Ryan sits w/ 29-time Emmy winning news anchor and author Michael Cogdill

 Hey guys, super excited about today's episode of the Radical Company podcast. I
 sat down with 29 time Emmy-winning WIFF anchor Michael Cocktail. Michael is a
 writer, speaker, great storyteller. We really got transparent with Michael's
 background, his love for storytelling, stories about his father, his past, and a
 little bit into politics and news and the news cycle and so the technology is
 changing news today. It was a really great episode. Michael is a wonderful
 storyteller, which you'll hear in his voice and we really get into a lot of
 topics, especially around his new book coming out. You'll hear more about that on
 the podcast. I hope you enjoy it. Hey guys, it's Ryan Alford, host of the Radical
 Company podcast. It is holiday season. We are in the thick of it. I'm late on
 present-bying, but excited about my guest today. Growing up in Greenville, I've
 lived in New York and done different things, but there's been mainstays in
 this market for me and it's just a real pleasure to have... I'm gonna give you a
 lot of titles here Michael, but currently officially the anchor lead anchor of
 W-Y-F-F Michael Cogdill. Michael. I appreciate it, man. 29-time
 Emmy winner, journalist, anchor, and you know what? Reading, knowing, already
 knowing you, feeling like I know you, I think everyone in this town feels like
 they know you, but they don't really know you. But doing research for this
 podcast and kind of getting to know you more here recently, personally, which
 has been great through Bridget and others. Storyteller. I think when I read
 through everything that you do, both literally and figuratively, which we'll get
 to the books in a minute, but I think that's what kind of I landed on. I think
 you're a storyteller. You do it on the news. That's it. You're writing books and I
 think that's why you've resonated and you've had the longevity and the
 popularity and everything because I think you're a great storyteller and I
 think that. But I do think that's where you know where I landed and I want to
 get into that a little bit, but man, just excited to have you on and just want to
 get into it. Well, you know, I know there's we have a lot of people that
 listen locally, of course, you know, being a podcast that's produced out of
 Greenville. Of course, we have local, we've got national people that I know
 will love getting to know you a little bit better. But I'd love to just start, you
 know, we can talk all day on that. But for those that may not like me watch
 on the news every night, let's just start from the beginning a little bit, you
 know, well, I'll say the Cliff's Notes version because being a storyteller and
 once they start hearing you talk, I know they're gonna be just dialed in. But
 let's start from the beginning. I mean, you know, from from Asheville, North
 Carolina, you know, which is a soft place in my heart having family that grew up
 there and in Fayetteville and knowing that that area well. But let's start there.
 Yeah, weaverville, North Carolina's where I was born in Asheville, raised in
 Weaverville, tiny little bedroom community just just north, northwest of
 Asheville. Very much an idyllic town, but not an idyllic upbringing. My dad was an
 alcoholic. He was the town drunk. I talk about that all the time because I have
 to submit the darkness in order to gain the light. My dad became sober when I was
 17 years old and evolved right into the most beautiful man I will ever know in
 my life. I miss into this day. My dad's transformation was nothing short of a
 miracle. And I'll never forget eulogizing him in that little town. I stood up
 there and looked at that audience and I said, look at this church. There's a full
 church, first Baptist Weaverville. And I said, in that box was the town drunk, who
 became such a leader in this town, such a leader in this church. He drove the
 church bus. He was an usher and a leader in my life. He came out of nowhere right
 out of Haywood County, North Carolina, one of seven children went hungry as a
 child in the depression. He had to go to the YMCA there to take the dignity of a
 bath. And that marked my father forever. He became the most grateful man I will
 ever know. And gifted that to my mom and gifted that to me. And to this day, to this
 day, I live in the not the shadow but in the light of my father's gratitude. Now
 that little town. That's amazing. And so grew up there. So obviously rough, rough
 beginnings to a bright future, I would say, where we've landed. You know, talk a
 little bit about that journey and becoming a journalist and getting. What was the
 hunger? There has to be, you know, I think there's this innate curiosity in
 everyone. But I have to believe it starts every great journalist I know. There's
 some amount of either natural storyteller, which I think you are. But some kind of
 innate curiosity. But I'd love to hear what led you into into this space.
