In this episode of The Joe Rooz Show, Joe kicks off the show with some housekeeping before introducing Marisa Lee, the resident "crypto psychic." Marisa shares insights into the current state of the cryptocurrency market, predicting an upcoming bull run and highlighting promising cryptocurrencies like Algorand and XRP. She also introduces a new meme coin, Gunna, and discusses the challenges and opportunities in the crypto world. The conversation touches on the impact of AI on various industries and the importance of patience and research in crypto investments.
Later in the episode, Joe welcomes Bill Cushing, a published author and college English professor, to discuss his book "Heroic Brothers of the Civil War." The book explores the contrasting lives of Alonzo and William Cushing, two brothers who served with valor during the Civil War. Bill shares insights into their personalities, leadership styles, and the historical significance of their actions. The discussion also delves into the challenges of teaching critical thinking in a progressive academic environment and the importance of understanding history through engaging storytelling.
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Special thanks to:
Executive Producer Wayne Rankin
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(00:03:18) Introduction and Show Overview
(00:04:08) Crypto Insights with Marissa Lee
(00:14:26) Predictions and Market Trends
(00:25:44) AI and Its Impact on Psychics
(00:54:53) Interview with Bill Cushing: Civil War Heroes
(01:46:23) Teaching and Libertarian Views
(02:09:38) Show Wrap-Up and Announcements
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
- Carolina Jimenez
[00:03:19]
Unknown:
Well, alright. Hey, folks. This is Joe Roos, and it is nineteen o five hours on Wednesday, 08/06/2025. And we are transmitting to you live from the Asylum Studios, broadcasting from the pimple on the back side of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass, and bringing the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the Joe Ruse Show. Alrighty. Hey folks, It is Wednesday, as I said. And, we got a packed one for you tonight. In just a couple of minutes, well, we got some housekeeping stuff that we always have to do. We got some bills that we have to pay. And, when we're done with that, then we have our resident crypto psychic going to join us, Marissa Lee, and talk about some of the things going on in the crypto and financial world. So stick with us for that one. She'll be with us in, oh, about, four minutes or so. So that should be good. And this thing keeps on falling over, but that's all alright. We don't really need it.
Alright, guys. So I hope you guys read. We'll also check out the show yesterday with Ezra Healing, Svetlana Rilkov. We had a great show. We really enjoyed that conversation. That was an important conversation to have. And, so I I really hope that you guys got something out of it. It was an incredible discussion, especially talking about, the dangers of biopsies, the possible dangers of biopsy. Let's put it that way. So, so I hope you were able to catch that. And, of course, we'll be back next Tuesday, with another episode of the Do No Harm portion of the Joe Russo, so I hope you guys can check that out as well.
Now before we, before we move on to everything else, like I said, the housekeeping folks, Ezra Healing, as we were talking about them, is a substantial part of the new wellness paradigm currently being born all across North America and, quite honestly, around the entire globe. The global citizenry are no longer satisfied with the sick care version of so called health care. Band aid medicine, endlessly treating symptoms rather than root causes, must be abandoned as soon as possible. Patient centric care must be the priority. We need to transition towards the do no harm model of private care that places humanity at the forefront of real health and wellness care. In this new model, your entire life has examined and analyzed to promote and support the totality of your body's integrated systems. Ezra Healing is a solutions based health promotion and disease prevention grassroots movement that is always evolving to best serve you and your family. Now, if you want more information on Ezra Healing, just head over to ezrahealing.com.
That's ezrahealing.com. And when you get over there, make sure you tell them that, you heard it here on the Joe Russo. This way, you know, they know their money is being very well spent. Alrighty. Well, with that said, hopefully, we got the right queue up here. We are going to bring on our resident crypto psychic, the one and the only Marissa Lee. Hey, Marissa. How are you doing?
[00:06:38] Unknown:
Good. How are you, Joe? I'm doing fantastic
[00:06:41] Unknown:
here. As we like to say back home, there's your music finally keyed up. Oh. We're gonna be talking about some money. I I think it's cute I think it's cute that you call me the resident crypto psychic. Oh, you are. You are. You're the only you're the only one we have. So There's not many of us. No. There isn't. So you're the only one we have. So you're our resident crypto psychic. So question for you. First of all, we haven't spoken since, what, last week. How are things going? How's life treating you?
[00:07:12] Unknown:
Good. I'm so busy. It is crazy. My Patreon page is, very active, and I'm just constantly putting content together for that or I'm giving a reading. So,
[00:07:24] Unknown:
I'm very blessed. Well, plug plug away your Patreon. Why don't you go ahead?
[00:07:29] Unknown:
Yeah. So it's it's cheap. It's only $20 a month, and you get my full monthly psychic crypto predictions report. It's usually about 20 pages. And then I also do a mid month mid month update. That's usually about, like, a thirty minute audio, and I answer everybody's questions because everybody usually has a bunch of questions, like, within that two week period. So there's a lot going on in the crypto world. And right now, the market's down, and people are nervous. I can tell because on my TikTok, I'm getting a lot of really bad comments constantly. I get a lot of insults. Like, whenever the market goes down, that's what happens. People kinda come at me. Like, I control the market or something. So, yeah, I I see people are frustrated, but this is actually a really good sign that the bull run is coming. Like so I've been saying this for months, and I've been feeling, like, this huge built up energy coming. And we've had some good, we've had some money come into the market that's made the investments go up significantly, but then it kinda goes down a little bit, and that's not what I'm talking about. So I I'm hopeful when I see this happening, like, oh, the bull run's here, and then it just kinda dips. And I'm like, that's not what I was talking about. So the bull run has that I've been feeling coming. This really big energy has not hit us yet, but I feel like it's coming this month. I really do.
There is a slight chance that it happens the September, but I'm really I'm, like, 90% sure it's gonna happen in August, 10% that it's gonna happen in September. But it's right it's, like, literally right around the corner. And, honestly, I think it can happen any any day now at this point. Yeah. So things are gonna get really good. I mean, you know, I I was on, x the other day, and I've been doing more, research on x because there's a lot of crypto people on x, like a lot of crypto CEOs, a lot of crypto news. The other day, Eric Trump made a post, and he said buy Bitcoin.
And I thought that was kinda interesting. So I do think that there is some knowledge about some things that are coming, and I do think a lot of money is about to be poured into the crypto market. So, which is also an indication that the bull run's coming. So and and they always crash the market before the crypto bull run comes. So I'm not worried in the least bit that the market's down. This is a a great time to still accumulate because, you know, when the bull run comes, everybody wants the prices to come down so they can buy more. Right? Of course. So it it's, you know, it's it's like a catch 22. Like, when it's down, you want it to go high. When it's high, you want it to to go down. So, you just have to kinda change your mindset with that and just be grateful that it's down right now so you can still accumulate more coins. So What do you think of the hot the hot cryptos right now we should be looking at?
Algorand. Oh my god. Algorand is gonna get so good soon. Oh, I cannot wait. XRP is gonna have a good run too. It is gonna it's got a lot of power behind them. Brad Garlinghouse is just he is talking to so many people is the feel that I'm getting, and, a lot of money is gonna be a lot of institutional money is gonna be poured into XRP. In order for XRP to really move, billions of dollars has to be poured into it. Right? So, that's not gonna happen from retail investors. That's gonna come from institutions. So
[00:10:38] Unknown:
So what do you think is, is is the big move? Because I've been reading a lot on, on XRP. I've been seeing a lot of articles about that, especially on, places like The Motley Fool and and sites like that, finance pages. Talking about XRP, talking about Algorand. I've been seeing a lot about Algorand lately too. So I'm thinking that there is gonna be I agree with you. I think there is gonna be some kind of a push coming, on these things. And so would you recommend now would be a good time to start buying into it, or should we just kinda hold off a little bit and wait and see how the market goes?
[00:11:08] Unknown:
Buy, buy, buy. XRP is still a good buy even at $3. Algorand's a good buy. I wanna say I I think I saw it. It was at, like, 24¢ today, and it was down. But if you were following following me on TikTok back in April, that was when I started really pushing it. I wanna say it was, like, 18¢ a coin. So if you bought back then, even with the market being down, you're still in the green. And Algorand has a lot of growth left. I mean, we are still in the beginning stages of Algorand, so it is still a strong buy. I'm still buying it. So, yeah, it's it's one of the ones that I just can't stop buying. You know? Origin Trail is a good one too. Like, that's a really undervalued one that I'm definitely accumulating more of as well. Is that one of the ones that we spoke about, when we did the Saturday show, two weeks ago? Did you did you mention Origin Show? I think so. Yeah. I think so. They're they're involved in all kinds of AI projects, and they're just gonna they're gonna really have a big burst coming soon. So I have a lot of confidence in them. That's it's it's it's really interesting to watch how the market and how and how,
[00:12:08] Unknown:
crypto is actually getting a lot of attention, recently. It's I I think a lot of it has to do because the government looking into purchasing Bitcoin and using Bitcoin as a, as a as a reserve currency. And also, you're you're seeing a lot of a lot of, what was it? It was I'm it flew out of my head. I'm sorry. I apologize. I should have pulled the article up beforehand. But there were there were actually sites that I've been seeing on, on Brave, the Brave browser. You know, sometimes you get those, those news articles talking about places overseas now in in Europe and and and, I think it was Dubai, that you can actually purchase property now with Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, which I think is Yep. It it's it's inevitable this is gonna become that worldwide currency that everyone's gonna have because it's, you know, it's just so easily usable.
It's it's the the conversion rates, you don't have to worry about that stuff, and foreign exchange rate, you don't have to worry about that stuff. So I think this is huge. It has the potential to to to really explode, and I hope you're right. You know, coming because I I did buy into a lot of these things. I'm not gonna yell at you. I'm not gonna, you know, I I I took a bit of a dip. I'm not gonna yell at you, I promise, because I know that there's risk involved with investing, and you have to take the risks, you know, along the way. And again, and just to go back for a second here, folks, this is not financial advice. Alright? We are giving you our opinions on things. Okay? So so, like anything you do, it's a risk to invest. And if you lose money, sorry, but it's a risk. If you if you so don't don't come yelling at at at Marissa. Don't come yelling at me. It's not our fault. You know? The the listen. It's it's it's totally fine. If you're a new crypto investor, you're gonna be in the red. You have to give it at least six months before
[00:13:58] Unknown:
you start even, like, when the market dips because it's up and down and up and down. Right? And this is constant. So you have to give it six months before you're still in the red when it dips. Right? Because that's the goal. Like, if you buy something at a dollar and the market goes down to 75¢, you know, you lost 25¢. Right? And you're like, oh, man. You start getting mad. But if it goes up to a dollar 50 and then the market's down and it's at a a dollar 25, you're still in the green, so you're not as upset. So you just gotta give this a little bit more time. But I'm telling you, Joe, I found something amazing, and I wanted to make the announcement on your show. And I know that's what people are waiting for. So let's just get to it. I I was building up to it. We were getting there.
[00:14:38] Unknown:
So, Marissa, why don't you tell us what crypto is gonna make us a thousand times our money?
[00:14:45] Unknown:
Okay. So let me let me tell you the whole story of how I found this and why I think it's going to do really well. Go ahead. So, you know, I love Algorand. Right? Like so I I follow the CEO, Stacy Warden. And there was somebody that created a meme coin on the Algorand network, and it's called Gunna, g 0 n n a. And it's like this green lizard. Right? And we we recently had that, situation with the CEO, at the Coldplay concert, hugging somebody that worked for him. Right? And then they were having an affair, and then that was just kinda put on blast. Right? Then the guy lost his job and, you know, everything just blew up. So that was in the news. And so this guy that made this gun coin took his little lizard meme and made a meme of him at a concert holding Stacy Wharton.
Right? Like, just as a joke and and put a post out there. And, yeah. See. And she then took that and made that her profile picture. Now this 2,100,000,000, that's her market cap. She was proud of that. So she, she put that on there. At least that's the impression I got. I can't really speak for her, but, okay. So that is the meme right there. That's her profile picture. And I took that as a very, very good sign. Now this gonna coin just became live the other day, as far as I know. You can only purchase it on the Para Algo wallets. Okay. So this is an app that you have to download, and it's Para, p e r a, Algo, a l g o, wallet. Okay. So you have to go to your Google Play Store or your Apple Store and download this wallet.
Open up a new account, and then basically take Algo from one of your other platforms, transfer it over to this Para Algo wallet, and then swap it for Gunna. Okay? Now I do believe that this is gonna do very well. I and and listen, Stacy changing her profile picture does not necessarily mean that she's endorsing this. Okay? I think that somebody jumped on a trend and, made a really good impression, and she thought it was funny and changed her profile picture. And I love that she participated in that. To me, that shows, like, a really good sense of humor, and, obviously, this is a meme coin on the Algorand network. So, I mean, it just kinda all flowed together really nicely.
I believe that there's a lot of, good growth coming with Gunna. However, this is also risky, and this is some this is why I didn't wanna necessarily, like, push this to people in my Patreon group. I didn't wanna push it on TikTok. I wanted to just kinda make this announcement with you and explain it a little bit more in detail. I appreciate that. Be because it's risky, you don't wanna invest a lot of money, not financial advice. Okay? This is something that I would put a 100 into, right, and let it sit for a year and see what happens. I do believe when you get into meme coins at a very early stage, you can make a lot of money. And let me give you an example of this. I had a friend, who bought Shiba Inu on an app called Bitmart, and it's very similar to, the Para Wallet where you have where you can't even buy crypto on it. You have to, like, transfer crypto to it, and then swap it for another crypto. So at the time, Shiba was very hard to purchase. So you had to take Ethereum, send it over to this wallet, swap it at for Shiba, and then just kinda hold on to it. Right? She on a $20 investment, she made $8,000.
Now she held it for a couple years, but she got in very, very early, into Shiba. And so that's how she was able to make so much money on such a small investment. This is one of those situations. So, caution. Do not put thousands of dollars into gonna, but I do think that it would be fun to have in a wallet. And let's see what happens with this. The the creator of this coin, I follow him on x, and I feel like he's very creative, very talented. He's constantly taking his gonna lizard and putting this lizard in all kind of, meme situations, whatever is trending. You know? So so he's kinda staying on top of it, and I like that. So that shows the creativity. I don't know if he's really good at marketing. Mhmm. I had a brief conversation with him today, and I was kinda like, you need to get this on Bitmart at least. Like, start getting it on exchanges. And that is a big challenge because you gotta meet a lot of requirements. You gotta have a certain amount of, market cap. You have to have a certain amount of wallets open. You have to maybe have an incorporated business. I'm not exactly sure.
I know Coinbase has very strict, very strict guidelines. I wouldn't he's not gonna be able to get on Coinbase for a long time. I'll say that. But let's start at Bitmart. Start at Bitmart. Work your way up. Maybe try Uphold then, then maybe try crypto.com. If you could start getting some listing exchanges or even get get it on Uniswap, get it on PancakeSwap, get it on some of the other swapping apps, you know, that's gonna really help as well. Because when people can buy it easier, you know, the market cap is just gonna increase over time. So this is one that I think has great potential, but, again, this would be a small investment because it's very high risk.
And, you know, I've had a couple people comments on my TikTok recently where they're like, if you're so psychic, why don't you just give us a coin, that we can make a thousand times our money? And I thought about that, and I thought, you know, I really need to think about that because I would love to be able to do that. There's just when there's a million meme coins that are released every day, you know, and I don't really look into meme coins. To me, they're boring. But you can make a lot of money if you get the right meme coin, and I feel like gonna is gonna be successful. Gunna is gonna be good. It's the PERA, p e r a, wallet.
Yeah. PERA Algo Wallet app. It's a yellow icon. Let me see. Am I looking at yeah. P e r a is what it's called. So, and and what's cool about the Para Algo wallet app is I I have never used it before, but it's all the projects on Algo right now. So you can, like, take Algo and swap it for anything on their chain. So I I really like it. I wanna explore it a little bit more. I know they offer some staking rates. So if it's one thing that Gunna brought to my life is that app, and so I'm kinda I'm gonna kinda explore what else Algo has to offer on there. That sounds great. I'm I'm actually I'm gonna after the show, I'm going to,
[00:21:18] Unknown:
make some purchases. So, hopefully, hopefully, you're right, and and I hope that, I hope you can make some money on this. I mean, this is great. I know you're not a big fan of, like, the meme coins and and and and things like that. You know, you you make it abundantly clear. But Yes. But, but, it it this could be interesting. And, again, this is not financial advice. You are investing at your own risk. And, we'll put that up there again just so everybody sees it. Not financial advice. Invest at your own risk.
[00:21:47] Unknown:
And, but, you know, I hope I hope you guys can make some money on this thing. That'd be great. That'd be fantastic. And, again, small amounts. Do not put thousands of dollars into this. This is very, very risky, and this is gonna be something that takes a while before you see, like, a crazy return. But, hey. You know, listen. If you see, like, a really, really good return in, you know, three months, two months, and you wanna swap it for Algo, hey. Get some more Algo. Why not? Right? You know? Like, use it to build your portfolio.
[00:22:13] Unknown:
You know, use it to improve your life. I I know you're big on ALGO, and and that's great. I I'm glad you introduced me to ALGO. I like it myself. What do you see happening with ALGO in the next month?
[00:22:24] Unknown:
Oh, I think it's gonna be really good. It's gonna have a really, really good run. I think there's a very good chance that during this bull run, we hit a dollar with ALGO. And I know that that is crazy. That that means that it the market cap would have to increase by four, because I think we're in, like, the 24¢ range right now. I'd have to multiply times four. So I think it's at, what, 2,000,000,000 right now about so about $8,000,000,000. But there's gonna be a crazy amount of money coming into the market soon, like and it's gonna be altcoin season. It's gonna be one of the biggest altcoin seasons we have seen thus far. Not the biggest one in the future, but the biggest one that we have seen so far. So it's gonna be the beginning of people getting very interested in crypto investing. I'll say that because there's gonna be people that are gonna make a lot of money coming up here soon.
So it's gonna get really, really funny. You know what? I'm gonna have a lot of positive comments on my TikTok instead of all these negative Nances. Well, I hope so. You know, calling me you know, yelling at me like I control the crypto market, but I understand, though. I understand the frustration. You mean you don't? Oh, I I I oh, yeah. No. I do. I mean, most of the stuff that I have, I've been investing in for a long period of time, so I'm not in the red on anything. Well, yeah, at least not that I can think of offhand. But, some a lot of people are because they're newer crypto investors. Right? So I understand that frustration, so I don't take it personally.
[00:23:46] Unknown:
And you you shouldn't. It's it's I I believe I get a lot of negative comments too. And you just sometimes just I don't even read them, to be honest with you. I just go go right past them. But I I remember a couple of months ago, you did, or was maybe was was it a couple months ago, maybe a month ago, you did a a TikTok video on Algorand and Ziebeck. And, now there there there's been some talk about them coming together and partnering. What do you think about that? Did you see that coming?
[00:24:16] Unknown:
You know, it's interesting the synchronicities that happen in life for sure. I did not intend on, like, putting out a video where I thought they were gonna partner, but it is interesting that they just kind of ended up there. I know, Zebec was talking about, partnering with XRP, and there was a lot of talk about that for a minute. But I don't think that panned out, and they went with Algorand instead, which actually I think was a better deal. Yeah. You know, I know people will I'll probably get, you know, some feed feedback on that one. But, overall, I I Algorand's a faster chain.
Whenever you transfer Algorand from one wallet to the other, it's instant, and the fees are, like, almost nothing. Yeah. I've seen that. And I'm so it's the fastest one that I've seen yet, and I transfer a lot of crypto here and there and everywhere and cold wallet and yada yada yada. And Algo nothing is faster than Algorand. So, I see great potential with Algorand, and it's gonna continue to grow. And and developers are gonna start really looking at them hard saying, why would we go anywhere else? I mean, they they have the best soft the best system. I don't know how else to explain it. Like and that's just, like, from a psychic standpoint is what I feel. And I and I am a tech person, but not necessarily, like, a software developer. So maybe I don't have the language to explain this, but from a psychic standpoint, I can say that I feel they have the best software, the best setup for developers.
[00:25:45] Unknown:
Now do you do you get into stock at all or you're just strictly with cryptos? I do do a little bit of stocks. Alright. So A little bit. So what stock would you, would you buy if you had to pick one right now?
[00:25:56] Unknown:
Just one?
[00:25:57] Unknown:
Well, you can give me a list, but, you know, I think we'll start off with one.
[00:26:03] Unknown:
If I if I had to pick just one right now, I'd pick Tesla. And I know that some people might not like that and that think it's political. I don't look at anything political one way or the other. I'm very in the middle of the road. I don't care about politics in any way, shape, or form. I believe Tesla is gonna do very well, especially with these, self driving taxis. To me, that is a big threat to Uber and Lyft. And I do think that that is going to have some more adaption over the course of several years. So it's not gonna be right away, but they're gonna give Lyft and Uber a run for their money, and they are gonna push back on Tesla. Let me tell you something. There's gonna be a lot of stuff coming up. And I'm not saying anytime right now, but maybe in, like, two, three years. Tesla's gonna
[00:26:49] Unknown:
do very, very, very well. What else do you think? What else are you looking at?
[00:26:57] Unknown:
That was probably the one that that, stood out. I like Nvidia. Nvidia is actually pretty high right now, but I they're they make these GPU units that other people just can't compete with. And I feel like that's gonna be used more in AI, and AI is gonna be so predominant that Nvidia is gonna just continue to be a beast. So I like Nvidia a lot. Yeah. I agree with you on the AI
[00:27:22] Unknown:
the AI side of that. I'm not I I don't know too much about Nvidia, just the cursory stuff that I've heard in the news. So, but, speaking of AI, I don't know if you caught the show. A couple weeks ago, I did a show with a guy, who has developed an AI algorithm, I guess, if you call if I don't know if you wanna call it that. But it's a, he the name of the company is called Autograph, and the AI, I guess, chatbot is name is Walter. And, this is my concern with AI. If this this this guy's deal is this, that Walter will actually call you, like, once a week, and you subscribe to this, and it's somebody that you talk to, as somebody you would talk to, almost like somebody that you would be telling your your your dictating your memoirs to.
And, and it records these things in your own voice, and it and it it'll ask you questions about life scenarios, things that you've experienced, how was your day, kind of, you know, simple questions, and then get more to into the more deep and serious things. And then all of that would be saved for your grandchildren and great grandchildren to be able to access, to hear you give them life advice on, on whatever it is that they're dealing with, or if they just feel like they need some encouragement and they wanted to hear your voice and something like that. Now and and they would actually be able to have a conversation with you that this AI chatbot, Walter, would put together and actually have these discussions. That to me is incredibly scary because, a first of all, AI is getting to the point where you it's very, very hard to tell between reality and the AI stuff. I mean, sometimes sometimes you can look at something, you'll see you have, like, two eyes and, you know, three eyes and, you know, eight fingers and whatnot. But, oh my god, I just thought about this banner they made at my my job with it. They had these images, like, 16 fingers and toes. It was crazy.
But, but but I but I see that, you know, with all of this investment going into into, into AI, And and the and the the more used that AI is getting, especially in the in the world of of of, electronics and engineering and science. I mean, the potential for something like, like a chat GPT to take over, you know, your your physics, you know, to replace, in in physics. And then also, the algorithms are developing and and I don't know. Do you are are you worried that they might actually put you out of business as a psychic?
[00:30:10] Unknown:
Not at all. As a web developer, yes. Absolutely. Because now AI can do, you know, websites and everything technical like that. But a psychic, no. Because that is something that is, it's like a skill. I I and it's something intuitive that kinda comes to you. I I don't think that AI can replace that. I actually have a good friend that, is a crypto investor, and she's a psychic, but she doesn't do, like, crypto predictions or anything like that. But every once in a while, I'll chat with her. And she's like, Marissa, ChatGPT is gonna replace us. And I'm like, no. That that's impossible.
ChatTPT is not gonna be able to tell you to buy Algorand. It they're they're it's not gonna do that. I I'll do that. Right? Okay. But but are but are you a 100% sure of that? Because
[00:30:57] Unknown:
because it's so intuitive and it's and it and it's developing so fast, it could actually, you know, make these decisions for us at at some point. No?
[00:31:10] Unknown:
Well, if ChatGPT could put out information on how to make a thousand times your money by investing in crypto and it's accurate, I'll just invest in crypto and just retire. Right? Nice. I mean, like yeah. I I don't foresee it actually taking over that aspect. Although there are, like, different AI programs that can run tarot spreads. So you can ask questions, and it can run a tarot spread for you. And it's like, okay. Well, you know, alright. That's kinda cool. But there's a lot more to being psychic than just tarot. I mean, tarot is a tool. You know, so there's there's other ways information comes from you. Like, I get information in my dreams.
So yeah. And it's so far so good with that. That that's golden. That is that is a big blessing, that I that I receive with that. So
[00:32:01] Unknown:
I'm, I'm I'm looking for something. Just so keep going while I'm doing this.
