The Art of Manliness - Episode #7： Rules for My Unborn Son with Walker Lamond

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another episode of the art of manliness podcast now if you made

00:00:20.740 a rule book on life for your son what sort of rules would you include in it well our guest

00:00:25.320 today has recently published a book with rules that he hopes his son will follow in order to

00:00:29.220 become a well-rounded gentleman his name is walker lamond and he's the author of the book

00:00:33.940 rules for my unborn son walker's a writer and television producer and lives in washington dc

00:00:38.980 with his wife and their newborn son who is actually born shortly after he finished his book

00:00:43.300 rules for my unborn son walker welcome to the show thanks for having me brett all right walker

00:00:48.960 well first off congratulations on the book and congratulations on becoming a dad thanks i

00:00:53.760 appreciate it if we can just get him turned into a man we'll be in good shape there you go all right

00:00:58.700 so walker what inspired you to start this project because from what i understand you actually

00:01:02.920 started this before your son was even a twinkle in your eye yeah it was it was really years ago i i

00:01:09.720 mean the the whole project started um back in new york as a single guy it was a kind of a back of a

00:01:16.800 bar napkin type of thing where i just wanted to start keeping track of all the things that my old

00:01:21.760 man had taught me growing up because i didn't want to forget it so even long before i was married long

00:01:26.720 before i had a kid um i just knew what kind of son i wanted to have so i thought well let's write it

00:01:32.020 all down now because i know that when actual fatherhood comes there's a good chance i would

00:01:38.300 end up too exhausted or or too overwhelmed to remember all the things that i'm always meant to

00:01:45.540 teach him so i said hey let's just write it down in a book and i can just give it to him yeah and so

00:01:50.420 you started actually started off as a blog right yeah absolutely that was when i when i got a good

00:01:55.500 number of these things going i said you know let's let's i want to share these with some friends

00:01:59.340 and family and uh and luckily for me you know the tumblr blogging platform had just kind of come out

00:02:06.720 and and it was so easy that even a guy like me could figure it out so i started throwing them up on

00:02:11.940 the web i really liked the way they had these really nice design templates and and i really just did

00:02:16.660 it for a gas but you know the internet's a funny place it's it was like doing stand-up comedy you

00:02:21.960 know before i knew it like a few people were laughing a few more people reading and uh and

00:02:27.100 it turned into this this everyday thing where i was getting more and more readers and and it just

00:02:31.380 kind of encouraged me to keep keep adding and is this how you uh the your book publisher found you

00:02:36.900 was through your blog yeah i mean lucky me you know no i didn't have to write any query letters or

00:02:41.500 any of that stuff that you had to do in the old days uh old days meaning probably like three years

00:02:46.240 ago um you know before i knew it there were enough readers on there that it was getting passed to the

00:02:52.640 type of people that are in charge of making books so uh you know an agent contacted me and a couple

00:02:59.840 weeks later we were pitching publishers and it was all it was all done before i really knew what hit me

00:03:06.300 so uh walker what are some of your favorite rules from the book there's so many you know i've got lots

00:03:13.400 the rules about uh how to dress like a man how to how to act on a date but uh you know if i was just

00:03:20.280 to flip open the book at any point you know here's one on a road trip offer to buy the first tank of gas

00:03:26.580 um you know i'm a i'm a firm believer that men should never wear sandals ever

00:03:33.660 how about this one never pack more than you can carry yourself and a man's luggage doesn't roll

00:03:42.320 yeah oh i love that it was it was funny actually before i i read um the that the book and read that

00:03:48.280 rule my my wife's uncle and i were talking about that he just can't stand wheelie luggage

00:03:53.180 and not only that i mean it's one thing to see you know the the golf shirted businessmen rolling

00:03:59.420 through the airport you know from gate to gate but have you seen like the fifth grade boys with

00:04:05.580 their rollie luggage backpack yeah it's absurd yeah it is absurd yeah you know just going back

00:04:12.500 to the the golf shirted businessmen you see them you know they don't even like a big suitcase it's

