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Tate Barkley, a man who has walked through the fire and emerged stronger than ever shares his story. Battling alcohol addiction, enduring family conflicts and finding a way through it all, Tate's takes on a journey which is both raw and inspiring with plenty of laughs in his telling of it. His experiences serve as a poignant reminder, showing that sobriety isn't just about ceasing alcohol consumption, but learning to reshape your life without it. A reminder we can start over again.
Tate's Memoir Sunday Dinners, Moonshine and Men on Amazon
Website: tatebarkley.com
Tate on Instagram: @barkley.tate
Facebook: barkley.tate
Tate on YouTube: @tatebarkley3829
LinkedIn: in/tate-barkley-5963b319/
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Brad Shreve
This is Queer we Are. My guest, Tate Barkley, has an engrossing story to tell that could be difficult but shines hope instead. Here on Queer we Are, we don't talk about those sad headlines repeated in every news show and magazine. For the next 40 minutes or so you'll get a break from that. Oh yeah, we may have to mention it, but guests here share their stories about what they're doing to make a change or how they stay positive through it all. Or maybe they're just here to have fun.
As I just said in my promise this week that I do every week, and that is that we don't dive into the negative headlines for long, in my conversation with Tate we barely touch on them at all, but prepare for a story about a person who grew up in a difficult home and found himself, bearing the feelings from the past in alcohol the way. Brad, you may ask isn't this a show to stay positive? You're right, it is and this is a positive story. I can't speak for my guest, but I'd say it's a good guess that he has sad moments when he reflects on the past, but you won't hear about it in his voice. He's straightforward and talks about because he has much to share and a great message. You'll hear empowerment in his voice and not pain and miracle of miracles, he's entertaining to because he's not shouting poor me.
I had a great time talking with him and his story is inspiring and I think you'll agree. So let's get right to it, because right now you'll hear me, Brad Shreve, with my guest, Tate Barkley, and you know where to find us, because we're right queer. Yep, Queer We Are
Tate Barkley. As a podcaster, I get a lot of emails from publicists saying here's my client, here. You need to read their book, they need to be a guest on your show. And half the time I'm like this book has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with my show. Why are they sending this to me? And it's obvious they just get a list of podcasts and send them out to thousands. But yours kind of sort of grabbed my attention for a reason, and let me just tell you a little about myself. I was a closet to gay man in North Carolina. I had a really rocky relationship with my father. I'm an alcoholic who is now clean and sober. Do you have any idea why your story may have caught my attention?
Tate Barkely
You're living my life, man.
Brad Shreve
I looked at them like, oh, I can relate to this, so I'm glad to actually read that email. I don't always do so
Tate Barkely
Me too. I'm glad I'm here to do it. I found a soulmate just like right away.
Brad Shreve
You're in Texas, right,
Tate Barkely
I am. I am Houston.
Brad Shreve
Texas. Well before we actually begin, you've written a memoir Sunday Dinners, Moonshine and Men and it is available right now available on Amazon or anywhere. I suggest people go to their local bookstore, but wherever you can find it. I've been in memoir writing groups and in the four years of interviewing I've learned everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone believes they do, and those that do tend to say I don't know if people want to read my story. So what made you say I have a story to offer the world.
Tate Barkely
Well, what made me say that? It wasn't necessarily my idea. I don't think I had a tumultuous relationship with my dad and he was an alcoholic. I was an alcoholic. We lived in very rural South North Carolina and down South. I was raised in that environment of hypermasculinity and don't be a fag kind of environment. But anyway, my dad died in 2012.
And about a year after that I just had a lot of unresolved issues with him and I just started writing and writing and writing about everything he and I had been through. And once I finished it was handwritten and I just decided what the hell, let me give it to the transcriptionist at our law firm and let her type it all up and let me just read it and see if I've got something to add. And I kind of she gave it back to me and I just got busy at work and about six months later she knocked on the door and she said do you have any more transcription for me? And I said, well, yeah, I mean I've been giving you a transcript. And she said no about your book. And I said what book? She said the book you're writing. And she says I want to know how it ends. And I said really, you want to know how it ends.
And that's kind of what put me to this place, where I started talking to my sponsor and AA and some other people in my life, and then my husband and I said I think there is a story to tell here. I know that a lot of people have written books about coming out and a lot of people have written books about recovery. But having both a book about coming out and recovery and a complicated relationship with a parent, I felt like that's something that everybody could relate to. So that's what compelled me, in a way, to write the book. That night I didn't realize you can appreciate this but I kind of thought I had done all the hard work in recovery with the resentments that I had towards my dad and man Brad. Once I started writing this book, I found out I had a lot of work left to do when it came to forgiving my dad.
