Steven Rinella

They usually carve it out of a tree.

Mark Twain, the same way, right?

Here's this man who gets so many statues built about him.

They all across the country, all these different states lay claim to, oh, home of Mark Twain.

Well, he lived here once.

I mean, George Washington too, right?

Like we have this like,

George Washington slept here.

Or like hotels that have more of a sense of humor.

Like George Washington took a shit here.

Like all these different ways of doing it, right?

But what I love about that, kind of that aspect of it, is that it makes the person first and foremost larger than life.

But when you actually look at Mark Twain, what he used to do was just go to bars, listen to stories.

usually for the price of a couple of drinks.

Sometimes he would give them a little extra cash.

He would then just say to the person, can I use your story?

And he would pay them just a little bit of money.

And next thing you know, that's how so much of his work

got built.

And again, that is, it just feels so American to me, the way that these stories kind of start to outgrow.