00:04:16.600 just like a carry-on yeah and you know and they're wheeling it some people get upset when they see that

00:04:22.020 rule you know this is not to say that somehow you know uh wheeled luggage isn't manly or you know

00:04:29.440 you got to be a tough guy it's really a rule to tell you you know if you can't carry it yourself

00:04:35.940 you're probably packing too much it's more of a call for you know minimalism and and and paring down

00:04:42.420 your life and your wardrobe rather than you know saying hey we all have to be kind of macho tough

00:04:47.600 guys and that's kind of the point of the book you know a lot of these rules are earnest and some but

00:04:52.960 a lot of them are you know a little tongue-in-cheek the idea is not to say hey i wish we were all

00:04:58.720 you know turn of the century pugilists and everyone now is a you know a uh sensitive

00:05:05.480 ponytail guy it's it's not really that type of thing it's more just saying hey you know what

00:05:10.740 if you if you pare down your life a little bit and if you give yourself in fact less options

00:05:17.260 you're going to have a form of quality control you know and that's really what the book's all about is

00:05:22.900 increasing the quality of your life and what's around you instead of just the quantity

00:05:28.360 you know definitely here's another one i liked is uh don't personalize your license plates

00:05:33.160 yeah i mean it's already kind of personalized isn't it no two people have the same license

00:05:38.560 plane it's kind of redundant to to put on their you know exactly aviator pilot no yeah exactly and

00:05:46.240 here's another one the best thing you can give your neighbors is a well-kept lawn

00:05:50.440 yeah some of these rules are inspired sometimes i'll see a photograph somewhere and

00:05:56.240 and uh i'm sure you've seen that life magazine finally put all of their photos and outtakes up

00:06:01.620 on the web for use and i mean you can just spend days scrolling through that and you come across a

00:06:07.040 great photograph and it might inspire a rule um and that's that was one of them i mean just put

00:06:13.800 the pictures of classic 50s suburbia with men in their bermuda shorts and a and a cold schlitz

00:06:19.420 pushing lawnmowers i mean that is truly the best gift you can give your your neighbors definitely

00:06:24.660 definitely one rule i thought should have been in there that my parents really harped this on me was

00:06:29.900 ask the girl who's not getting asked to dance to dance i don't know good one yeah it's a good one

00:06:36.460 um the the blog continues and i keep trying to add rules because who knows maybe there'll be a second

00:06:41.140 edition but mostly because i've got readers that like to tune in and i'm asking them to always submit

00:06:47.040 new rules because i love to hear other people's stories people give me great rules all the time

00:06:51.720 um along that same vein you know i i added one recently that says uh it was a first day of school

00:06:57.520 rule i said you know eat lunch with the new kid yeah you know there's just like some good throwback

00:07:03.200 lessons there of just how to be how to be a nice person without just being a kind of you know

00:07:07.940 mismanners type of exactly just being a well-rounded civil person yeah so you kind of mentioned a little

00:07:15.880 bit how you came up with the rules um can you explain that more you mentioned your dad handed

00:07:19.580 some of these rules and i mean where else do you get inspiration for them i mean the the core

00:07:24.700 kind of the original group of rules there's probably like 50 of them they really were straight from my

00:07:30.040 from my dad um he wasn't like a strict disciplinarian he just had a really good sense of of what he said

00:07:36.620 what made a good man and you know what a good man did and what a good man didn't do um you know and

00:07:42.340 and some were little things and some were kind of cliched sports idioms you know about you know

00:07:48.260 keeping your head down and and persevering and things like that but others were just kind of quirky

00:07:53.580 to him you know the guy never wore any socks he never thought it was necessary but at the same time

00:07:58.040 he was usually the best dressed guy in the room um and so he had these group of rules and and those

00:08:05.440 are the ones that started me off um with the list and then i just kind of added to them

00:08:11.100 using my own experiences you know every day walking in new york in every little embarrassing

00:08:17.000 episode of your life you say god i'm never going to do that again or i'm going to teach my kid to