[00:32:06] Unknown:
Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, ChatGPT is gonna be able to do a lot of stuff. You know? I mean, it it can write it can write, you know, a book for you. You know? I know Amazon has a signal where people are are, writing books using AI, and they're writing 15 books a day and just throwing it up on their Kindle, and they're they're trying to counter that. They want authentic people do you know, doing that, not just chat GPT. But so chat GPT is gonna take over a lot of stuff. Yeah. They're not take it's not taking over the psychics. So Well, I'll tell you. I I know I know that that people are using chat GPT and and other
[00:32:42] Unknown:
chat bots to to to write and and to do things. Because I'll be honest with you, sometimes I'll I'll take I'll take, some information off of a website and I'll I'll throw it into chat GPT or or Grok or whatever it is, and I'll say, alright, just summarize this for me. And it'll write me this beautiful summary because I don't have time to sit there and read, you know, a a a whole book. So I'll get this beautiful summary from from from Grok or ChatGPT, and I was like, wow, that was really easy. And, I can I can easily see how people would do that? They just throw an outline, I guess, into into the into the into the app and it'll just generate a whole story for you. And that's that's insane. And there has to be some kind of limitation to that though. They're they're really you have to have some kind of disclosure, and they're saying that this is an an AI written because then you really didn't write it.
[00:33:30] Unknown:
Yeah. No. There there's truth to be said about that. And, you know, I I do feel like there's going to be laws in the future that are going to, they're gonna have to be modified saying, like, AI is not allowed to do x, y, and z. So there are gonna be, like, limitations. You know, like, you see a video now, and you don't even know what's real anymore. And people will think, like, oh, you know, you could make a a a blackmail video on somebody, and it could be AI. And that could be very, very dangerous. So,
[00:33:59] Unknown:
you know, we gotta be really careful with with the AI stuff. Yeah. And that's something that I spoke about with with with the young man that was on the show that night. Using AI to generate these video. I mean, you you the damage you can do to somebody, especially if they're if they're they're a public figure, like a politician or or something along those lines where, you know yeah. Okay. It can be eventually proven that it was a fake and it wasn't you weren't really doing anything inappropriate or or illegal, but yet by the time all that's resolved and it's proved, the damage is done.
You know, you you are forever gonna be looked at because, you know, the public is not going to easily let go of that. Even though they have all of the proof and everything all laid out in front of them that this is a fake, they're still gonna hold on to that. There's still gonna be a a large number of people. Like, I I think and I know it's not AI related, but I think about, the pee pee tape with the with Donald Trump. There were still people out there that think that that was real, even though it's been proven over and over and over again that it was a it was a hoax. You know, people still believe it. And it's the same thing with with this stuff. People are gonna see things, and it's gonna make it even harder because there's gonna be video proof, you know, or photographic evidence, but it's not real. It's it's it's gonna be a very, very, very interesting and difficult task to, to kind of navigate your way through. So, oh, by the way, I I I checked out Uphold as a wallet.
Mhmm. I think it's pretty darn good. I like it. Good. Yeah. I I moved my stuff over from, Coinbase, actually. Well, no. Not Coinbase. Crypto.com. I moved my stuff over from there. The only reason why I touched stuff in in Coinbase is because I have it locked up and and staking. So Mhmm. I can't take it out yet. And if I even if I do take it out, I still gotta wait a month before I can move it over. I think it's, like, twenty two days or something ridiculous like that. But, but I like the idea of having it all in one place and and not having a 100 different accounts all over the place. I think it kinda gets hard to keep track of that. And I think we talked about that a little bit. It would be it would be nice if you be able to get one platform that can take care of all of it, you know, and keep all of it. Wouldn't it? Yeah. That would be fantastic. Every platform is so different, though. They have different requirements,
[00:36:14] Unknown:
and some have stricter requirements. You know? So The Coinbase is Just make sure that no matter what you do, you always have two step authentication on. Yeah. That is so important because there's so many hackers out there, and the hacking is just getting worse and worse and worse. Every single email address that I have attached to my TikTok account gets hacked. Really? Every single one. Yes. Yeah. I'm on I'm on number three now, and I'm like, gosh. This is just insane. I had a Gmail account attached to it that I have attached to nothing else. I just opened it up for TikTok. And I went to log in to it the other day to, file copyright complaints. People copied my profile. You know, you gotta go through a whole rigmarole or whatever.
And the Gmail account just was disabled. They're like, you violated our terms and conditions. I'm like, how? I don't even send emails. It's just the only email address that I use to for my TikTok account. And then they put it back on, but it took me a couple days. And so I was like, I so there's gotta be there's some kind of leak in China is the feel that I'm getting with that. There there's some kind of leak in China where they're leaking all the email addresses of the people that have TikTok accounts over a certain with a certain following.
Yeah. So
[00:37:27] Unknown:
It's, Whatever. It Yeah. I it's it's funny because when I opened up when I started doing this this show, I opened up, of course, all the different social media stuff. And, it was it was weird because my I I try to keep everything the same. So it's at Joe Russo wherever you go. Mhmm. So I'm like that everywhere except two places. One is TikTok because the way they have it set up, I guess, you can't, you know, I so I got that or somebody already has it. But I had to put a dot in between first and last name. That's fine. No big deal. You can figure that out.
But Instagram, before I even finished, before I even finished, the sign up process, I haven't even posted anything yet. Still going through the sign up. They banned my account. They said I violated the terms of service. I'm like, how? I just I'm still in the process of signing up, for crying out loud. So, of course, with with with Instagram, it's not Joe Russo. So it's not Joe Russo on Instagram, but it's Joe Russo everywhere else. And they let they let that that was fine. That was good with them. So I used the same email address, same phone number, all that information that they asked for. I just put not in front of it, and they let it go. So that's wild. So we have a question. I've got some meta for you. I don't know. Go ahead. I don't know how I don't know how good your Spanish is because I don't speak a lick of Spanish, but if anybody would I have to translate that for us, I'd appreciate it. Yeah.
[00:38:54] Unknown:
Can you translate it?
[00:38:56] Unknown:
How Something about a meme coin. Something about yeah. Is I think call how how many or maybe
[00:39:04] Unknown:
I don't know. They're asking about the meme coin that I said is gonna make a thousand times, gained. Yeah. I guess It's gonna, g 0 n n a, on the Algo network, and it's you could only buy it on the Para Algo wallet. So
[00:39:20] Unknown:
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Edgard Edgardo? I don't speak Spanish, but sorry.
[00:39:29] Unknown:
You know, I took four years of Spanish in high school, and I I've been around a lot of people that speak Spanish. And they're they'll have this long conversation, and I'll understand what they're saying sometimes sometimes.
[00:39:41] Unknown:
But, yeah, I just I can't speak it. I don't know. Yeah. So Maybe I let me let me try it because that's gonna bother me until I figure till I realize what it is. Let me let let me get the translator here and I'll I'll I'll type it in. So, so let me ask you this. Where do you think, what do you think is gonna go on with the interest rates while, while I'm doing this?
[00:40:00] Unknown:
Oh, Jerome Powell. Yes. I like, who likes that guy? Is there anybody in this world that, like, thinks that that guy is, like, making good decisions for America? I I I don't know. He's gonna have a lot of pressure put on him. So today, I logged in to x, and on my feed, some politician I wanna I wanna say it was a politician. Maybe it was. Maybe it was somebody in the news. I don't know. Said something about how they're gonna like, this detailed plan of how they are going to, start looking at the Federal Reserve and where their money is going and what's going on there and what is he doing, what are his hands in, and I felt really good about that. That is the pressure put it put on him, the more pressure that's put on him in that sense where we're like, okay. We're gonna put him under a microscope. What's he really doing? Because this is all just political.
Like, this decision to not cut interest rates is ridiculous and political, and it is an attempt to
[00:40:56] Unknown:
make things as hard as possible for the Trump administration is the field that I get. We're getting some translations, by the way. They're asking about the meme coin, which is which is the 1,000 times and when to buy it. And the last one is, they said, what is the meme coin that will do 1,000 times
[00:41:14] Unknown:
and went to buy it? Yeah. So it so it's gonna, g o n n a. I'm sure they probably posted that before we had that segment. So They might have. Yeah. Yeah. But Powell, I don't like him. I think it's funny sometimes that, you know, Trump calls him Jerome, too late Powell. You know, I'm not really for name calling, but, like, it it kind of makes me laugh when I hear that. Like, because it's true, but this isn't like, oh, he's just being stupid or, oh, he's just, you know, try he's got his own reasoning for doing this. Like, this is all political. That's all it is, and he's just looking stupid and stupid and stupid. So sure. But Yes. There's gonna be there's gonna
[00:41:55] Unknown:
rate cuts are coming rate cuts are coming very soon. So the more pressure they're gonna put a lot of pressure on him. So and they're gonna start looking at his personal stuff too. So it's a feel that I'm getting. Yeah. I I I think the pressure's gonna eventually get to him, and he's gonna have to make some kind of a move. I I understand that there are a number of the other governors of the on the Fed on the Fed that are are kind of pressuring him to make some kind of a move. So I I think it's gonna be coming. I mean, the the to me, honestly, this just fuels my interest in seeing the Fed wiped out altogether. It should not exist. Oh.
I agree. You know, basically, you're basically, you you have some unelected, unelected bureaucrats holding, you know, you at ransom here. You you know, it's just ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. So, let's see. Are there more questions? So, if, Pocketful or or or or m g p 55445, my glasses are not working tonight, could, translate that for us, we'd like to know. Marissa, will rates be cut in September like everyone is saying?
[00:43:01] Unknown:
Yes. Yes. It might even happen before that. Might. But, yes, by September at the latest. I totally feel like it's coming very, very soon. Like I said, they're gonna put, personal pressure on him. Start looking at his books. What's he doing? What's he doing at the Federal Reserve? What's he doing personally? And they always tend to find something when they look at you really hard like that. Like, they're gonna really fish.
[00:43:24] Unknown:
Yeah. So You could find you could you could find something on anybody. It's that's Yeah. That that's that's just the the unfortunate fact. I mean, there's so many rules, so many regulations, so many laws that you don't even realize, you know, you know, how how many steps you're probably allowed to take, you know, on your sidewalk. It's probably regulated somewhere along the way.
[00:43:44] Unknown:
Oh, totally. I you know, just a quick example of of just something stupid you don't even realize you're doing. You don't even mean to break a law. I got a ticket in the mail for $200 from the county that I live in because I got my dog's rabies tag or I got my dog's rabies shots at a in a different county, and I didn't go to my county to get the actual tag. I'm like, Like, I got a rabies shot. Like, that's what I'm supposed to do. Who cares if she's got a tag? You know? She's with me all the time. Right? And so here I am. I just get a you know? It's it's like you can oh, you're right. You can always find something. There's always a law you don't know about or you don't even realize you're breaking. It's, you know, whatever.
[00:44:21] Unknown:
Yeah. And I I love if you have if you ever read any, like, state penal law book. I mean, I I I worked in law enforcement for for a number of years, so I, of course, I had to read these things. And, they always start at every one of them that I've seen always starts with the same thing. Ignorance of the law is is no excuse for violating the law. So even though you don't know it, you cannot you can't say that, well, I didn't know and use that as a valid excuse. Right. Which is just Right. Ridiculous, but that's that. Yeah. Alrighty. Well, Marissa, our next guest is already in the, in the in the waiting room, so we're gonna we're gonna switch on over and and bring him on in here momentarily. Gonna take a quick break though, before we do that. Alrighty. So any parting words any parting words for us before you go?
[00:45:06] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. If anybody wants to join my Patreon, it's patreon.com/cryptopsychic. That's where I put all the good crypto information.
[00:45:13] Unknown:
Great. And we really appreciate that you dropped that little bit of nugget information for us here live on the Joe Russo. It's awesome. So we really do appreciate you, Marissa. And by the way, this is the this tonight is taking place of Saturday's show because, you're not gonna be available for Saturday. Correct? So so there's no show Saturday with our our resident, crypto psychic. We're gonna have to do a whole big splash like Alex Jones does for his, his KPM gold guy. You know, we're gonna have to have this whole big production for you. So Well, that that'd be great. Thank you. Yeah. We'll get we'll get it going. Yeah. So we'll figure it out. That's good. Alright, Marissa. Thank you so much. Really do appreciate you. Have a great night. Okay. You too. Bye bye. Alright now. Alright, folks. This is The Joe Ruse Show. We're gonna take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll, hook up with our next guest who is already waiting for us in the waiting room. Alright. Don't forget, this is a live show weeknights 7PM central time right here on Rumble. So it's rumble.com/joeroos.
Rumble.com/joeroos. Also, let's take a look here and, you know, let's let's let's pay another bill. So let me tell you a little bit about Rumble. When Rumble first started in 02/2013, they built a platform for the small creator. They didn't censor or have a bias. They were fair, and they treated all creators equally. No one thought platforms would ever censor political conversation or censor opinions on things like COVID, but they did. Facebook even admitted to it. They they said that they felt pressure fell to the pressure from the Biden and Harris administration. Rumble did not. They held the line. They are attacked daily for giving us a voice to talk to you, and they were attacked by the corporate media. They're attacked by governments like France.
If you try to check out anything on Rumble in France, you're not gonna get it because they don't stream there. They're attacked from brand advertisers who who absolutely refuse to work, with them. Corporate America is fighting to remove free speech. Rumble Rumble is fighting to keep it. Rumble won't survive with brand advertisers. They don't get much of it. So watching our show on Rumble is the most that they can ask of you. But if you really believe in this fight and you have the means to do it, one major way you can help out is by joining Rumble Premium. You can join Rumble Premium for as low as $9.99 a month, or you can do it annually for $99 a year. You can join a community that believes in first amendment and believes in our human right to free speech. Rumble is offering right now $10 off with the promo code studio when you purchase an annual subscription. So go to rumble.com/premium and use promo code studio and get $10 off your subscription.
Like I said, if you have the means and you believe in the cause, now is the time to join Rumble. Alright, folks. With that said, we're gonna take a break, and we'll be back here in just about, two minutes. Three minutes. Alright. We'll be right back. Stay with us.
[00:48:41] Unknown:
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[00:48:53] Unknown:
Alright, folks. So this is the joys of doing a live show. Bill, could you do me a favor? Turn your camera off. We're on a break. Oh, sure will. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
[00:49:09] Unknown:
This podcast is hosted on podhome.fm, an intelligent podcasting platform that you can use to host unlimited shows and episodes and have unlimited downloads. PodHome comes with many intelligent features, like PodHome AI, which automatically creates transcripts, chapters, suggests titles, show notes, detects people, and creates clips. You can use Pothome AI unlimited for all your episodes and all your shows. Go check it out and start your free seven day trial at pothome.fm.
[00:49:57] Unknown:
In your highest daily soul, everywhere you ever go, a love story where you spy There's a risk on the line, hoping your heart dumber'd mine, making sure Looking back at the start, we've come so far. A thousand stars could keep us apart. Looking back at the start. We've come so far. A thousand stars couldn't keep us apart.
[00:53:04] Unknown:
Well, alright, folks. This is Joe Ruse. Welcome back. The first forty five minutes are in the books. We're gonna get started here here momentarily. So our resident crypto psychic, Marissa Lee, some great advice. So Gunna Coin, we're gonna check that out after the show today. We'll see what we got going on there. Some great advice there. But listen, folks, again, this is just so you know, there's there's risk in every investment. Alright? Risk is involved in every investment. So do your research before you pull the trigger on anything that you're looking to do. And remember, you know, we are not financial advisers, we're not financial counselors, we're not in any way, shape, or form like that. So all we're doing is giving you opinions.
So how you handle the opinion is, of course, up to you. So but check them out, do your research before you make that decision. All right. Well, let's see. What else do we got here? All righty. Well, tonight's guest is a man who moves between two worlds. Bill Cushing is a published author, a libertarian thinker, a college English professor teaching critical thinking inside what he humorously calls the belly of the liberal beast. Well, he's here tonight to talk about his book, Heroic Brothers of the Civil War, which explores the contrasting lives of, believe it or not, two of his ancestors, army officer Alonzo Cushing and navy officer William Cushing, who fought with valor and integrity during the war between the states.
With one brother known for his discipline and the other known for his bold recklessness, their story is as much about leadership and character as it is about war and sacrifice. So folks, I'd like to welcome Bill Cushing to the show. Bill, are you there with us? I sure am. I'm hoping this is coming through. Yes, it is. Loud and clear, sir. Loud and clear. Wonderful. Well, it's great to have you on the show tonight. So thank you. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you did the invite. I was well, I intruded more than you invited. No. It's alright. It's a Be that as it may. That's like I say like I always say, it's one of the joys of doing a live show. You know, that's why that's why I try to send out that email and let everybody know, hey, please just keep everything off until Yeah. I well, yeah. You'll have to forgive my Of course.
I I blame it on my anal retentive military school background. Oh, there you go. I I usually blame it on my glasses that I didn't see it properly. Oh, okay. So, you know, that's alright, though. So, so, Bill, what's something about yourself that most people don't know but should?
[00:55:48] Unknown:
Well, I would say this for most people, I would say this, that I also draw and am involved well, draw, sketch, that kind of thing, which is something I have really not done for probably forty years. So there are a few people my wife knows it, a couple of people I know now. Of course, people that knew me forty, fifty years ago all know that, but, it's something I just haven't done that much of lately. Last time I did it was probably my wife is Peruvian, and we went down there. Of course, I took sketches of the churches and that sort of thing, because I've always loved that kind of architecture.
But, yeah, I draw.
[00:56:29] Unknown:
So And that's great, though. That that's fantastic. I wish I could. I I tried to draw, at some point, but
[00:56:34] Unknown:
I drew a blank, so I didn't bother pursuing it. There you go. Yeah. Well, that's sort of like, can you sing? Give me a buck and I'll carry a tune. There you go. But,
[00:56:44] Unknown:
That's great. So let me ask you this then. So what's your go to beverage at the end of the day to help you unwind?
[00:56:50] Unknown:
Oh, I it's funny. I am I don't drink a whole lot, but I love Scotch. Nice.
[00:56:57] Unknown:
What's your what's your favorite? What's your go to?
[00:57:01] Unknown:
Probably Chivas, although Glenlivet has been, occupying my shelf quite a bit lately.
[00:57:07] Unknown:
So I like Glenlivet. Glenlivet's good. I've had it, a few times. Chivas Chivas reminds me too much of of my my youth at at, you know, living back in New York with my family and, you know, my grandparents and whatnot. So I, Now I gotta ask where in New York? I was born and raised in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
[00:57:28] Unknown:
Oh, okay. I'm from Queens.
[00:57:30] Unknown:
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. So, oh, man. So I'm just kidding. I'm I'm just playing around with you. But, Oh, I know. No. But, as far as scotch go, believe it or not, I know people are gonna think I'm kinda, like, frou frou nose up in the air kind of thing. I like Glen Morangie. Glen Morangie is a wonderful scotch. And I'm not a big scotch fan. Like, I won't go out of my way to have it, but if man, if it's there, that's what that's what I'm looking at. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a bourbon guy. I I love my bourbons. Oh, okay. So my, my favorite right now well, it's always.
But, I like to pair my bourbons with cigars, so it depends on what I'm smoking in that particular occasion. Oh, that's it. But, my go to, if I if I was gonna have a quote unquote everyday, it would be, $17.92 12 year is amazing. Okay. I'm not familiar with that. Yeah. No. I I had it for the first time, I wanna say about a month ago. And Uh-huh. It was what a what a treat that was. It really was I I was not expecting it to be as smooth as it was, it but it was it was super good. And then, depending on what I'm depending on what I'm smoking, I like to pair things. One of the most recent pairings I did, was with a, a Camacho Triple Maduro cigar.
Oh, okay. I that's that's not my market, but my my father, you would have gotten along with that. That's okay. That's fine. My dad was a cigar snorke. The the more important part of it is the bourbon. That and that was the the the Elijah Craig, toasted barrel, which is amazing in pairing. That's so it's absolutely delicious. That's funny.
[00:59:01] Unknown:
Years ago, I had a student who at the end of the semester, she gave me a bottle and I can't remember who made it, but it was a scotch that was soaked or or was aged in, rum soaked
[00:59:16] Unknown:
caskets Oh, nice.
[00:59:17] Unknown:
Or casks. And my wife my wife's a big Scotch drinker too, which is probably one of the big reasons we got married. But, but, we made that bottle last as long as we could because it was so good. It was like, yeah. That's That's good. Special occasions only.
[00:59:35] Unknown:
So I I recently speaking of using, casks, I had a recently, I had a Cabernet Sauvignon with that was, that was, aged in bourbon casks. Oh, there's a And it would I I didn't know what to expect, to be honest with you. I I had never had that before. And, when I cracked that bottle, of course, you're gonna let it breathe for at least thirty minutes or so. But what I'm telling you, that first sip, I I was hooked. I'm like, alright. I you gotta tell me where you got this because I gotta go get it. So it was just ama it was really good. And I'm wondering actually how it would taste in in a sauce because I I I'm a I'm Sicilian. I cook. And Oh, okay. I I I on Sundays, I make my sauce and, I always throw some some some red wine into it. Some wine in there. Yeah. Yeah, sir. And, so I'm wondering how this would taste with the sauce. So I I'm gonna probably be playing around with it this weekend Try it out. Yeah. If I can get it. That's a great idea. So I am looking forward to that. So let me ask you this. So so so what first got you excited about writing
[01:00:40] Unknown:
Heroic Brothers of the Civil War? Oh, well, let's well, first of all, I mean, I was actually named in honor of William Barker. So I mean, my we we are a Navy family, at least, you know, my father was, I was, and of course, William was. So I basically grew up with stories about him as a kid. I mean, I've known about him since I was probably 10 or 12 years old. In fact, a lot of the stories I heard, I didn't put in the book because I couldn't verify them, but they sounded like him. So, but, yeah. And then I guess it was in nineties, probably the early nineties at some point, there was a movement started by a woman in, Delafield, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, which was where the Cushing's were originally from.
They ended up in, Fredonia, New York, but they started in Wisconsin and a woman there found out that she had bought the house that the Cushing boys and family had been brought up in. And as she found out about him, she said, now this guy should get the Medal of Honor. So there was a bunch of us that kind of lobbied and, you know, wrote and campaign for, hey, you know, Alonzo for what he did during the Battle of Gettysburg should certainly be considered for the Medal of Honor. I think he finally got it in 2015, it seems to me, 2015, maybe 2016.
But along the way I was gathering all this information. Of course, I had all kinds of books here. I've got the journals and some of the letters, of these guys. So I started putting it together. And it's funny when I put the first, originally as my own writing, it was very long. I mean, the thing was massive. And I said, you know, but the real problem I've had all along is all the books I've read about these guys are all very detailed. They're very interesting, but they're also very dry. Okay. So what I did was I cut it back and and the book is only a total of 55 pages, and that includes illustrations.
So I cut it way back and just tried to capture the essence of what made these two brothers so special. And and they really were. I mean, they were completely devoted to each other. You know, very interesting, very, very different in personality. I mean, couldn't be more different. William was kicked out of Annapolis for behavior. Not for academics or anything like that. It's just because he couldn't behave. And it's funny because he sort of carried that into his he got kicked out of Annapolis about two months before the war broke out. Oh, wow. So So when the civil war broke out, he reapplied. He said, look, I wanna come back in. And they needed people so desperately. They said, okay. So they brought him in as a midshipman because midshipman is actually a rank. Yes. That that that's one of the few academies where you actually are given a rank.
That brought him in as a midshipman. Well, his behavior didn't change a whole lot.
[01:03:51] Unknown:
Once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker, Yeah. Well, he didn't
[01:03:55] Unknown:
one of the things I bring up in the book is that he didn't care for what he considered were inferior people, even if they outranked him and he had no problem Nice. Telling them so. He had a meeting with Lincoln once, and I don't think I put it in the book, but he met with Lincoln at one point. And when Lincoln brought up one of the admirals, he said something about, well, somebody should give him a petticoat. I don't like the if you remember the, there was a jack o'-lantern, they should put dress dresses on quarterbacks. Yes. I guess that was the civil war equivalent of that. Nice. But, yeah, I I just found the two of them very fascinating and and thought they should be written about in a much more I I don't like to say simple, but less complex way, you know, to bring the person up.
[01:04:42] Unknown:
Well, when you learned, though when you did your research and you learned about how big their roles were in the civil war, how did that shape the way you, approach the book as a as a writer and, of course, on a personal level?
[01:04:52] Unknown:
Well, yeah. I mean, as a family member, of course, you love bragging about what your ancestors have done and Not always. They are. Yeah. Well, you know, that's true. It depends on the the ancestor. Depends on the context. Yeah. But, I just love the, the, the, as I read about them and read the letters, especially the interplay between these two guys and how much they just loved each other. You know, very devoted. Now there was four brothers and all four of them served in the Civil War. One was in the Apache wars. He was in the cavalry, Milton, and then the other one, and what was his name? He had had, I think he had asthma and he couldn't actually serve on the front lines or anything, but he was like a pay master Okay. Or something like that. But all four brothers did end up serving, in some form or fashion.
But these two, because they were so close in age, they were just really, you know, really got along well. So here again, as a writer, that's what I wanted to bring up was the differences between them, but then the the devotion between them as well. Hopefully, I did that.