 There's sort of a site that one catches as a child, I think. If you want to do
 this job for a living of the world. And I remember my dad had a fourth grade
 education, but he absorbed news papers. He was one of the most well-read people
 I'll ever know. And he taught me to appreciate the news. I remember sitting with
 my father watching Vietnam stream into our home. And of course, you're a kid
 you think I'm going to Vietnam. This is never going to end. And I was beyond
 curious about it. And would watch those correspondence, you know, talk about the
 Viet Cong, talk about the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Things like that, that were so
 foreign to so, to so many in that little town it would seem, but it really
 wasn't because TV news brought it home, made it move, put it in motion, made the
 heart get into motion. And that's what set it off. Watching the likes of Harry
 Reesner Howard K. Smith. And the first person I ever interviewed in TV news, and
 I was an intern, was Howard K. Smith. He's a wonderful guy. He came into
 Asheville to give a speech. And he's the first, he is the first face into which I
 ever stuck a microphone. He was very gracious to me. Somehow that's, I don't know,
 synchronicity, I don't know. Right. So you and C. Asheville studied media
 journalism. I did. I started out at Wilkes College in Wilkesboro,
 North Carolina, a little, little college up in the mountains. Went to Georgia. I
 was in Georgia with Herschel Walker. Loved it. Did very, very well there. But he
 was too big for me. I just didn't, I didn't, I didn't find home in Athens.
 Yeah, still love the university. It's a great place. And came home to, to UNC
 Asheville. Word might tell. So where do your legions, this is a lot, you know, being
 here, you know, so you, we, Georgia Clemson, USC, do we have an allegiance in
 my, my allegiance is education. My, my dad was determined. Again, he had a
 fourth grade education. And he said, you are going to have what I never had. My dad
 used to say, you are, you will get above your raising. You will get above it. But
 you will always know the way back to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So don't get above
 your raising, but that's the hell with that. No, you will. You will get above
 your raising. You will know the way back. Yeah. He taught me that. Yeah.
 Sounds like you got your, you're in line with it with the way you speak if
 your father now, you know, the, the man, the 29 years, 29 Emmy, excuse me, 30
 years at YFF. Right. So let's talk a little bit about the YFF years. I mean, there's a
 lot of them. But, you know, but I just, but it's amazing. It's funny. And I told
 Michael this in the pre talk before, before the episode, you know, I felt, and
 Michael still looks very young for his age, I believe. And I, I, but I, because
 I thought you were, we were pretty close to an age and we're not that far apart.
 But I felt like I grew up watching you and, and, and in a way, you know, being
 from Greenville and seeing you on television and, you know, looking at you, you
 know, with a pillar in the community. But talk about what's, what's it been like
 at YFF? I mean, what's, what that's, it's been a, just a great run. It really has.
 I am surrounded by greatness in there, Ryan. It is a wonderful family, not only of
 journalists, but of human hearts, human souls. They care about the audience. They
 care about one another. Carol's like a sister to me. Most of those Emmys were
 run were one with a single photographer, John Hinden, my fellow good old boy from
 Western North Carolina. I have 29 Emmys. He has almost 40. Wow. We've traveled a
 lot together. And most of those stories were one, not on, you know, the 20
 seconds about a felon on, on, on the TV news is about someone doing something
 extraordinary. They're long forms. You know, we, we, we either deal in, in 20
 seconds at a time, or occasionally we get three, four, five minutes. That first
 Emmys was one on a piece of a six minutes long. It's an eternity on TV news. And we
 had to fight for it. There's a piece on Grandfather Mountain, Hugh Morton, and in his
 dedication to, to Mother Earth. And the stories that move the heart, that's what I'm
 interested in. That's what I'm interested in. That's what's one of those Emmys.
 What's it like being, you know, on the news, you know, locally in one town for 30
 years. I mean, I've talked to other, you know, anchors and different things. It's
 like it, you become a persona on the air. And what, you know, you can't walk around
 town, you know, like without being recognized. I mean, what's it, you're anywhere in the
 world, really? I know it's got every, it's, I've been recognized in Mexico, London. People
 from here go all over the most certainly. But you have to walk and live here every day.