00:08:21.180 never make that mistake and you just keep track of those things and before you know it you got a rule

00:08:25.880 for like every walk of life i mean every time you go in the airport don't you think jesus i'm never

00:08:30.700 going to teach my kid to be like that person or something you know and so before i knew it i was

00:08:37.600 keeping track of all the things that uh essentially it's like wanting to make the world a little

00:08:43.640 better place you know yeah yeah kind of make up for the lack of civility and uh good manners you know

00:08:50.060 sounds ambitious doesn't it yeah it is but i think i think you i think you're onto something here and

00:08:54.460 you know i think it's definitely i think there's definitely a desire for people to kind of counteract the

00:09:00.000 the informalism that's kind of creeped into american society i think a lot of people are attracted to

00:09:06.260 that yeah i agree i mean you know i say something in the introduction about at some point rules got

00:09:13.800 this bad rap you know i mean in my opinion rules are this really effective way to pass down

00:09:20.600 institutional knowledge you know i mean if generations of people have done something a certain

00:09:26.420 way and they've taught us to do it the right way the most effective way to pass it down is just make

00:09:31.960 a rule about it you know don't run a red light or whatever hey that works and now we're all safe

00:09:37.160 um but like somewhere around you know i'd say not to blame anybody but the woodstock generation

00:09:42.740 you know all of a sudden rules became you know synonymous with the man and authority and

00:09:50.120 and it was it was looked at as as like a you know as a barrier to this freedom and individualism

00:09:57.180 and creativity which is just not the case so i think they kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater

00:10:02.940 yeah and uh and before you knew it you've got a generation of men wearing you know sneakers and t-shirts

00:10:11.340 and to the office and and having haircuts like they did when they were 12 you know yeah and so i'm all

00:10:19.480 for freedom and and living your life however you want but it wasn't a great model for young kids

00:10:26.940 because when they don't see any differentiation between their parents and them where's the

00:10:32.780 inspiration to kind of achieve more than they achieved you know to to grow up yeah definitely

00:10:38.720 we're gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors and now back to the show um so you

00:10:45.600 mentioned walker that some people didn't like the uh no wheelie luggage rule um were there any other

00:10:53.340 rules that you know that have caused some controversy or that people just you know you got emails saying

00:10:57.220 i can't believe you put that in that's stupid and whatever yeah it's funny i mean you know it's some 0.68

00:11:02.680 this is a really subjective list you know i'm an east coast city kid so um when i when i wrote that

00:11:08.900 if you're tempted to wear a cowboy hat resist yeah i caught a little flack from some of the uh westerners

00:11:15.060 you know some from colorado texas i think in the next edition we'll make a caveat that says

00:11:19.500 you know unless you actually own a horse you know then we can satisfy the texans um you know it's funny

00:11:26.800 when when you when people feel like they're getting criticized for their personal style it can get a

00:11:32.800 little touchy i have a thing against facial hair um my dad always taught me that men with facial

00:11:39.100 hair have something to hide but at the same time i've kind of come around a little bit thanks to

00:11:44.300 art of manliness on uh on a good clean mustache there you go you know so so i'm coming around a little

00:11:51.140 bit on that one but it's funny when you get emails from people seem they i seem to get a lot of emails

00:11:56.440 from california uh a lot of guys in california saying what do you mean i can't wear sandals jog

00:12:02.560 shirtless and grow a goatee and uh i just i i let them you know i let them be not ever not everybody's

00:12:10.400 going to want to follow these rules yeah exactly we get that a lot too on our site in fact yesterday

00:12:14.440 we we did a post on uh how to get a a madman haircut you know with the the part and the i saw it and

00:12:21.980 as a matter of fact just yesterday i went across the street to my mom and pop pharmacy and bought

00:12:27.200 a tube of brill cream oh yeah have you used it yet yeah i used it last night what what do you think

00:12:33.520 it's not bad i think you probably have to uh throw a lot more in than i did i was a little i was a

00:12:39.400 little gunshot yeah i don't think that the phrase a little dab will do you is that no i think it's

