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Bullets, Babes and Baseball with Lee Elder and Buck Weber
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Oct 22, 2020
Caren Glasser goes live with authors Lee Elder and Buck Weber on the next episode of Caren Glasser Live! We talk about their new book Bullets, Babes and Baseball! Santa Monica private eyes Chuck Findlay and Dom Webster must track down the mysterious leader of a gang bent upon destroying that iconic American pastime, baseball card collecting. Findlay and Webster have a collection of fast cars, faster women and a stunning array of weaponry. Will it be enough? Check out more shows here: http://www.carenglasser.live. Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/carenglasser Follow us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/carenglasserlive Follow us on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/carenglasser Visit The Super Boomer Lifestyle store: https://thesuperboomerlifestyle.com/ 📌 Subscribe to Channel: https://YouTube.com/cgmusc #privateeyes #Baseballcardcollecting #bulletsbabesandbaseball #nationalbookmonth #carenglasserlive
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0:00
So whether you're here live or on replay, doesn't matter, we love you
0:04
Make sure to say hi in the comments. My guests today are Lee Elder and Bucky Weber
0:10
We are talking about bullets, babes, and baseball. Lee is the author of That Bloody Hill, Hilliard's Legion at Chickamauga
0:20
I don't know if I'm totally destroying that name. Published by McFarlane and Company Publishers
0:25
And is currently completing a biography on football coach George Allen. a contributor to books on the 1958 Baltimore Colts and the 1951 Los Angeles Rams
0:36
He's a former sportscaster, sports writer, and auto racing publicist, and has been inducted into the Imperial Valley High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame for his media work
0:47
Buck is a retired public school teacher and administrator, and as an educator, he encouraged his students to find a genre of writing or subject that they enjoyed reading about
0:57
He had a long-time ambition to become a published writer of fiction and nonfiction, and finally took the plunge thanks to Lee's encouragement
1:06
We welcome them both to the show. Welcome, guys. How you doing
1:12
Good afternoon. Good to see you. It's good to see you, too. First of all, I am so excited about this show
1:19
I get excited about all my shows, but in particular, I get excited about this show because we all went to school together
1:25
like a long time ago and we were talking and I said oh gosh we're old we're no I
1:32
years ago I'm old and it's so you guys have known each other and have uh been to get for 50 years
1:41
uh but um Lee as you pointed out you and I actually go farther back because we knew each
1:47
other in junior high pretty we sang together that's exactly right we sang together wow I you
1:54
know what and how cool is this through the modern technology here we are sitting on a live stream
1:59
so let's jump in first I want to talk about your your background um why don't we first uh start
2:06
with Bucky and tell me a little bit about the background how did you get to today well um just
2:14
if you're talking about recent times um it was something that Lee and I started working together
2:20
on on Facebook just for fun and we you know did it for probably about what a couple of months I guess
2:28
and all of a sudden we realized you know we started to get a following we started having people
2:34
outside of our little group start following us and I said you know maybe we ought to start getting
2:38
serious about this and really put you know put our nose with the grindstone and actually produce
2:43
something out of this because it was just kind of a random back and forth he'd write something and
2:48
then I'd write something back in response. And then he would write something in response to that
2:52
And back and forth, we went each night. And so it wound up for me, it wound up becoming a release
2:59
for me to, you know, work off a lot of stress at the end of the day, because I was still, you know
3:05
I'm still a school administrator at that point. So, you know, working 12 hour days and, and
3:10
great respite. So it just gave me a good chance to, to clear my mind and do something totally
3:18
different that I actually enjoy doing. Isn't that great when you can actually do that
3:22
Lee, a little bit of background. I know that you're a sportscaster and all that
3:27
I'm a NASCAR fan, so I don't know if, yeah, I am
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I don't know why I am, but I love Jimmy Johnson. Yay, Jimmy. This is his last season, right
3:37
This is his last year, right? He's retiring, except he's going to go IndyCar racing
3:41
Really? Well, we'll talk about that afterwards. We'll talk about that when we get off the call
3:45
a little bit about your background and then we're going to come as we join today as authors today
3:51
working together so background a little bit of background uh well you touched on it i was a
3:55
sports writer and a sportscaster and then when i got out of that i worked in the auto racing
4:00
business for 25 years i was on the road 100 or 120 days a year with not a lot to do in the hotel
4:06
room so i did a lot of writing and then when bucky and i started this project it became my hotel room
4:12
project. So even if I was on the road researching my Civil War book, I never brought any material
4:19
with me. I always had to stay home safe. So even when I was researching the Civil War
4:24
9 p.m., I was writing Chuck Finley and Don Webster. And no matter where I was around the country
4:32
Bucky and I were always that close. So tell me a little bit about what it was like for you guys
4:38
And you started to say something, Bucky, that, you know, you send something over and then
4:42
they would, you would respond. What was it like working together and writing this book? I don't
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I don't think, I think you guys are the first people that I've interviewed where two of you
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together wrote the same book. Normally it's one author. So what is it like doing a book together
4:57
How did that work? Well, I'll let Lee jump in on that first because he actually got the whole
5:02
thing started in the first place. So I'll let you go first and then I'll jump in. I don't think it
5:08
would have worked any other way for the two of us because we've known each other so long and so well
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i almost know he's going to like this he's not going to like this um and then i also know he's
5:21
not going to want me to go in that direction so i don't and the net result is that we sort of
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in golf they call it ham and egg in other words they play together well and we write together well
5:32
because we know each other so well. So that's, I think the reason it works for us
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is because he's and I are, we've been friends, very close friends
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for a very long time. And also too, that it helps we have the same sense of humor too So that got a lot to do with it Yeah So let talk about the book What is the book about
5:57
I know you have private eyes, baseball collecting. What is the book about
6:04
Well, Buck, you'll tell me when I'm wrong, as usual. But the thing is that it's it's our take on the noir genre