Brad Shreve
Yeah, sometimes we don't realize how much we're holding.
Tate Barkely
You know, Brad, if you would have come to me, you know, 10 years ago and said so, Tate, how you doing, how you feeling. And I said you know what? I'm 14 years sober, I've done my step work, I'm going to meetings, I'm doing my thing. You know, I've worked out all of my resentments. I mean, I totally would have believed that. But boy, once all of that old crap started coming out again inside me, I realized that I really hadn't. And, and you know, it's a memoir the books really is a memoir, but it's a memoir about my relationship with my dad and how I struggled with coming out to him and the struggle I had with my own shame. And the day I left for the University of Texas, I left home.
I hated my dad at 18. I had hated him most of my life and by that point in time, through college and law school, my dad and I became drinking buddies and the next thing, you know, we're damn near best friends. Then, when I got sober, all of that changed yet again. Well, you found a connection together, yeah, yeah. And our connection was drinking and getting drunk.
And when that was gone, all of those raw emotions and all those old wounds at least for me, opened back up and my dad was very defensive and derogatory about me getting sober. And I think that he realized that once I got sober, that you know, all of that would come up for me and he was right. In the end he was right about that. So, yeah, and that's what the book was about, and a lot of episodes here and there and everywhere. You know, we all have a kind of a drunken log, but I have mine, along with my struggle of trying to trying to accept my own sexuality in the deep South and I really struggled with that for a long, long time but I eventually got there.
Brad Shreve
And I definitely want to touch on that, and I'm actually more than touching that. I want to get into that. But there's one thing I want to get into first. A lot of people don't understand. In addition to being alcoholic, I have bipolar disorder and I get asked when I'm in a depressive state, why don't you just cheer up? I've been down before. Just cheer up. Or if I'm manic, why don't you just calm down, just relax? They don't get it. So a lot of people don't understand why they can enjoy a glass of wine and be done, and I so explain to those that don't know. Describe the obsession with alcohol.
Tate Barkely
You know, for me, you know we all kind of have our own story. But for me, I remember the first time I had a beer buzz and we had just moved from North Carolina to Houston and one of my buddies had scored a bunch of you remember those Miller High Life, the Champagne of Beer, and they used to, yeah, and they used to come in those little seven ounce pony bottles. Well, anyway, my buddy Bruce scored a bunch of Miller High Life. So there was a bayou back behind the apartment complex we lived in. So he handed me one and he said go ahead, you know, if you don't like it you don't have to drink it. So I had one, and then by the time I had the second one, it was like all the world had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt courageous, I felt relaxed, I felt energized. There was this water pipe that used to run across that bayou and that night, when I caught my first beer buzz, was the first time I had the courage to walk across it and walk back. So when I drank I equated that buzz, that feeling, with being Superman. You know, this is going to change my life. And I tell you, Brad, and you may appreciate this. But you know, I, that was the best buzz I ever had was the first one, and I chased that glorious feeling, you know, for another two and a half decades before I got sober.
And for me the obsession really happened was I used drinking to cope and anytime I felt like I wasn't coping, anytime I felt that old shame come up. Anytime I felt that sense of feeling less than come up or fear come up for me, I immediately went to drinking. And anytime I felt great about something, anytime something went my way, I immediately reached for that drink. And it's how I coped. And over time I just developed alcohol as my go-to coping mechanism for every little thing and after a while I kind of knew that I was drinking too much. So I would tell myself you know what I'm not going to drink. You know, this week I'm going to show myself that I'm not really a drunk. But then this compulsion would come over me to where I would just reach for it, knowing what it was going to do to me, I would still reach for it.
It's like I couldn't say no to it Once it got inside me, and the only way for me that I was ever able to control it was to just stop. I had to quit drinking totally and completely. But the problem with that was how in the hell was I going to cope if I wasn't going to be able to drink? And that's where recovery came in for me in the 12 steps. I'm a 12-stepper myself, you know, and that process is what I used to this day now, for 24 years now, in order to cope is the 12 steps. Well, great job on 24 years.