[01:06:05] Unknown:
Well, now you said earlier, you know, Alonzo was kind of the steady, methodical kind of guy. William was Yeah. William was very bold and fearless and and a little bit of a troublemaker. But but both of them were driven by this this this this deep sense of duty. Mhmm. Absolutely. Yeah. So so how did their different personalities and and and their close their their their close relationship as brothers
[01:06:29] Unknown:
shape the story that you that you told? I think well, one of the things and I don't I don't think I really brought it up that much in the book. I, I did mention, I mean, we come from a Puritan background and Oh, interesting. The family has been around for a while. And of course, the original abolitionists were the religious people. So, but it's funny because one of the things I found is William was not so much caught up in the idea of of, you know, getting rid of slavery as he was in making a name for himself I see. As a military leader. Whereas Lonzo seemed to be much more devoted to the cause of the union, of of getting rid of the South, getting rid of this institution of slavery and that kind of thing.
So they both approached it in two different ways, I think, but with equal fervor. I mean, William, I mean, one of the quotes in the book I pulled out of one of his letters is, I would rather be a captain of a ship than the president of The United States. And and he did eventually get that honor. But, of course, Alonzo, unfortunately, didn't live long enough to, do do any such thing. Now you did But, yeah. I I I think that they they were both equally devoted to the union, but one, I think more for personal reasons, the other for more, I guess, philosophical and ideological reasons. I see. Now you mentioned promotions. So,
[01:08:01] Unknown:
and and you mentioned those in the in the book. You you you kinda focus on Alonzo earning promotions and and and you talk about, William's take down of the, was it the, album art. Album art. The CSS Yeah. Album art. And then you also go on to you highlight their character over over a lot of the larger, you know, over some really larger than life legend. Mhmm. Why is it so important to show who they were as people?
[01:08:26] Unknown:
Because they were such interesting people, I think. That's I think one of the early on when I started writing seriously, I always loved one of the guys I met and who went to a workshop. He said, yeah. Interesting stories are usually about interesting people. And like I say, I found that a lot of the stuff that I read about these two was detailed, but it was dry. It was like, you know, I mean, here I've got all these facts and figures and all these dates and all this other stuff, but I I don't really know who this guy is other than, you know, what he did. And that was, my sort of ambition in this book was to, hey. Let's bring these guys to life and show what they were like. And I I have to say I got a lot of outside help when I was putting this thing together.
I've mentioned captain Arnold who was one of Alonzo's friends. I actually got a lot of that information from and I'm sorry. I forgot her name. But one of Arnold's relatives, one of his descendants, she and I hooked up on, on Facebook through a Gettysburg page. Okay. Cool. And she was able to fill me in on some of the stuff about her predecessor, and I worked him into the book, just more to thank her than anything else. I thought it was an interesting relationship because the two of them fought
[01:09:51] Unknown:
together in several battles. What what what makes the Cushing brothers stand out among the other big civil war names?
[01:09:59] Unknown:
Oh, boy. I think with Alonzo, it was how much he did in so little time. Okay. Here again, he was 22 or he's just short of 22 when he got killed. And yet he had been brevited to all these different ranks and had earned all these, you know, really honors, not honors and medals and stuff, but, you know, in terms of letters and recommendations and that thing. I mean, here was a guy and it was funny because when he originally came out of West Point, he was, he worked with the fourth Cavalry, but then they moved him over to the, topographical engineering units, which that was really the way to get promoted very quickly. The engineers, the topographical engineers were the guys who surveyed the battlefields and, you know, made recommendations or here's where you should put this person or this group, that group. But he said, no, I want to go back to combat. So he transferred back into the fourth and that was where he ended up getting killed.
Whereas William, here again, he just loved a challenge. You know, just give me somebody to fight. That's that's all I want. That was his personality, for sure. Yeah. And in fact, I think in the book, I even compare him to a a a lion or or I think that was the analogy I gave was, like, he was a lot lion who was running out of prey or something like that. You know, once the war was over, everything was on a peacetime basis.
[01:11:35] Unknown:
So what what can you tell us about, about, Chancellorsville and, and and the Virginia's affair?
[01:11:43] Unknown:
That well, the Virginia's, you're talking about the, now you caught me now. As what? Well, in in talking about their leadership and and, the style of leadership. Well, yeah. Well, in Chancellorsville, I think that was the first battle Alonzo got into. And he was you know, his commander said, hey. This this kid's got it together. You know, he's a natural leader, and he was. The Virginia's affair is now remind me. Sorry. I gotta cheat here. No. Go ahead. No. I mean,
[01:12:23] Unknown:
when you refer to the Virginia's affair, I'm sorry. I'm at a loss on that. Alright. Well, we could just we could go on it from that. But the point I would the point I was trying to get to was, out of those two experiences and and, the type of leadership that that, they both displayed, tough, compassionate, what can what can leaders today, whether it's in military or in everyday life, take away from how they led?
[01:12:46] Unknown:
I think the big thing was well, to me, it it's that they refused to back down. They were upfront. So people would follow them. Okay. Because they were they didn't hang back. I mean, with William, it's kind of interesting because, somebody asked me at one point, do you think he might have been maybe a little sociopathic? I said, well, yeah, that that's not unreasonable to assume because, I mean, he would just stand there while bullets were whizzing around absolutely secure in the in the belief that nothing could hurt him, which can be kind of a deadly thing to do, but also it's certainly inspiring if if your commander is up there taking fire. It's kinda hard to back away.
Alonso, I think, was much more realistic.
[01:13:34] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:13:35] Unknown:
And, you know, if if in the book, I I do talk about his last few moments, and he knows he's dying. He knows it's the end of his life. And so when he's told by one of the officers, look, go back to the hospital, Ted. He says, no. I'm I'm gonna stay here. I think he knew it was, you know, it was useless to even bother trying. So
[01:13:58] Unknown:
do do you think that do you think that their stories still connect with people today? And and and if so, why do you think they still connect?
[01:14:07] Unknown:
I think they do. I've I've gotten some really nice feedback on the book from people who bought it. And on the Amazon, you know, I noticed that it's still actually, it's still doing fairly well for a small press, and I'm not a big name. I'm not, you know, certainly not Bruce Catton or any of those guys. Right. But, I would say it still connects because I tried to bring, here again, the personalities out, who the who these guys were as men, you know, family men, you know, not just military men, but, you know, brothers, sons, that kind of thing. But yeah, a lot of people who have bought the book say, it's not a difficult read and it's a human story and that's, here again, that was the aim of the thing.
To be honest, I was hoping, and I'm still kind of pushing that every once in a while is, this is a book that I think like somebody in a community college or high school could read and get something out of, you know, and in fact, one of the people who gave me a reaction was, Paul Lloyd Hemphill, who I don't know if you know him. But he's I don't know the name. Yeah. He's a big educator and uses the civil war. What's his book? It's called, Inspiration for Teens, where he takes different stories of the civil war, gives a kind of quick capsule view of the person, and then says, here are the lessons that we can draw today from them.
And so he was a big help in this book too.
[01:15:54] Unknown:
Now you you also teach, and, and and you you describe yourself as a libertarian. Yeah. And, my my producer, actually, she she she had mentioned that you you guys had an interesting conversation and used a very interesting phrase. Do you remember what that phrase was? Mhmm. About teaching in a in a, in a liberal society. Oh, the belly of the beast. The belly of the beast. Was like yeah. That that that's And it really is. I mean, I'm in the English department. I mean Oh, yeah. Of course. Much more. You can't get any more of that. Absolutely.
[01:16:24] Unknown:
And it's funny. One of the, just give you this as one of the events that I always loved is, I got an evaluation one time as we do, and the person evaluating me, she came in and it was in my critical thinking class, I'm much more political. In my other classes, I'm not so much. I don't think that that's the place for it. But I think in the critical thinking, yeah, I can but I always introduce and say, look. This is where I'm coming from, just so you know. You don't have to agree with me. You probably won't. That's fine. But just so you understand, this is my perspective. And and so I sort of explain my own way of explaining libertarianism.
And we come out of the class and she says, I'm a little bothered when you brought up, you know, that you're libertarian and explained it and that sort of thing. She says, you're not trying to convert people, are you? I said, no. She She says, well, I just don't want you proselytizing in the classroom. I said, okay. Fine. No. I I don't think I do. I just here's who I am. Here's what I am. And, you know, this is what
[01:17:27] Unknown:
but it's interesting. So you understand. Can I interrupt for one second? But isn't it interesting, though, how how you you as as a libertarian so I I identify myself as, when people ask, a a conservatarian. And Okay. Yeah. You know, so I I I have a combination of both. And I I think the elder I wax, I'm becoming a little bit more on the libertarian side than the conservative side. But, that that's neither here nor there. The I just find it fascinating though that in in that type of setting, a liberal teacher or professor or adjunct can go on rants on Oh. All of the liberal talking points, and nobody will say a word bat an eye. But if you come up there with an alternative view, all of a sudden you're proselytizing
[01:18:10] Unknown:
in the classroom and Yeah. And and the choice of words is very interesting too. Yeah. The end of the story is about two weeks later, the same instructor, I heard her talking to somebody, she says, oh, I had the most wonderful speaker in my class. He was so progressive. And I'm thinking, oh, so as long as I do it by proxy, I'm okay. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. As long as I'm not the one saying it, apparently it's cool, which of course it's not. If I had brought that up, she would have instantly slapped it down. But, yeah, I just find it fun.
It's funny because I think and I understand why people don't like libertarians. I I think we have our fair share of nuts. I I think one of my favorites is is hearing people say I'm a libertarian socialist. I'm like, yeah. You you might as well be a sponge TV then. Yeah. It makes as much sense.
[01:19:05] Unknown:
Yeah. That that that you you there's no way you can put those two things together at all. Yeah. No. You know, conservatism and libertarian, you can you can kinda meld together to a point, but there's no way you could be Yeah. The anarcho libertarians
[01:19:18] Unknown:
I can understand. I say, okay. I understand, but, you know, it's just impractical. I always loved I I believe it was Ginsburg said, to be an an anarchist, one must be very well behaved. And, of course, that's the catch Yes. To the to the belief system. But Of course. So,
[01:19:35] Unknown:
so so in the well, you and you kinda hinted on it a little bit here. How do you handle that dynamic in in the in that progressive academic setting?
[01:19:44] Unknown:
I just well, in the let me say this, in the gentlest way possible about that. Correct. Yeah. I usually, like, I, I kind of give them like one of the things, all right, I think one of the big examples I use.
[01:20:04] Unknown:
Oh, you're here. Okay. Is,
[01:20:07] Unknown:
is the Mustang Ranch. I don't know if you're familiar with that story.
[01:20:12] Unknown:
No, not enlighten you. Educate me. The Mustang Ranch was a,
[01:20:19] Unknown:
of course, prostitution is legal in Nevada and it was a brothel outside of Las Vegas, I assume, I can't remember where it was, but they got in trouble with the IRS and they got in such trouble with the IRS that the government took them over. They said, All right, we're taking everything over. Within six months, the government had to sell it. And I always tell the students, why do you think that happened? Why do you think the government had to sell this place? And they made guess, I say, they were losing money. I said, so these guys can't even run a whorehouse that sells booze Right. To make money. Why would you trust them with anything else? I mean, it was like That is a fantastic point. I'm I'm gonna actually I'm gonna Yeah. So my one of my favorite examples.
The other one I always love is I I give them my grammatical libertarian argument. I say, alright. An adjective is a word that says something about a noun. Whenever you put an adjective up red car, you're saying something about the noun car. Right. Alright. Take the word public, use it as an adjective. Notice that no matter what noun you put it in front of instantaneously degrades in quality the minute you stick the word public before it.
[01:21:35] Unknown:
Yes. Yeah. It makes sense. Transportation, education, restrooms,
[01:21:38] Unknown:
whatever. The only exception I can come up with is public library. Okay. And that's because they are run by the counties or the municipalities. They're not run by somebody in the state capital or national. Yeah. They get federal funds and state funds, but they're
[01:21:54] Unknown:
operated by people who live in the area and know the community and that kind of thing. Yeah. No. I I know what you're saying. Yeah. For sure. I I I am the I'm the type of person that I I firmly believe that, much like the founding generation believed, that the general government's activities should have pretty much no effect Yeah. On my everyday life. And, the as a matter of fact, the and I and I say this regularly, the only thing that I want the government to do is what it was designed to do, and that's to protect my right to do for myself. You know, and take care of myself, my family. That that's that's all I need to do is protect my rights.
[01:22:29] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. And it's it is funny because that's one of the things I I say. In fact, kind of a joke I had, wasn't that much of a joke, was when we had the thing with Iraq going on and they started reforming the nation. And I remember the big issue came out as well. What should we do as far as a constitution for Iraq? And I said, well, why don't we give it Mars? Because we haven't used it in years. Yeah. So Valid point. Clearly not using it.
[01:22:58] Unknown:
Very valid point. So looking at the political landscape that we're in today, what do you see any parallels between those ideological divides that,
[01:23:09] Unknown:
in the civil war period and the ones that were never going through today? I, you know, I do see them on occasion. I'm thinking, oh, god. I hope not. I mean, you know but, I mean, look, let's be real. You hear I mean, I I love who was it the other day? Jasmine Crockett ranting about we're gonna stop being peaceful, because you have such a wonderful record on that. I mean, I believe it was Biden who says we got to put a target on this guy or we got to take him out or whatever it was. Like, come on. Yeah. I mean, and I think this is what turned me off of the major party. I mean, I was Republican for years. It just became too much like a team sport.
And I'm like, you know, I gotta be faithful to my team no matter what. It's like, no. I mean,
[01:24:00] Unknown:
it's always, you know Hey. Look. I I understand I understand when, you know, people say you gotta vote down ticket. You gotta do all you know, get Yeah. Stay save the party line. I I get that. I understand it. One second. I am wrapped up in my mic cable down here. I'm wondering what I'm struggling with. The, and you know, you vote down ballot. You make sure everything's you know, all your ducks in a row and whatnot. I I understand the the idea behind that and the concept. I don't agree with it necessarily, because I think you need to vote your conscience. You can't you you you have to look at the candidates individually and and Yeah. And, you know, unfortunately to say that the Republican party I've been a Republican registered Republican since, when the Reagan was my first Okay. My first election.
But I've been a registered Republican since then. And Yeah. One of the things I like about Texas is that you don't have to put a party designation on your, Oh, okay. On your registration. So, good. But, the Republican party, even from where Iowa in in 1987 or so to to where it is now, it is completely way off of what it was. Mhmm. And I am very sure that the Republican Party of today is way off than it was when it was founded,
[01:25:18] Unknown:
in the civil war. '60. Yeah. Yeah. Or '18 actually, I guess, 1856 would be the first.
[01:25:24] Unknown:
I think so. Yeah. Was actually the first Republican nominee, I believe. Yes. So so it it it's it's changed into this and then we have a uni party system. We we all know that. We understand that that it's it's two ends of the same beast. And, you know, and and it's disturbing to see that because, you know, you know, they they they all pitch well, like the Republicans because maybe because I I lean more conservative and and the libertarian cause, cause. They they pitch more to you to me anyway because, you know, I it they talk about those things that I find valuable. Individual liberties and personal responsibility and and and all that great stuff and and, you know, but in the they you only hear them doing that during election cycles. During the campaign. Yeah. And then after that, it's like right back to business as usual. You know, all this all those swamp critters come creeping out and and start making
[01:26:16] Unknown:
I actually ran for the house back in 2010 because the party called me and said, look, we know we're not going to win, but we just like to have somebody out there That's coming. Representing the belief. And it was fun, because I did get to do what I'd always hoped to do, which was go after Adam Schiff in a debate. Nice. And I am proud to say I embarrassed the hell out of him.
[01:26:40] Unknown:
Well, I I I would like to see that though. Do you is there a link to that somewhere that or someone you can send me? No. I got a CD of it. I should post something. But at the end of the debate, because
[01:26:50] Unknown:
I was just he was always back then, oh, I'm a blue dog. I'm a blue dog. I'm a blue dog. And and I was like, no, you're not. Come on. Stop that. And at the end of the debate, when we did the wrap up, he got to speak first and I got to speak after him. And it was couldn't have been better timing because he ends up his pitch with, well, you know, I'm proud to be a Blue Dog Democrat. And that was basically how he wrapped up. As soon as they came to me, I said, well, if mister was a Blue Dog Democrat, I'm Ray Lewis. And the whole place cracked up.
But in fact, the next day I was out and about, and the Republican's campaign manager saw me and pulled over and went and got something to eat. And He said, man, I told my boss if I wasn't working for him, I would be voting for you.
[01:27:38] Unknown:
You should have seen how upset he was. I was like, good. He should be. You know, the the guy's a fraud. That's great. That's great. But that but that's the whole thing with with with, campaigns too. I mean, I've never run for office, but, you know, I I know people that Oh, the newspapers love talking to me because I didn't hold back. And at one point, one of the guys says, why do you feel such freedom? I said, because I'm not gonna win. I don't care. Yeah. But that's a great that's a great sound bite though. No matter regardless, that's a great sound bite. Yeah. Because it's it's it's the truth. Because because they they they project themselves as one way, when in actuality, they're just gonna flip around to the other way. So, just wanna get back to you get back get back to the Cushings here really quick.
So, how does your outlook shape the way you write about and teach about figures like the Cushing's?
[01:28:25] Unknown:
Well, I it's funny. I did not go back to school until I was 35.
[01:28:29] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:28:30] Unknown:
And originally I was going to be a history major. Actually, I was hoping to major in Soviet Russian history because, oh, I was a cold war baby. I served during the cold war. Yeah, I grew up that's, And I find the Russians Thank you for your service. No. Thanks. But,
[01:28:49] Unknown:
I'm gonna interrupt you a second. Is it true that that most military, folks don't like to be thanked for their service?
[01:28:57] Unknown:
It's I guess I think well, I always like to say, normally if oh, but we're going live, but I might as well say it now. Well, if you call what I did serving, you're welcome. But, I was very lucky, though. I I, you know, I I served in the Atlantic fleet. I didn't go near Vietnam, which was sort of the intent, actually. Okay. But, I was mostly around Cuba just chasing Soviet ships around the place. And, you know, here again, I I always like to say, look. Not to say it didn't get tense once in a while, but I never really encountered what you would call battle. I gotcha. Yeah. I was lucky in that regard.
I think, yeah, I think a lot of us are, but we also I think I appreciate I mean, here again, when I went in, I remember, you know, this girl that I grew up with, I've known her since we were, I don't know, 12 or 13. As soon as she found out I enlisted, she says, oh, you wanna kill babies? I said, where the hell did you get that from?
[01:30:04] Unknown:
The the the liberal talking points never never change Yeah. Ever change. That's up. Oh, you're gonna go out and kill babies, but yet we'll kill them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really. Yeah. So you're you're you're you're you're taking our job away.
[01:30:16] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:30:19] Unknown:
And the reason why I asked the question, and again, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but the reason why I asked the question is because the, I I had spoken to somebody and and I asked him the same question. It wasn't in a show or anything, it was just a conversation outside the show. And he just looked at me. He goes, yeah. Let let me let me say thank you for bringing up the memories of me seeing one of my best friends get blown to pieces. Thank you for bringing up the memory of this, that, and the other thing. I was lucky in that I didn't have to endure that. But Yeah. No. I know. And that's that's why that's why sometime I I hesitate Yeah. To to say that, but, you know, and I figured we I could ask you.
You're you're a teacher, so I I get, you know, I get to ask the teachers some questions. But I
[01:30:58] Unknown:
let me put it this way. It's taken me years to learn how to take compliments anyway.
[01:31:03] Unknown:
Yeah. I I'm I'm still terrible at taking compliments. So Yeah. So,
[01:31:07] Unknown:
yeah, I always feel like, well, it's not that big a deal. Anything I've done is, you know, they're my accomplishments, and I'm glad I did them. But, you know, it's not like I'm changing the world or anything. I'm I'm not
[01:31:20] Unknown:
Albert Schweitzer or anything like that. Alright. I get you, though. So let me ask you. So when when you're teaching critical thinking, right, how do you how do you how do the students respond to the ideas of of of of duty and courage and and patriotism? And I don't really bring that
[01:31:37] Unknown:
much of that into it. What I bring into is basically let's go in with a little skepticism, whatever you hear. Okay. The centerpiece of my critical thinking class is, Orwell's essay, Politics in English Language. And I don't know if you've ever read it. I've not I I know of it. I've read portions of it, but I'd never read it cover to cover. Well, I tell the students upfront, we are gonna get into this in such detail. You're gonna be sick of it by the time we get done. I I devote at least three classes just to that essay and we tear it apart. Why did he choose this word instead of that word, which he could have used? Or, you know, what does he mean when he says this or that? And the other thing. I think it, and it's really interesting because I hadn't even thought of it until when I started teaching. I read an article that somebody had written and said, it used to be you didn't get out of school without reading that essay. And now it's hardly ever taught. I'm like, yeah, you're right.
[01:32:39] Unknown:
So so I've made it sort of the centerpiece of that class. Yeah. There there's a lot of things that are not taught anymore in in Yeah. In the public school system. And and also in in a lot of cases, the private school system as well. Yeah. Just as just as an example, I I do on Sundays, I I do a Bible study class. Alright. Bible study show. I'm sorry. Class. I don't know what I'm thinking. I do a Bible study show on Sundays, and I kinda deviated from the traditional Bible study, and I've been teaching on America's Christian heritage.
[01:33:10] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:33:10] Unknown:
And, started I started with, with Governor Bradford coming on over here, and, and and what I found what I found to be fascinating is is I went to sources that were close historians that were close to the actual events. Okay. And time. Yeah. Yeah. And the reason why I did that was because you're you're getting an unbiased, no spin to it. You're just getting the facts of the story of the situation. And you're also getting the more immediate reaction. Exactly. Exactly my point. So so you're getting quotes that these men may have actually heard themselves, you know Yeah. Not passed down, went and changed, and modified. Yeah. And and, you know, and I I say dumbed down for today's generation. But, and to go back to the founding fathers, their their actual letters and their diaries
[01:34:01] Unknown:
and reading from those things and talking about those things Yeah. Well, that's yeah. To know how these men were actually Well, for instance, I and a a real good example, I think, is is remember when, Keith Ellison made a big deal about taking his oath of office on Jefferson's Koran Yeah. And say, oh, look. You know, this is this guy was much more tolerant than we are. Well, the reason he had the Koran was to study his enemy. Mhmm. He was trying to figure out The Barbary pirates. Yeah. Pirates.
[01:34:27] Unknown:
You know, I gotta understand the guy I'm going against. So it's not that he admired them. Right. I have I have a lot of books on my bookshelf in the other room that of people that I don't particularly care for. Care for these guys. You know, but but I I I'm curious as to their mindset and what they were thinking and how to how to dispute that. You know, you gotta you gotta understand what your what what the opponents is is thinking in order to refute their argument. I tell all my classes, actually, any writing class, I said, look, you cannot look at American writing, even today,
[01:35:00] Unknown:
even the most revolutionary, radical, whatever, without understanding the Puritans. You got to go back to them. Yeah. Because they still have the influence over what we're doing today. Whether we like to admit it or not, they're they're there. No. I I agree with you. I absolutely agree with you.
[01:35:18] Unknown:
Now you you not only have you written books about history and and and particularly family history, but you've also written poetry?
[01:35:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's really sort of my shtick more than anything else. I guess I got five poetry books. I mean, all small press books, but Yeah. Yeah. But they're still they're still it's your creation. I've been happy with them. Yeah. It's it's been a fun and that's funny because if you had told me, like, five years before I started school that I'd be writing poetry, I said, you're nuts. That ain't happening. And then You've also written memoirs. Correct? Well, I wrote a, it's called Time Well Spent. It's basically a series of stories about my own life. Okay. So it's not a memoir in that it's, you know, once upon a time and here's what happened. It's more, alright. In this year, this happened, in that year. In the book, I I call I see these are more barstool part stories. Yeah. Yeah. I get you. I tell people.
[01:36:14] Unknown:
I have a very similar I have a very similar experience myself. I actually, I have an outline that I have sealed, I mailed it to myself, you know, before before I knew how to, you know, go through copyrights and now that stuff. So Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I did. I wrote this outline out and I sealed it up and I and I put it into an envelope and I mailed it to myself. Yeah. That's right. So I had to stamp and everything on it. And so I have it all I have all that put away. And it basically it's an outline for my career, when I was working for New York City and I called it, you know, Why I Wake Up Screaming My Years Working for New York City.
That's great. And and each and each chapter of the book is about some significant incident or person that I've come across in my career. Okay. So I'm actually
[01:36:56] Unknown:
I do have one memoir coming out. I hope by the end of this month, I'm waiting for the physical copy to come in so I can take one more look at it. I mean, I've looked at the, the PDF stuff and all that, but I wanna, I told them, I said, look, I wanna get one enhanced so I can see that everything, you know, the pages fall right and all that stuff. Right. Yeah. Which is actually my previous marriage. My wife died of cancer. And so I wrote this book about dealing with that. It's, it's more from the point of view of, if you're a caregiver for somebody with terminal illness, this is kind of the stuff you're going to go through.
I do have, it's funny, I did write a memoir about my own time in the Navy and then later on working on ships because when I got out, I ended up still working on oil tankers mostly, but you know, whatever. Because I have a writing group that I organized, and one of the women in the group goes, how does a guy go from being a shipyard electrician to being an English professor? I said, well, that's a funny story.