 That's right. That's right. What's that like? I mean, you know, like, I love to just, to
 know that perspective. I mean, is it, is it get old? I mean, let's just, okay.
 It really doesn't. 99.9% of people who come walking up to you and recognize you are wonderful.
 Okay. And you have an opportunity here. I gotta come back to my dad to minister to someone
 who may be in a darkness that no one can see except that person. And they expect those of us
 who are on TV to be, I don't know, some sort of imperious, high in my, no, that's not, I mean,
 that may be out there, but it's not here. Right. My dad would come climbing out of his grave
 if I heard something like that. When, when you can, when you can bend down and, and lift someone
 up with a few words with a kindness, taking a picture, something like that, then you're getting
 somewhere in his business. It's a, it's a, it's a ministry. It is a bona fide ministry.
 What's the strangest thing that's ever happened? Oh, we've got to get radical. How much time
 you got in meeting somebody? Or just, you know, maybe someone running into you or anything.
 I remember it sticks out. I remember being in London. Okay. And it was the, the day that parliament
 was opening. Of course, her majesty, Queen Elizabeth speaks at the opening of parliament,
 which is to happen to be down there near the Thames and then all these horse guards start coming
 by. They're like a half a million people down there to see the Queen go riding by in her horse
 strong carriage. I got to see her majesty, the Queen, Prince Philip and all that. Nice. And in
 this crowd, and there must have been half a million people down there toward parliament.
 I'm like, oh, I hear behind me. Hey, Michael Cogdale. I'm not lying. There was a woman from
 Salisbury, North Carolina back here, who was the back of my head. We got the Queen of England
 rolling by. I don't even recognize the back of my head, but she did. So it's one of those things
 you can't go anywhere without. He's like, hmm, yeah, watch your mouth. Take care. It's funny.
 You say that. I talked to Nigel Robinson. I was kidding him about that. You know, you have to,
 you're always on when you're not on. It says so in the contract. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like,
 and I think about that in my day of life, I think I'm a good person. I'm not like,
 you know, swearing all day or stealing things or doing anything above the law, but like, man,
 having that mic or scope kind of on you. It's, I'm sure I know you're used to it now,
 and I know you're a stand-up guy. But, you know, that would be exhausting a bit. You got to be
 yourself. And it is exhausting a level, right? Because, you know, it's like everywhere you go,
 you're going to make eye contact eventually with somebody who's going to know you from the news.
 Yeah. And it's kind of like turning around a battleship once it stops, but it doesn't really
 stop. It's going to drift for a while. Yeah. So, you know, once I'm finished with this career,
 the same guy is going to be out there doing something else. And he's going to be the same as he
 was, you know, the day he started it ideally better day by day. But yeah, it's, there is no escape.
 Yeah. No escape. Not that we want there to be. Right. We really don't. But at the same time,
 we're all human. And sometimes you want to, like, let your hair down a bit, right? It's happened.
 It's happened. I remember giving a speech at a church one time, and I let a word slip. And yeah,
 the phone rang before I got back. Oh, God. Yeah. But yeah, I have not only a great respect
 for the people of this market and the people we cover. I have a great love for them. And I think
 those are, you know, Bob Dotson from NBC lives in this market now. And guys like that will teach you
 the love of the person, especially that person who is in, is having the worst day of his life.
 And those are the people we deal with very often. We either deal with you, you either have
 in a really good time. You know, one, the presidency or you're having the worst day of your life.