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Um, it's two crusty old former, not former, uh, retired Marines, uh, short sense of short
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it's very short and angry. Usually most of the time, my character, his character is a lot calmer
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which is pretty much us. And, um, it's a mystery involving some people who are not great. So I'll
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let Buck finish. Yeah, it winds up. Um, you know, I, I mean, I'm, I can't even remember how we came
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up with the whole baseball idea in the first place. It was your idea. Was it? Okay
6:50
Take credit. Take credit for it. Basically, we just decided to run with the idea
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of a syndicate that was trying to not only destroy, but also to dominate
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the baseball card industry, which is something that makes millions of dollars every year
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You know, so I figured, you know, if you're a baseball fan, if you're a big, you know, if you're a collector, this is going to be the kind of story you're going to want to read about
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And we kind of centered our whole plot of the story around that
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And, you know, it's kind of interesting how we came up with the characters as well, too
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It took a lot of emails between the two, going back and forth from phone calls and Skypes in the beginning and everything else just to get the first few pages done, let alone
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And once that happened, was it a little bit as it started to roll out
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I mean, did it get faster, easier, harder, slower? What happened as the time went by
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I would say it got easier as we went along because we got a lot more confident with what both of us could do
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And we were liking a lot more what we were doing as well, too
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Plus, then we would email. I'll send an email to Lee and say, hey, here's the next chapter
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What do you think? In which case, then he'll give me some ideas. And I might change it up a little bit or say, hey, leave it alone
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Don't do anything. Yeah. Like, leave it alone. Don't touch it. Don't touch it
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I want to throw up the book into the stream for a second. I'm going to go ahead and remove the frame
8:33
Because it's blocking everything While we're doing that I want to give credit
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My son did the cover He was in the military And he learned a lot of stuff like that
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And one of the things he did was make signs And so he did the cover for us
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I think it's a great cover It's a great cover And you guys notice that it's in an iPad
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A tablet setting because this is a Kindle book And so take a look in the comments guys
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our viewers whether you're here live or on replay we are talking with the authors of Bullets, Babes
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and Baseball. The link is in the comments if you want to go pick up the book right now. I'm going
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to bring that back down. I am going to move people around and do that. I have fun. You guys I don't
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know if you're having fun but I'm having a book. Of course we're having a book. I'm getting busy
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So I want to first, I want to, I'm going to go back to Lee for a second
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And you say that you're still writing after all these years. And in fact, you really are writing
9:33
You have other books that you've written and you have other books that are to come out. What is the name of your other book that I'm actually going to put the picture up here just for a second so people can see it
9:44
It's called That Bloody Hill. What's that about? that's about the final two and a half hours of the battle of chickamauga which was in 1863
9:53
september 20 of 1863 the last day was and uh hilliard's legion was an alabama outfit
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and basically it's me correcting the record um i started to write it just to write about the
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legion because i had a familiar connection to it and i discovered that actually history was wrong
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So I had to go find out what was right. So that was 13 years of my life
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So is it fair to say that you're going to keep writing till the very end
10:22
Is this something that's in your blood? I think the last thing I write before they carry me off to the crematorium will be the end
10:30
Yeah, I couldn't stop writing any more than I could quit breathing. That's kind of a visual that I'm not sure I wanted to see
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It's okay. It's okay, really. You know, Buck, you like to say, never underestimate the rewards you gain by leaving your comfort zone
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And I know that that's actually very apropos to this because you wanted to write for a very long time
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And until you really got the confidence with yourself, but also with Lee pushing you along, you jumped out of your comfort zone
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And now you are a published author. And I know that you have other books that are coming down, right
11:09
Yes, we're working on a second and a third of the series with Chuck and Dom as well
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We actually have a fourth in the works as well, too, and we've already storyboarded out a fifth
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And I'm in the process of writing my own mystery novel as well, too, that I'm hoping sometime next year I'm going to have it all done
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So you're saying that Lee created a monster? Oh yeah Well I mean all he did was just basically open the floodgates is what he did more than anything else You know what I smiling I really am smiling because I am
11:46
I just this brings me so much joy to see friends stay connected for so many years and then end up working together and writing together and creating together
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If you're just tuning in right now and you're live and you have a question for our authors, go ahead and put it in the comments
12:01
I will put them up. Oh, wait. Hold on. I'm going to put this up. Steve just said, I didn't realize that Lee's son created the cover
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Great cover. Make sure you tell your son that. Thank you, Steve. We appreciate you sharing and