[01:37:57] Unknown:
So So I just started writing it. A funny thing happened on the way to becoming a professor. Yeah.
[01:38:02] Unknown:
But by the time I get done, now memoirs typically are 60,000 to 80,000 words. I had 155,000 words. Oh, wow. So I'm going out and what I'm doing first is I'm pulling chapters out that I think can stand on their own and, you know, then I'll just fill in the gaps a little bit and then I'm going to go through and I'm just going to start cutting the fat off the thing and try and get it down to if I can even get it to 90,000, I'd be happy with that. And, then hopefully send that out and, you know, get that done. So that's but I also write a lot of stuff based on history. For example, my late wife was Puerto Rican, so I spent several years down there.
And there's a piece of Puerto Rican history that I would love to write about. The problem is I'd need to get I've done some research, but it's very sparse. I'd really need to go down there and look at some of the old Spanish official documents. I see. Read those. It's basically they had a revolution against the Spanish empire in the 1800s that are incredibly parallel to our own revolution. Really? The only differences are succeeded. Theirs didn't. Right. And, and it's a fascinating piece of history. And there's even a lot of Puerto Ricans who aren't aware of it because they really don't teach it that much. There's a piece, my wife now is Peruvian, so obviously I have a type. Yes.
[01:39:33] Unknown:
Well, I'm glad you said it. I was thinking it. So Yeah.
[01:39:37] Unknown:
Well, you know, it's funny, my wife now, somebody said, well, she looks a lot like Anna. I said, you know, you're right. I mean, she's taller. She's a little paler in complexion and a little thinner, but, yeah, you know, the basic facial structures. But at any rate, but, she had told me about a piece of Peruvian history that and I've got to get it done this month. I'm tired of it. I've been trying to fill it in, but I've contacted the consulate. They couldn't help me. I've contacted the city where this event happened. I've gotten no response at all. So I think I'm just going to have to fill it in the best I can with my own best guess. But it's a very interesting, it was a, this small town in the northern part of the country was hit with a earthquake, a tsunami, and a mountain slide all in one day. Just completely wiped the town out for the most part. I mean, very few people survived. Like a chain reaction?
Yeah. It's just one I mean, talk about a bad day. Geez. Good night. Yeah. So that's when I'm right now, that'll be a short story, obviously, but it'll be based on history. I wrote one of the short stories that I'm really proud of is, is it's called Memorial Day and it's about, it's based on one of the crew members of the Enola Gay and, you know, just dealing with the, here again, the PTSD of that. Wow. So, and I wrote, well, I've written a short story about the, Trojan War, but here again, what I did there was took it from the point of view of the grunts, you know, not the kings and the generals and the gods and all that. I was like, no. How about the poor schmuck who had to fight? Yeah. Yeah. The guy had to to stomp over dead bodies everywhere.
Yeah. Yeah. That's basically what it is.
[01:41:28] Unknown:
That's interesting.
[01:41:29] Unknown:
So, yeah, I I do try and put history even into my fiction a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and also about history, I did you reminded me of something
[01:41:38] Unknown:
as well as, and I and I talk about this regularly also, is that what I I I fell in love with history
[01:41:46] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:41:48] Unknown:
In college. I had one professor I had one professor who who changed my whole perspective and and made me realize, you know what? History is really exciting. Yeah. When you when you really look at it, it's not just dates and this happened then and this happened then and this is what happened. No. There's a lot behind it. And what he would do is he would he would come into the auditorium that the that the class would be in, and he would get up on that platform. He had no notes. Mhmm. He had he had nothing. Everything he did was from memory. Yeah. But not only that, but he would literally act out Yeah. The scenes on the stage. He'd be he'd be cranking the catapults back and he'd be, you know, shooting the long bows and and swinging the sword and jumping over things, and and he wasn't a young guy either, you know? Yeah. So and he was doing all this stuff. And I watched this guy. I was like, you know, the whole guy really into this stuff. I was like, this guy's this guy's freaking nuts.
[01:42:44] Unknown:
You know, it's funny when I teach now, I tell students, I say, you know, how many people just don't like history? And a lot of them will raise their hands. And I say, why is that? Well, because history is boring. I say, no. History is not boring. History teachers, on the other hand That's it. That's exactly boring. That's exactly right. But I was lucky. I had ever since fifth grade, I've had really I only had one bad history teacher my whole life. Mhmm. And that was my senior year. And by then, I was old enough to realize, yeah, it's him. It's not the material. So Oh, yeah. I I agree with you. It it the whole the it's the teacher that brings life to the subject. And But I gotta tell you this. You reminded me this. I I took Latin in in high school, and we had one of my early Latin teachers and he was really into it. I mean, he was so and like this guy, he would be on the chariot on the desk and stuff like that. I remember one time we came out of class as we were going into the class and the class that was coming out, one of the guys said to one of the people coming into our class, ask him about the crucifixions.
And that took on the whole class. I mean, you went to the whole routine of how, you know, what's depicted in the Church is completely inaccurate because of this, that, the other thing. And he was and it's funny, I always remember because I had him in seventh and eighth grade and I was at Episcopal school then. And, the whole time I had him in eighth grade, he was like, oh yeah, and you'll read this in my book next year.' And And we're all there like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sure. The next year I transferred, I went to the military school I went to because, you know, that's military family. I knew I was going to military school. Right. What was in Pennsylvania? Now I went to St. Paul's in Garden City. So I was out on the island. Now, Valley Forge, where I went to high school is in, you know, by Germantown, that area in Pennsylvania, 13 miles outside of Philly.
We get in for the first day of my Latin class and the guy gets in there, the teacher, and says, he says, yeah, we got a brand new textbook for this class. You're really going to like it. This guy really knows what he's doing. He holds it up and it's Bruce McGill. I'm like, oh my God, he was right. Not only had he written the book, you know, for one year, it was now being used in different states. That's amazing. That that's amazing. Although, I I never brought that up to the teacher. I'm like, yeah. If I bring that up, he's gonna expect a lot out of me. Oh, I know that guy. Oh, really?
[01:45:14] Unknown:
No. I I kept my mouth shut. Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. I would too. I would too. But but it's so true though. I mean, it's the it's the teacher that brings life to the to the subject and I had, I had a really good one.
[01:45:25] Unknown:
I went to community college when I started. And here again, I had initially started as a history major. So this one guy I took, I don't know, five or so, I even did an independent study with him, even though I knew by that time I was switching out of history into English just because I admire the guy so much. But one of my favorite stories is I'm cutting across campus, going to his class and some guy comes up running up to me and goes, oh, you go into the student center. I said, no. Why? He says, oh, they got a folk singer today. I said, yeah, well, I'm going to Joe Sasser's class. Yeah, why don't you cut it and, you know, go to I said, look, anybody can sing folk music. Very few people can lecture like Joe Sasser. Okay. So Nice. And I got a strange look off that one. Oh, yeah. I'm sure I'm sure. This guy talk about history than listen to some guy whine about life. Well, before before we got off on this tangent here,
[01:46:17] Unknown:
you were starting to talk a little bit about how about, you know, needing to research things and do prep work for for for stuff for for upcoming projects. So what what is the research process like for you?
[01:46:28] Unknown:
To me, it's the most fun. Actually, I love research. And so I read as much as I can, and then I pull out what I think is going to be most interesting and most valuable to me. So it's not like, yeah, I'm not trying to learn everything that's there. I'm just saying, okay, this is a really good nugget. I need to use this, or I need to use that. So that's what yeah. That's what my research really is. It's not trying to get down every iota of information that's there. It's alright. This would be interesting to bring up, you know, or to dive into even deeper.
[01:47:06] Unknown:
Now in in in in relation to heroic brothers Mhmm. Were there any, like, sup like, surprising discoveries that that changed how you saw Alonzo and William?
[01:47:16] Unknown:
I think Alonzo because I knew the least about him Okay. Was the most surprising because I say I sort of grown up with stories about William. Last time I was named after him, so my father was always telling me this stuff. So I knew he was a real wild hare. And then when I started researching Alonzo more and more, I was like, oh, boy, this guy is like completely different from, you know, his brother. You know, very steadfast, very, you know, devoted to this is the aim, doesn't matter what it is. Whereas William, if I don't see any practical use to this, I'm not going to bother, which might be one of the it's funny because somebody once asked me when the book came out, I said, well, do you share any of the qualities of William? I said, well, maybe the penchant for getting in trouble, but other than that, you know, I wouldn't compare myself.
But also, yeah, I think I'm one of those that if I see no practical end to something, it's like, okay, fine. That's interesting, but I'm not gonna store it for future use. Yeah. Is there is there any one particular story or moment from their hit from from their lives that just sticks with you? Well, there's one, and it it didn't make it in the book because, like I say, I couldn't verify it, but it it does seem to be in character. William, apparently at about 15 or 16, was going out with some girl and he went to see her. And according to the story, and when I say I couldn't put it in the book because I just didn't feel comfortable not being able to verify it. Although this is one of those things that's going to be hard to verify, but supposedly he rode his horse into the house.
And I'm thinking, can you just imagine some guy walks out and there's some clown on a horse in his living room, like, where's your daughter? Yes. It's like, I'm sure that just pleased the old man to no end. Well, I'm sure it got his attention, though. Yeah. But I said, yeah, that's kind of the way he was. I it wouldn't surprise me if that was true. I think, yeah, some of the other stuff like well, one of the stories I did put in there that I wasn't aware of, and I thought this was really funny. When he was at Annapolis, he was the guidon for the company while they were drilling.
And the guy who was the commander of the unit when they were marching was a stutterer. And he couldn't get the command to wheel right or wheel left, whatever it was, whichever way. But if you've ever seen Annapolis, it's right on the water, it's right on the Chesapeake. And there's some serious bends in there. Well, the guy couldn't get the command out to wheel to the one side or the other to avoid, you know, to stay on the road. And William just marched him right into the water. And then, yeah, when they started yelling at him, he goes, well, I never got the command. I'm just following orders here.
[01:50:07] Unknown:
Well, one thing about William though is, that that I've discovered is that, he he he's he's had a he's had a lot of really innovative moves over his career. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and such a they're so much so that they actually named five navy ships after him. Navy surface vessels. Yeah. Right. Now now and and I'm thinking about specifically the the sinking of the the Albemarle. Right? Yeah. How did that how did that change
[01:50:41] Unknown:
naval warfare? How how did his approach to that change naval warfare? It's one of the things I try and bring up. And in fact, his section is called called The First Seal because he really was sort of that kind of guy that he preferred a small independent group, he ran the show, this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it, he didn't, you know, he But it was one of those cases where even, like I say, even when he got back in the Navy and started moving up the ranks, he still wouldn't really listen to orders very well. If he didn't think that it was a good idea, he had no problem disobeying it.
But the Navy also said, yeah, but, and there were many times that the high command of the Navy would try and get him in trouble. But then the next day, the news went, oh, look what this guy did. This is one of our great warriors. So what could they do politically? They really couldn't touch him because everything he did seemed to succeed fairly well. So they basically said, look, just let us know what you're going to be up to. You know, we can't control you. At the very least, we just want to know what's going on. But when the Albemarle showed up, they said, we need somebody who is audacious, innovative, and dedicated. And they said, well, this guy, as much as we hate him, he's the guy to go to.
Not that they hated him, but they sure didn't like him. Because you got to remember too, at this time, and I bring this up in the book, the service academies were very much cliquish. You had to come from the right family and you had to and really even the Cushing brothers did have connections, they had political connections, But William was not going to toe the line as, you know, how he should behave and how he should act and that kind of thing. So, yeah, he kind of upset that people were like, well, this is not how an officer is supposed to behave. And His feeling was no. An officer is supposed to lead. That's what I'm doing. I'm leading. Right. Yeah. So
[01:52:36] Unknown:
Now, for folks that really don't know too much about the civil war, what do you hope to take take away from, the Cushing story?
[01:52:46] Unknown:
I think an appreciation for what and and here again, these guys, even though they were officers, they were lower ranking officers. I mean, William, alright, he was a commander at the end of his life and the youngest commander there was, but they weren't like admirals or generals or anything like that. It's and I think that's really where the work gets done more often than not. It's either the well, in in the Navy, I I always love the, you know, the joke about the young officer asked the chief. He says, if a chief can become an officer, why can't an officer become a chief? And he says, because we have standards. That's good. I like that. Yeah. Usually, those enlisted guys, especially the higher up, they're the ones who get the stuff done more than anything else. And William here again, even though he was an officer, I think he earned it. He was one of those guys who could adapt to the situation, you know, turn what might have been a negative situation into a positive and just refuse to give up. So I think that's one of the things that really I hope comes out in this book is that, yeah, these guys, they were innovative, they were smart, they were dedicated.
They weren't the big names. You look at Gettysburg Longstreet and Lee and, of course, Pickett and those guys or, or, Street and Lee and, of course, Pickett and those guys are or, you know, on the union side, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Those those people. But, so but yeah, a lot of the, lot of the really brave stuff was done by these lower ranking guys.
[01:54:29] Unknown:
So do you have any other historical figures in your family,
[01:54:32] Unknown:
that you're looking to dive into? Actually, one I do love bringing up, and I, I love bringing this up in the, in my classes on occasion too. Trivia question, do you know who was the first Supreme Court Justice who said that slavery is incompatible with the Constitution? And it was William O. Cushing, who was one of the Supreme Court justices under Washington. Nice. Now he didn't say it when he was on the Supreme Court. It was when he was a, you know, a justice in in Massachusetts. Right. But he said, yeah. There's no way. The slavery cannot exist and this constitution at the same time. It just doesn't work.
So I always liked that one. I am related to Harvey Cushing. I don't know if you're familiar with him, the doctor who is a neurosurgeon, if you've ever heard of Cushing's syndrome. Oh yeah, actually I have. Yeah. Yeah. That's him. He was the one who isolated that. In fact, it's funny because one of my wife's best friends is married to an infectious disease guy. And as soon as he met me, he goes, are you in a relation to Harvey? I said, yeah. Actually, I am. You know, he's an uncle Oh, that sounds great. But, yeah, we are related. That's wild.
[01:55:43] Unknown:
Alright. So so so just kind of a fun question that I had for you, and and and Okay. See where it goes. So if, if you could sit down with, you know, either Alonzo or William for a cup of coffee someplace,
[01:55:57] Unknown:
which one of the point, William. No hesitation.
[01:56:00] Unknown:
So you you knew where I was going already. That's hear the stories that I don't know. That's great.
[01:56:05] Unknown:
I admire Alonzo. You gotta love William though because the guy was just such a wild hair. I mean, I don't know if you got a chance to read the book. It sounds like you did get a chance. I got I read through most of it, to be honest with you. Okay. But the the scene where he goes to kidnap the the Confederate general Yes. I don't know if you're you're just so short. I I I I don't think I've read that Okay. But in such detail. When he got to the house, the general was not there. He put it he took his calling card and wrote a note, you know, came to visit. You weren't at home. Maybe next time.
And left it on the guy's dining room table. I'll tell you. He did kidnap his adjutant.
[01:56:42] Unknown:
You know, you know, men were a different different breed back then. There was there was just there was just something about that. It's it's it's almost like, during the, when when Washington crossed the Potomac Yeah. Into New Jersey, the the the the Hessian army that was there, they were too they were busy celebrating Christmas. Yeah. So they were too drunk to fight. They had no idea what was coming. Yeah. Which was a brilliant tactical Right. And and the, the the the the Hessian general, basically just just threw his hands up and said, well, there's nothing I can do about it now. That was, you know, it's it's in your hands. Yeah. There was just something about the it's it's a different I think it's
[01:57:28] Unknown:
it's a whole different thing now, and I'm not saying that just as an old farthest here, I was like, my uncle, my father's brother-in-law is my uncle, by marriage, obviously, but he was Army Intelligence during World War II. And he once said, when this whole issue of waterboarding and all that came up, he said, look, I interrogated a number of German officers, and I got more out of them with a cigar and a game of chess than any other question. But even he admitted, he says, yeah, but it's a different,
[01:58:03] Unknown:
it was a different mindset. Yeah. It's a totally different world now.
[01:58:07] Unknown:
Yeah. The military, you know, even the German military, they were for the most part professionals unless you get off into the the nutso versions. But for the most part I in fact, just as a one of the things I don't know if you ever saw the Greyhounds, the movie that Tom Hanks made about World War two. Yes. Actually, I have not. And the convoy. Okay. I didn't like the movie. And the reason I didn't like it was they made the u boat captain such a cartoonish villain. I agree with you. Yeah. And I was like, no. I I I was picturing snidely whiplash, you know, twirling his mustache. I'm like, no. No u boat commander is gonna give away his position by taunting the enemy. No. He's gonna come after you. I was like, yeah. And that's where I just, you know, it was good up to that point. I was just like, no. This is a joke. I'm sorry. Yeah. I I agree I agree with you on that one. So we we I guess we give it a both to give it a thumbs down. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately. I mean, I appreciated what he tried to do, you know, and all that. But to me, I well, to me, the two best naval movies are Das Boot Oh, that was a great movie. German movie about the u boats and the, and the Master and Commander.
[01:59:22] Unknown:
Oh, that was a fantastic movie. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that was such a good movie. I do like Tora, Tora, Tora, but that's more general history. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. But but I'll I'll tell you that, Master and Commander, I I I've watched that movie. I don't know how many times and it always it I it just always catches, you know, there's always something different that I didn't catch the first time.
[01:59:41] Unknown:
And what I like too, that well, I well, the movie had no impetus beyond this, but I don't know if you heard there's now a move to try and restore the ranks of Kimmel and Short who were demoted after that. Really? Because, yeah, they said, look, I mean, you know, the guys are both dead now, not that it matters in terms of reality, but this is yeah. They they were patsies. They they were basically, you know, yeah. They got caught in a bad situation. They didn't have a good intel. You know, so to demote them was kind of it it was a dishonor. Yeah. Maybe we should put that star back on there Yeah. And give it back to them. But, Alright, Bill. So Yeah. Where can the audience find your book and connect with you more? Well, I'm, they are on Amazon, but, I can certainly I the the PiscesPoet at Yahoo email address is one of the best. So that's the, here again, the astrological sign and P I S C E S P O E T and it's Yahoo. So if anybody wants a signed copy, yeah, we can work out a deal and, you know, we'll split the postage or something. That sounds great. And I think we have I think I have all your your website information, all that stuff in the show notes already, so Yeah. My website also will get get to me.
But, yeah. And and here again, I've got the collection of short stories. I've got the, the, the memories and, and that, yeah, that time well spent, I really enjoyed putting that together. And it really starts, I don't know, did you get a chance? I think I, did I send that to you guys? The only one I had was was the, the heroic brothers. Oh, okay. Okay. Because I think Angela said she read the first story in the time well spent. I don't think she sent me that one. I had to go back into the emails, but I Okay. But that starts when I'm a baby and then it ends with my own son who, you know, when he was a young child and I have a son now who's very disabled and one of the funniest stories ever was with him.
Well, I'll tell you. They basically start with, and these are, they're stories that, you know, do have a punchline at the end. You know, I like to think. None of them are very the only serious one is a, one that's called Memories of Mark. It's a Polish guy I worked with when I was on ships who spoke very little English, and I spoke absolutely no Polish. But we were able to connect by Shakespeare,
[02:02:05] Unknown:
basically. It was an interesting relationship. That is interesting. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Could be could be worse things to connect over. Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
[02:02:14] Unknown:
But the rest of them, like, the one is called the day I didn't get fired and, you know,
[02:02:20] Unknown:
That's a good one. Yeah. Every day you don't get fired is a good day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a specific and that's one of the reasons why I'm I'm sure there's a specific reason for it, but I totally get you. Alright, Bill. We gotta say goodbye. Anyhow, thanks so much for giving me the time. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. God bless you. I love the book. It's from what I read so of it so far. I'm looking forward to finishing up. And, and definitely we'll be in touch with you, and, I'll shoot you an email later on. Yeah. If I didn't if I if you didn't get the I thought I had sent that one, but if you if you didn't get it, let me know. I'll send you a copy of it. Oh, that'd be great. I appreciate it. Yeah. Alright. Bill Cushing, thank you so much for being with us tonight, and, God bless you. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.
Thanks a lot. Alright. Okay, folks. So this is the Joe Russo. It is 2105Hours. We're gonna take our second break here and then come back and then wrap this whole baby up for the night. And, hopefully, we'll try to refresh our feet here because the video quality looks like crap. So, we'll, we'll be back right after this. Don't forget this is a live show weeknight 7PM central time, Saturdays at 3PM, Sundays at 6PM. And, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, your family, and your followers. That way you'll help us to spread this thing around and, and get more traction here. Alright. We'll be back right after this. You stay with us.
[02:06:15] Unknown:
Up and down, counting out, Smiling through the taste of blood in my own mouth. I got bruises and broken bones, I'm a runnin' hide her I was born to be too dire A naked rider Don't throw that towel just yet Don't up. That's what I do. I didn't soldier on this far. Just
[02:08:25] Unknown:
harder.
[02:09:06] Unknown:
Alrighty. Hey there, folks. We are back. This is Joe Roos. It is great to be with you. Second hour's in the books. A little problem there. Not sure what's going on. All I know is that I cannot see myself and that's okay, maybe it's not meant to be seen. Oh, there we go. Alright. Bill Cushing, folks. What do you think? Good stuff. Good stuff. Good stuff. Alright. So, when we have quality issues like we're having right now, and you're looking at the screen, it look like a blob of color up there. Just makes me wanna just stay and just do audio only podcast. This is so aggravating. It's unbelievable.
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Whatever that is that has to do with programming, that's what we're gonna send to you, and that's all we're gonna send to you. It's not gonna be anything crazy. We're not gonna sell you stuff. We're not gonna send you constant emails trying to pitch things to you. We're only gonna be talking about programming. So sign up for the programming announcements email list on our websites joeroos.com/contact. Click that button and get yourself signed up. And as as far as I know, is that I haven't checked my website in a in a couple of days. So hopefully, it's still working. But, if you go to the website and you click that thing, you're gonna see, a little pop up on the home screen. Just fill it out. +1, 23.
Super, super easy. Alright. So now tomorrow, Thursday, no show tomorrow. Just wanna remind you of that. So no show tomorrow. We'll be back here Friday night at 7PM. And then, then our sun our Saturday show, at 3PM, and then our Sunday show at six. Alright? Also, don't forget to check us out on our socials at, Twitter is at Joe Roos, truth social, Joe Roos. Mine's at Joe Roos. Facebook is Joe Ruz Podcast. Instagram is not Joe Ruz. TikTok is joe dot ruz. And Gettr, we're back on Gettr. So, check us out there, Joe Ruz as well. And we're we're working on trying to get to livestream through, Gettr as well. So that should we're working on that.
Alright. Give our shout outs here to our executive producers, Wayne Rankin, Rosanna Rankin, our executive producer Bacon, executive executive producer Marissa Lee, who you met tonight, And, of course, our producer, anonymous Angela, who does fantastic amazing work for us, and we're really thankful for all of our producing staff. They are great. And as a matter of fact, I emailed them something today that, our little podcast here, believe it or not, for all the flaws that there are that's that's the beautiful thing about doing audio podcast also is because nobody sees the little mistakes. They just, you know, think everything's moving along just fine. We are the number one podcast in the news commentaries, for the for the week, the month, and for, independent podcasts on the Goodpods platform. So head over there to check it out. That's goodpods.com slash the joe roo show, and find us there. Follow us there too. That's a good good little platform to be on. We we enjoy being part of that, and it's a lot of fun as well.
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Also, don't forget to, if you'd like to help us out with some cryptocurrencies, you could do that with Ethereum, Tether, Bitcoin, and Texacoin. I don't know if you hear Charlie barking in the background over there. And, we are frozen here on so we gotta, again, gotta refresh. Alright. So I think we're still broadcasting, though, on our audio feed. So, Rumble has crashed. There is no, there's nothing us nothing up there on the screen right now. So, I do apologize to the folks on Rumble. And it looks like I don't know. I don't know what's going on, folks. I I I apologize.
So we're that looks like we're might be coming back. Alright. I think we're back here on Rumble. I don't know what the hell just happened, but this is getting ridiculous. So yet another strongly worded email to rumble support. Really, really unhappy. I apologize, folks. I really do try to bring you the better quality stuff, and I really do try to bring you the the best we can possibly do. And, unfortunately, just a lot of problems here tonight. So forgive me for that, and, so I'm gonna take that as a cue to shut the hell up and get out of here. Alright. So with that said, guys, have a great night tonight, and don't forget, head over to the website, jorooz.com.
Jorooz.com. Send us over any questions, comments, cares, concerns, critiques, complaints, love to hear them. And then also, don't forget to hit that support button if you can. Help us out, help us get better equipment. Alright folks, have a great night, good night and goodbye. Who cares about the clouds if we're together?
[02:17:42] Unknown:
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather. Happy trails to you.