 If I'm showing up at your door, it is peaks and valleys. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's never the
 between. It's not interesting. That's just true. And something about, I don't know, like teenage
 boys and some, some girls will say, Michael Coggle, say my name on TV and look, most of the people
 I talk about, or you can go into the who's gal of the bone yard, you know, it's not pretty if it's
 coming out of my mouth most of the time. It's like seek to avoid having your name come out of my
 mouth. Is this true? Unless you're winning, you know, the Nobel Peace Prize or something. That's
 exactly right. Exactly right. And a lot of those Emmys were one, you know, off the sort of the
 paradigm of gloom, going down the road of people doing, sort of so-called ordinary people doing
 extraordinary things. But the vast majority of people, as I've said, are terrific. And they make
 me a better man. How things are changing so fast, you know, with media, social media, television,
 radio, and now everything on the smartphone. Right. I mean, talk to me a little bit about your
 perspective with where, you know, media's gone. And it seems to me, you know, being an advertising
 marking, all that. We're kind of have to be on the cusp of it, just like you do in media.
 Seems like the pace is even picking up quicker towards moving in these directions. It's just,
 and it's less about one channel being less or more important and more just the number of channels.
 But I'd love to know your perspective on, you know, the last 10 years or so of where media's gone
 and how you feel about it. This thing right here is a TV station. It's not just a camera. It is a
 station. This is a broadcast device. Yeah. And I mean broad. It doesn't just telecast it broadcast.
 Yeah. When I started, no one can see, Alvin Toffler didn't really see that coming.
 The futurists, they didn't see, you know, where we've come and how quickly we've gotten there.
 And now, you know, you got, you know, Billy Joe Jim Bob, it's like, hey, that's just the way it is.
 Yeah. And the best and the worst of people, the people in the best of times and the worst of times
 can reach us through this thing the way we can reach them. And it can begin to skew, you know,
 editorial decisions. We don't let that happen. And if others do, I don't think people saw a partisan
 media coming, which is a great divide in this country. I have a lot of opinions about that.
 I work in the middle. Yeah. We have no agenda. David Brinkley said something. You know,
 the great David Brinkley, look him up, kids. I grew up with him. Yeah. He said, there is no
 objectivity. And I completely agree with him. And somebody, I think I say, I told you.
 But no, there is no objectivity. David Brinkley said, if we are honest and we are fair in our
 subjectivity and our humanity, then we're doing this well. People say, but you're not objective.
 No, I'm not. You do not want me objectifying your son or daughter if some some great harm has come
 to to him or her. That's not my job to objectify. Right. My job is to be fair, to be honest,
 to be centrist, but mostly to be compassionate. We are caring journalists. That's what we are.
 That's what we seek to be is it. You peeled one back for me now. You know, well, I wasn't even
 going to go here, but you opened it. You opened the door. I consider myself, I stay out of politics
 for the most part. It's just not good for business. So do I. You know, it's, I probably, you know,
 more independent. I voted both sides, depending on, you know, what I believe didn't mean to give
 time. So there's that. Man, I watched three-fourths of the news and no matter how I personally feel
 about the president or a certain side, being an educated person and just trying to watch it
 objectively for my end, it sure feels one side at a lot of times, you know, lately. It feels like
 we're we're telling we've never quite gotten over who's president. That's the way it feels.
 As someone who's very independent, who didn't actually vote for him, you know, but just trying to
 object. I don't know. And it just, it feels like a lot of subjectivity now. It feels very partisan.
 Some of that goes to this thing. Yeah. You know, we have, you know, governance by Twitter.
 Now we didn't we didn't have that. Richard Nixon didn't have a Twitter account.
 George H. W. Bush didn't have a Twitter account. Bill Clinton. And when you when you have that,
 the news cycle is so filled with the opinions of political leaders, we used to get them in
 sound bites in news conferences. Now it just flows. It flows in the middle of the night,
 the middle of the day. It never stops. And that's where a lot of that comes from. We also have more
 channels, more, there's more access to content than there ever has been. But what we'd seek to do
 is we present the facts as they are. This is this is WIFF where I'm talking about. And we let
 people decide there is no slant. There is no agenda. I would even say, I think that watching the
 local news with WIFF, I've never felt there was a slant. I appreciate that. I've never have.
 Ever. I'm a big. Now, but the national media, I do know what it's on one side of the other.