12:15
coming in and commenting. So what are some of the lessons that you've learned as you are writing now
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And again, Lee, you've been writing longer, but what are the lessons that you've learned
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as you continue to write? Is being an author something that has changed your life
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or is it just something that you just do? I think it's probably changed how I, you know
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structure my day to begin with. But I think, again, you're getting out of your comfort zone
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And I usually want to have things so set that there's not a whole lot
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of room to wiggle. and with writing you have to have a lot of room to wiggle right so um this is what i mean basically
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this whole process has helped me get out of that comfort you know get into that new comfort zone
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now and um as lee keeps reminding me says just get something on paper every day you know don't
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don't sit there and mull over it for three days before you finally do it so i've actually finally
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gotten to the point now where sometime during the day i structure in a couple of hours where i'm
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sitting there and I'm actually typing something down. Now I may throw it out in a couple of days
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after I read it, but then again, it's better than it. Exactly. Exactly. Get it, actually do it and
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get it down on paper. And then you can go from there. And Buck? For me, there was a difference
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for me writing a book as opposed to writing a 400 word story about a high school basketball game
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Yeah. You had to write tight and I had to learn not to write tight. I had to learn
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400 words isn't going to do it. A book has to be 90,000 words. And so I had to
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I had to learn that stretching thing. So that's one of the reasons I write somewhere between 400
14:06
and 600 words a day minimum, because I've got to keep stretching. And that's writing some muscle
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If you don't use it, you get weak. Right, right. And so if you're listening in on the show
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whether it's live or replay, and you're interested in maybe becoming an author
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take take to heed the advice that you're hearing because it's not something you just wake up one
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morning and then the well maybe I don't think so but maybe you have to put effort into this you
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have to spend time you have to devote time to this and the fruits of your labor will come out
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at that point um people write books for many reasons some people write books because they
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want to become a freaking millionaire and they're going to sell a ton of books and i like to say to
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them that's not going to happen yeah very few people are fortunate enough to have that happen
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another reason that they write books is um they have an they have an idea they have a concept and
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they instead of giving a business card to somebody when they meet them they give them their book um
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the other reason people write books and i want to talk about this is the legacy that it leaves
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and you know we all all of us want to leave a legacy for for the family that comes after us
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our kids our grandkids um nieces and nephews our friends our high school friends we want to make
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an impact on this world and we want to have something that lives in this world long after
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we're gone do you agree with that go ahead i'll let you go first well i have two of those uh one's
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a son, one's a daughter. So that's been handled. And they're more important than a book I'll ever
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write. But having said that, having an outlet to put a story out that's going to be there a while
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that people are going to see, that has a great deal of value too. I'll never get past the fact
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I have two kids. So that's my legacy right there. No, I get that. I get that. The book is for them
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to remember to say this is what my dad did. And that, yeah, that's my daughter's done that a
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couple of times too. Oh boy, that was fun. But this book, I can't wait for her to introduce this one
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Yeah. My dad wrote this. My dad, his friend wrote this. That's right
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Our kids get to know who we really are. And I think it's kind of a fun thing
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How about you, Bucky? Well, mine is two things. One is my two nephews that I'm really close to
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And I just wanted to leave something for them that, you know
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they can always either just pick it up or, you know, toss it around the room or whatever and just say, yeah, my uncle wrote this
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you know, and, you know, as far as that goes. and at least have them have a better idea about me versus what they had about their grandfather
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which is virtually nothing because they never got a chance to meet him. So because my dad passed away when I was a teenager at Revere, so junior high
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And so I'm just hoping that they get a little bit more out of what I write as well, too
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But the other part of it is too is that and I would really surprise me more than anything else was the impact that I had on my former students out there They found me on Facebook and how many of them congratulated me on you know taking this next step with my life and with my career you know and actually you know doing this
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And I'm hoping that that encourages them to be just as open and go after it as well, too
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Go after that. Not just do what you say, but do as you do. Right. And they're going to follow your lead
