James Patterson: "My Time Here Is Short. What Can I Do Most Beautifully?"
The Gist
Mike Pesca
4.4 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
James Patterson joins the show to talk about Disrupt Everything—and Win: Take Control of Your Future, his new playbook for turning constant disruption into something useful rather than paralyzing. He explains how he thinks about "positive" versus "negative" disruptors, wrestles with whether the gospel of disruption feeds our narcissism, and defends his literacy work and banned YA novels in places like Florida. Mike then presents to him evidence that one of the book's inspirational case studies isn't quite so inspirational; Patterson reacts to that information in real time. Plus: the episode opens and closes on the Trump administration's terror lists—from the maybe-imaginary Venezuelan "Cartel de los Soles" to Italy's Informal Anarchist Federation and Greece's archery-obsessed "Conspiracy of Cells of Fire".
Produced by Corey Wara
Email us at [email protected]
To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/TheGist
Subscribe to The Gist: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/
Subscribe to The Gist Youtube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_bh0wHgk2YfpKf4rg40_g
Subscribe to The Gist Instagram Page: GIST INSTAGRAM
Follow The Gist List at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It's Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 from Peachfish Productions. It's the gist I'm Mike Pesca. |
| 0:09.7 | They once said about Donald Trump and specifically his immigration policy, but maybe all the |
| 0:13.9 | policies, the cruelty is the point. It's a great phrase. They wrote a book about it, but it |
| 0:20.4 | doesn't really explain everything. |
| 0:22.3 | And as I dive more and more into the actual policies of Donald Trump, I am convinced that |
| 0:28.2 | ineptitude is, if not the point, the modus operandi. To wit, New York Times reports today. |
| 0:36.8 | Trump sells a foe cartel in Venezuela. What is a faux |
| 0:41.3 | cartel? Tell me tell of this faux cartel. Are they a shadowy organization that will not reveal |
| 0:48.8 | their true identity? No, no, no. That's not what they mean. There was an official designation |
| 0:53.9 | of the Treasury, by the Treasury Department, of a group called Cartel de los Soles, a global terrorist entity. But it turns out, or at least according to the New York Times, who will have Juevo on their face if they are wrong about this because it is so stark. |
| 1:11.9 | Cartel de los Soles is, quote, instead, a figure of speech in Venezuela, dating back to the 1990s |
| 1:20.8 | for Venezuelan military officials corrupted by drug money. |
| 1:25.1 | The term, which means cartel of the sons, is a mocking invocation of the sons that |
| 1:32.1 | Venezuelan generals wear to denote their ranks, like Americans wear stars. |
| 1:38.3 | The cartel of the sons is just saying, yeah, the generals did it. It is sort of like indicting the |
| 1:47.8 | bad ombrays, which I'm sure is in the offing. The bad umbraes have come under fire from the U.S. |
| 1:57.4 | Department of Umbre maintenance. The ombraysar. It's a little like we have decided to |
| 2:03.8 | indict the mafia. Yes, we have also indicted the Kosa Nostra, except those guys exist. I mean, |
| 2:11.3 | there is a thing called the mafia. There are Lucchese Gambino. I was going to say, |
| 2:15.6 | Bongiorno. Bonjino, no, no, do not denigrate my fellow |
| 2:20.2 | Italian Americans. Bonano. There are crime families, but an indictment against the mafia probably |
| 2:26.7 | wouldn't go anywhere, as does the designation that the Cartel de los solas is a terrorist group as opposed to something poor |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 13 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mike Pesca, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Mike Pesca and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.