00:12:44.280 about a a softball size yeah exactly exactly so yeah when we did that post we uh we got a lot of

00:12:51.160 complaints you know some emails from people saying what are you talking about that you know my hair

00:12:54.860 that i've had since high school is um you know not manly or ridiculous you know again it's a lot of

00:13:00.380 the stuff we do is subjective and uh yeah people get kind of a front especially with our site when

00:13:05.080 it's called the art of manliness when we say something's not manly and then people get

00:13:08.640 really upset because they do that thing yeah and and also what i'm i'm sure you experienced a little

00:13:15.160 bit is there still a very strong voice especially like in kind of college age kids um against

00:13:24.340 traditional you know gender roles as people like to say um you know because people work really hard

00:13:31.660 to to kind of loosen the the restrictions of what it means to be a man and a woman and a girl and a boy

00:13:37.920 all for the good i mean and i'm not disagreeing with it i think this book and i think a little bit

00:13:44.320 what our mailings is doing it's not it's not trying to revolt against the progress that you know

00:13:50.900 people have made and inequality and all those things it's just an idea of of getting back to

00:13:57.260 some level of quality control and i see it in earlier generations i'm not saying everything that's old is

00:14:04.520 good i'm saying that we might want to look back into our recent past for ideas on how to have higher

00:14:13.200 quality goods and higher quality of life rather than always trying to reinvent ourselves and come

00:14:19.520 up with something new because three quarters of the stuff we're trying to do has already been done

00:14:23.660 and done better you know just just you know look back a little bit and uh and and figure it out yeah

00:14:30.340 exactly that's what we do with the site is you know go back into history and take the good and apply

00:14:35.280 it with the things we've learned today and uh and the progress we've made and uh yeah i think i think

00:14:41.120 that's i think you're absolutely right you know not everything old is good but there's a lot of

00:14:45.260 good stuff right there okay so one of the things you have on your site and also in your book you have

00:14:50.760 a list of music called required listening for boys and i gotta say it's been fun listening to your your

00:14:55.780 list on your website um what are some of the songs you have on your list and why did you pick them

00:15:00.060 oh i've tried to give my own little uh very biased 20th century uh popular music

00:15:08.940 you know short course or something i mean my my theory here is that if my kid can master

00:15:16.400 woody guthrie a little elvis a little ramones then he can pretty much bring home whatever noise he wants

00:15:25.180 to listen to because you know when he turns 16 i'm not going to be able to stop him and if

00:15:29.760 you know screech metal happens to be hip that day i may be enduring some painful stuff but as long as i

00:15:37.560 feel like he's given dylan and springsteen their due and a little smith and a little this and there

00:15:44.060 you know then he's got every right to go listen to whatever he wants to and that's kind of what my

00:15:48.700 dad always did for me you know he was an elvis man he loved frank he loved nat king cole

00:15:53.660 and that's what i listened to when i was a kid my mom turned me on to stacks records and soul music

00:15:59.920 and between that between those two i got this bass so when i was coming home with the ramones or the

00:16:08.580 sex pistols or you know early discord record music my dad didn't understand it but he let me listen to

00:16:16.660 it because you know he knew that i kind of had gotten there on my own it's my own personal greatest hits

00:16:23.160 very nice now would you i mean what about movies are there any uh movies you would include in a

00:16:28.100 required viewing list for boys you know i thought about putting in a required viewing list because

00:16:33.140 i love movies i mean i i worship them i mean there's almost it's one of those things where it's hard

00:16:38.880 it's so hard to pick your favorite movie i was i was the list was getting longer and longer and

00:16:42.860 longer um and it was also sounding a little too much like afi's greatest movies you know i mean so

00:16:48.640 uh i figure there's enough there's enough enough good movie critics out there he can find his own

00:16:54.840 list uh but you know some of my favorites surely you know annie hall still one of my favorite movies

00:17:01.760 i love west anderson movies i love armageddon i love a good john wayne movie um i mean my my interests