Well, alright. Hey, folks. This is Joe Roos, and it is nineteen o five hours on Wednesday, 08/06/2025. And we are transmitting to you live from the Asylum Studios, broadcasting from the pimple on the back side of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass, and bringing the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the Joe Ruse Show. Alrighty. Hey folks, It is Wednesday, as I said. And, we got a packed one for you tonight. In just a couple of minutes, well, we got some housekeeping stuff that we always have to do. We got some bills that we have to pay. And, when we're done with that, then we have our resident crypto psychic going to join us, Marissa Lee, and talk about some of the things going on in the crypto and financial world. So stick with us for that one. She'll be with us in, oh, about, four minutes or so. So that should be good. And this thing keeps on falling over, but that's all alright. We don't really need it.
Alright, guys. So I hope you guys read. We'll also check out the show yesterday with Ezra Healing, Svetlana Rilkov. We had a great show. We really enjoyed that conversation. That was an important conversation to have. And, so I I really hope that you guys got something out of it. It was an incredible discussion, especially talking about, the dangers of biopsies, the possible dangers of biopsy. Let's put it that way. So, so I hope you were able to catch that. And, of course, we'll be back next Tuesday, with another episode of the Do No Harm portion of the Joe Russo, so I hope you guys can check that out as well.
Now before we, before we move on to everything else, like I said, the housekeeping folks, Ezra Healing, as we were talking about them, is a substantial part of the new wellness paradigm currently being born all across North America and, quite honestly, around the entire globe. The global citizenry are no longer satisfied with the sick care version of so called health care. Band aid medicine, endlessly treating symptoms rather than root causes, must be abandoned as soon as possible. Patient centric care must be the priority. We need to transition towards the do no harm model of private care that places humanity at the forefront of real health and wellness care. In this new model, your entire life has examined and analyzed to promote and support the totality of your body's integrated systems. Ezra Healing is a solutions based health promotion and disease prevention grassroots movement that is always evolving to best serve you and your family. Now, if you want more information on Ezra Healing, just head over to ezrahealing.com.
That's ezrahealing.com. And when you get over there, make sure you tell them that, you heard it here on the Joe Russo. This way, you know, they know their money is being very well spent. Alrighty. Well, with that said, hopefully, we got the right queue up here. We are going to bring on our resident crypto psychic, the one and the only Marissa Lee. Hey, Marissa. How are you doing?
[00:06:38] Unknown:
Good. How are you, Joe? I'm doing fantastic
[00:06:41] Unknown:
here. As we like to say back home, there's your music finally keyed up. Oh. We're gonna be talking about some money. I I think it's cute I think it's cute that you call me the resident crypto psychic. Oh, you are. You are. You're the only you're the only one we have. So There's not many of us. No. There isn't. So you're the only one we have. So you're our resident crypto psychic. So question for you. First of all, we haven't spoken since, what, last week. How are things going? How's life treating you?
[00:07:12] Unknown:
Good. I'm so busy. It is crazy. My Patreon page is, very active, and I'm just constantly putting content together for that or I'm giving a reading. So,
[00:07:24] Unknown:
I'm very blessed. Well, plug plug away your Patreon. Why don't you go ahead?
[00:07:29] Unknown:
Yeah. So it's it's cheap. It's only $20 a month, and you get my full monthly psychic crypto predictions report. It's usually about 20 pages. And then I also do a mid month mid month update. That's usually about, like, a thirty minute audio, and I answer everybody's questions because everybody usually has a bunch of questions, like, within that two week period. So there's a lot going on in the crypto world. And right now, the market's down, and people are nervous. I can tell because on my TikTok, I'm getting a lot of really bad comments constantly. I get a lot of insults. Like, whenever the market goes down, that's what happens. People kinda come at me. Like, I control the market or something. So, yeah, I I see people are frustrated, but this is actually a really good sign that the bull run is coming. Like so I've been saying this for months, and I've been feeling, like, this huge built up energy coming. And we've had some good, we've had some money come into the market that's made the investments go up significantly, but then it kinda goes down a little bit, and that's not what I'm talking about. So I I'm hopeful when I see this happening, like, oh, the bull run's here, and then it just kinda dips. And I'm like, that's not what I was talking about. So the bull run has that I've been feeling coming. This really big energy has not hit us yet, but I feel like it's coming this month. I really do.
There is a slight chance that it happens the September, but I'm really I'm, like, 90% sure it's gonna happen in August, 10% that it's gonna happen in September. But it's right it's, like, literally right around the corner. And, honestly, I think it can happen any any day now at this point. Yeah. So things are gonna get really good. I mean, you know, I I was on, x the other day, and I've been doing more, research on x because there's a lot of crypto people on x, like a lot of crypto CEOs, a lot of crypto news. The other day, Eric Trump made a post, and he said buy Bitcoin.
And I thought that was kinda interesting. So I do think that there is some knowledge about some things that are coming, and I do think a lot of money is about to be poured into the crypto market. So, which is also an indication that the bull run's coming. So and and they always crash the market before the crypto bull run comes. So I'm not worried in the least bit that the market's down. This is a a great time to still accumulate because, you know, when the bull run comes, everybody wants the prices to come down so they can buy more. Right? Of course. So it it's, you know, it's it's like a catch 22. Like, when it's down, you want it to go high. When it's high, you want it to to go down. So, you just have to kinda change your mindset with that and just be grateful that it's down right now so you can still accumulate more coins. So What do you think of the hot the hot cryptos right now we should be looking at?
Algorand. Oh my god. Algorand is gonna get so good soon. Oh, I cannot wait. XRP is gonna have a good run too. It is gonna it's got a lot of power behind them. Brad Garlinghouse is just he is talking to so many people is the feel that I'm getting, and, a lot of money is gonna be a lot of institutional money is gonna be poured into XRP. In order for XRP to really move, billions of dollars has to be poured into it. Right? So, that's not gonna happen from retail investors. That's gonna come from institutions. So
[00:10:38] Unknown:
So what do you think is, is is the big move? Because I've been reading a lot on, on XRP. I've been seeing a lot of articles about that, especially on, places like The Motley Fool and and sites like that, finance pages. Talking about XRP, talking about Algorand. I've been seeing a lot about Algorand lately too. So I'm thinking that there is gonna be I agree with you. I think there is gonna be some kind of a push coming, on these things. And so would you recommend now would be a good time to start buying into it, or should we just kinda hold off a little bit and wait and see how the market goes?
[00:11:08] Unknown:
Buy, buy, buy. XRP is still a good buy even at $3. Algorand's a good buy. I wanna say I I think I saw it. It was at, like, 24¢ today, and it was down. But if you were following following me on TikTok back in April, that was when I started really pushing it. I wanna say it was, like, 18¢ a coin. So if you bought back then, even with the market being down, you're still in the green. And Algorand has a lot of growth left. I mean, we are still in the beginning stages of Algorand, so it is still a strong buy. I'm still buying it. So, yeah, it's it's one of the ones that I just can't stop buying. You know? Origin Trail is a good one too. Like, that's a really undervalued one that I'm definitely accumulating more of as well. Is that one of the ones that we spoke about, when we did the Saturday show, two weeks ago? Did you did you mention Origin Show? I think so. Yeah. I think so. They're they're involved in all kinds of AI projects, and they're just gonna they're gonna really have a big burst coming soon. So I have a lot of confidence in them. That's it's it's it's really interesting to watch how the market and how and how,
[00:12:08] Unknown:
crypto is actually getting a lot of attention, recently. It's I I think a lot of it has to do because the government looking into purchasing Bitcoin and using Bitcoin as a, as a as a reserve currency. And also, you're you're seeing a lot of a lot of, what was it? It was I'm it flew out of my head. I'm sorry. I apologize. I should have pulled the article up beforehand. But there were there were actually sites that I've been seeing on, on Brave, the Brave browser. You know, sometimes you get those, those news articles talking about places overseas now in in Europe and and and, I think it was Dubai, that you can actually purchase property now with Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, which I think is Yep. It it's it's inevitable this is gonna become that worldwide currency that everyone's gonna have because it's, you know, it's just so easily usable.
It's it's the the conversion rates, you don't have to worry about that stuff, and foreign exchange rate, you don't have to worry about that stuff. So I think this is huge. It has the potential to to to really explode, and I hope you're right. You know, coming because I I did buy into a lot of these things. I'm not gonna yell at you. I'm not gonna, you know, I I I took a bit of a dip. I'm not gonna yell at you, I promise, because I know that there's risk involved with investing, and you have to take the risks, you know, along the way. And again, and just to go back for a second here, folks, this is not financial advice. Alright? We are giving you our opinions on things. Okay? So so, like anything you do, it's a risk to invest. And if you lose money, sorry, but it's a risk. If you if you so don't don't come yelling at at at Marissa. Don't come yelling at me. It's not our fault. You know? The the listen. It's it's it's totally fine. If you're a new crypto investor, you're gonna be in the red. You have to give it at least six months before
[00:13:58] Unknown:
you start even, like, when the market dips because it's up and down and up and down. Right? And this is constant. So you have to give it six months before you're still in the red when it dips. Right? Because that's the goal. Like, if you buy something at a dollar and the market goes down to 75¢, you know, you lost 25¢. Right? And you're like, oh, man. You start getting mad. But if it goes up to a dollar 50 and then the market's down and it's at a a dollar 25, you're still in the green, so you're not as upset. So you just gotta give this a little bit more time. But I'm telling you, Joe, I found something amazing, and I wanted to make the announcement on your show. And I know that's what people are waiting for. So let's just get to it. I I was building up to it. We were getting there.
[00:14:38] Unknown:
So, Marissa, why don't you tell us what crypto is gonna make us a thousand times our money?
[00:14:45] Unknown:
Okay. So let me let me tell you the whole story of how I found this and why I think it's going to do really well. Go ahead. So, you know, I love Algorand. Right? Like so I I follow the CEO, Stacy Warden. And there was somebody that created a meme coin on the Algorand network, and it's called Gunna, g 0 n n a. And it's like this green lizard. Right? And we we recently had that, situation with the CEO, at the Coldplay concert, hugging somebody that worked for him. Right? And then they were having an affair, and then that was just kinda put on blast. Right? Then the guy lost his job and, you know, everything just blew up. So that was in the news. And so this guy that made this gun coin took his little lizard meme and made a meme of him at a concert holding Stacy Wharton.
Right? Like, just as a joke and and put a post out there. And, yeah. See. And she then took that and made that her profile picture. Now this 2,100,000,000, that's her market cap. She was proud of that. So she, she put that on there. At least that's the impression I got. I can't really speak for her, but, okay. So that is the meme right there. That's her profile picture. And I took that as a very, very good sign. Now this gonna coin just became live the other day, as far as I know. You can only purchase it on the Para Algo wallets. Okay. So this is an app that you have to download, and it's Para, p e r a, Algo, a l g o, wallet. Okay. So you have to go to your Google Play Store or your Apple Store and download this wallet.
Open up a new account, and then basically take Algo from one of your other platforms, transfer it over to this Para Algo wallet, and then swap it for Gunna. Okay? Now I do believe that this is gonna do very well. I and and listen, Stacy changing her profile picture does not necessarily mean that she's endorsing this. Okay? I think that somebody jumped on a trend and, made a really good impression, and she thought it was funny and changed her profile picture. And I love that she participated in that. To me, that shows, like, a really good sense of humor, and, obviously, this is a meme coin on the Algorand network. So, I mean, it just kinda all flowed together really nicely.
I believe that there's a lot of, good growth coming with Gunna. However, this is also risky, and this is some this is why I didn't wanna necessarily, like, push this to people in my Patreon group. I didn't wanna push it on TikTok. I wanted to just kinda make this announcement with you and explain it a little bit more in detail. I appreciate that. Be because it's risky, you don't wanna invest a lot of money, not financial advice. Okay? This is something that I would put a 100 into, right, and let it sit for a year and see what happens. I do believe when you get into meme coins at a very early stage, you can make a lot of money. And let me give you an example of this. I had a friend, who bought Shiba Inu on an app called Bitmart, and it's very similar to, the Para Wallet where you have where you can't even buy crypto on it. You have to, like, transfer crypto to it, and then swap it for another crypto. So at the time, Shiba was very hard to purchase. So you had to take Ethereum, send it over to this wallet, swap it at for Shiba, and then just kinda hold on to it. Right? She on a $20 investment, she made $8,000.
Now she held it for a couple years, but she got in very, very early, into Shiba. And so that's how she was able to make so much money on such a small investment. This is one of those situations. So, caution. Do not put thousands of dollars into gonna, but I do think that it would be fun to have in a wallet. And let's see what happens with this. The the creator of this coin, I follow him on x, and I feel like he's very creative, very talented. He's constantly taking his gonna lizard and putting this lizard in all kind of, meme situations, whatever is trending. You know? So so he's kinda staying on top of it, and I like that. So that shows the creativity. I don't know if he's really good at marketing. Mhmm. I had a brief conversation with him today, and I was kinda like, you need to get this on Bitmart at least. Like, start getting it on exchanges. And that is a big challenge because you gotta meet a lot of requirements. You gotta have a certain amount of, market cap. You have to have a certain amount of wallets open. You have to maybe have an incorporated business. I'm not exactly sure.
I know Coinbase has very strict, very strict guidelines. I wouldn't he's not gonna be able to get on Coinbase for a long time. I'll say that. But let's start at Bitmart. Start at Bitmart. Work your way up. Maybe try Uphold then, then maybe try crypto.com. If you could start getting some listing exchanges or even get get it on Uniswap, get it on PancakeSwap, get it on some of the other swapping apps, you know, that's gonna really help as well. Because when people can buy it easier, you know, the market cap is just gonna increase over time. So this is one that I think has great potential, but, again, this would be a small investment because it's very high risk.
And, you know, I've had a couple people comments on my TikTok recently where they're like, if you're so psychic, why don't you just give us a coin, that we can make a thousand times our money? And I thought about that, and I thought, you know, I really need to think about that because I would love to be able to do that. There's just when there's a million meme coins that are released every day, you know, and I don't really look into meme coins. To me, they're boring. But you can make a lot of money if you get the right meme coin, and I feel like gonna is gonna be successful. Gunna is gonna be good. It's the PERA, p e r a, wallet.
Yeah. PERA Algo Wallet app. It's a yellow icon. Let me see. Am I looking at yeah. P e r a is what it's called. So, and and what's cool about the Para Algo wallet app is I I have never used it before, but it's all the projects on Algo right now. So you can, like, take Algo and swap it for anything on their chain. So I I really like it. I wanna explore it a little bit more. I know they offer some staking rates. So if it's one thing that Gunna brought to my life is that app, and so I'm kinda I'm gonna kinda explore what else Algo has to offer on there. That sounds great. I'm I'm actually I'm gonna after the show, I'm going to,
[00:21:18] Unknown:
make some purchases. So, hopefully, hopefully, you're right, and and I hope that, I hope you can make some money on this. I mean, this is great. I know you're not a big fan of, like, the meme coins and and and and things like that. You know, you you make it abundantly clear. But Yes. But, but, it it this could be interesting. And, again, this is not financial advice. You are investing at your own risk. And, we'll put that up there again just so everybody sees it. Not financial advice. Invest at your own risk.
[00:21:47] Unknown:
And, but, you know, I hope I hope you guys can make some money on this thing. That'd be great. That'd be fantastic. And, again, small amounts. Do not put thousands of dollars into this. This is very, very risky, and this is gonna be something that takes a while before you see, like, a crazy return. But, hey. You know, listen. If you see, like, a really, really good return in, you know, three months, two months, and you wanna swap it for Algo, hey. Get some more Algo. Why not? Right? You know? Like, use it to build your portfolio.
[00:22:13] Unknown:
You know, use it to improve your life. I I know you're big on ALGO, and and that's great. I I'm glad you introduced me to ALGO. I like it myself. What do you see happening with ALGO in the next month?
[00:22:24] Unknown:
Oh, I think it's gonna be really good. It's gonna have a really, really good run. I think there's a very good chance that during this bull run, we hit a dollar with ALGO. And I know that that is crazy. That that means that it the market cap would have to increase by four, because I think we're in, like, the 24¢ range right now. I'd have to multiply times four. So I think it's at, what, 2,000,000,000 right now about so about $8,000,000,000. But there's gonna be a crazy amount of money coming into the market soon, like and it's gonna be altcoin season. It's gonna be one of the biggest altcoin seasons we have seen thus far. Not the biggest one in the future, but the biggest one that we have seen so far. So it's gonna be the beginning of people getting very interested in crypto investing. I'll say that because there's gonna be people that are gonna make a lot of money coming up here soon.
So it's gonna get really, really funny. You know what? I'm gonna have a lot of positive comments on my TikTok instead of all these negative Nances. Well, I hope so. You know, calling me you know, yelling at me like I control the crypto market, but I understand, though. I understand the frustration. You mean you don't? Oh, I I I oh, yeah. No. I do. I mean, most of the stuff that I have, I've been investing in for a long period of time, so I'm not in the red on anything. Well, yeah, at least not that I can think of offhand. But, some a lot of people are because they're newer crypto investors. Right? So I understand that frustration, so I don't take it personally.
[00:23:46] Unknown:
And you you shouldn't. It's it's I I believe I get a lot of negative comments too. And you just sometimes just I don't even read them, to be honest with you. I just go go right past them. But I I remember a couple of months ago, you did, or was maybe was was it a couple months ago, maybe a month ago, you did a a TikTok video on Algorand and Ziebeck. And, now there there there's been some talk about them coming together and partnering. What do you think about that? Did you see that coming?
[00:24:16] Unknown:
You know, it's interesting the synchronicities that happen in life for sure. I did not intend on, like, putting out a video where I thought they were gonna partner, but it is interesting that they just kind of ended up there. I know, Zebec was talking about, partnering with XRP, and there was a lot of talk about that for a minute. But I don't think that panned out, and they went with Algorand instead, which actually I think was a better deal. Yeah. You know, I know people will I'll probably get, you know, some feed feedback on that one. But, overall, I I Algorand's a faster chain.
Whenever you transfer Algorand from one wallet to the other, it's instant, and the fees are, like, almost nothing. Yeah. I've seen that. And I'm so it's the fastest one that I've seen yet, and I transfer a lot of crypto here and there and everywhere and cold wallet and yada yada yada. And Algo nothing is faster than Algorand. So, I see great potential with Algorand, and it's gonna continue to grow. And and developers are gonna start really looking at them hard saying, why would we go anywhere else? I mean, they they have the best soft the best system. I don't know how else to explain it. Like and that's just, like, from a psychic standpoint is what I feel. And I and I am a tech person, but not necessarily, like, a software developer. So maybe I don't have the language to explain this, but from a psychic standpoint, I can say that I feel they have the best software, the best setup for developers.
[00:25:45] Unknown:
Now do you do you get into stock at all or you're just strictly with cryptos? I do do a little bit of stocks. Alright. So A little bit. So what stock would you, would you buy if you had to pick one right now?
[00:25:56] Unknown:
Just one?
[00:25:57] Unknown:
Well, you can give me a list, but, you know, I think we'll start off with one.
[00:26:03] Unknown:
If I if I had to pick just one right now, I'd pick Tesla. And I know that some people might not like that and that think it's political. I don't look at anything political one way or the other. I'm very in the middle of the road. I don't care about politics in any way, shape, or form. I believe Tesla is gonna do very well, especially with these, self driving taxis. To me, that is a big threat to Uber and Lyft. And I do think that that is going to have some more adaption over the course of several years. So it's not gonna be right away, but they're gonna give Lyft and Uber a run for their money, and they are gonna push back on Tesla. Let me tell you something. There's gonna be a lot of stuff coming up. And I'm not saying anytime right now, but maybe in, like, two, three years. Tesla's gonna
[00:26:49] Unknown:
do very, very, very well. What else do you think? What else are you looking at?
[00:26:57] Unknown:
That was probably the one that that, stood out. I like Nvidia. Nvidia is actually pretty high right now, but I they're they make these GPU units that other people just can't compete with. And I feel like that's gonna be used more in AI, and AI is gonna be so predominant that Nvidia is gonna just continue to be a beast. So I like Nvidia a lot. Yeah. I agree with you on the AI
[00:27:22] Unknown:
the AI side of that. I'm not I I don't know too much about Nvidia, just the cursory stuff that I've heard in the news. So, but, speaking of AI, I don't know if you caught the show. A couple weeks ago, I did a show with a guy, who has developed an AI algorithm, I guess, if you call if I don't know if you wanna call it that. But it's a, he the name of the company is called Autograph, and the AI, I guess, chatbot is name is Walter. And, this is my concern with AI. If this this this guy's deal is this, that Walter will actually call you, like, once a week, and you subscribe to this, and it's somebody that you talk to, as somebody you would talk to, almost like somebody that you would be telling your your your dictating your memoirs to.
And, and it records these things in your own voice, and it and it it'll ask you questions about life scenarios, things that you've experienced, how was your day, kind of, you know, simple questions, and then get more to into the more deep and serious things. And then all of that would be saved for your grandchildren and great grandchildren to be able to access, to hear you give them life advice on, on whatever it is that they're dealing with, or if they just feel like they need some encouragement and they wanted to hear your voice and something like that. Now and and they would actually be able to have a conversation with you that this AI chatbot, Walter, would put together and actually have these discussions. That to me is incredibly scary because, a first of all, AI is getting to the point where you it's very, very hard to tell between reality and the AI stuff. I mean, sometimes sometimes you can look at something, you'll see you have, like, two eyes and, you know, three eyes and, you know, eight fingers and whatnot. But, oh my god, I just thought about this banner they made at my my job with it. They had these images, like, 16 fingers and toes. It was crazy.
But, but but I but I see that, you know, with all of this investment going into into, into AI, And and the and the the more used that AI is getting, especially in the in the world of of of, electronics and engineering and science. I mean, the potential for something like, like a chat GPT to take over, you know, your your physics, you know, to replace, in in physics. And then also, the algorithms are developing and and I don't know. Do you are are you worried that they might actually put you out of business as a psychic?
[00:30:10] Unknown:
Not at all. As a web developer, yes. Absolutely. Because now AI can do, you know, websites and everything technical like that. But a psychic, no. Because that is something that is, it's like a skill. I I and it's something intuitive that kinda comes to you. I I don't think that AI can replace that. I actually have a good friend that, is a crypto investor, and she's a psychic, but she doesn't do, like, crypto predictions or anything like that. But every once in a while, I'll chat with her. And she's like, Marissa, ChatGPT is gonna replace us. And I'm like, no. That that's impossible.
ChatTPT is not gonna be able to tell you to buy Algorand. It they're they're it's not gonna do that. I I'll do that. Right? Okay. But but are but are you a 100% sure of that? Because
[00:30:57] Unknown:
because it's so intuitive and it's and it and it's developing so fast, it could actually, you know, make these decisions for us at at some point. No?
[00:31:10] Unknown:
Well, if ChatGPT could put out information on how to make a thousand times your money by investing in crypto and it's accurate, I'll just invest in crypto and just retire. Right? Nice. I mean, like yeah. I I don't foresee it actually taking over that aspect. Although there are, like, different AI programs that can run tarot spreads. So you can ask questions, and it can run a tarot spread for you. And it's like, okay. Well, you know, alright. That's kinda cool. But there's a lot more to being psychic than just tarot. I mean, tarot is a tool. You know, so there's there's other ways information comes from you. Like, I get information in my dreams.
So yeah. And it's so far so good with that. That that's golden. That is that is a big blessing, that I that I receive with that. So
[00:32:01] Unknown:
I'm, I'm I'm looking for something. Just so keep going while I'm doing this.
[00:32:06] Unknown:
Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, ChatGPT is gonna be able to do a lot of stuff. You know? I mean, it it can write it can write, you know, a book for you. You know? I know Amazon has a signal where people are are, writing books using AI, and they're writing 15 books a day and just throwing it up on their Kindle, and they're they're trying to counter that. They want authentic people do you know, doing that, not just chat GPT. But so chat GPT is gonna take over a lot of stuff. Yeah. They're not take it's not taking over the psychics. So Well, I'll tell you. I I know I know that that people are using chat GPT and and other
[00:32:42] Unknown:
chat bots to to to write and and to do things. Because I'll be honest with you, sometimes I'll I'll take I'll take, some information off of a website and I'll I'll throw it into chat GPT or or Grok or whatever it is, and I'll say, alright, just summarize this for me. And it'll write me this beautiful summary because I don't have time to sit there and read, you know, a a a whole book. So I'll get this beautiful summary from from from Grok or ChatGPT, and I was like, wow, that was really easy. And, I can I can easily see how people would do that? They just throw an outline, I guess, into into the into the into the app and it'll just generate a whole story for you. And that's that's insane. And there has to be some kind of limitation to that though. They're they're really you have to have some kind of disclosure, and they're saying that this is an an AI written because then you really didn't write it.
[00:33:30] Unknown:
Yeah. No. There there's truth to be said about that. And, you know, I I do feel like there's going to be laws in the future that are going to, they're gonna have to be modified saying, like, AI is not allowed to do x, y, and z. So there are gonna be, like, limitations. You know, like, you see a video now, and you don't even know what's real anymore. And people will think, like, oh, you know, you could make a a a blackmail video on somebody, and it could be AI. And that could be very, very dangerous. So,
[00:33:59] Unknown:
you know, we gotta be really careful with with the AI stuff. Yeah. And that's something that I spoke about with with with the young man that was on the show that night. Using AI to generate these video. I mean, you you the damage you can do to somebody, especially if they're if they're they're a public figure, like a politician or or something along those lines where, you know yeah. Okay. It can be eventually proven that it was a fake and it wasn't you weren't really doing anything inappropriate or or illegal, but yet by the time all that's resolved and it's proved, the damage is done.
