Ridgeline subscribers —

For years, Kevin Kelly and I have been inviting (to no avail) Rich Roll on Walk and Talks. So it was with great delight that about a month ago, I (Craig Mod, author of this newsletter, Ridgeline; thanks for subscribing) flew out to LA to go on the Rich Roll pod.

Rich is one of those intriguing humans who has made a mega name for himself within a huge swath of narrowly defined people. His pods have millions of listeners and yet — lots of folks have no idea who he is. This is one (of many) wacky quirks of our modern online condition.

I’ve been reading / listening to Rich for about thirteen years, ever since a buddy in Japan turned me onto his plant-fueled ultra-athletic exploits. He always struck me as a sane, wise voice. It’s been inspiring to watch him maintain that voice over the years, even as he’s grown to bigger and bigger heights. His memoir was a true inspiration to me back when it came out, just as I was trying to kick drinking in earnest.

So, yeah — Rich Roll pod? Would I go on? Of course. (My Random House PR person extraordinaire, Marni, made this happen, BTW.) It was the first stop on my US Book Tour (finishing up this Friday at Binnacle Books in Beacon, NY — come! Say hi!). Straight to LAX. Uber to the hills west of the city. Ensconced in an unnaturally opulent hotel next to a man-made lake. The next morning — off to Rich’s studio just around the corner. While I’ve done a bunch of pods now, especially in these last couple months, this was my first time going on a “fully produced” pod. That is: A pod in a studio run by a team. I arrived early (Kevin Kelly: “You’re either early, or you’re late.”) and took a tour. A nice surprise: Baratunde Thurston, an old bud, also records his pod there.

Listen to / watch Rich and me on YouTube or in pod form.

I was offered excellent coffee, fancy sparkling water. Was shown where we’d record (a space in which they’re building theater seating; it would have been cool to have invited fans / readers / members to the recording, and would have added some nice energy to the overall vibe, me thinks), and then in came Rich: bare feet, fierce Zeusian beard.

We blabbed for a few minutes and I showed him the fine art edition of Kissa. He had the new TBOT, of course. And then we were off to the chatting races. I’m really happy with how the conversation turned out. It’s probably about as good a job as I could have done given the fact that jet lag made me feel like I was a pile of bones melting inside a skin sack. Rich, I have to say (now that I’ve done so many interviews and have acquired a more acute sensitivity to being interviewed) was exceptional — leaving lots of space for me to speak to the questions at hand, but also guiding the conversation in a controlled manner that felt natural and intuitive. It’s a fine line to walk and, unsurprisingly, he’s gotten very good at it, allowing us to cover a ton of ground. He seemed to read the book closely and had great notes and questions specific to Things Become Other Things.

We finished our chat (talking for about an hour longer than expected) and then went into Asset Production Mode. A member of his team had been photographing the conversation and now moved onto shooting us as we took our tiny walk out back, behind the studio, up into those dry Californian hills (seeing the hills up close, it’s easy to imagine how the fires spread so quickly and relentlessly; kindling galore). Looked out back over the city, sat in the grass, chatted about the Walk and Talks, went back inside, talked some more. Eventually I had to gently extract myself — I was near death, seeing double (I am terrible with jet lag, there is no trick to beating it for me), and walked back to my strange lodge on the other side of a seven lane road to collapse in a heap for about sixteen hours.

Soon after, Rich went in for spinal surgery (part of me flying out early was we didn’t think we’d be able to do the pod otherwise; and I’m really glad it was my first stop, still “fresh” and un-battered by the crisscross of domestic fart-tubes I was soon to inhabit). According to the Instagram Stories he’s posting daily, he seems to be recovering well.

As for going on the pod: The whole experience was impressive, extremely “dialed in,” and I’m grateful to have been given the opportunity to share a small part of my story and walking philosophies. Everyone made me feel welcome / sane. The production team is excellent. They managed to cobble together some seriously deep cuts of old videos of mine for the promo teaser. (Yes, they do promo teasers.) And every day this week the team has released a new clip — well lit, great sound, precisely edited — from our conversation to further blast you all, kind readers and listeners, in the face and ears with my blabbing about walking around Japan. (Apologies, the blasting will be over soon!)

On the TBOT front, Random House just told me they have gone into a second printing. So thank you to everyone who has nabbed a copy! That second printing won’t hit stores for a couple more weeks, meaning the stock current available is still a first printing. If you are into that sort of thing, now’s the time to grab a copy:

• Amazon
• Bookshop.org
• Apple Books
• Barnes & Noble

And if you read it and loved it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

Thanks for listening / reading / joining SPECIAL PROJECTS / buying my books. It makes all my work possible. A week left in the States and then back to Japan.

More soon,
C