In this lively Thursday night episode from Asylum Studios in Eagle Pass, I sit down with CC Robinson—physician, public health leader, nonprofit founder, pastor, and author of the Divided dystopian series. We dig into her decade of medical and leadership work in post–civil war Sierra Leone, the grit it took to bring care to remote regions, and how those experiences shaped her storytelling. CC walks us through the Divided universe: a future America fractured along racial lines, young heroes fighting for freedom, and how real history and Cincinnati’s underground threads weave into her plots. We also explore her writing process—from a vivid 2012 dream to years of research—plus the upcoming Texas arc featuring an Independent Republic of Texas. Along the way, we swap stories on voice care, grounding in faith, preaching dynamics, and the push-pull between national unity and self-determination. CC offers listeners a free ebook of Upheaval, teases novellas (including a cartel-linked villain origin), and promises two new releases next year.
Resources and ways to connect: CC’s site is ccrobinsonauthor.com. Grab the free ebook for Joe Rooz listeners at ccrobinsonauthor.com/joerooz. Follow my show updates at joerooz.com and catch our upcoming weekend crypto chat with resident “crypto psychic” Marissa Lee. As always, send your questions and guest ideas through the site or email, and stay tuned for more author spotlights and real-talk conversations.
Joe's GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/raise-funds-to-cover-mortgage-escrow-shortage
FOLLOW US ON:
RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/joerooz
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@joerooz
TWITCH: https://twitch.tv/joerooz
X: https://x.com/joerooz
Facebook: https://facebook.com/joeroozpodcast
Minds: https://minds.com/joerooz
GETTR: https://gettr.com/joerooz
Special thanks to:
Executive Producer Wayne Rankin
Executive Producer Rosanna Rankin
Executive Producer Carolina Jimenez
Executive Producer Marisa Lee
Executive Producer Angela Wetuski
Sponsored by:
Podhome https://Podhome.fm
TNE Energy
(00:04:10) Cold open and show intro from Asylum Studios
(00:05:02) Thursday switch-up, schedule changes, and weekend tease
(00:05:41) Tonight’s lineup: guest Cece Robinson and upcoming crypto talk
(00:06:17) Job inspection heads-up and email list for updates
(00:10:43) Introducing guest Cece Robinson: MD, public health leader, author
(00:12:03) Icebreakers: grounding, bugs, and Texas critter stories
(00:15:43) Wind-down drinks: tea, Manuka honey, and voice care
(00:17:42) Bourbon tales, Kentucky roots, and lifestyle changes
(00:20:36) Field medicine in Sierra Leone: rebuilding after civil war
(00:24:57) From global service to Cincinnati: lessons and local tensions
(00:25:31) Cece’s path: writing first, detour into business, then medicine
(00:26:52) Why YA dystopia? Heroes, action, and amplified issues
(00:29:47) Blending dystopia with real places: Cincinnati and beyond
(00:30:52) The Divided series overview: Book 1 Upheaval, Book 2 Caged
(00:33:59) Book 3 tease: Harriet’s road trip to Texas under pursuit
(00:34:26) Origins and process: the dream, research, and character voices
(00:37:02) On memoirs, storytelling courage, and audiences
(00:37:35) Texas in Book 3: the Independent Republic of Texas idea
(00:38:38) Real-world Texas independence talk and state sovereignty
(00:48:02) Debating union vs. secession: stability, community, and risk
(00:54:37) What’s next: releases, novellas, and “walls, balls” merch reveal
(00:56:16) Hopes for readers: curiosity, hard conversations, shared tables
(00:56:47) Faith and balance: pastoring, illness, and finding rhythm
(01:03:40) Preaching styles, ministry memories, and voice wear
(01:03:44) Role models: Desmond Tutu’s courage in conflict
(01:04:56) Where to find Cece and a free ebook for listeners
(01:06:18) Wrap-up: thanks, community updates, and sign-off
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
- Carolina Jimenez
[00:04:11]
Unknown:
Transmitting live from the asylum studios deep in the bowels of Southwest Texas, it's the Joe Roos Show. The show where we talk about anything and everything. Where nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down, and nothing is PC. Alrighty. Hey, folks. This is Joe Roos, and it is great
[00:04:35] Unknown:
to be with you guys once again on a Thursday night for a change. But we're here live, as always, from the asylum studios, transmitting from the pimple on the back side of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass. And tonight, we're gonna do the very best we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the Joe Ryu Show. Alrighty. Thursday night in the desert. How we doing tonight folks? I wanna apologize first of all for canceling the show last night. The regular job got in the way once again, but we're here on Thursday. Our guest was gracious enough to join us tonight in place of yesterday, so we're grateful for that, we're very thankful for it, And we'll be bringing her on here just in a few moments.