You know, you you are forever gonna be looked at because, you know, the public is not going to easily let go of that. Even though they have all of the proof and everything all laid out in front of them that this is a fake, they're still gonna hold on to that. There's still gonna be a a large number of people. Like, I I think and I know it's not AI related, but I think about, the pee pee tape with the with Donald Trump. There were still people out there that think that that was real, even though it's been proven over and over and over again that it was a it was a hoax. You know, people still believe it. And it's the same thing with with this stuff. People are gonna see things, and it's gonna make it even harder because there's gonna be video proof, you know, or photographic evidence, but it's not real. It's it's it's gonna be a very, very, very interesting and difficult task to, to kind of navigate your way through. So, oh, by the way, I I I checked out Uphold as a wallet.
Mhmm. I think it's pretty darn good. I like it. Good. Yeah. I I moved my stuff over from, Coinbase, actually. Well, no. Not Coinbase. Crypto.com. I moved my stuff over from there. The only reason why I touched stuff in in Coinbase is because I have it locked up and and staking. So Mhmm. I can't take it out yet. And if I even if I do take it out, I still gotta wait a month before I can move it over. I think it's, like, twenty two days or something ridiculous like that. But, but I like the idea of having it all in one place and and not having a 100 different accounts all over the place. I think it kinda gets hard to keep track of that. And I think we talked about that a little bit. It would be it would be nice if you be able to get one platform that can take care of all of it, you know, and keep all of it. Wouldn't it? Yeah. That would be fantastic. Every platform is so different, though. They have different requirements,
[00:36:14] Unknown:
and some have stricter requirements. You know? So The Coinbase is Just make sure that no matter what you do, you always have two step authentication on. Yeah. That is so important because there's so many hackers out there, and the hacking is just getting worse and worse and worse. Every single email address that I have attached to my TikTok account gets hacked. Really? Every single one. Yes. Yeah. I'm on I'm on number three now, and I'm like, gosh. This is just insane. I had a Gmail account attached to it that I have attached to nothing else. I just opened it up for TikTok. And I went to log in to it the other day to, file copyright complaints. People copied my profile. You know, you gotta go through a whole rigmarole or whatever.
And the Gmail account just was disabled. They're like, you violated our terms and conditions. I'm like, how? I don't even send emails. It's just the only email address that I use to for my TikTok account. And then they put it back on, but it took me a couple days. And so I was like, I so there's gotta be there's some kind of leak in China is the feel that I'm getting with that. There there's some kind of leak in China where they're leaking all the email addresses of the people that have TikTok accounts over a certain with a certain following.
Yeah. So
[00:37:27] Unknown:
It's, Whatever. It Yeah. I it's it's funny because when I opened up when I started doing this this show, I opened up, of course, all the different social media stuff. And, it was it was weird because my I I try to keep everything the same. So it's at Joe Russo wherever you go. Mhmm. So I'm like that everywhere except two places. One is TikTok because the way they have it set up, I guess, you can't, you know, I so I got that or somebody already has it. But I had to put a dot in between first and last name. That's fine. No big deal. You can figure that out.
But Instagram, before I even finished, before I even finished, the sign up process, I haven't even posted anything yet. Still going through the sign up. They banned my account. They said I violated the terms of service. I'm like, how? I just I'm still in the process of signing up, for crying out loud. So, of course, with with with Instagram, it's not Joe Russo. So it's not Joe Russo on Instagram, but it's Joe Russo everywhere else. And they let they let that that was fine. That was good with them. So I used the same email address, same phone number, all that information that they asked for. I just put not in front of it, and they let it go. So that's wild. So we have a question. I've got some meta for you. I don't know. Go ahead. I don't know how I don't know how good your Spanish is because I don't speak a lick of Spanish, but if anybody would I have to translate that for us, I'd appreciate it. Yeah.
[00:38:54] Unknown:
Can you translate it?
[00:38:56] Unknown:
How Something about a meme coin. Something about yeah. Is I think call how how many or maybe
[00:39:04] Unknown:
I don't know. They're asking about the meme coin that I said is gonna make a thousand times, gained. Yeah. I guess It's gonna, g 0 n n a, on the Algo network, and it's you could only buy it on the Para Algo wallet. So
[00:39:20] Unknown:
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Edgard Edgardo? I don't speak Spanish, but sorry.
[00:39:29] Unknown:
You know, I took four years of Spanish in high school, and I I've been around a lot of people that speak Spanish. And they're they'll have this long conversation, and I'll understand what they're saying sometimes sometimes.
[00:39:41] Unknown:
But, yeah, I just I can't speak it. I don't know. Yeah. So Maybe I let me let me try it because that's gonna bother me until I figure till I realize what it is. Let me let let me get the translator here and I'll I'll I'll type it in. So, so let me ask you this. Where do you think, what do you think is gonna go on with the interest rates while, while I'm doing this?
[00:40:00] Unknown:
Oh, Jerome Powell. Yes. I like, who likes that guy? Is there anybody in this world that, like, thinks that that guy is, like, making good decisions for America? I I I don't know. He's gonna have a lot of pressure put on him. So today, I logged in to x, and on my feed, some politician I wanna I wanna say it was a politician. Maybe it was. Maybe it was somebody in the news. I don't know. Said something about how they're gonna like, this detailed plan of how they are going to, start looking at the Federal Reserve and where their money is going and what's going on there and what is he doing, what are his hands in, and I felt really good about that. That is the pressure put it put on him, the more pressure that's put on him in that sense where we're like, okay. We're gonna put him under a microscope. What's he really doing? Because this is all just political.
Like, this decision to not cut interest rates is ridiculous and political, and it is an attempt to
[00:40:56] Unknown:
make things as hard as possible for the Trump administration is the field that I get. We're getting some translations, by the way. They're asking about the meme coin, which is which is the 1,000 times and when to buy it. And the last one is, they said, what is the meme coin that will do 1,000 times
[00:41:14] Unknown:
and went to buy it? Yeah. So it so it's gonna, g o n n a. I'm sure they probably posted that before we had that segment. So They might have. Yeah. Yeah. But Powell, I don't like him. I think it's funny sometimes that, you know, Trump calls him Jerome, too late Powell. You know, I'm not really for name calling, but, like, it it kind of makes me laugh when I hear that. Like, because it's true, but this isn't like, oh, he's just being stupid or, oh, he's just, you know, try he's got his own reasoning for doing this. Like, this is all political. That's all it is, and he's just looking stupid and stupid and stupid. So sure. But Yes. There's gonna be there's gonna
[00:41:55] Unknown:
rate cuts are coming rate cuts are coming very soon. So the more pressure they're gonna put a lot of pressure on him. So and they're gonna start looking at his personal stuff too. So it's a feel that I'm getting. Yeah. I I I think the pressure's gonna eventually get to him, and he's gonna have to make some kind of a move. I I understand that there are a number of the other governors of the on the Fed on the Fed that are are kind of pressuring him to make some kind of a move. So I I think it's gonna be coming. I mean, the the to me, honestly, this just fuels my interest in seeing the Fed wiped out altogether. It should not exist. Oh.
I agree. You know, basically, you're basically, you you have some unelected, unelected bureaucrats holding, you know, you at ransom here. You you know, it's just ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. So, let's see. Are there more questions? So, if, Pocketful or or or or m g p 55445, my glasses are not working tonight, could, translate that for us, we'd like to know. Marissa, will rates be cut in September like everyone is saying?
[00:43:01] Unknown:
Yes. Yes. It might even happen before that. Might. But, yes, by September at the latest. I totally feel like it's coming very, very soon. Like I said, they're gonna put, personal pressure on him. Start looking at his books. What's he doing? What's he doing at the Federal Reserve? What's he doing personally? And they always tend to find something when they look at you really hard like that. Like, they're gonna really fish.
[00:43:24] Unknown:
Yeah. So You could find you could you could find something on anybody. It's that's Yeah. That that's that's just the the unfortunate fact. I mean, there's so many rules, so many regulations, so many laws that you don't even realize, you know, you know, how how many steps you're probably allowed to take, you know, on your sidewalk. It's probably regulated somewhere along the way.
[00:43:44] Unknown:
Oh, totally. I you know, just a quick example of of just something stupid you don't even realize you're doing. You don't even mean to break a law. I got a ticket in the mail for $200 from the county that I live in because I got my dog's rabies tag or I got my dog's rabies shots at a in a different county, and I didn't go to my county to get the actual tag. I'm like, Like, I got a rabies shot. Like, that's what I'm supposed to do. Who cares if she's got a tag? You know? She's with me all the time. Right? And so here I am. I just get a you know? It's it's like you can oh, you're right. You can always find something. There's always a law you don't know about or you don't even realize you're breaking. It's, you know, whatever.
[00:44:21] Unknown:
Yeah. And I I love if you have if you ever read any, like, state penal law book. I mean, I I I worked in law enforcement for for a number of years, so I, of course, I had to read these things. And, they always start at every one of them that I've seen always starts with the same thing. Ignorance of the law is is no excuse for violating the law. So even though you don't know it, you cannot you can't say that, well, I didn't know and use that as a valid excuse. Right. Which is just Right. Ridiculous, but that's that. Yeah. Alrighty. Well, Marissa, our next guest is already in the, in the in the waiting room, so we're gonna we're gonna switch on over and and bring him on in here momentarily. Gonna take a quick break though, before we do that. Alrighty. So any parting words any parting words for us before you go?
[00:45:06] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. If anybody wants to join my Patreon, it's patreon.com/cryptopsychic. That's where I put all the good crypto information.
[00:45:13] Unknown:
Great. And we really appreciate that you dropped that little bit of nugget information for us here live on the Joe Russo. It's awesome. So we really do appreciate you, Marissa. And by the way, this is the this tonight is taking place of Saturday's show because, you're not gonna be available for Saturday. Correct? So so there's no show Saturday with our our resident, crypto psychic. We're gonna have to do a whole big splash like Alex Jones does for his, his KPM gold guy. You know, we're gonna have to have this whole big production for you. So Well, that that'd be great. Thank you. Yeah. We'll get we'll get it going. Yeah. So we'll figure it out. That's good. Alright, Marissa. Thank you so much. Really do appreciate you. Have a great night. Okay. You too. Bye bye. Alright now. Alright, folks. This is The Joe Ruse Show. We're gonna take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll, hook up with our next guest who is already waiting for us in the waiting room. Alright. Don't forget, this is a live show weeknights 7PM central time right here on Rumble. So it's rumble.com/joeroos.
Rumble.com/joeroos. Also, let's take a look here and, you know, let's let's let's pay another bill. So let me tell you a little bit about Rumble. When Rumble first started in 02/2013, they built a platform for the small creator. They didn't censor or have a bias. They were fair, and they treated all creators equally. No one thought platforms would ever censor political conversation or censor opinions on things like COVID, but they did. Facebook even admitted to it. They they said that they felt pressure fell to the pressure from the Biden and Harris administration. Rumble did not. They held the line. They are attacked daily for giving us a voice to talk to you, and they were attacked by the corporate media. They're attacked by governments like France.
If you try to check out anything on Rumble in France, you're not gonna get it because they don't stream there. They're attacked from brand advertisers who who absolutely refuse to work, with them. Corporate America is fighting to remove free speech. Rumble Rumble is fighting to keep it. Rumble won't survive with brand advertisers. They don't get much of it. So watching our show on Rumble is the most that they can ask of you. But if you really believe in this fight and you have the means to do it, one major way you can help out is by joining Rumble Premium. You can join Rumble Premium for as low as $9.99 a month, or you can do it annually for $99 a year. You can join a community that believes in first amendment and believes in our human right to free speech. Rumble is offering right now $10 off with the promo code studio when you purchase an annual subscription. So go to rumble.com/premium and use promo code studio and get $10 off your subscription.
Like I said, if you have the means and you believe in the cause, now is the time to join Rumble. Alright, folks. With that said, we're gonna take a break, and we'll be back here in just about, two minutes. Three minutes. Alright. We'll be right back. Stay with us.
[00:48:41] Unknown:
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[00:48:53] Unknown:
Alright, folks. So this is the joys of doing a live show. Bill, could you do me a favor? Turn your camera off. We're on a break. Oh, sure will. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
[00:49:09] Unknown:
This podcast is hosted on podhome.fm, an intelligent podcasting platform that you can use to host unlimited shows and episodes and have unlimited downloads. PodHome comes with many intelligent features, like PodHome AI, which automatically creates transcripts, chapters, suggests titles, show notes, detects people, and creates clips. You can use Pothome AI unlimited for all your episodes and all your shows. Go check it out and start your free seven day trial at pothome.fm.
[00:49:57] Unknown:
In your highest daily soul, everywhere you ever go, a love story where you spy There's a risk on the line, hoping your heart dumber'd mine, making sure Looking back at the start, we've come so far. A thousand stars could keep us apart. Looking back at the start. We've come so far. A thousand stars couldn't keep us apart.
[00:53:04] Unknown:
Well, alright, folks. This is Joe Ruse. Welcome back. The first forty five minutes are in the books. We're gonna get started here here momentarily. So our resident crypto psychic, Marissa Lee, some great advice. So Gunna Coin, we're gonna check that out after the show today. We'll see what we got going on there. Some great advice there. But listen, folks, again, this is just so you know, there's there's risk in every investment. Alright? Risk is involved in every investment. So do your research before you pull the trigger on anything that you're looking to do. And remember, you know, we are not financial advisers, we're not financial counselors, we're not in any way, shape, or form like that. So all we're doing is giving you opinions.
So how you handle the opinion is, of course, up to you. So but check them out, do your research before you make that decision. All right. Well, let's see. What else do we got here? All righty. Well, tonight's guest is a man who moves between two worlds. Bill Cushing is a published author, a libertarian thinker, a college English professor teaching critical thinking inside what he humorously calls the belly of the liberal beast. Well, he's here tonight to talk about his book, Heroic Brothers of the Civil War, which explores the contrasting lives of, believe it or not, two of his ancestors, army officer Alonzo Cushing and navy officer William Cushing, who fought with valor and integrity during the war between the states.
With one brother known for his discipline and the other known for his bold recklessness, their story is as much about leadership and character as it is about war and sacrifice. So folks, I'd like to welcome Bill Cushing to the show. Bill, are you there with us? I sure am. I'm hoping this is coming through. Yes, it is. Loud and clear, sir. Loud and clear. Wonderful. Well, it's great to have you on the show tonight. So thank you. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you did the invite. I was well, I intruded more than you invited. No. It's alright. It's a Be that as it may. That's like I say like I always say, it's one of the joys of doing a live show. You know, that's why that's why I try to send out that email and let everybody know, hey, please just keep everything off until Yeah. I well, yeah. You'll have to forgive my Of course.
I I blame it on my anal retentive military school background. Oh, there you go. I I usually blame it on my glasses that I didn't see it properly. Oh, okay. So, you know, that's alright, though. So, so, Bill, what's something about yourself that most people don't know but should?
[00:55:48] Unknown:
Well, I would say this for most people, I would say this, that I also draw and am involved well, draw, sketch, that kind of thing, which is something I have really not done for probably forty years. So there are a few people my wife knows it, a couple of people I know now. Of course, people that knew me forty, fifty years ago all know that, but, it's something I just haven't done that much of lately. Last time I did it was probably my wife is Peruvian, and we went down there. Of course, I took sketches of the churches and that sort of thing, because I've always loved that kind of architecture.
But, yeah, I draw.
[00:56:29] Unknown:
So And that's great, though. That that's fantastic. I wish I could. I I tried to draw, at some point, but
[00:56:34] Unknown:
I drew a blank, so I didn't bother pursuing it. There you go. Yeah. Well, that's sort of like, can you sing? Give me a buck and I'll carry a tune. There you go. But,
[00:56:44] Unknown:
That's great. So let me ask you this then. So what's your go to beverage at the end of the day to help you unwind?
[00:56:50] Unknown:
Oh, I it's funny. I am I don't drink a whole lot, but I love Scotch. Nice.
[00:56:57] Unknown:
What's your what's your favorite? What's your go to?
[00:57:01] Unknown:
Probably Chivas, although Glenlivet has been, occupying my shelf quite a bit lately.
[00:57:07] Unknown:
So I like Glenlivet. Glenlivet's good. I've had it, a few times. Chivas Chivas reminds me too much of of my my youth at at, you know, living back in New York with my family and, you know, my grandparents and whatnot. So I, Now I gotta ask where in New York? I was born and raised in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
[00:57:28] Unknown:
Oh, okay. I'm from Queens.
[00:57:30] Unknown:
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. So, oh, man. So I'm just kidding. I'm I'm just playing around with you. But, Oh, I know. No. But, as far as scotch go, believe it or not, I know people are gonna think I'm kinda, like, frou frou nose up in the air kind of thing. I like Glen Morangie. Glen Morangie is a wonderful scotch. And I'm not a big scotch fan. Like, I won't go out of my way to have it, but if man, if it's there, that's what that's what I'm looking at. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a bourbon guy. I I love my bourbons. Oh, okay. So my, my favorite right now well, it's always.
But, I like to pair my bourbons with cigars, so it depends on what I'm smoking in that particular occasion. Oh, that's it. But, my go to, if I if I was gonna have a quote unquote everyday, it would be, $17.92 12 year is amazing. Okay. I'm not familiar with that. Yeah. No. I I had it for the first time, I wanna say about a month ago. And Uh-huh. It was what a what a treat that was. It really was I I was not expecting it to be as smooth as it was, it but it was it was super good. And then, depending on what I'm depending on what I'm smoking, I like to pair things. One of the most recent pairings I did, was with a, a Camacho Triple Maduro cigar.
Oh, okay. I that's that's not my market, but my my father, you would have gotten along with that. That's okay. That's fine. My dad was a cigar snorke. The the more important part of it is the bourbon. That and that was the the the Elijah Craig, toasted barrel, which is amazing in pairing. That's so it's absolutely delicious. That's funny.
[00:59:01] Unknown:
Years ago, I had a student who at the end of the semester, she gave me a bottle and I can't remember who made it, but it was a scotch that was soaked or or was aged in, rum soaked
[00:59:16] Unknown:
caskets Oh, nice.
[00:59:17] Unknown:
Or casks. And my wife my wife's a big Scotch drinker too, which is probably one of the big reasons we got married. But, but, we made that bottle last as long as we could because it was so good. It was like, yeah. That's That's good. Special occasions only.
[00:59:35] Unknown:
So I I recently speaking of using, casks, I had a recently, I had a Cabernet Sauvignon with that was, that was, aged in bourbon casks. Oh, there's a And it would I I didn't know what to expect, to be honest with you. I I had never had that before. And, when I cracked that bottle, of course, you're gonna let it breathe for at least thirty minutes or so. But what I'm telling you, that first sip, I I was hooked. I'm like, alright. I you gotta tell me where you got this because I gotta go get it. So it was just ama it was really good. And I'm wondering actually how it would taste in in a sauce because I I I'm a I'm Sicilian. I cook. And Oh, okay. I I I on Sundays, I make my sauce and, I always throw some some some red wine into it. Some wine in there. Yeah. Yeah, sir. And, so I'm wondering how this would taste with the sauce. So I I'm gonna probably be playing around with it this weekend Try it out. Yeah. If I can get it. That's a great idea. So I am looking forward to that. So let me ask you this. So so so what first got you excited about writing
[01:00:40] Unknown:
Heroic Brothers of the Civil War? Oh, well, let's well, first of all, I mean, I was actually named in honor of William Barker. So I mean, my we we are a Navy family, at least, you know, my father was, I was, and of course, William was. So I basically grew up with stories about him as a kid. I mean, I've known about him since I was probably 10 or 12 years old. In fact, a lot of the stories I heard, I didn't put in the book because I couldn't verify them, but they sounded like him. So, but, yeah. And then I guess it was in nineties, probably the early nineties at some point, there was a movement started by a woman in, Delafield, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, which was where the Cushing's were originally from.
They ended up in, Fredonia, New York, but they started in Wisconsin and a woman there found out that she had bought the house that the Cushing boys and family had been brought up in. And as she found out about him, she said, now this guy should get the Medal of Honor. So there was a bunch of us that kind of lobbied and, you know, wrote and campaign for, hey, you know, Alonzo for what he did during the Battle of Gettysburg should certainly be considered for the Medal of Honor. I think he finally got it in 2015, it seems to me, 2015, maybe 2016.
But along the way I was gathering all this information. Of course, I had all kinds of books here. I've got the journals and some of the letters, of these guys. So I started putting it together. And it's funny when I put the first, originally as my own writing, it was very long. I mean, the thing was massive. And I said, you know, but the real problem I've had all along is all the books I've read about these guys are all very detailed. They're very interesting, but they're also very dry. Okay. So what I did was I cut it back and and the book is only a total of 55 pages, and that includes illustrations.
So I cut it way back and just tried to capture the essence of what made these two brothers so special. And and they really were. I mean, they were completely devoted to each other. You know, very interesting, very, very different in personality. I mean, couldn't be more different. William was kicked out of Annapolis for behavior. Not for academics or anything like that. It's just because he couldn't behave. And it's funny because he sort of carried that into his he got kicked out of Annapolis about two months before the war broke out. Oh, wow. So So when the civil war broke out, he reapplied. He said, look, I wanna come back in. And they needed people so desperately. They said, okay. So they brought him in as a midshipman because midshipman is actually a rank. Yes. That that that's one of the few academies where you actually are given a rank.
That brought him in as a midshipman. Well, his behavior didn't change a whole lot.
[01:03:51] Unknown:
Once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker, Yeah. Well, he didn't
[01:03:55] Unknown:
one of the things I bring up in the book is that he didn't care for what he considered were inferior people, even if they outranked him and he had no problem Nice. Telling them so. He had a meeting with Lincoln once, and I don't think I put it in the book, but he met with Lincoln at one point. And when Lincoln brought up one of the admirals, he said something about, well, somebody should give him a petticoat. I don't like the if you remember the, there was a jack o'-lantern, they should put dress dresses on quarterbacks. Yes. I guess that was the civil war equivalent of that. Nice. But, yeah, I I just found the two of them very fascinating and and thought they should be written about in a much more I I don't like to say simple, but less complex way, you know, to bring the person up.
[01:04:42] Unknown:
Well, when you learned, though when you did your research and you learned about how big their roles were in the civil war, how did that shape the way you, approach the book as a as a writer and, of course, on a personal level?
[01:04:52] Unknown:
Well, yeah. I mean, as a family member, of course, you love bragging about what your ancestors have done and Not always. They are. Yeah. Well, you know, that's true. It depends on the the ancestor. Depends on the context. Yeah. But, I just love the, the, the, as I read about them and read the letters, especially the interplay between these two guys and how much they just loved each other. You know, very devoted. Now there was four brothers and all four of them served in the Civil War. One was in the Apache wars. He was in the cavalry, Milton, and then the other one, and what was his name? He had had, I think he had asthma and he couldn't actually serve on the front lines or anything, but he was like a pay master Okay. Or something like that. But all four brothers did end up serving, in some form or fashion.
But these two, because they were so close in age, they were just really, you know, really got along well. So here again, as a writer, that's what I wanted to bring up was the differences between them, but then the the devotion between them as well. Hopefully, I did that.
[01:06:05] Unknown:
Well, now you said earlier, you know, Alonzo was kind of the steady, methodical kind of guy. William was Yeah. William was very bold and fearless and and a little bit of a troublemaker. But but both of them were driven by this this this this deep sense of duty. Mhmm. Absolutely. Yeah. So so how did their different personalities and and and their close their their their close relationship as brothers
[01:06:29] Unknown:
shape the story that you that you told? I think well, one of the things and I don't I don't think I really brought it up that much in the book. I, I did mention, I mean, we come from a Puritan background and Oh, interesting. The family has been around for a while. And of course, the original abolitionists were the religious people. So, but it's funny because one of the things I found is William was not so much caught up in the idea of of, you know, getting rid of slavery as he was in making a name for himself I see. As a military leader. Whereas Lonzo seemed to be much more devoted to the cause of the union, of of getting rid of the South, getting rid of this institution of slavery and that kind of thing.
So they both approached it in two different ways, I think, but with equal fervor. I mean, William, I mean, one of the quotes in the book I pulled out of one of his letters is, I would rather be a captain of a ship than the president of The United States. And and he did eventually get that honor. But, of course, Alonzo, unfortunately, didn't live long enough to, do do any such thing. Now you did But, yeah. I I I think that they they were both equally devoted to the union, but one, I think more for personal reasons, the other for more, I guess, philosophical and ideological reasons. I see. Now you mentioned promotions. So,
[01:08:01] Unknown:
and and you mentioned those in the in the book. You you you kinda focus on Alonzo earning promotions and and and you talk about, William's take down of the, was it the, album art. Album art. The CSS Yeah. Album art. And then you also go on to you highlight their character over over a lot of the larger, you know, over some really larger than life legend. Mhmm. Why is it so important to show who they were as people?