 Well, you have Fox. You have MSNBC. CNN. Never the 20th shall meet. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, are these
 guys, is it is? Is it behind closed doors like someone like me that's trying to be just object
 and watch it? Are they on the national side? I know you don't have privy to every conversation. But
 like, is it is slanted? Is it? Is it? Are they talking behind closed doors? Like, is it?
 It just feels like everyone's wearing the party on their sleeve now and it's supposed to be the news.
 No, it's not. NBC, the big three, NBC, ABC, CBS, no, it's not. Yeah. They don't they don't have
 sort of these skull duggery sessions where everybody goes in a room and say, let's figure a way
 to pillory this candidate or pillory this leader. I know there's absolutely none of that.
 But when it turns ugly, when somebody commits an act that calls us to expose it, we're going to
 do it. And there are people that motivated reasoning causes people to, you know, to follow some
 things over a cliff, some people over a cliff practically. And that's been the case for centuries
 in humankind. Somebody's always going to object to to the truth about someone else. That's just
 the way it is. And if I didn't do this for a living, Ryan, I still would not lead with identity
 politics. Yeah. Life is about addition, not subtraction. It's about addition, not division. You will never
 see identity politics on any of my social media. And I urge people stop doing it. Don't talk
 out of both sides of your mouth. Don't talk about it's such a divisive culture we're in right now.
 And you've got your identity politics out and you sleeve all over the place. Take it down.
 Look for some way to unite and not divide. Look for some way to show some compassion, especially
 to somebody you disagree with. Instead of, you know, pounding tables for one side of the other.
 Yeah. I mean, I've probably read 10 or 15 or, you know, the last couple of days. My favorite one
 was reading about Michelle Bama and George W. Bush and like the relationships that they forged.
 The type. And that was like refreshing. Yeah. People want to see that, you know.
 I'll give you another one. Who eulogized Strom Thurman, do you remember?
 Who flew in? What major political figure in America flew in?
 I know. I want to say it's only to my tongue because I remember who, but I don't.
 It's short of having dead air here on. I'm gonna let you have no dead air.
 It's really not a threat with me. It was Joe Biden. Okay. Joe Biden.
 One of the democratic lions. Yeah. And you have the former Dixie Krat, the Republican lion,
 Strom Thurman. Carol and I were up live watching that funeral. There wasn't a dry eye in the
 church, right? The two men loved each other. Biden stood before that church in tears over his
 friend, Strom Thurman. That's the way it used to be up there. And it still is in many respects.
 And I believe that will return. That will come back. That sense of, I may disagree with you,
 but I will not be disagreeable with you. We may go on the floor, we may debate,
 we may hash it out. At the end of the day, we're going to seek some way to do some good
 for the lowest of the low, the smallest of the smallest of this country around the world.
 Yeah. America's not going to stand for it much longer. No, no. It's at the tipping point.
 Let's turn to page. Literally, figuratively. Author, man. I mean, children's books. You know,
 this was a side of you that I had heard about, but didn't know. It's really him. Yes, it's the same
 Michael. Yeah. You know, the stoic, you know, anchor of YFF. You know, and I really,
 where did Joe go? Very moving. I'm excited about that. So much. You know, having having children
 in feeling like we don't talk about some of the darker sides, but yet the love and stuff,
 we'll get to Joe. But let's talk about she, right? I mean, that was, was that the first? I mean,
 I know you've written first. Yeah. Yeah. But talk about that side of your career. And my,
 my dad, my dad, my grandfather on my mother's side was an opium addict in the 40s. Opium killed him.
 People say they didn't have that back. They surely did. Paragoric was everywhere. And he was
 hopelessly addicted to it. He got him when he was about 36 years old. So I never knew my granddad.
 I heard sort of that bifurcated set of stories. He's a beautiful man. He's the devil of hell.
 When he was sober, he was great. When he was on that stuff or longing for it,
 Jones and Ford, he was awful. And I wanted to dig him out of the ground and compel him to walk
 around with me. I was mad about. I'm still mad about. He cheated me out of himself with that stuff.
 And so I started writing a story. I don't even know if it was a story at the time. It was just a,
 I don't know, kind of a carrying on about about the man and the darkness and what led to that.