But folks, I hope you guys are ready for a weekend. It's Thursday. We got one more day, and then it's Friday. I'm not gonna do my Friday shout. We'll do that tomorrow. But, but we got, we got a packed one for you tonight. We got CC Robinson waiting in the wings. We're gonna be bringing her on here shortly. And then this weekend on Saturday, we have our crypto psychic, our resident crypto psychic joining us to talk about the latest trends in cryptocurrencies and, what you should and should not be, spending your time looking at. So we'll be getting into all of that on Saturday. Looking forward to it. It's always a lot of fun when we sit down with, with Marissa Lee. Folks, also, just don't forget that, that, next week next week, we got a packed week of guests next week as well.
Now with the job situation, I'm just gonna give you guys a heads up now. I'm on a, we are expecting a, a very important state inspection, this week. Well, we're anticipating on this week, not that we're expecting, we're anticipating it this week. So if that is the case, there might be some delayed starts, because who knows when they show up. Alright? So but I'll keep you up to date on that. We'll we'll get through all that stuff. Make sure you sign up for the email list. That's the best way we're gonna be able to keep everybody up to date on it. Alright? Now, folks, as always, this show is brought to you tonight by Ezra Healing. Ezra Healing is a substantial part of the new wellness paradigm currently being born in North America and around the globe. The global citizenry are no longer satisfied with the sick care version of health care. Band aid medicine, endless 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 lifestyle is 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 for more information, of course, always head over to their website, ezrahealing.com. That's ezrahealing.com.
And, when you get there, if you do if you do have any interactions with any of the folks there, which by the way, they are fantastic, great bunch of people, just let them know that you heard it here on the Joe Russo so that they know their money's being well spent. Okay? So, that's our deal. Alright. And I don't know if you guys caught the show on Tuesday, Tuesday night show, with, Corey. That was great. We were talking about the photo therapy patches. Those things are amazing. I'm looking forward to getting my my bundle, sometime this week or early next week, and, get started on that. Then I'll give you a full analysis of what they do, how they work, and how I feel with them. So we'll let you know all about that. Alright. Also, the show is also sponsored by podhome.fm.
PodHome is the most modern and easy to use podcast hosting platform on the market today. Use it to publish your episodes, enhance your audio, automatically generate transcripts, chapters, title, show notes, and more. And with podhome.fm, you can even podcast live across the modern podcast two point o apps. So check them out. You also get a website. You get everything that you need for one affordable monthly subscription of $15.99 a month. Just $15.99 a month. And if you go there today, you sign up, you get thirty days free. So you get thirty days to play with it, and then $15.99 a month after that. I've been using Pod Home for the last three years for this show, and the the show I did previous to this, fantastic platform, wouldn't go anywhere else. And when I tell you that it actually feels like you have a whole team working with you to publish your episodes, it's exactly what it is. It is a fantastic platform. You need to try it out. So $15.99 a month, first thirty days free. Head over to podhome.fm to check them out. Podhome.fm.
Alright? Also, folks, don't forget to head over to our website, joeroos.com. That's joeroos.com. And, head over to that contact section, open up that little web form, and, send us over any questions, comments, cares, or concerns that you might have. Maybe you have a suggestion for a guest or a topic you'd like us to discuss. Drop it down there. Let us know. Send it on over to us. You could also, drop a comment right there right there somewhere, down below somewhere over there, or you could do it in the live chat, wherever. And if you don't wanna use any of that stuff, you can always email me directly at [email protected]. That's [email protected].
And then, of course, also don't forget to hit that support button if you, have the means to do so. And if you'd like to help us out, remember this is a value for value show. And all that simply means that if you receive anything of value from what we're putting out, we're asking that you return that value to us in the form of a donation. It could be your time, your talent, your treasure. It could be one, two, three. It could be all of them. However it is that you have the means to do it, that's what we're asking. So if you're able to, please, send over at that, that donation. And, of course, as always, I'll lay out all of the ways for you that you could do this at the end of the show when we go do do our shout outs for our producing team.