Brad Shreve
Thank you, and this is a PSA to the listener when somebody tells you they've gotten sober or whatever, don't say congratulations. They did not win a prize, they worked hard for it. So I know that I'm being picky, but it drives me crazy. When things, events like that happen, people are like congratulations, no, congratulations on your graduation or whatever your promotion. No, they worked their butt off for those things. Say great job. Anyway, moving on, that was my little pet peeve there for the day. How old was that? For how old were you when you had that first drink?
Tate Barkely
I was in seventh grade I was 12 years old. Not too young, yeah, yeah, not too young, right that's exactly right.
You know I grew up in a church. You know the church that we came from. When we were in North, we moved from North Carolina to Houston because my dad said Houston's booming so we're going to move. You know, that's where our dreams will come true. And but the churches we went to were very conservative, so conservative that they did not use wine or they didn't use brandy for communion. You only use grape juice. So I wasn't even privy to, you know, getting a little hit whenever I went to church, you know. So I didn't. Beer was my first, you know was my first buzz. So yeah, I was surprised. I grew up in the north but moved to North Carolina.
Brad Shreve
I was absolutely shocked when I found that the churches actually used grape juice rather than alcohol. I probably would have been more surprised if I had been able to get a little bit of a drink Alcohol. You know I wasn't raised in a religious household, but I kind of remember drinking in the Bible quite a bit, including Jesus, that's right. And I have a different background because I was not raised in a religious household at all. But I still had that shame. I don't know where it came from. Just a side note that I knew the way I felt was wrong.
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So what happened? You had the difficult relationship with your father and you were obsessed with drinking quite a bit, and I would look at a person, like I mentioned earlier, that would drink one glass of water and wine, and not only would I say how can they do that, I would say why do they do that? What's the point? Kind of the way I feel about decaf coffee right now.
Tate Barkely
I got to tell you this one time when I first went out on my first, when I met the man who was going to be my husband eventually. I remember that we went out to this kind of fancy restaurant on our first kind of official date and I was in recovery by then and he ordered a drink. So we're talking and we have a really good time, and he orders a gin and tonic and I keep looking at that glass because he sips on it and I'm like, well, what the hell? Okay, he's sipping, so we pay the bill, we're having a great time. We're going to go back to his place and he still got half the dang drink sitting on the table and I'm like, are you not going to drink that? He says no, I don't want it anymore. And I said I don't know if I'm going to get you. I mean, you are not an alcoholic clearly.
Brad Shreve
I relate to that more than you can possibly imagine. Okay, so there came a day where you said I need to get sober, and I'm sure it wasn't just gee, things are bad, I need to do it. What was the catalyst? What made you say, okay, what was your bottom? Where did you reach? We said I need help.
Tate Barkely
Yeah, you know, here's how it went for me. I mean I made it through. I started drinking. I mean after that first beer buzz, I salt alcohol and I managed to get through high school. You know, I was one of those kids in high school where a class president, debate team, all that kind of thing got into college, drank even more and then lots of intense social drinking.
But when I got to law school, the first year of law school was really intense for me and Brad that's when I think I started drinking alcoholically was in law school and just a fast forward. I did make it through law school and passed the bar and I started my own law firm and about six years in I began drinking all day long and I don't know if it was the stress, I don't know if it was the repression, because I don't know what it was, but eventually I drank to where I lost everything. I had a very lucrative personal entry practice in Arlington, texas that I lost, a beautiful home that I lost, and by 33, I wound up having to go back to my mom and dad's house to live because I was flat on my ass broke with a law degree with a law degree with no money.
But the actual absolute bottom for me was while I was at my mom and dad's house not working, I just drank all day. And one day I woke up laying on the garage floor and I had pissed on myself. And I woke up and this flash went through me like I can't live with this alcohol but I can't live without it. And I went inside and this was kind of my worst day ever and I had about 20 volume and a little bit of Jack Daniels left and I was just going to take those volume, slug it back with that Jack Daniels and just say you know I'm going to stop dealing with it. But I remember what a doctor buddy of mine said. He says you know, if you ever feel the need to, you need to call this number, you need to call Hazeldon. They're a place that can help you with this drinking up in Minnesota and they're the best. So before I took that volume, I just called Hazeldon and this guy I got to tell you, Brad, this guy his name was Ted, he was a master storyteller and talker. He kept me talking and on the phone for two and a half hours and the next thing, you know I'm sober. And he told me he says Tate, we have a place for you here and we have a place for you. We'll have that bed ready on January 8th. So can you come? Well, you commit to come on the 8th? And I told him that I would and he'd shoot me. You know, he'd give me a little cause every day after that until the 8th. And then I called a buddy of mine just in one of the angels in my life and I said I'm broke. I got no health insurance. And Greg just kind of said you know, don't worry about it, I'm going to call Hazeldan. And about three hours later Greg said you just get on a plane and go when you need to go, everything's taken care of. And that started my journey of recovery right there. People look at me like I'm really weird, Brad, sometimes, but I tell them I got on that plane and I went to Minnesota. I had that 28 days I spent in treatment.