00:17:10.160 are all over the place i like what most people like you know you like the story i'm i'm a big fan of

00:17:15.540 crime novels and crime fiction so i love mysteries and i love movies like sunset boulevard i mean

00:17:22.180 those are my favorite types of movies but uh but i'm not a particular movie snob so as long as it's

00:17:28.560 uh under 150 minutes and has a good looking lead i'm in very nice very nice now i'm sure you've gotten

00:17:36.500 requests to do or maybe i'm wrong but to do a book called rules for my unborn daughter

00:17:42.480 and if so what sort of rules would you include in it got it you know people ask me that and i had

00:17:50.160 such a hard time getting i was like yeah it sounds like a great idea except but i can only think of

00:17:55.680 one rule and it's pretty much never leave the house but uh i think we could come up with some

00:18:01.300 matter of fact i just wrote a few for a for a magazine down in charleston um i think a few on the

00:18:07.160 list were like always keep champagne in the fridge and ice cream in the freezer very nice it feels

00:18:13.880 like something a girl would like yeah um no vans in the driveway 0.92

00:18:17.740 um and uh and and other things about oh you know how about uh when you're on a first date order the

00:18:26.500 steak there you go yeah yeah watch your date's eyes get really big you know yeah exactly um so we could

00:18:34.840 probably come up with some and who knows if this book sells then uh i will surely get to work on

00:18:40.420 that one no doubt awesome all right walker both of our sites and our books i mean we kind of talked

00:18:45.300 this a little bit already um kind of have that vintage um and traditional feel we kind of harken

00:18:50.160 back to you know the old days a bit and i've noticed there's kind of a there's kind of a trend of men

00:18:55.900 going back to that why do you think men these days are attracted to you know this this

00:19:01.280 traditional manliness you know masculinity again i think it has something to do with a yearning for

00:19:09.060 quality um and it's a quality that i think a lot of you know discerning men today saw in

00:19:17.920 their father's generation or maybe even their grandfather's generation you know a time when

00:19:23.540 you know the majority of your household goods were made in america or you know you needed two suits

00:19:30.660 because they lasted you 10 years or three pairs of shoes as opposed to 25 different types of running

00:19:37.080 shoes you know um so maybe it's just a sign of the times we've come out of this kind of period of

00:19:44.460 luxury and excess and maybe people are feeling like i don't i don't enjoy the disposable culture as much

00:19:50.140 i think i want something that's going to last a little bit and so i think it's natural for us to

00:19:54.480 look back into a to a period in in our culture when things did last a little longer to me it's

00:20:01.900 like right around the 40s and 50s or you know 30s 40s 50s seemed like a cool period when america was

00:20:08.040 really peaking and creating really great products um for me like when i was designing the book um

00:20:15.280 i always loved the look of like old 50s textbooks and school books you know the kind of book that

00:20:21.920 you put up on your shelf and you don't mind it sitting there forever um you know because i looked

00:20:28.360 at the tables and i saw a lot of the books today and you know not just being paperback but you know

00:20:34.060 with modern contemporary graphics and things it actually really dates it after a couple years and

00:20:38.740 i wanted something that looked like it had been there forever um i also wanted something small

00:20:44.080 enough to fit in a blazer pocket which was the only other requirement i had for the book designer

00:20:48.680 and that worked out very nice very nice well our guest today was walker lamond he is the author of

00:20:55.720 the book rules for my unborn son and walker thank you for your time it's been a pleasure thank you

00:21:01.620 brad i really appreciate it and uh thanks so much for your site i i love it thank you that wraps up

00:21:07.640 another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check back

00:21:12.780 at the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and remember we got a book on sale too it's the art

00:21:19.180 of manliness classic skills and manners for the modern man you can find it amazon.com or any other

00:21:24.360 major bookstore and for more information about the book check out the website at artofmanliness.com

00:21:29.020 slash the book and until next week stay manly

00:21:33.420 you

The Art of Manliness - April 03, 2014

Episode #7： Rules for My Unborn Son with Walker Lamond

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