Alright. I think that should just about do it for all the housekeeping stuff. So tonight's guest has a background in medicine, global service, and imaginative storytelling. Folks, meet CC Robinson, a doctor, public health leader, nonprofit, Folks, meet Cece Robinson, a doctor, public health leader, nonprofit founder, and author. Cece earned her MD and master of public health from Vanderbilt. Then she went on to lead medical clinics, leadership programs in war torn regions like Sierra Leone, Colombia, and South Africa. She's detailed she's delivered, excuse me, she's delivered care by truck, motorcycle, and sometimes just boots on the ground in the bush. Cece is the author of divided of the divided series, a dystopian tetralogy set in Cincinnati built on threads of history, rebellion, and social justice. Cece enjoys hiking, gardening, dancing, swimming, and driving her Jeep through the woods.
See, I was gonna say that this sounds like it's a, it's like one of those dating app things, but she has a husband and three kids. So, folks like to welcome Cece Robinson to the Joe Root Show. Cece, welcome. Hey, everyone. I hope you're having a great night tonight. Well, we are. We're gonna have a fantastic night tonight. No matter what anybody else says, we're gonna have a great night tonight. They can try to sabotage the exert of the day, but no. Never. No. No. We we hang in there. So, Cece, I always like to ask guests, and I don't know if you were able to check out any of our other shows, but, I always ask my my guests some some two very important questions to start off with. The first one is, what is something that most people don't know about you but should?
[00:12:09] Unknown:
I'm kind of obsessed with outside. Like, when it gets warm and you know, I'm in Cincinnati, Ohio, so it gets kinda cold over the winter. The first few days out like, it's nice. I'm outside, and I love when it's warm enough to put my feet in the wet grass in the morning. But it it's only in the spring. Like, I don't like doing it in the summer or the fall. Like, it's just a weird thing, I guess. But I will even, like, walk in the garden on the, like, the prickly mulch with bare feet. I guess it's called earthing, but I don't know. I just I grew up in the South, and we didn't wear shoes. So I just connecting with my history and my roots, I guess. But it's still a thing with me. No. That's awesome, though. That that there's nothing wrong with that. And I think they call it grounding also. Right? When Grounding? Is that what it's called? Okay. I think that's something called grounding. I said it the other day to someone, and they're like, oh, that's called earthing. I'm like, what? Well, you know It's called walking bare feet because I'm from the South.
[00:13:06] Unknown:
Well, I mean, I guess you could use both. I mean, I I don't think it's I don't think it's an issue, but, but I understand that that, grounding is is, is used more of in a in a meditative state maybe. So that's, that's that's great, though. And I try to do that here in Texas. I try to go out barefoot once in a while, but there's always something really sharp in the grass and and then we gotta deal with the fire ants and all that stuff, and, you know, you don't wanna step on those things. You know, you got some big bugs there and some, like, lizard type things and snakes in Texas. Yep. Scorpions?
[00:13:37] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I'd be like, no thanks. Yeah. Get it like, I'd have my nice little patch of grass hermetically sealed. I don't have to step on anything. Good. Maybe that's why I don't do it in the summer because we do get, yellow jackets up here, and they like the ground. Oh, yeah. No. I I'm I'm from I'm from the Northeast originally, so we used to deal with Yellowjackets all the time too. They they are the worst. I remember when I was a kid, my mom,
[00:13:59] Unknown:
a Yellowjack actually landed on her sandwich, and she didn't know it. And she took a bite, and it stung her in the mouth. It was terrible. I felt so felt so bad. That would be awful. Yeah. Her all swollen. She couldn't she couldn't talk. It was terrible. But, I'll tell you I mean, I've heard of people, like, drinking out of, like, a Coke can and, like, getting their lip stung. Yeah. Because they like Coke cans. Oh, they do. Well, it's the sweetness. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have, well, here, I I I was out. It was a Saturday, I think, and I I was out, and I came back in, and I was gonna do some work here in the studio. And when I got to the doorway to the studio, my dog Charlie, one of my dogs, Charlie was standing in the in the doorway, and he was like staring, like like getting low, staring and growling, and I was like, what is going on? So I flipped the light on, had a tarantula about that big, slowly Are you kidding? Slowly walking across my carpet.
[00:14:50] Unknown:
Joe, I'm not coming. I'm not coming.
[00:14:54] Unknown:
We can do this. Spiritual's great. Perfect. Right? Yeah. That's that was the first and only time I've seen that here in this house. I I mean, I've seen them outside the place, and I've seen them my my job. We see them every now and then, but that was the first time I actually saw one in the house. So, of course, you know, I being the lunatic that I am, I went and got my home defense spray and the hazmat suit, and went out there, and started spraying everything everywhere. Like, sounded like like I'd have to call animal control if I found a tarantula in my house. I wouldn't know what to do. Yeah. They're big here. And the other thing we don't have them in Ohio. The other thing I noticed about insects down here in Texas, they have no fear. They they will they will fly right in your face. I don't remember that when I was growing up up up in the Northeast, but they, here you will open your door and boom, right in your face. It drives you crazy.