 What was it? What was missing in him that he was trying to fill with opium? And you don't have
 a story until you have a girl. And my mother told me the story of crossing a school yard to give
 half a sandwich to a little girl who was made fun of it. In fact, so much so she was so shamed
 that she would eat with her face in a bag. And the bottom of that bag was a soda biscuit.
 Kind of thing that most kids today wouldn't wouldn't feed to a dog. And she was so terribly afraid
 that somebody was going to see that she would eat with their face in that bag. As far away
 as from the other kids as she could get, very, very poor. When I heard my mother talk about that,
 this is my mother's doing. My mother was mother Teresa in that moment. It's a little girl on a
 school yard in the middle of nowhere in Western North Carolina. I had the girl. I had Mary Elizabeth.
 And once I had Mary Elizabeth, I had a novel. And it's like one that has to say, how do you write a
 novel? One stroke at a time. One, four, 30 in the morning, you know, session at a time. And suddenly
 there it is. Stephen King says, if you invent the characters, they'll show you the story. And that's
 absolutely true. That's absolutely true. It's a story about a love triangle. People far ahead of
 their time and race in 1929. You know, it begs the question, what would have happened
 had one of the great fortunes in American life come to a brilliantly educated, very talented
 African-American girl who secreted away from the worst of the world. And then you set her loose
 on the world. And when she's 19, in 1929, and there's a little little hint head boy from Marshall
 North Carolina who ends up intersected with her life. I love it. Is, where does, I've always been
 curious about this. I mean, I think we all have stories in our minds and things like that.
 Where does that flow from you? Like, where does the, it's me, the ability to put words to page
 and thoughts to paper, you know, I've always been amazed at that ability. We're all inspired by
 somebody. My inspiration as a novelist is, is the Great Charles Frazier. Okay, cold mountain.
 I've met a lot of people. I've interviewed a lot of people. There's the president of the United
 States. And I was, you know, awestruck. I mean, it's the presidency that that picture was taken
 in the cabinet room that we're looking at right now of me interviewing Barack Obama.
 Was that roughly 10 years ago? About 12. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But when I met Dr. Frazier, who,
 of course, won the National Book Award with cold mountain right out of the gate, I couldn't speak.
 It's so big. The book is so elegantly drawn. It's, it's just such brilliant prose.
 And I would pick that thing up sometimes in the middle of the night and be working on she reign.
 And just try, try, climb, try to rise to meet that every day, every day. And sort of some of
 the other greats as well. That's where it comes from. Children's books, though. Where did that,
 where does, where did the, that come from? I started riding Ryan Crackle the thread on a cardboard
 box in the garage, having seen a young man in a wheelchair on the beach on Hilton Head. I mean,
 almost in the water. And it's very, very easy, you know, to get tired and get down, you get
 yourself in a certain darkness, even in a, in a place of great light like that. And you look at
 that and you think, what in there? One in the world am I doing sitting here feeling sorry for myself
 when he's out there. This boy had never taken a step, a solitary step. Never stood up on his own,
 his entire life. You can tell. And so started writing a little story on a cardboard box and one
 thing led to another. And my now ex-wife took it and ran with it. And that led to where did
 Joe go? And where did Joe go? It was based on a true story of a lady who had to adopt a horse
 and her daughter fell in love with him. And they thought he was old at the time. She said we thought
 he was ancient. And the next thing, you know, he's lived to the, she was a little girl,
 was a very small child at the time, had children of her own. This horse is still alive. And the vet
 finally said, Miss Thompson is time. We're going to have to put him down. And they were so heartbroken
 over it. And it begged the question, those we love, where do they go? Yeah, where do they go?
 We'll take it where they go. They go right within us. And they stay there. We harbor them. When we
 remember them, when we love them after they're gone, after they're not physically here anymore,
 we still love them. Death is no match for love. That's the point of it. I have to ask for
 she-drain. Did you read the, did you do an audible version? Did you read it? I'm not. I've not
 yet. I will. You need to. You have the perfect, I hear what I read if I haven't read the whole
 thing. There are a few passages. And I hear you, you know, I hear you speaking, you know,
 great auditory ability. But you do. But you're a great storyteller where we started.