I absolutely love being institutionalized because it was the schedule. You have this hyper structured line that they put you through and you go through three AA meetings a day and then you meet with a therapist and then you have small group, then you have big group, then you go to a speaker meeting, then you gotta do your written work and by the time you do all that with all these other people who are just like you. I mean, I went in there and there was like a vice president of a major aircraft company that was in there with me, other lawyers, some people were just down on their luck. You know. There were all walks of life and every socioeconomic background in this group that I got sober with and it was just. It was the first time in my life that I felt safe to be totally honest. And boy. You talk about being able to just be totally honest with people and it was like this great weight was lifted off my shoulders. It was just a wonderful experience.
Brad Shreve
And I wanna tell the listeners something if you are having a problem, there are some recovery programs that don't use AA. They use scientific methods or whatever. Hazeldan is really well known for doing an outstanding job. They actually work with you, but you're actually working through the AA program, so it is a great organization. But what I wanna get across is if you don't have a way to get to Minnesota or wherever Hazeldan locations are, or if you have the money or the possibility, there is an AA meeting wherever you live or I'm not gonna say that's the only way to get sober, because many people will debate that and I accept that there is somewhere to reach out to wherever you are.
Tate Barkely
And I would agree with that. Yeah, I agree, Brad, a Hazeldan and that's how I got sober. I mean, we all have our own story. But when I left Hazelton, I stuck with the 12 Steps of AA and I got a sponsor, like they ask, and I started attending a lot of meetings, especially in my early days, and I'm still sober and I credit my higher power in AA.
Brad Shreve
So let's go back to your dad. I wanna hear a little bit about somewhat of what major relationships are. Rocky, what was it that when you weren't drinking buddies? And then? How did that change, if at all?
Tate Barkely
Yeah, when I was young. What really made it rocky is when I was young we had a great deal of housing instability and my dad just could not keep a job and could not bring money into the house. He was sort of a flimflam man and he was kind of all promise, no delivery, that's who he was. But when he would drink and he was an alcoholic and when he would drink he could get angry and he could get physical. And though he never beat me drunk, he did my mom and we walked on eggshells all the time just hoping not to tick him off, just to keep the peace. So that was the difficulty that I had with dad and he was sort of a tyrant. You do this, you do that, you do this. Kids are to be seen and not heard was his view of the world, and so that it was his approach to parenting. That was Rocky part of our relationship. But the reason I literally hated the guy was really how he treated my mom, cause I couldn't do. I love my mom. She's the one person I can honestly say that's loved me unconditionally and that was my biggest problem there and my attitude towards him derived from that Once we became drinking buddies.
It's not like I forgot all that. It just you know, when you're drinking, it just oh, that's just not as important. So we became buddies and we traveled together. But my dad was that traditional, hyper-masculine Southern male. You know, shooting, hunting, playing football. He insisted I play football, even when I didn't want to, and I was gonna be a man and I was gonna learn to shoot a gun and I was gonna be a man and I was gonna be tough and I was gonna be all of those things. So that was his approach and it's also one of the reasons that I really struggle with being gay, because his attitude towards fags, as he would call them, are homosexuals, you know was derogatory at best. So you know, there you had it. You know, we had peace together as two men whenever we were drinking, and only then.
Brad Shreve
And how was it after you get sober? Did it change to get better? Did you even have that opportunity?
Tate Barkely
You know, it did not get better when I got sober. My dad was the one that picked me up from the airport and my dad was three sheets to the wind drunk. I got home that night and I was, you know, I had no place to live, I had no freaking money, so I was gonna live with mom and dad and one of my sisters, Carrie Tate, who had just gotten married. She was 20, I don't know, probably 26, 27 at the time. We get home and dad's drinking and he just starts excoriating my mom because my mom went to an Allen on meeting and he's like, well, you're gonna try to get me to stop drinking. And he just really started lighting in there.
