more marketable idea of a cat time traveling back to get Al Gore elected President.

Leah Jones 57:23

I love it. Well, Marty, it's been so fun to spend the afternoon with you, the morning I guess for you in California. Where can people find you on the internet? Do you want to be found?

Marty 57:34

You could go to Amazon. That's probably the best, go to Amazon, look at my books, Marty Beckermen or go to MartyBeckerman.com. I've kind of quit doing social media. Because I realized, they make you do social media to promote books now that publishers are if the author doesn't have so many followers, forget it. But the thing is, I added up how many tweets I had sent, and how many words per tweet average. I mean, you get, 40 characters I added that up. And it really is over a decade I probably could have written 10 books! And I'm like, what am I doing with my life that I've tried to cut social media out? I think a lot of people have but so don't find me there, find me finally on Amazon and I guess my website and probably the gym where I will be exercising my body image issues and away. Find me in the next Marvel movie starring alongside all the other guys androids.

Leah Jones 58:41

On Muscle Beach. Do you ever go there? Muscle Beach is at Santa Monica Arnold [Not Audible [0058:46]].

Marty 58:47

I'm not that good.

Leah Jones 58:50

Awesome. Well, you can find Finding Favorites on anywhere podcasts are available. Please rate and review on Apple podcasts or Stitcher or wherever you listen to this on. Share it with your friends and follow. Follow the podcast @findingfavspod on Twitter and Instagram and keep enjoying your favorite things.

Announcer 59:14

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