[01:08:26] Unknown:
Because they were such interesting people, I think. That's I think one of the early on when I started writing seriously, I always loved one of the guys I met and who went to a workshop. He said, yeah. Interesting stories are usually about interesting people. And like I say, I found that a lot of the stuff that I read about these two was detailed, but it was dry. It was like, you know, I mean, here I've got all these facts and figures and all these dates and all this other stuff, but I I don't really know who this guy is other than, you know, what he did. And that was, my sort of ambition in this book was to, hey. Let's bring these guys to life and show what they were like. And I I have to say I got a lot of outside help when I was putting this thing together.
I've mentioned captain Arnold who was one of Alonzo's friends. I actually got a lot of that information from and I'm sorry. I forgot her name. But one of Arnold's relatives, one of his descendants, she and I hooked up on, on Facebook through a Gettysburg page. Okay. Cool. And she was able to fill me in on some of the stuff about her predecessor, and I worked him into the book, just more to thank her than anything else. I thought it was an interesting relationship because the two of them fought
[01:09:51] Unknown:
together in several battles. What what what makes the Cushing brothers stand out among the other big civil war names?
[01:09:59] Unknown:
Oh, boy. I think with Alonzo, it was how much he did in so little time. Okay. Here again, he was 22 or he's just short of 22 when he got killed. And yet he had been brevited to all these different ranks and had earned all these, you know, really honors, not honors and medals and stuff, but, you know, in terms of letters and recommendations and that thing. I mean, here was a guy and it was funny because when he originally came out of West Point, he was, he worked with the fourth Cavalry, but then they moved him over to the, topographical engineering units, which that was really the way to get promoted very quickly. The engineers, the topographical engineers were the guys who surveyed the battlefields and, you know, made recommendations or here's where you should put this person or this group, that group. But he said, no, I want to go back to combat. So he transferred back into the fourth and that was where he ended up getting killed.
Whereas William, here again, he just loved a challenge. You know, just give me somebody to fight. That's that's all I want. That was his personality, for sure. Yeah. And in fact, I think in the book, I even compare him to a a a lion or or I think that was the analogy I gave was, like, he was a lot lion who was running out of prey or something like that. You know, once the war was over, everything was on a peacetime basis.
[01:11:35] Unknown:
So what what can you tell us about, about, Chancellorsville and, and and the Virginia's affair?
[01:11:43] Unknown:
That well, the Virginia's, you're talking about the, now you caught me now. As what? Well, in in talking about their leadership and and, the style of leadership. Well, yeah. Well, in Chancellorsville, I think that was the first battle Alonzo got into. And he was you know, his commander said, hey. This this kid's got it together. You know, he's a natural leader, and he was. The Virginia's affair is now remind me. Sorry. I gotta cheat here. No. Go ahead. No. I mean,
[01:12:23] Unknown:
when you refer to the Virginia's affair, I'm sorry. I'm at a loss on that. Alright. Well, we could just we could go on it from that. But the point I would the point I was trying to get to was, out of those two experiences and and, the type of leadership that that, they both displayed, tough, compassionate, what can what can leaders today, whether it's in military or in everyday life, take away from how they led?
[01:12:46] Unknown:
I think the big thing was well, to me, it it's that they refused to back down. They were upfront. So people would follow them. Okay. Because they were they didn't hang back. I mean, with William, it's kind of interesting because, somebody asked me at one point, do you think he might have been maybe a little sociopathic? I said, well, yeah, that that's not unreasonable to assume because, I mean, he would just stand there while bullets were whizzing around absolutely secure in the in the belief that nothing could hurt him, which can be kind of a deadly thing to do, but also it's certainly inspiring if if your commander is up there taking fire. It's kinda hard to back away.
Alonso, I think, was much more realistic.
[01:13:34] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:13:35] Unknown:
And, you know, if if in the book, I I do talk about his last few moments, and he knows he's dying. He knows it's the end of his life. And so when he's told by one of the officers, look, go back to the hospital, Ted. He says, no. I'm I'm gonna stay here. I think he knew it was, you know, it was useless to even bother trying. So
[01:13:58] Unknown:
do do you think that do you think that their stories still connect with people today? And and and if so, why do you think they still connect?
[01:14:07] Unknown:
I think they do. I've I've gotten some really nice feedback on the book from people who bought it. And on the Amazon, you know, I noticed that it's still actually, it's still doing fairly well for a small press, and I'm not a big name. I'm not, you know, certainly not Bruce Catton or any of those guys. Right. But, I would say it still connects because I tried to bring, here again, the personalities out, who the who these guys were as men, you know, family men, you know, not just military men, but, you know, brothers, sons, that kind of thing. But yeah, a lot of people who have bought the book say, it's not a difficult read and it's a human story and that's, here again, that was the aim of the thing.
To be honest, I was hoping, and I'm still kind of pushing that every once in a while is, this is a book that I think like somebody in a community college or high school could read and get something out of, you know, and in fact, one of the people who gave me a reaction was, Paul Lloyd Hemphill, who I don't know if you know him. But he's I don't know the name. Yeah. He's a big educator and uses the civil war. What's his book? It's called, Inspiration for Teens, where he takes different stories of the civil war, gives a kind of quick capsule view of the person, and then says, here are the lessons that we can draw today from them.
And so he was a big help in this book too.
[01:15:54] Unknown:
Now you you also teach, and, and and you you describe yourself as a libertarian. Yeah. And, my my producer, actually, she she she had mentioned that you you guys had an interesting conversation and used a very interesting phrase. Do you remember what that phrase was? Mhmm. About teaching in a in a, in a liberal society. Oh, the belly of the beast. The belly of the beast. Was like yeah. That that that's And it really is. I mean, I'm in the English department. I mean Oh, yeah. Of course. Much more. You can't get any more of that. Absolutely.
[01:16:24] Unknown:
And it's funny. One of the, just give you this as one of the events that I always loved is, I got an evaluation one time as we do, and the person evaluating me, she came in and it was in my critical thinking class, I'm much more political. In my other classes, I'm not so much. I don't think that that's the place for it. But I think in the critical thinking, yeah, I can but I always introduce and say, look. This is where I'm coming from, just so you know. You don't have to agree with me. You probably won't. That's fine. But just so you understand, this is my perspective. And and so I sort of explain my own way of explaining libertarianism.
And we come out of the class and she says, I'm a little bothered when you brought up, you know, that you're libertarian and explained it and that sort of thing. She says, you're not trying to convert people, are you? I said, no. She She says, well, I just don't want you proselytizing in the classroom. I said, okay. Fine. No. I I don't think I do. I just here's who I am. Here's what I am. And, you know, this is what
[01:17:27] Unknown:
but it's interesting. So you understand. Can I interrupt for one second? But isn't it interesting, though, how how you you as as a libertarian so I I identify myself as, when people ask, a a conservatarian. And Okay. Yeah. You know, so I I I have a combination of both. And I I think the elder I wax, I'm becoming a little bit more on the libertarian side than the conservative side. But, that that's neither here nor there. The I just find it fascinating though that in in that type of setting, a liberal teacher or professor or adjunct can go on rants on Oh. All of the liberal talking points, and nobody will say a word bat an eye. But if you come up there with an alternative view, all of a sudden you're proselytizing
[01:18:10] Unknown:
in the classroom and Yeah. And and the choice of words is very interesting too. Yeah. The end of the story is about two weeks later, the same instructor, I heard her talking to somebody, she says, oh, I had the most wonderful speaker in my class. He was so progressive. And I'm thinking, oh, so as long as I do it by proxy, I'm okay. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. As long as I'm not the one saying it, apparently it's cool, which of course it's not. If I had brought that up, she would have instantly slapped it down. But, yeah, I just find it fun.
It's funny because I think and I understand why people don't like libertarians. I I think we have our fair share of nuts. I I think one of my favorites is is hearing people say I'm a libertarian socialist. I'm like, yeah. You you might as well be a sponge TV then. Yeah. It makes as much sense.
[01:19:05] Unknown:
Yeah. That that that you you there's no way you can put those two things together at all. Yeah. No. You know, conservatism and libertarian, you can you can kinda meld together to a point, but there's no way you could be Yeah. The anarcho libertarians
[01:19:18] Unknown:
I can understand. I say, okay. I understand, but, you know, it's just impractical. I always loved I I believe it was Ginsburg said, to be an an anarchist, one must be very well behaved. And, of course, that's the catch Yes. To the to the belief system. But Of course. So,
[01:19:35] Unknown:
so so in the well, you and you kinda hinted on it a little bit here. How do you handle that dynamic in in the in that progressive academic setting?
[01:19:44] Unknown:
I just well, in the let me say this, in the gentlest way possible about that. Correct. Yeah. I usually, like, I, I kind of give them like one of the things, all right, I think one of the big examples I use.
[01:20:04] Unknown:
Oh, you're here. Okay. Is,
[01:20:07] Unknown:
is the Mustang Ranch. I don't know if you're familiar with that story.
[01:20:12] Unknown:
No, not enlighten you. Educate me. The Mustang Ranch was a,
[01:20:19] Unknown:
of course, prostitution is legal in Nevada and it was a brothel outside of Las Vegas, I assume, I can't remember where it was, but they got in trouble with the IRS and they got in such trouble with the IRS that the government took them over. They said, All right, we're taking everything over. Within six months, the government had to sell it. And I always tell the students, why do you think that happened? Why do you think the government had to sell this place? And they made guess, I say, they were losing money. I said, so these guys can't even run a whorehouse that sells booze Right. To make money. Why would you trust them with anything else? I mean, it was like That is a fantastic point. I'm I'm gonna actually I'm gonna Yeah. So my one of my favorite examples.
The other one I always love is I I give them my grammatical libertarian argument. I say, alright. An adjective is a word that says something about a noun. Whenever you put an adjective up red car, you're saying something about the noun car. Right. Alright. Take the word public, use it as an adjective. Notice that no matter what noun you put it in front of instantaneously degrades in quality the minute you stick the word public before it.
[01:21:35] Unknown:
Yes. Yeah. It makes sense. Transportation, education, restrooms,
[01:21:38] Unknown:
whatever. The only exception I can come up with is public library. Okay. And that's because they are run by the counties or the municipalities. They're not run by somebody in the state capital or national. Yeah. They get federal funds and state funds, but they're
[01:21:54] Unknown:
operated by people who live in the area and know the community and that kind of thing. Yeah. No. I I know what you're saying. Yeah. For sure. I I I am the I'm the type of person that I I firmly believe that, much like the founding generation believed, that the general government's activities should have pretty much no effect Yeah. On my everyday life. And, the as a matter of fact, the and I and I say this regularly, the only thing that I want the government to do is what it was designed to do, and that's to protect my right to do for myself. You know, and take care of myself, my family. That that's that's all I need to do is protect my rights.
[01:22:29] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. And it's it is funny because that's one of the things I I say. In fact, kind of a joke I had, wasn't that much of a joke, was when we had the thing with Iraq going on and they started reforming the nation. And I remember the big issue came out as well. What should we do as far as a constitution for Iraq? And I said, well, why don't we give it Mars? Because we haven't used it in years. Yeah. So Valid point. Clearly not using it.
[01:22:58] Unknown:
Very valid point. So looking at the political landscape that we're in today, what do you see any parallels between those ideological divides that,
[01:23:09] Unknown:
in the civil war period and the ones that were never going through today? I, you know, I do see them on occasion. I'm thinking, oh, god. I hope not. I mean, you know but, I mean, look, let's be real. You hear I mean, I I love who was it the other day? Jasmine Crockett ranting about we're gonna stop being peaceful, because you have such a wonderful record on that. I mean, I believe it was Biden who says we got to put a target on this guy or we got to take him out or whatever it was. Like, come on. Yeah. I mean, and I think this is what turned me off of the major party. I mean, I was Republican for years. It just became too much like a team sport.
And I'm like, you know, I gotta be faithful to my team no matter what. It's like, no. I mean,
[01:24:00] Unknown:
it's always, you know Hey. Look. I I understand I understand when, you know, people say you gotta vote down ticket. You gotta do all you know, get Yeah. Stay save the party line. I I get that. I understand it. One second. I am wrapped up in my mic cable down here. I'm wondering what I'm struggling with. The, and you know, you vote down ballot. You make sure everything's you know, all your ducks in a row and whatnot. I I understand the the idea behind that and the concept. I don't agree with it necessarily, because I think you need to vote your conscience. You can't you you you have to look at the candidates individually and and Yeah. And, you know, unfortunately to say that the Republican party I've been a Republican registered Republican since, when the Reagan was my first Okay. My first election.
But I've been a registered Republican since then. And Yeah. One of the things I like about Texas is that you don't have to put a party designation on your, Oh, okay. On your registration. So, good. But, the Republican party, even from where Iowa in in 1987 or so to to where it is now, it is completely way off of what it was. Mhmm. And I am very sure that the Republican Party of today is way off than it was when it was founded,
[01:25:18] Unknown:
in the civil war. '60. Yeah. Yeah. Or '18 actually, I guess, 1856 would be the first.
[01:25:24] Unknown:
I think so. Yeah. Was actually the first Republican nominee, I believe. Yes. So so it it it's it's changed into this and then we have a uni party system. We we all know that. We understand that that it's it's two ends of the same beast. And, you know, and and it's disturbing to see that because, you know, you know, they they they all pitch well, like the Republicans because maybe because I I lean more conservative and and the libertarian cause, cause. They they pitch more to you to me anyway because, you know, I it they talk about those things that I find valuable. Individual liberties and personal responsibility and and and all that great stuff and and, you know, but in the they you only hear them doing that during election cycles. During the campaign. Yeah. And then after that, it's like right back to business as usual. You know, all this all those swamp critters come creeping out and and start making
[01:26:16] Unknown:
I actually ran for the house back in 2010 because the party called me and said, look, we know we're not going to win, but we just like to have somebody out there That's coming. Representing the belief. And it was fun, because I did get to do what I'd always hoped to do, which was go after Adam Schiff in a debate. Nice. And I am proud to say I embarrassed the hell out of him.
[01:26:40] Unknown:
Well, I I I would like to see that though. Do you is there a link to that somewhere that or someone you can send me? No. I got a CD of it. I should post something. But at the end of the debate, because
[01:26:50] Unknown:
I was just he was always back then, oh, I'm a blue dog. I'm a blue dog. I'm a blue dog. And and I was like, no, you're not. Come on. Stop that. And at the end of the debate, when we did the wrap up, he got to speak first and I got to speak after him. And it was couldn't have been better timing because he ends up his pitch with, well, you know, I'm proud to be a Blue Dog Democrat. And that was basically how he wrapped up. As soon as they came to me, I said, well, if mister was a Blue Dog Democrat, I'm Ray Lewis. And the whole place cracked up.
But in fact, the next day I was out and about, and the Republican's campaign manager saw me and pulled over and went and got something to eat. And He said, man, I told my boss if I wasn't working for him, I would be voting for you.
[01:27:38] Unknown:
You should have seen how upset he was. I was like, good. He should be. You know, the the guy's a fraud. That's great. That's great. But that but that's the whole thing with with with, campaigns too. I mean, I've never run for office, but, you know, I I know people that Oh, the newspapers love talking to me because I didn't hold back. And at one point, one of the guys says, why do you feel such freedom? I said, because I'm not gonna win. I don't care. Yeah. But that's a great that's a great sound bite though. No matter regardless, that's a great sound bite. Yeah. Because it's it's it's the truth. Because because they they they project themselves as one way, when in actuality, they're just gonna flip around to the other way. So, just wanna get back to you get back get back to the Cushings here really quick.
So, how does your outlook shape the way you write about and teach about figures like the Cushing's?
[01:28:25] Unknown:
Well, I it's funny. I did not go back to school until I was 35.
[01:28:29] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:28:30] Unknown:
And originally I was going to be a history major. Actually, I was hoping to major in Soviet Russian history because, oh, I was a cold war baby. I served during the cold war. Yeah, I grew up that's, And I find the Russians Thank you for your service. No. Thanks. But,
[01:28:49] Unknown:
I'm gonna interrupt you a second. Is it true that that most military, folks don't like to be thanked for their service?
[01:28:57] Unknown:
It's I guess I think well, I always like to say, normally if oh, but we're going live, but I might as well say it now. Well, if you call what I did serving, you're welcome. But, I was very lucky, though. I I, you know, I I served in the Atlantic fleet. I didn't go near Vietnam, which was sort of the intent, actually. Okay. But, I was mostly around Cuba just chasing Soviet ships around the place. And, you know, here again, I I always like to say, look. Not to say it didn't get tense once in a while, but I never really encountered what you would call battle. I gotcha. Yeah. I was lucky in that regard.
I think, yeah, I think a lot of us are, but we also I think I appreciate I mean, here again, when I went in, I remember, you know, this girl that I grew up with, I've known her since we were, I don't know, 12 or 13. As soon as she found out I enlisted, she says, oh, you wanna kill babies? I said, where the hell did you get that from?
[01:30:04] Unknown:
The the the liberal talking points never never change Yeah. Ever change. That's up. Oh, you're gonna go out and kill babies, but yet we'll kill them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really. Yeah. So you're you're you're you're you're taking our job away.
[01:30:16] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:30:19] Unknown:
And the reason why I asked the question, and again, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but the reason why I asked the question is because the, I I had spoken to somebody and and I asked him the same question. It wasn't in a show or anything, it was just a conversation outside the show. And he just looked at me. He goes, yeah. Let let me let me say thank you for bringing up the memories of me seeing one of my best friends get blown to pieces. Thank you for bringing up the memory of this, that, and the other thing. I was lucky in that I didn't have to endure that. But Yeah. No. I know. And that's that's why that's why sometime I I hesitate Yeah. To to say that, but, you know, and I figured we I could ask you.
You're you're a teacher, so I I get, you know, I get to ask the teachers some questions. But I
[01:30:58] Unknown:
let me put it this way. It's taken me years to learn how to take compliments anyway.
[01:31:03] Unknown:
Yeah. I I'm I'm still terrible at taking compliments. So Yeah. So,
[01:31:07] Unknown:
yeah, I always feel like, well, it's not that big a deal. Anything I've done is, you know, they're my accomplishments, and I'm glad I did them. But, you know, it's not like I'm changing the world or anything. I'm I'm not
[01:31:20] Unknown:
Albert Schweitzer or anything like that. Alright. I get you, though. So let me ask you. So when when you're teaching critical thinking, right, how do you how do you how do the students respond to the ideas of of of of duty and courage and and patriotism? And I don't really bring that
[01:31:37] Unknown:
much of that into it. What I bring into is basically let's go in with a little skepticism, whatever you hear. Okay. The centerpiece of my critical thinking class is, Orwell's essay, Politics in English Language. And I don't know if you've ever read it. I've not I I know of it. I've read portions of it, but I'd never read it cover to cover. Well, I tell the students upfront, we are gonna get into this in such detail. You're gonna be sick of it by the time we get done. I I devote at least three classes just to that essay and we tear it apart. Why did he choose this word instead of that word, which he could have used? Or, you know, what does he mean when he says this or that? And the other thing. I think it, and it's really interesting because I hadn't even thought of it until when I started teaching. I read an article that somebody had written and said, it used to be you didn't get out of school without reading that essay. And now it's hardly ever taught. I'm like, yeah, you're right.
[01:32:39] Unknown:
So so I've made it sort of the centerpiece of that class. Yeah. There there's a lot of things that are not taught anymore in in Yeah. In the public school system. And and also in in a lot of cases, the private school system as well. Yeah. Just as just as an example, I I do on Sundays, I I do a Bible study class. Alright. Bible study show. I'm sorry. Class. I don't know what I'm thinking. I do a Bible study show on Sundays, and I kinda deviated from the traditional Bible study, and I've been teaching on America's Christian heritage.
[01:33:10] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:33:10] Unknown:
And, started I started with, with Governor Bradford coming on over here, and, and and what I found what I found to be fascinating is is I went to sources that were close historians that were close to the actual events. Okay. And time. Yeah. Yeah. And the reason why I did that was because you're you're getting an unbiased, no spin to it. You're just getting the facts of the story of the situation. And you're also getting the more immediate reaction. Exactly. Exactly my point. So so you're getting quotes that these men may have actually heard themselves, you know Yeah. Not passed down, went and changed, and modified. Yeah. And and, you know, and I I say dumbed down for today's generation. But, and to go back to the founding fathers, their their actual letters and their diaries
[01:34:01] Unknown:
and reading from those things and talking about those things Yeah. Well, that's yeah. To know how these men were actually Well, for instance, I and a a real good example, I think, is is remember when, Keith Ellison made a big deal about taking his oath of office on Jefferson's Koran Yeah. And say, oh, look. You know, this is this guy was much more tolerant than we are. Well, the reason he had the Koran was to study his enemy. Mhmm. He was trying to figure out The Barbary pirates. Yeah. Pirates.
[01:34:27] Unknown:
You know, I gotta understand the guy I'm going against. So it's not that he admired them. Right. I have I have a lot of books on my bookshelf in the other room that of people that I don't particularly care for. Care for these guys. You know, but but I I I'm curious as to their mindset and what they were thinking and how to how to dispute that. You know, you gotta you gotta understand what your what what the opponents is is thinking in order to refute their argument. I tell all my classes, actually, any writing class, I said, look, you cannot look at American writing, even today,
[01:35:00] Unknown:
even the most revolutionary, radical, whatever, without understanding the Puritans. You got to go back to them. Yeah. Because they still have the influence over what we're doing today. Whether we like to admit it or not, they're they're there. No. I I agree with you. I absolutely agree with you.
[01:35:18] Unknown:
Now you you not only have you written books about history and and and particularly family history, but you've also written poetry?
[01:35:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's really sort of my shtick more than anything else. I guess I got five poetry books. I mean, all small press books, but Yeah. Yeah. But they're still they're still it's your creation. I've been happy with them. Yeah. It's it's been a fun and that's funny because if you had told me, like, five years before I started school that I'd be writing poetry, I said, you're nuts. That ain't happening. And then You've also written memoirs. Correct? Well, I wrote a, it's called Time Well Spent. It's basically a series of stories about my own life. Okay. So it's not a memoir in that it's, you know, once upon a time and here's what happened. It's more, alright. In this year, this happened, in that year. In the book, I I call I see these are more barstool part stories. Yeah. Yeah. I get you. I tell people.
[01:36:14] Unknown:
I have a very similar I have a very similar experience myself. I actually, I have an outline that I have sealed, I mailed it to myself, you know, before before I knew how to, you know, go through copyrights and now that stuff. So Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I did. I wrote this outline out and I sealed it up and I and I put it into an envelope and I mailed it to myself. Yeah. That's right. So I had to stamp and everything on it. And so I have it all I have all that put away. And it basically it's an outline for my career, when I was working for New York City and I called it, you know, Why I Wake Up Screaming My Years Working for New York City.
That's great. And and each and each chapter of the book is about some significant incident or person that I've come across in my career. Okay. So I'm actually
[01:36:56] Unknown:
I do have one memoir coming out. I hope by the end of this month, I'm waiting for the physical copy to come in so I can take one more look at it. I mean, I've looked at the, the PDF stuff and all that, but I wanna, I told them, I said, look, I wanna get one enhanced so I can see that everything, you know, the pages fall right and all that stuff. Right. Yeah. Which is actually my previous marriage. My wife died of cancer. And so I wrote this book about dealing with that. It's, it's more from the point of view of, if you're a caregiver for somebody with terminal illness, this is kind of the stuff you're going to go through.
I do have, it's funny, I did write a memoir about my own time in the Navy and then later on working on ships because when I got out, I ended up still working on oil tankers mostly, but you know, whatever. Because I have a writing group that I organized, and one of the women in the group goes, how does a guy go from being a shipyard electrician to being an English professor? I said, well, that's a funny story.
[01:37:57] Unknown:
So So I just started writing it. A funny thing happened on the way to becoming a professor. Yeah.
[01:38:02] Unknown:
But by the time I get done, now memoirs typically are 60,000 to 80,000 words. I had 155,000 words. Oh, wow. So I'm going out and what I'm doing first is I'm pulling chapters out that I think can stand on their own and, you know, then I'll just fill in the gaps a little bit and then I'm going to go through and I'm just going to start cutting the fat off the thing and try and get it down to if I can even get it to 90,000, I'd be happy with that. And, then hopefully send that out and, you know, get that done. So that's but I also write a lot of stuff based on history. For example, my late wife was Puerto Rican, so I spent several years down there.
And there's a piece of Puerto Rican history that I would love to write about. The problem is I'd need to get I've done some research, but it's very sparse. I'd really need to go down there and look at some of the old Spanish official documents. I see. Read those. It's basically they had a revolution against the Spanish empire in the 1800s that are incredibly parallel to our own revolution. Really? The only differences are succeeded. Theirs didn't. Right. And, and it's a fascinating piece of history. And there's even a lot of Puerto Ricans who aren't aware of it because they really don't teach it that much. There's a piece, my wife now is Peruvian, so obviously I have a type. Yes.
[01:39:33] Unknown:
Well, I'm glad you said it. I was thinking it. So Yeah.