It really does. Alright. So next question for you is, what is your go to beverage to help you unwind at the end of the day?
[00:15:50] Unknown:
I love tea, and I've discovered a a great brand of mint tea in particular. And I use Manuka honey as we were talking about in the studio. I've had some vocal issues over the last, like, actually last year, and Manuka honey is really good for vocal cord lubrication. And so I will drink, like, my mint tea with my manuka honey,
[00:16:13] Unknown:
and I just love it. Well, I got I got to remember that because, when I did the shows, I don't know I don't know what it is. I don't I don't shout, yell, scream, or anything like that. And but some by the end of the show, my my my throat's killing me. And,
[00:16:28] Unknown:
when I started to drink I'm learning how to talk again. That's right. Yeah. Through you you go through the vocal therapies. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, you know, I didn't know how to breathe, and I just discovered I also don't know how to talk. I'm 54 years old, and I can't breathe or talk. It's a good thing I can walk.
[00:16:46] Unknown:
That's always a good thing. That's great. Well, what I drink now is I I I've I've started drinking, well, I've gone back to it really. Green tea with, with raw honey and some fresh lime, and it helps. It helps. So I'm gonna try to remember the Manuka honey, because, I'm gonna I'm willing to try anything.
[00:17:07] Unknown:
So, Yeah. And tonight, I don't even have tea, because even teas can sometimes dehydrate the cord. So I just have hot water and manuka honey. It's like I mean, it looks like tea, but it's not. It's just Manuka honey. Well, I And I get, like, the 500 something strength. It's not sweet.
[00:17:25] Unknown:
Well, I'm I'm drinking coffee tonight because I need it.
[00:17:29] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I've had a rough day. Definitely dehydrate my vocal cords.
[00:17:35] Unknown:
Well, let's just be happy. I I didn't crack the bottle of bourbon and have it sitting out here while we're doing the show. You know, I'll tell you a funny story before we get into the rest of it. Talking about bourbons and things like that, way back when I first started this show, it was nothing like this. It it was audio only, and it was just, you know, whenever whenever I felt like doing it. It did not it suddenly suddenly blew up to five, six days a week, just fairly recently. But I interviewed, a friend who, who was the former city manager here for Eagle Pass, and, he actually came here to the studio. I had it I had it set up, you know, for for for multiple, mic stations.
And, and, you know, so we we chatted for about two hours, and about halfway through we started to, well, let's try some of this, and start, you know, drinking some bourbons, and, you know, sampling bourbons while we're talking. On air? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, I I don't know. By by the end of the by end of the show, I don't think either one of us would be able to put a coherent word together. No. But but it was fun. It was a lot of fun. It was funny. So, Joe, I'm a Kentucky girl. Mhmm. But I don't drink bourbon. Oh, I love bourbons. I I've gotten better with it though. I've I've cut back quite a bit. But Yeah.
[00:18:56] Unknown:
My dad used to use it in a hot toddy. Mhmm. And so the smell of bourbon makes me think of being sick as a kid. Oh, no. No. No. No. I just don't like it. It just is like
[00:19:09] Unknown:
No. Can't do it. Bourbon bourbon is like the nectar of the gods for me. So it's one of the You and most of my state mates in Kentucky. Like, what I like to do is I'll I'll, I'll go out to the backyard, and I I got a fire pit, and I'll sit by the fire pit, smoke a cigar, and have a have a bourbon or two, and just kinda relax on a weekend or something. But I don't do it all the time. Like I said, I've cut back quite a bit. There was one point where it was pretty pretty consistent, and it was getting disturbing that it was so easy to do. So I just decided, alright, that's it. I'm done. I'm done. And I'll tell you honest, and and this is not a plug or anything like that, but you heard me do the read for, Ezra Healing.
They are a great sponsor of ours. I actually do a show with the founder of Ezra Healing on Tuesdays, and they were very, inspirational for me to to kinda correct a lot of things that I was doing in my life. And so, since I since I've been with them, and, since they've been a sponsor, and they've been kinda coaching me along through things, I have successfully come off of every prescription medication that I've been on. I am no longer on the blood pressure meds or or anything. And, I feel That's amazing. I feel incredible. I really do. And just That's amazing. That's amazing. Lost a little bit of weight, got a little bit of better shape, you know, lost my hair a little bit, but that's okay. Yeah. Well, that's aging. It'll grow back. It's fine. No. I I shaved it. That's good. It'll grow back. Alright.