And my sister, Carrie Tate, reached over and she touched me and she said Bubba, that's my family name, Bubba. She said Bubba, you can't stay here, you just can't stay here. And that was the first time I put my sobriety first, I think. And I said you're right, I can't be around him every day. And I took my little bag and I went home with my sister and I stayed with my sister for my first nine months of sobriety, till I could get on my feet.
Brad Shreve
And for those that don't know, it is not the law in the South that the male in the family is always called Bubba. But what a stereotype.
Tate Barkely
Yeah, it is. Yeah, I'll tell you what. That's what my sisters, you know, couldn't say brothers, so they started calling me Bubba, and my dad bespectacled right up on that. So, yeah, so that became the family nickname.
Brad Shreve
And you were born in a good time. I gotta tell you that I'm not gonna go too much into my dad's background, other than to say his father was an alcoholic. He was also in the mob. not high ranking guy, one of the goons in the mob and he was eventually taken. The government took him away from his family because it was too chaotic, to the day my dad died. I have no resentment. I don't know why people complain about their parents. I moved on. I can tell you he never moved on to the day he died, no matter how much we convinced him or tried to convince him. You were holding a lot of resentment. We were crazy and that was that era. That was that whole era. Like they didn't talk about what happened in World War II, that sort of thing. So I'm glad you went a different route than what they used to do.
Tate Barkely
I gotta tell you, and if you'd met my dad's parents boy, you would know he went through the red. They did the same thing to him, you know, and I so. Yeah, that was that era.
Brad Shreve
So where are you today?
Tate Barkely
Yeah, you know, 24 years sober today and married, and I've started a law firm with a good friend of mine about 22 years ago and we've got a law firm that has been quite successful over the years and I'm proud of it and I do a lot of work in recovery and a lot of work in AA. So I was late in coming out. I was 28 or 29 and coming out and I was 47, Brad, when I met my husband and I had decided by that time that, you know, I'm just not the kind of guy that can Be in a long-term relationship. I'd accepted that you know I'm not gonna have a husband. But then, you know, by sheer coincidence, I met my husband and we sort of, you know, dated for about a Little over no, it was two and a half years and then we decided to move in together.
We took it really slow. Then we bought a house together, then it became legal to get married and then we got married and I have to tell you I thought I would hate being married, but I absolutely love being married. I never thought I would, but I love being married and during this time he's he encouraged me a lot to write the book, because I think he knew intuitively that there was still a lot that I had to get out with respect to my childhood and my dad. And by the time I was done with this book I can say I had honestly forgiven my dad and it gave me a piece. So if the book has done anything, it's given me that piece.
Brad Shreve
So I got a copy of your book and I did read what I enjoyed and I can't wait to finish it, but I will admit I did not finish it. But, as a reader, if I pick up your book, what am I gonna get out of it?
Tate Barkely
Well, I think I hope there's a couple of things that you get out of it. You know, I hope what you get out of it is what I talk about. We talk about an AA. A good bit is Rigor's honesty. I spent for years Convincing myself that I could be a straight man, despite the fact that I was attracted to guys, despite the fact that, you know, every now and then I would have, you know, physical interaction with guys, but I convinced myself that I could be straight. So I think the first thing I hope folks get out of it is that it's okay to be honest and it's okay to be honest with yourself.
It took me a long time to be honest and accept the fact that I'm sorry, I like man and and yeah, I know, can you? I know, shame, shame, huh, and that's the other thing. That's the other thing that I hope that people take out of it. You know I came up from a very conservative Environment churches and you know the kind of folks in churches that whoever, whatever your purported sin is, that's who you are, if you're homosexual or if you're an adult, or that's who you are forever and as such, that gives them permission to shame you and you should be ashamed of yourself. And that's the second thing I hope that people take out of the book that shame serves no useful purpose, that you are who you are.
I swear I think Harvey milk was one of the most Smartest people ever. Come out when he said just come out, people, just come out, come out, come out wherever you are, because them I didn't know, any gay people, you know where I was and I think that the more people who are gay and All the folks in this broad, beautiful queer community that we have, just be who you are. It makes all of us safer and it makes all of us feel less shame. So that's the other thing I hope that they take out of it. And the third thing is is that when they read this book they'll realize I had angels throughout my life and most of these people who helped me didn't have to. And I hope that third thing is is that when you're in service to others, it liberates you and it liberates them too. So that's kind of the third thing I hope they get out of it.