[01:39:37] Unknown:
Well, you know, it's funny, my wife now, somebody said, well, she looks a lot like Anna. I said, you know, you're right. I mean, she's taller. She's a little paler in complexion and a little thinner, but, yeah, you know, the basic facial structures. But at any rate, but, she had told me about a piece of Peruvian history that and I've got to get it done this month. I'm tired of it. I've been trying to fill it in, but I've contacted the consulate. They couldn't help me. I've contacted the city where this event happened. I've gotten no response at all. So I think I'm just going to have to fill it in the best I can with my own best guess. But it's a very interesting, it was a, this small town in the northern part of the country was hit with a earthquake, a tsunami, and a mountain slide all in one day. Just completely wiped the town out for the most part. I mean, very few people survived. Like a chain reaction?
Yeah. It's just one I mean, talk about a bad day. Geez. Good night. Yeah. So that's when I'm right now, that'll be a short story, obviously, but it'll be based on history. I wrote one of the short stories that I'm really proud of is, is it's called Memorial Day and it's about, it's based on one of the crew members of the Enola Gay and, you know, just dealing with the, here again, the PTSD of that. Wow. So, and I wrote, well, I've written a short story about the, Trojan War, but here again, what I did there was took it from the point of view of the grunts, you know, not the kings and the generals and the gods and all that. I was like, no. How about the poor schmuck who had to fight? Yeah. Yeah. The guy had to to stomp over dead bodies everywhere.
Yeah. Yeah. That's basically what it is.
[01:41:28] Unknown:
That's interesting.
[01:41:29] Unknown:
So, yeah, I I do try and put history even into my fiction a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and also about history, I did you reminded me of something
[01:41:38] Unknown:
as well as, and I and I talk about this regularly also, is that what I I I fell in love with history
[01:41:46] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:41:48] Unknown:
In college. I had one professor I had one professor who who changed my whole perspective and and made me realize, you know what? History is really exciting. Yeah. When you when you really look at it, it's not just dates and this happened then and this happened then and this is what happened. No. There's a lot behind it. And what he would do is he would he would come into the auditorium that the that the class would be in, and he would get up on that platform. He had no notes. Mhmm. He had he had nothing. Everything he did was from memory. Yeah. But not only that, but he would literally act out Yeah. The scenes on the stage. He'd be he'd be cranking the catapults back and he'd be, you know, shooting the long bows and and swinging the sword and jumping over things, and and he wasn't a young guy either, you know? Yeah. So and he was doing all this stuff. And I watched this guy. I was like, you know, the whole guy really into this stuff. I was like, this guy's this guy's freaking nuts.
[01:42:44] Unknown:
You know, it's funny when I teach now, I tell students, I say, you know, how many people just don't like history? And a lot of them will raise their hands. And I say, why is that? Well, because history is boring. I say, no. History is not boring. History teachers, on the other hand That's it. That's exactly boring. That's exactly right. But I was lucky. I had ever since fifth grade, I've had really I only had one bad history teacher my whole life. Mhmm. And that was my senior year. And by then, I was old enough to realize, yeah, it's him. It's not the material. So Oh, yeah. I I agree with you. It it the whole the it's the teacher that brings life to the subject. And But I gotta tell you this. You reminded me this. I I took Latin in in high school, and we had one of my early Latin teachers and he was really into it. I mean, he was so and like this guy, he would be on the chariot on the desk and stuff like that. I remember one time we came out of class as we were going into the class and the class that was coming out, one of the guys said to one of the people coming into our class, ask him about the crucifixions.
And that took on the whole class. I mean, you went to the whole routine of how, you know, what's depicted in the Church is completely inaccurate because of this, that, the other thing. And he was and it's funny, I always remember because I had him in seventh and eighth grade and I was at Episcopal school then. And, the whole time I had him in eighth grade, he was like, oh yeah, and you'll read this in my book next year.' And And we're all there like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sure. The next year I transferred, I went to the military school I went to because, you know, that's military family. I knew I was going to military school. Right. What was in Pennsylvania? Now I went to St. Paul's in Garden City. So I was out on the island. Now, Valley Forge, where I went to high school is in, you know, by Germantown, that area in Pennsylvania, 13 miles outside of Philly.
We get in for the first day of my Latin class and the guy gets in there, the teacher, and says, he says, yeah, we got a brand new textbook for this class. You're really going to like it. This guy really knows what he's doing. He holds it up and it's Bruce McGill. I'm like, oh my God, he was right. Not only had he written the book, you know, for one year, it was now being used in different states. That's amazing. That that's amazing. Although, I I never brought that up to the teacher. I'm like, yeah. If I bring that up, he's gonna expect a lot out of me. Oh, I know that guy. Oh, really?
[01:45:14] Unknown:
No. I I kept my mouth shut. Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. I would too. I would too. But but it's so true though. I mean, it's the it's the teacher that brings life to the to the subject and I had, I had a really good one.
[01:45:25] Unknown:
I went to community college when I started. And here again, I had initially started as a history major. So this one guy I took, I don't know, five or so, I even did an independent study with him, even though I knew by that time I was switching out of history into English just because I admire the guy so much. But one of my favorite stories is I'm cutting across campus, going to his class and some guy comes up running up to me and goes, oh, you go into the student center. I said, no. Why? He says, oh, they got a folk singer today. I said, yeah, well, I'm going to Joe Sasser's class. Yeah, why don't you cut it and, you know, go to I said, look, anybody can sing folk music. Very few people can lecture like Joe Sasser. Okay. So Nice. And I got a strange look off that one. Oh, yeah. I'm sure I'm sure. This guy talk about history than listen to some guy whine about life. Well, before before we got off on this tangent here,
[01:46:17] Unknown:
you were starting to talk a little bit about how about, you know, needing to research things and do prep work for for for stuff for for upcoming projects. So what what is the research process like for you?
[01:46:28] Unknown:
To me, it's the most fun. Actually, I love research. And so I read as much as I can, and then I pull out what I think is going to be most interesting and most valuable to me. So it's not like, yeah, I'm not trying to learn everything that's there. I'm just saying, okay, this is a really good nugget. I need to use this, or I need to use that. So that's what yeah. That's what my research really is. It's not trying to get down every iota of information that's there. It's alright. This would be interesting to bring up, you know, or to dive into even deeper.
[01:47:06] Unknown:
Now in in in in relation to heroic brothers Mhmm. Were there any, like, sup like, surprising discoveries that that changed how you saw Alonzo and William?
[01:47:16] Unknown:
I think Alonzo because I knew the least about him Okay. Was the most surprising because I say I sort of grown up with stories about William. Last time I was named after him, so my father was always telling me this stuff. So I knew he was a real wild hare. And then when I started researching Alonzo more and more, I was like, oh, boy, this guy is like completely different from, you know, his brother. You know, very steadfast, very, you know, devoted to this is the aim, doesn't matter what it is. Whereas William, if I don't see any practical use to this, I'm not going to bother, which might be one of the it's funny because somebody once asked me when the book came out, I said, well, do you share any of the qualities of William? I said, well, maybe the penchant for getting in trouble, but other than that, you know, I wouldn't compare myself.
But also, yeah, I think I'm one of those that if I see no practical end to something, it's like, okay, fine. That's interesting, but I'm not gonna store it for future use. Yeah. Is there is there any one particular story or moment from their hit from from their lives that just sticks with you? Well, there's one, and it it didn't make it in the book because, like I say, I couldn't verify it, but it it does seem to be in character. William, apparently at about 15 or 16, was going out with some girl and he went to see her. And according to the story, and when I say I couldn't put it in the book because I just didn't feel comfortable not being able to verify it. Although this is one of those things that's going to be hard to verify, but supposedly he rode his horse into the house.
And I'm thinking, can you just imagine some guy walks out and there's some clown on a horse in his living room, like, where's your daughter? Yes. It's like, I'm sure that just pleased the old man to no end. Well, I'm sure it got his attention, though. Yeah. But I said, yeah, that's kind of the way he was. I it wouldn't surprise me if that was true. I think, yeah, some of the other stuff like well, one of the stories I did put in there that I wasn't aware of, and I thought this was really funny. When he was at Annapolis, he was the guidon for the company while they were drilling.
And the guy who was the commander of the unit when they were marching was a stutterer. And he couldn't get the command to wheel right or wheel left, whatever it was, whichever way. But if you've ever seen Annapolis, it's right on the water, it's right on the Chesapeake. And there's some serious bends in there. Well, the guy couldn't get the command out to wheel to the one side or the other to avoid, you know, to stay on the road. And William just marched him right into the water. And then, yeah, when they started yelling at him, he goes, well, I never got the command. I'm just following orders here.
[01:50:07] Unknown:
Well, one thing about William though is, that that I've discovered is that, he he he's he's had a he's had a lot of really innovative moves over his career. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and such a they're so much so that they actually named five navy ships after him. Navy surface vessels. Yeah. Right. Now now and and I'm thinking about specifically the the sinking of the the Albemarle. Right? Yeah. How did that how did that change
[01:50:41] Unknown:
naval warfare? How how did his approach to that change naval warfare? It's one of the things I try and bring up. And in fact, his section is called called The First Seal because he really was sort of that kind of guy that he preferred a small independent group, he ran the show, this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it, he didn't, you know, he But it was one of those cases where even, like I say, even when he got back in the Navy and started moving up the ranks, he still wouldn't really listen to orders very well. If he didn't think that it was a good idea, he had no problem disobeying it.
But the Navy also said, yeah, but, and there were many times that the high command of the Navy would try and get him in trouble. But then the next day, the news went, oh, look what this guy did. This is one of our great warriors. So what could they do politically? They really couldn't touch him because everything he did seemed to succeed fairly well. So they basically said, look, just let us know what you're going to be up to. You know, we can't control you. At the very least, we just want to know what's going on. But when the Albemarle showed up, they said, we need somebody who is audacious, innovative, and dedicated. And they said, well, this guy, as much as we hate him, he's the guy to go to.
Not that they hated him, but they sure didn't like him. Because you got to remember too, at this time, and I bring this up in the book, the service academies were very much cliquish. You had to come from the right family and you had to and really even the Cushing brothers did have connections, they had political connections, But William was not going to toe the line as, you know, how he should behave and how he should act and that kind of thing. So, yeah, he kind of upset that people were like, well, this is not how an officer is supposed to behave. And His feeling was no. An officer is supposed to lead. That's what I'm doing. I'm leading. Right. Yeah. So
[01:52:36] Unknown:
Now, for folks that really don't know too much about the civil war, what do you hope to take take away from, the Cushing story?
[01:52:46] Unknown:
I think an appreciation for what and and here again, these guys, even though they were officers, they were lower ranking officers. I mean, William, alright, he was a commander at the end of his life and the youngest commander there was, but they weren't like admirals or generals or anything like that. It's and I think that's really where the work gets done more often than not. It's either the well, in in the Navy, I I always love the, you know, the joke about the young officer asked the chief. He says, if a chief can become an officer, why can't an officer become a chief? And he says, because we have standards. That's good. I like that. Yeah. Usually, those enlisted guys, especially the higher up, they're the ones who get the stuff done more than anything else. And William here again, even though he was an officer, I think he earned it. He was one of those guys who could adapt to the situation, you know, turn what might have been a negative situation into a positive and just refuse to give up. So I think that's one of the things that really I hope comes out in this book is that, yeah, these guys, they were innovative, they were smart, they were dedicated.
They weren't the big names. You look at Gettysburg Longstreet and Lee and, of course, Pickett and those guys or, or, Street and Lee and, of course, Pickett and those guys are or, you know, on the union side, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Those those people. But, so but yeah, a lot of the, lot of the really brave stuff was done by these lower ranking guys.
[01:54:29] Unknown:
So do you have any other historical figures in your family,
[01:54:32] Unknown:
that you're looking to dive into? Actually, one I do love bringing up, and I, I love bringing this up in the, in my classes on occasion too. Trivia question, do you know who was the first Supreme Court Justice who said that slavery is incompatible with the Constitution? And it was William O. Cushing, who was one of the Supreme Court justices under Washington. Nice. Now he didn't say it when he was on the Supreme Court. It was when he was a, you know, a justice in in Massachusetts. Right. But he said, yeah. There's no way. The slavery cannot exist and this constitution at the same time. It just doesn't work.
So I always liked that one. I am related to Harvey Cushing. I don't know if you're familiar with him, the doctor who is a neurosurgeon, if you've ever heard of Cushing's syndrome. Oh yeah, actually I have. Yeah. Yeah. That's him. He was the one who isolated that. In fact, it's funny because one of my wife's best friends is married to an infectious disease guy. And as soon as he met me, he goes, are you in a relation to Harvey? I said, yeah. Actually, I am. You know, he's an uncle Oh, that sounds great. But, yeah, we are related. That's wild.
[01:55:43] Unknown:
Alright. So so so just kind of a fun question that I had for you, and and and Okay. See where it goes. So if, if you could sit down with, you know, either Alonzo or William for a cup of coffee someplace,
[01:55:57] Unknown:
which one of the point, William. No hesitation.
[01:56:00] Unknown:
So you you knew where I was going already. That's hear the stories that I don't know. That's great.
[01:56:05] Unknown:
I admire Alonzo. You gotta love William though because the guy was just such a wild hair. I mean, I don't know if you got a chance to read the book. It sounds like you did get a chance. I got I read through most of it, to be honest with you. Okay. But the the scene where he goes to kidnap the the Confederate general Yes. I don't know if you're you're just so short. I I I I don't think I've read that Okay. But in such detail. When he got to the house, the general was not there. He put it he took his calling card and wrote a note, you know, came to visit. You weren't at home. Maybe next time.
And left it on the guy's dining room table. I'll tell you. He did kidnap his adjutant.
[01:56:42] Unknown:
You know, you know, men were a different different breed back then. There was there was just there was just something about that. It's it's it's almost like, during the, when when Washington crossed the Potomac Yeah. Into New Jersey, the the the the Hessian army that was there, they were too they were busy celebrating Christmas. Yeah. So they were too drunk to fight. They had no idea what was coming. Yeah. Which was a brilliant tactical Right. And and the, the the the the Hessian general, basically just just threw his hands up and said, well, there's nothing I can do about it now. That was, you know, it's it's in your hands. Yeah. There was just something about the it's it's a different I think it's
[01:57:28] Unknown:
it's a whole different thing now, and I'm not saying that just as an old farthest here, I was like, my uncle, my father's brother-in-law is my uncle, by marriage, obviously, but he was Army Intelligence during World War II. And he once said, when this whole issue of waterboarding and all that came up, he said, look, I interrogated a number of German officers, and I got more out of them with a cigar and a game of chess than any other question. But even he admitted, he says, yeah, but it's a different,
[01:58:03] Unknown:
it was a different mindset. Yeah. It's a totally different world now.
[01:58:07] Unknown:
Yeah. The military, you know, even the German military, they were for the most part professionals unless you get off into the the nutso versions. But for the most part I in fact, just as a one of the things I don't know if you ever saw the Greyhounds, the movie that Tom Hanks made about World War two. Yes. Actually, I have not. And the convoy. Okay. I didn't like the movie. And the reason I didn't like it was they made the u boat captain such a cartoonish villain. I agree with you. Yeah. And I was like, no. I I I was picturing snidely whiplash, you know, twirling his mustache. I'm like, no. No u boat commander is gonna give away his position by taunting the enemy. No. He's gonna come after you. I was like, yeah. And that's where I just, you know, it was good up to that point. I was just like, no. This is a joke. I'm sorry. Yeah. I I agree I agree with you on that one. So we we I guess we give it a both to give it a thumbs down. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately. I mean, I appreciated what he tried to do, you know, and all that. But to me, I well, to me, the two best naval movies are Das Boot Oh, that was a great movie. German movie about the u boats and the, and the Master and Commander.
[01:59:22] Unknown:
Oh, that was a fantastic movie. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that was such a good movie. I do like Tora, Tora, Tora, but that's more general history. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. But but I'll I'll tell you that, Master and Commander, I I I've watched that movie. I don't know how many times and it always it I it just always catches, you know, there's always something different that I didn't catch the first time.
[01:59:41] Unknown:
And what I like too, that well, I well, the movie had no impetus beyond this, but I don't know if you heard there's now a move to try and restore the ranks of Kimmel and Short who were demoted after that. Really? Because, yeah, they said, look, I mean, you know, the guys are both dead now, not that it matters in terms of reality, but this is yeah. They they were patsies. They they were basically, you know, yeah. They got caught in a bad situation. They didn't have a good intel. You know, so to demote them was kind of it it was a dishonor. Yeah. Maybe we should put that star back on there Yeah. And give it back to them. But, Alright, Bill. So Yeah. Where can the audience find your book and connect with you more? Well, I'm, they are on Amazon, but, I can certainly I the the PiscesPoet at Yahoo email address is one of the best. So that's the, here again, the astrological sign and P I S C E S P O E T and it's Yahoo. So if anybody wants a signed copy, yeah, we can work out a deal and, you know, we'll split the postage or something. That sounds great. And I think we have I think I have all your your website information, all that stuff in the show notes already, so Yeah. My website also will get get to me.
But, yeah. And and here again, I've got the collection of short stories. I've got the, the, the memories and, and that, yeah, that time well spent, I really enjoyed putting that together. And it really starts, I don't know, did you get a chance? I think I, did I send that to you guys? The only one I had was was the, the heroic brothers. Oh, okay. Okay. Because I think Angela said she read the first story in the time well spent. I don't think she sent me that one. I had to go back into the emails, but I Okay. But that starts when I'm a baby and then it ends with my own son who, you know, when he was a young child and I have a son now who's very disabled and one of the funniest stories ever was with him.
Well, I'll tell you. They basically start with, and these are, they're stories that, you know, do have a punchline at the end. You know, I like to think. None of them are very the only serious one is a, one that's called Memories of Mark. It's a Polish guy I worked with when I was on ships who spoke very little English, and I spoke absolutely no Polish. But we were able to connect by Shakespeare,
[02:02:05] Unknown:
basically. It was an interesting relationship. That is interesting. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Could be could be worse things to connect over. Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
[02:02:14] Unknown:
But the rest of them, like, the one is called the day I didn't get fired and, you know,
[02:02:20] Unknown:
That's a good one. Yeah. Every day you don't get fired is a good day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a specific and that's one of the reasons why I'm I'm sure there's a specific reason for it, but I totally get you. Alright, Bill. We gotta say goodbye. Anyhow, thanks so much for giving me the time. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. God bless you. I love the book. It's from what I read so of it so far. I'm looking forward to finishing up. And, and definitely we'll be in touch with you, and, I'll shoot you an email later on. Yeah. If I didn't if I if you didn't get the I thought I had sent that one, but if you if you didn't get it, let me know. I'll send you a copy of it. Oh, that'd be great. I appreciate it. Yeah. Alright. Bill Cushing, thank you so much for being with us tonight, and, God bless you. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.
Thanks a lot. Alright. Okay, folks. So this is the Joe Russo. It is 2105Hours. We're gonna take our second break here and then come back and then wrap this whole baby up for the night. And, hopefully, we'll try to refresh our feet here because the video quality looks like crap. So, we'll, we'll be back right after this. Don't forget this is a live show weeknight 7PM central time, Saturdays at 3PM, Sundays at 6PM. And, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, your family, and your followers. That way you'll help us to spread this thing around and, and get more traction here. Alright. We'll be back right after this. You stay with us.
[02:06:15] Unknown:
Up and down, counting out, Smiling through the taste of blood in my own mouth. I got bruises and broken bones, I'm a runnin' hide her I was born to be too dire A naked rider Don't throw that towel just yet Don't up. That's what I do. I didn't soldier on this far. Just
[02:08:25] Unknown:
harder.
[02:09:06] Unknown:
Alrighty. Hey there, folks. We are back. This is Joe Roos. It is great to be with you. Second hour's in the books. A little problem there. Not sure what's going on. All I know is that I cannot see myself and that's okay, maybe it's not meant to be seen. Oh, there we go. Alright. Bill Cushing, folks. What do you think? Good stuff. Good stuff. Good stuff. Alright. So, when we have quality issues like we're having right now, and you're looking at the screen, it look like a blob of color up there. Just makes me wanna just stay and just do audio only podcast. This is so aggravating. It's unbelievable.
And if I am gonna do that, then I need to tell you about Podhome. Podhome.fm is the most modern and easy to use podcast hosting platform that's out there today. Use it to publish your episodes, enhance your audio, and automatically generate transcripts, titles, chapters, show notes, and more. You can even podcast live through your website on the media player that they provide to you. You can also get your own website through Pod Home. Even if you have your own domain name, you can just transfer it over to Pod Home, and it will work there just as beautifully as if you were with one of the big names.
So try them out. Podhome.fm. You get all of this for one affordable subscription of $15.99 a month. That's $15.99 a month. Just go to podhome.fm to try it out for free for thirty days, and then it's $15.99 a month. Check them out at podhome.fm. That's podhome.fm. Alright. How about we do some announcements here? I got a few things to mention. So, don't forget our programming announcements email list. I'd love for you guys to try that out. It's really important to us trying to build this whole email list and keep this thing going. It's free to use. You could just sign up for it. It'll pop up up up on the website, or you can click the link in the contact section and sign up for it. It's, again, it's free, which means it don't cost you nothing. And then on top of that, you know, we don't sell your information. We don't share your information. Everything stays right here with us, and we're only gonna send you information about programming, about the show itself as far as are we going to be running late, are we starting early, or is is there gonna be a cancellation, any guests.
Whatever that is that has to do with programming, that's what we're gonna send to you, and that's all we're gonna send to you. It's not gonna be anything crazy. We're not gonna sell you stuff. We're not gonna send you constant emails trying to pitch things to you. We're only gonna be talking about programming. So sign up for the programming announcements email list on our websites joeroos.com/contact. Click that button and get yourself signed up. And as as far as I know, is that I haven't checked my website in a in a couple of days. So hopefully, it's still working. But, if you go to the website and you click that thing, you're gonna see, a little pop up on the home screen. Just fill it out. +1, 23.
Super, super easy. Alright. So now tomorrow, Thursday, no show tomorrow. Just wanna remind you of that. So no show tomorrow. We'll be back here Friday night at 7PM. And then, then our sun our Saturday show, at 3PM, and then our Sunday show at six. Alright? Also, don't forget to check us out on our socials at, Twitter is at Joe Roos, truth social, Joe Roos. Mine's at Joe Roos. Facebook is Joe Ruz Podcast. Instagram is not Joe Ruz. TikTok is joe dot ruz. And Gettr, we're back on Gettr. So, check us out there, Joe Ruz as well. And we're we're working on trying to get to livestream through, Gettr as well. So that should we're working on that.
Alright. Give our shout outs here to our executive producers, Wayne Rankin, Rosanna Rankin, our executive producer Bacon, executive executive producer Marissa Lee, who you met tonight, And, of course, our producer, anonymous Angela, who does fantastic amazing work for us, and we're really thankful for all of our producing staff. They are great. And as a matter of fact, I emailed them something today that, our little podcast here, believe it or not, for all the flaws that there are that's that's the beautiful thing about doing audio podcast also is because nobody sees the little mistakes. They just, you know, think everything's moving along just fine. We are the number one podcast in the news commentaries, for the for the week, the month, and for, independent podcasts on the Goodpods platform. So head over there to check it out. That's goodpods.com slash the joe roo show, and find us there. Follow us there too. That's a good good little platform to be on. We we enjoy being part of that, and it's a lot of fun as well.
Also, don't forget, if you'd like to help us out with a donation in any amount, you can, do that by clicking the support button on our website. You can do a one time donation in any amount. You can do a recurring donation in any amount. If you wanna be an associate producer, that'll run you $17.76 a month. If you wanna be a producer of the show, you get $18.36 a month, and the executive producers are $25 and up. Alright? And, with all of that, you get, all the producers get included in the show notes to get the shout out on every show that you just heard. And, you also get, as an executive producer, you get to book a live segment with us here on the show. And, you know, we can even send you out some t shirts and other stuff like that, other swag. So check it out. Any one of those platforms, however you can help us out, we would really, really appreciate, your support.
Also, don't forget to, if you'd like to help us out with some cryptocurrencies, you could do that with Ethereum, Tether, Bitcoin, and Texacoin. I don't know if you hear Charlie barking in the background over there. And, we are frozen here on so we gotta, again, gotta refresh. Alright. So I think we're still broadcasting, though, on our audio feed. So, Rumble has crashed. There is no, there's nothing us nothing up there on the screen right now. So, I do apologize to the folks on Rumble. And it looks like I don't know. I don't know what's going on, folks. I I I apologize.
So we're that looks like we're might be coming back. Alright. I think we're back here on Rumble. I don't know what the hell just happened, but this is getting ridiculous. So yet another strongly worded email to rumble support. Really, really unhappy. I apologize, folks. I really do try to bring you the better quality stuff, and I really do try to bring you the the best we can possibly do. And, unfortunately, just a lot of problems here tonight. So forgive me for that, and, so I'm gonna take that as a cue to shut the hell up and get out of here. Alright. So with that said, guys, have a great night tonight, and don't forget, head over to the website, jorooz.com.
Jorooz.com. Send us over any questions, comments, cares, concerns, critiques, complaints, love to hear them. And then also, don't forget to hit that support button if you can. Help us out, help us get better equipment. Alright folks, have a great night, good night and goodbye. Who cares about the clouds if we're together?
[02:17:42] Unknown:
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather. Happy trails to you.
