Matt Kielty

He bought the film rights because he wanted to make the film of Vasco.

And I had a three-hour meeting with him about it.

And he was like, who do you think should play Vasco?

And I said, I think it should be the guy, Magnum P.I.

And he was like... Tom Selleck?

yeah it was like i said the wrong thing i thought they'd be good i can see it i can actually it's the mustache and the big like bear like thing okay so john actually died back in 2014 and so we ended up talking to the author will store so will wrote a book about the self like how we think of ourselves called selfie selfie all right like it which has a whole chapter on john

And then we also spoke to... Yeah, well, I've got all kinds of curiosities and questions, so... Mitch Saunders.

One of John's closest friends.

But I think those will emerge as we get going, yeah.

And before we get started, I guess I just want to say, in reporting this story, I've always kind of thought of John as like an Icarus figure.

He's a kind of modern-day Icarus where he wanted so much to feel good.

He wanted everyone in the whole world to feel good.

But he did fly maybe a little too close to the sun.

So what drew you to John initially?

What I thought was so interesting about John in his early life was that he was born into a very strict Catholic family.

Oh, yeah.

A big, big influence was the Catholicism that he grew up in.

So if we back up a little bit, John was born in 1932.

In San Jose.

The oldest of three kids.