Brad Shreve
I think that third one is important. I say it many times that you know we really look and Think what wonderful things that mother Teresa did. But if you asked her, I think she would probably say she got more out of it. You should put it to it. Yeah, and that really is what being of services.
Tate Barkely
That's exactly. And I'll tell you, just for me, that Whenever I'm helping someone else, I'm not thinking about myself, cause if I'm thinking about myself, oh hell, about 20 seconds into focusing on myself, I'm finding all kinds of problems and all kinds of upset. But if I'm not thinking about me, all of a sudden I don't seem to have as near as many problems.
Brad Shreve
You did say something wrong earlier that maybe it wasn't wrong but it isn't stereotypical. You said, related to church, the word homosexual. Now I don't put down religion because I have a great respect for it and I've had guests on here that are deep believers. I've had religious leaders. I have Reverend Troy Perry, one of the most amazing men I ever met, coming up where actually was on. But if you're in the South, usually in an evangelical church, you're not homosexual, you're a sodomite.
Tate Barkely
Yeah, well, you're that yes, that's exactly right.
Brad Shreve
I have a t-shirt that says honk if you love sodomy, and I don't live in LA anymore, so I never get to wear it. So one day I'm gonna go down to West Hollywood just to strut down the street with my shirt on and see how many horns I get.
Tate Barkely
Yeah, there you go.
Brad Shreve
One thing I have to ask you about, and that is where you live. I live in California and I know when people other parts of this country say the same thing, and that is why would a queer person live in Florida or Texas?
Tate Barkely
Oh, my goodness, I'll tell you. Well, when it's home, it's a hard place to live and I'm gonna say that Houston is a pretty open town, it's a pretty progressive town, as is Austin and Dallas. But you know, we don't make the rules. The sTate of Texas does, and it's very, very conservative. And I fear, Brad, it's gonna get worse before it gets better over the next several legislative sessions. So it's beginning hard. It is becoming a hard place to live.
Brad Shreve
But you're staying there. So if something tells me, you haven't given up.
Tate Barkely
No, no, I think about that. This is not our destiny to live under this insanity that we're seeing right now. I don't view that to be the destiny of not just queer people in Texas, but any Texans, any Texans. When you look at this sTate, we are so wonderfully beautifully diverse and there's so many good people in it, and we just need to organize, organize, organize and organize, and we've got to do a better job of that here in Texas. And you know, yeah, I hate to just cut and run when probably the place needs me, now more than ever.
Brad Shreve
And I was actually surprised. I always knew as Austin as the liberal mecca of Texas and I had the dumpling dudes, a couple of guys in Houston that make dumplings for a living, and they were guests many months back and they lived in Houston. They talked about gay-friendly Houstonists as well as Dallas, so that's all news to me. I was really surprised to hear that.
Tate Barkely
Well, I think we're a lot like. You know, if you look at other places in the South and in the Plain STates, you'll know that there's these little dots in the sTates and they're usually the major urban areas that tend to be far more progressive than the other areas of the sTate. It's just that those little blue dots are not enough to control the sTate.
Brad Shreve
So Tate once again the name of your book. It's Sunday Dinner's Moonshine and Men, and I said that you can get it most anywhere. Am I correct on that?
Tate Barkely
Yeah, most anywhere it's on Amazon, and if you prefer shopping independent, you can go, but yet you want, you know, to get it online, you can go to bookshop.org and you can get it there from independent distributors.
Brad Shreve
Also, if you don't like using Amazon and at this juncture we're hoping to have it in as many stores as possible, but we're still working on that- yeah, and if you go to an independent store and they don't have it, I can almost assure you they can order it and get it very quickly for it.
Tate Barkely
They can, they will Absolutely.
Brad Shreve
I like to promote the industry because so many of them died during the pandemic, those that hung on them. I really like to help them out. So if somebody wants to not just read your book but reach out to you, what's the best way to do that?
Tate Barkely
Best way to do that is you can leave me a message at Tatebarkley.com that's my name, Tatebarkley.com, or you can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook and on LinkedIn also.
Brad Shreve
And it's on the shelves and online now. So go get it. Go get it. Thank you. I haven't finished it yet, but I can assure you I am going to, because I've really enjoyed it. Tate, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show. I'm glad I heard from you.
Tate Barkely
Listen Brad, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me here.