So before we, before we get into your your life as an author, tell us about some of the experiences you had working in Sierra Leone, and or any of the any of the other countries that you worked in, as a doctor in in the in these medical clinics.
[00:20:50] Unknown:
We we tended to work in the pretty, like, extreme, you know, kind of situations where no one else really wanted to go. And when we told them where we were going, they were like, can you even get there? Like like, how does that work? And so, in Sierra Leone in particular, we were, we started work right after their civil war ended, and it was a thirty year civil war. Mhmm. And at that time, the country was about 5,000,000 people, but they had five doctors in one city,
[00:21:26] Unknown:
and that was it. And how big was the population?
[00:21:30] Unknown:
5,000,000. 5,000,000. Wow. In the nation. Can you imagine a a nation the size of, you know, I would say, putting it in The United States, it's it's probably, you know, a little smaller than Georgia, 5,000,000 people Wow. And five doctors in the entire nation. No dentists. Health care was being delivered by sort of our equivalent of nurse assistants, if at all. Wow. Most places didn't have any health care or any any attendance for births. Like, there were no no medicines, no vaccines, you know, so everything was rampant. Maternal mortality was out of the roof, through the roof. Childhood mortality was through the roof. Life expect life expectancy was in the thirties.
Oh my gosh. And that's the that's the landscape we went into. So if you can imagine this, the medical system looks like that. What do the roads look like? Not much better. Actually course. I mean Maybe even worse because they actually got bombed out. So, you know, getting from Freetown to Beau was like driving through an obstacle course. We'd have to go off into the bush, and I'm talking bush, not like, oh, this is, like, landscaped. It's the ditch. No. It's the bush. We're dodging trees and shrubs and running over some of them and took nine hours to get an hour and a half. So that's the setting we came into. But I'll have to tell you, they're some of the most amazing people I've ever met on the face of this earth.
At first, they were broken, horribly broken. And yet, when we challenged them to say, you can rebuild your nation, and we poured into them with leadership training, and we brought resources, and we brought encouragement, then they were like, you know what? We can do this. And they are some of the finest leaders on the face of the earth, and I would work with them again in a minute. Wow. They just had hope even though they survived their version of the apocalypse.
[00:23:42] Unknown:
It was really amazing. It it I I I'm trying to picture this in my head, like, how how all this would come about. And, I I I, you know, I have to give credit where credit's due. You know, folks like yourself that go into these areas and into these into these countries that are that are so torn apart by by conflict, by war, that are so behind in in just the basic essentials of life, and and and do the work that you do there with a limited resource. I mean, you guys, I mean, you're heroes, you know, without us, you know, without saying, you know, without a shadow of a doubt. It's it's amazing work that that you guys do, and and that that's amazing. It's a great story. That that's amazing.
[00:24:19] Unknown:
Yeah. So we did that. We worked in Sierra Leone for about, ten years, and then realized that, hey, you know, they're they're cooking on their own. So they don't kinda need us anymore. And at that time, my husband and I were also moving up to Cincinnati to help plant a church. And Cincinnati is a racially divided city. Tensions, we've had riots, everything before. So, it was time to move on, but at the same time, I just I love those lessons from those those times in, these nations, and they definitely, they've affected me, impacted me years afterward.
[00:24:58] Unknown:
Now you started writing stories in your mind as a kid. Mhmm. And you even published a little, I don't wanna say little, but a 27 page work in fourth grade. Because for fourth grade, 27 pages is not little. Did you all did you did you always feel like you were drawn to to both medicine and writing and, or or did one of them come first?
[00:25:19] Unknown:
Writing came first. I was I I'll tell you the story of medicine in a minute. But I always wanted to write. I just never thought there was a way to do it professionally, if that makes sense. Mhmm. You know, I grew up in a household that, you know, we were taught from early on, you know, you gotta make your way in the world. And so I actually studied economics and business in college. I know. I know. I I took that route too. Yeah. And ended up as a as a commercial lender in Chicago for, like, six years, and I hated it. I hated selling money. I just felt so, like, worn Mhmm. Worn down. And other people are great at it. I just wasn't. It wasn't where it belonged. And so that's when I took the left turn into medicine.