 But you need to read it. I'd love to hear you read it. I'm going to do that with the children's
 books too. You know, my hero among children's writers, you know, everybody says sus and all that.
 And he was great. But my hero is Chelsea Olvstein, the giving tree. The guy who wrote for Playboy
 magazine, lived in the mansion for a time. This, you know, this is a big, you know, shaved head,
 beard, rough looking dude who writes a story that in its own way is about a great darkness,
 a great loneliness, the worst of human beings. It's about avarice, about greed,
 about wanting too much from someone and someone gives and gives and gives and gives. It's a wonderful
 allegory of Christianity, of so many faiths. And there it is written for children. And I think
 the best children's books fall like like general rain into the hearts of the child within every
 adult. When you can do that and you can make it do that, then you get in somewhere. I love it.
 What's the plan for where did you go? I know we're, you know, moving down the path here, you know,
 anything we can talk about around Valentine's Day. Okay. It's illustrated by a very young man. I met,
 my god, as long as it been 13 years ago. His name is George Pechefsoff. When I met him, Ryan,
 he was arguably the most famous modern artist in the world selling paintings for a quarter of a
 million dollars. And he was nine years old. I watched that piece you sent me and I could not
 believe that woman walks into the store. He's a kid. Nine-year-old kid, you know, burping into a
 microphone. I felt like he even had, I know his parents like that. I forget where they were from,
 another Ukraine. But I felt like he had like almost an accent. Like I couldn't pick up where he was.
 His mother really does. Yeah. And he's unbelievable. And so he's now a 26-year-old Harvard grad.
 He has illustrated this book and it is masterful, right? And I asked him, he's got over 40 commissions
 in queue right now. You can imagine. Each one of them is probably $400,000 or so. So he's got all
 this sort of, right? This shim man has done nine million dollars in charity work. Wow. And he's
 26 years old. And I asked him, I said, are you willing to send it to him? He fell in love with
 the story and he said, sure. So he's done a masterful job, but it's going to be beautiful.
 My business partner, Rachel Allgood, is putting it together right now. We're very excited about it.
 Launching in April. So launching, hopefully around Valentine's Day. Oh, excuse me, Valentine's Day.
 So where will people be able to find it? Anyone who's listening. We're going to do as much
 direct to consumer as possible. I am, I am enemy to almost no one in this in this life,
 but I am enemy to the book business as it's being done. I think it robs authors every day.
 Part of our company is designed to take great writers and compensate them for what they do,
 and not steal and not steal from them. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the publishing industries,
 we know it in New York City as a mess. The old saying goes is dead. I just had a lane down. Yeah.
 And we're trying to lift up something new. And then that's the, that's the whole point of
 this endeavor. Great publicist involved. George will tour it. I will tour it. And we hope to set off
 something with that children's book that will lead to the relaunch of Sheeran and Sheeran is
 a motion picture. And we think we'll be the first ever to own the book in the film under the same
 rubric, under the same brand. Yeah, that's rare. You've ever had it. I don't think it's ever
 happened. Yeah. I was trying to think on my top of my head. I know it's always separate.
 Yeah. I got the rights back. You can't buy Sheeran now. Stay tuned. Okay. We'll relaunch it.
 And you know, there were reviews out there. You got a good read. You got an Amazon.
 I'm very gratified. Very grateful for those reviews. Yeah. It knows that I think everyone
 of them was five stars on TV. Yeah. They're very, people are very sweet. I'm just
 seeking to. I'm after you, Dr. Frazier. I'm never going to catch up. But coming on.
 So a couple of things as we as we wind down. Favorite
 reporting story or interview ever. Oh, man.
 One of my favorites is a lady who lived not very far from where we're sitting right now,
 Mildred glass. I was dispatched to interview her in apartment 9-1-1.
