Clay and Buck Recommend Books and TV Shows

BUCK: I’m reading a phenomenal book, I will say. I just bought a book that you recommended on the Lewis and Clark, just arrived today.

CLAY: Undaunted Courage. Undaunted Courage is an incredible book.

BUCK: I’m gonna give my review, ’cause we’re gonna start going back. I’m gonna you some recs, you give me recs, I’m gonna read Undaunted Courage. That’s next on my list. I’m reading Keegan’s World War I, history of the First World War, which I’ve been meaning to read for a long time. Absolutely phenomenal. I like it even a little more than The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman at this point, which is one of the classics that everybody reads about World War I.

Very good for what it is, but I think Keegan’s scope is a little bit better, a little bit more my style. But I also found a new show. Have you ever seen…? So first, I gotta ask ’cause you’re gonna probably make fun of me. Sci-fi. Are you in or out on sci-fi as a thing? Like, I can’t get Carrie to watch any sci-fi. We’ve got some rules.

CLAY: I’m not anti-sci-fi at all, but we love Star Wars, for instance, in the house.

BUCK: Is that sci-fi? I almost feel like that’s epic it’s almost more than sci-fi.

CLAY: So what would you say I’m not huge on Star Trek, you know for instance. That’s definitely sci-fi.

BUCK: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Star Wars is sci-fi, but to me that sort of occupies almost… It’s like you don’t have to be into Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy genre to like Lord of the Rings, for example, right?

CLAY: Yeah, right.

BUCK: Because it’s such a big trilogy epic.

CLAY: I love Game of Thrones. That wouldn’t really probably count, although it’s fantasy.

BUCK: You know, I tried to get my dad to watch it, who’s like, “Oh, there’s a dragon? What is this?” With the CGI dragon thing, he’s like, “Oh.” I can’t get him to get past that. He’s not into the CGI dragon. But I found a show that I’m sure a lot of the audience — and I started to binge-watch it ’cause I was just trying to drink tea and get my voice back. The Expanse. You ever watched it?

CLAY: I never heard of it.

BUCK: Very solid. Very good show. I’m accused of often saying how much different shows stink, which is not fair, but people say this about me. The Expanse I will say is very good — and Carrie and I are now deep into season 3 of Yellowstone. So I did follow up with that rec. It does really catch on for me.

CLAY: You didn’t like the first couple of episodes, right, like you just kind of —

BUCK: I was like, cowboys, really? Cowboys? Get into a car. What are you doing? But, no, no, it actually makes more sense.

CLAY: On the Lewis and Clark front, my argument — I’m gonna keep beating this drum until eventually somebody makes it. If somebody would turn the Stephen Ambrose Undaunted Courage story of Lewis and Clark — obviously there’s tons of different Lewis and Clark stories that have been done, but his particular book was the sort of originating source material for a show, I’m giving…

If there’s anybody in Hollywood who listens, any streaming companies who aren’t super-woke executives who are listening right now, it would be the number one show in America. ‘Cause if you look at the power and popularity of Yellowstone, the 1893 or whatever the heck the other show is that was done there, there’s a huge, I believe — and what’s gonna happen this weekend with Top Gun: Maverick coming out, there’s a huge — desperate demand for America-is-awesome content.

BUCK: I agree.

CLAY: AIA. We’ll call it. America Is Awesome. People are tired of the left-wing, America-sucks, screw-the-USA angle. “American history’s awful!” The Lewis and Clark expedition, as a show, long-form, multi-season, streaming show. The story is, first of all, incredible. These guys were traveling for years through virgin territory that had never been seen by any American before. It would be incredible, riveting television.

BUCK: I will say that one of the up sides of… I’m canceling. I canceled Disney+. I’m gonna cancel Hulu. I’m on the precipice of canceling Netflix, too, honestly. You know what kept me going with it was the Formula 1 show which I like so much. There’s usually only a couple things.

CLAY: How are you gonna watch shows if you cancel everybody?

BUCK: Amazon Prime. Now, I know Amazon is woke too. Look, I’m not perfect, right? I mean, I’ve got my pressure points on me. But I think because of the Netflix wokeness I’ve really made more of an effort… I didn’t have a TV in my thirties for five years, and I read stacks and stacks and stacks of books. I was like that guy, and then I finally —

CLAY: Now I’m starting to see why you’re still single.

BUCK: Wow.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: Wow. First of all, I have a girlfriend. Second of all, the range is hot, Mr. Clay. The range is hot right now.

CLAY: The “I don’t have a TV guy” and “I’m not married guy,” they overlap a little bit. If you had a VIN diagram —

BUCK: It’s funny you’re calling me out ’cause you know why I got a TV? ‘Cause at one point my sister, my little sister is brilliant civil lawyer. She’s very very straightforward just calls like it is. She’s like, “Yeah, Bucko, you need to get a TV ’cause otherwise you might get a little weird.” (laughing)

CLAY: I mean, there is —

BUCK: Fair is fair.

CLAY: For me now, with sports, I mean the idea of not having a television I would just… It makes me feel physically ill to think that I couldn’t be able to watch any sporting event that I want to. But this is an unknown Buck detail: Five years without a TV.

BUCK: That’s a long time.

CLAY: That is a long time without a TV.

BUCK: But I’ve been ripping through the stack because I’m not really binge-watching. I watched a little bit of the The Expanse, not really binge watching shows. In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson.

CLAY: Read it.

BUCK: Amazing.

CLAY: Fantastic.

BUCK: Unbreakable, about Zamperini, the track star, who gets captured.

CLAY: Yeah. Read it. Also amazing. Unbelievable.

BUCK: We gotta do on ClayAndBuck.com, something. We gotta start putting like Clay Top 10 or, you know, favorite stack and we’ll put a stack.

CLAY: I like that idea.

BUCK: People ask me, and we just need to have one place where we can put our recs ’cause I’m gonna read… You better, by the way… Yellowstone was a good rec, so I gotta give it credit but this book you told me, Undaunted Courage?

CLAY: I think you’re gonna love it.

BUCK: I’m gonna rip through that one, buddy, probably by end of Memorial Day I’ll be done.

CLAY: You’re gonna love it and one of the great things about it is you’re gonna think, “My God, what a wuss I am.” Not just you but everybody in America who reads what these guys went through. We’re all a bunch of softies.

BUCK: They didn’t have Uber Eats?

CLAY: (laughing)