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I think that's awesome. Awesome. So what do you guys have planned for the future? I know that you have books that are coming out. What else is going on in your future? Are you going to, well, when we're able to, travel? Are you going to, what's next for you guys
18:09
you want to go first yeah i'll go first um yeah hopefully we're gonna get i mean my wife and i
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she just retired in january so we're hoping to get to europe um she's got a very close friend
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of hers from high school that lives in germany um so we want to get back there and see them and
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get a chance to travel through england and scotland as well too very nice and then just do a
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of you know just do a lot of driving like a lot of feeling and amy and you know my net my gang i
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mean i've got all most of my family my dad's family's on the east coast so um getting a chance
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to go and see them as well too which had you know i just you know when i was working i never had any
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time so that's kind of where i'm going to go but then you know writing my my own book um is kind
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of important as well too i really want to try to get that out and get a get it published well and
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And when you do, you'll come on the show and we'll talk about that. Absolutely
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Well, Lee, what's next for you? Well, my wife and I've been blessed
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Amy doesn't mind traveling with me when I walk through old graveyards or old Civil War battlefields or stomp around Gettysburg
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I've been blessed with a wife and Shauna Reagan, my kids. They don't mind when I go do that
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So my next project after George Allen's done is going to be another Civil War book, which means stomping around the battlefields and stuff like that
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So it's going to be a history thing for me. And not too long from now, I'll be retired, which means I'll have nothing else to do but write
19:46
Well, that's good for all of us. That's good for all of us. Yeah. But the thing about the series that we're talking about today, Karen, the real legacy, and I just thought of this, is the legacy of our friendship, the legacy of Bucky and I
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That is very true. If you really look at it, 20 years from now, my kid's going to stumble over this and say, oh, this is my dad and his buddy
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Or an old friend of ours might stumble across it. Yeah, I remember those guys
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This I'm going to read that. This really is what this really is, is Bucky and I together, you know, just doing something, the two of us
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And that's that I guess that's the real legacy. And that's wonderful
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Actually, that's wonderful. I don't think I could have said that better myself
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I actually had something like that written down. I'm not going to have to say it now because you already did
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Pow. Okay. I am very, very fortunate to do what I do, but I'm especially fortunate to be able to
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reconnect with people from my immediate past as well as my much older past. And that's where you
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guys fit in. And to bring you on the show, I think that you are actually a really good example and
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and you lead the way for others that see what you're doing, you are never too young to write, and you're never too old to write
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And that's really, for me, the message here. Just do it. Next month is NaNoWriMo, and that's where people make a commitment
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that in 30 days they write their book. Have you ever done anything like that, 30 days
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No, 30 days. That's going to be a person. It's an accountability thing where they literally commit to it
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and they do that. this month is National Book Month. Every year in October, we have National Book Month. So that's
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where we're kind of celebrating books in particular this month. It's why I really wanted you to be on
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the show this month so we could celebrate you as well. Let's tell people how they can get in touch
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with you. First of all, we want to make sure that they go follow you on Facebook, Chuck and Dom. Just
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put that into the Facebook search and the page will show up. You can also follow Bucky or Buck
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to all the rest of you. At Bucky, 1956, we all know
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that you were born, I was born in 56 too. You don't look
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a day older than 66. Not at all. Not at all. You can follow
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Bucky on Instagram and you can also follow Lee on his blog
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speedy leeway at dot blogspot dot com and to follow along there
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Any last minute thoughts you want to share with our audience before we say goodbye. Well, this has been a treat
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the three of us getting together. And, you know, if there's anything
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that we're going to get across to people, it's if you're going to, if you feel like you want to write
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don't sit there and say, someday I want to do it. Start writing. Just start. Just start
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And I'll just add on to that too. It says, you know, don't be afraid
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I mean, go outside your comfort zone. Just get something down on paper
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You may not like it. You may love it. You never know until you actually do it
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Excellent. Excellent. I want to thank you guys for joining me today. Very appreciative. And we're appreciative to all of you who are watching because you have a choice as to how to spend your time. You chose to spend it with us today. We are forever grateful and appreciative of that. Go out and give somebody an awesome day and we'll see you on the next episode of Karen Glasser Live
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