 God's got a real sense of humor. Wow. She lived in Scott Towers, you know,
 federally subsidized housing. He's not there anymore. Oh, guess the road. I guess the road
 filled with the elderly, the poor or the infirm. And that lady was making out of a kitchen
 about the size of this desk. Literally 150 meals a week. She's cooking for 150 people and that
 upstairs downstairs. And I asked her, I got there. We were giving her the Jefferson
 War for public service. We should have given her 10 of them. I said, Mildred, why?
 And she said, you don't get it. Do you, boy? They're people in this building. In these
 United States, you're doing without. They're going hungry. Some of them are veterans.
 If I know that, and I don't do something about it, I feel responsible for it. I don't want to
 feel responsible for something like that. She had two shopping carts liberated from a buy-low store.
 I don't know. They forgive. And she would push one and pull the other with that cane. She was 69
 years old when I met her broken back knocking on doors. Did you get up? Time to eat. Time to eat.
 And you know, some Americans, first, they did the Operation Christmas Child,
 little boxes. And they were sent them to Bosnia, Herzegovina during that conflict,
 all over West Africa and West Greenville, to children who will do without a Christmas time.
 The last year Mildred was alive. She did 300 of them. Wow. And each one of them had a homemade
 doll, a handmade doll. As she used to say, they're ugly as hell. Everyone of them looked like
 Lyndon Baines Johnson, but they were beautiful. They were beautiful. And she was beautiful.
 She is one of my absolute favorites. I love my all-time favorites. I love that. It makes me feel
 inadequate, but I love it. I don't do enough. The day I walked through the door of Mildred's
 apartment, I felt inadequate. Yeah. What's the future? I mean, you know, I mean, storytelling now.
 You know, that's what you do. It is the deeply human story that resonates. You think about,
 think about films that you walk around with. Shindler's List. Saving Private Ryan. Hacksaw Ridge.
 Smokey and abandoned. On some level, this reaches human beings. Either reaches the depths that make
 them better, or the depths that make them have a moment off the mat, a moment of humor,
 a moment of just forgetting about, you know, what they brought into that theater, what they brought
 to the book. And it's funny to put, you know, those movies together, but I think they're relevant
 together because they give us escape. And sometimes it's not just escapism in the traditional
 sense. Sometimes they allow us to escape the worst of ourselves and escape into gratitude,
 escape into, I can be a better human being because I've witnessed this human being.
 Be thus. That's what the future ideally holds for me. Yeah. I will always work. I'll always be,
 you know, busy, something like that. I mean, I love, there are a lot of things in life I love to do.
 I love the Caribbean. I love to see all I love to work out, but that's going to be my
 location forever. As long as I'm around. I love it. Working, obviously, whether it's YFF,
 the app, streaming, if you're not in the market, you can check you at YFWYFF online. They can find,
 you know, your telecast and other things, but working people keep up with Michael Cogdell.
 Where, how do they find you? My blog, which is, it's just like, what's it called,
 throwing a bash for the written word. If you just Google wordpress in my name, it's there.
 So we're pressing Michael Cogdell on Instagram, Facebook, Instagram, Facebook, the usual,
 the usual places, usual places. And these are places, Ryan, where we talked about identity
 politics and that sort of thing. These are places where I want people to find my faith without
 religiosity. My faith in God, my faith in the divine within us all. I want it to be expressed
 there. That's what I seek to do without the division of religiosity. I go to Westminster
 Presbyterian Church. I'm an active member there, but I don't let the divisions of religion
 get in the way of faith, ideally. And that's one of the things you'll find there. And you'll find
 it in the writing too. I love it. Powerful Michael. I really, really appreciate you coming on
 podcast chair and your story. You know, I'm honored to say, you know, anchor story teller,
 friend. Bless you, bro. Yeah. Back at you. Back at you. This is Ryan offered. It's been a real
 pleasure to have Michael Cogdell on the podcast today. You can find us online radical.com
 company. You can also find us on Apple iTunes, Google play any of the the the whereabouts that
 you normally find your podcast. Go check out Michael. Look for the relaunch of she rain. And where
 did she go? Where did Joe go? Excuse me. Where did she go? Where did she go? Where did I go?
 Yes. But where did Joe go? Really moving. And really excited about this episode. Thanks so
 much and we'll see you soon.