And I really wanted to do public health, but I realized to do what I wanna do, I have to have an MD. So I did. I got an MD and an Miles per hour, and then we started working overseas. So it was pretty crazy. And authoring didn't come until many years later. Mhmm. I wrote that whole time. Just didn't publish.
[00:26:33] Unknown:
You okay? Yeah. I'm good. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now, I wanna talk to you about your books here because This is what I got going on. I I I feel you. Trust me. Now now your books, Mhmm. Like I said earlier, they they kinda go this this dystopian route.
[00:26:53] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:26:55] Unknown:
Can you explain to to us why, or explain dystopian literature and and why you decided to write using this particular style for, you know, for young young kid adult young adults, teenagers?
[00:27:10] Unknown:
First, they're the best. Dystop young adult dystopian novels are, like, the best. I mean, Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, Ender's Game, one, they're exciting. They're packed with action adventure. I mean, if there's, like, a little romance, it's just like, whatever, kinda thrown off to the side. There's big enemies, but big heroes. And, honestly, I love the heroes in young adult dystopian because they're the unlikely heroes. They're the people that, at least in our society, that we look at and go, oh, you need a few more years, honey. You know? Go off to college. You go learn a trade. Go do something productive, and then come and fix the world. Not in You dystopian novels, it's a bunch of 18 year olds fixing the world and turning everything upside down. So I love it just for the inner rebel in me. I just love that.
But I also love it because you can take an issue in our current day and kinda blow it up and make it the controlling factor in the world. So in my books, I took racial hatred and prejudice and blew it up as a controlling factor in the world. And so we get this divided world, and then we see years and decades out that these kids haven't even met someone from another ethnicity, let alone interacted, let alone be friends with. So it's it's just a real, like, different world to ours, but similar in ways because you still have these cultures that are gonna be somewhat familiar, but they're very different after spending forty five years apart. So I just I love it for that that ability to take an issue and really dive in and explore in a futuristic way. What will this look like if if this became our controlling factor now? What will this look like then?
[00:29:00] Unknown:
I've I've read synopsis of both of your books, and I I have to tell you, I I find them just from just from the synopsis incredibly interesting to I'm looking forward to actually reading the book itself. Yay. I want I, I do try to do that before I have an author on the show. I like I try to read at least some of the books beforehand, but I just did not have an opportunity to do that with Your That's Why. I looked for the synopsis and or or summary of the book. And I I think it's great. And and and I think the fact that you draw from these real, historical threads, like, the the underground tunnels in Cincinnati, you know, what what inspired you to blend dystopia with local history in your storytelling?
[00:29:48] Unknown:
I really feel like it's important for a story to be grounded in a place and time, even if it's in a future time and and that place in the future. It's almost like though, I I feel like Cincinnati would always have a certain culture even if the people in it don't realize it. Okay. The same way Texas is always gonna have a certain culture even if the government changes. Even if the things on the outside change, the people don't change that much. You know, from generation to generation, you still have that culture passed down from your parents. Sure. And so I like the idea of grounding it in Cincinnati,
[00:30:28] Unknown:
making this the the starting place. And it's just the starting place. We come to Texas in book three. We go to Minnesota in book three, and then we go to Pittsburgh. So it's kinda fun. Alright. Well, we're gonna come to that in a in a second, because because because I I I heard a clip on a podcast that you did, and it it really peaked my curiosity. And and I'm we'll we'll come to that in a second, because what I'd like you to do for us, I'd like you to talk to us about the Divided series. I know you have the two books. You there's a third one on the way. So just tell us about it, you know, from start to finish, like Mhmm. Without giving up spoil you know, no spoilers or anything like that. No. No spoilers. Yeah. So
[00:31:04] Unknown:
the setting is if you would imagine our world forty five years after we fight a civil war over racial issues. A drug lord turned dictator takes power and then separates out all of us into our ethnic groups without really asking us where we belong, to be honest. Just puts us somewhere it looks right and puts walls up between everyone. And then forty five years later, you've got kids growing up who've never met someone from another ethnicity. Enter in four teenagers, one from each of the major ethnic groups. We have Marcos, our Havana teen, whose father is abusive. Honestly, Hector, his father is not a good person.
Hector wants to control Marcos. He wants him to go into an administrative job because that's prestigious.
[00:31:55] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:31:56] Unknown:
Marcos doesn't want to do that. He really wanted to go to college to study science, but college spots are limited, and they only go to the privileged few. And so Marcos ends up in the driver corps, and his dad is really upset by this. And in a fit of anger, Marcos decides he's gonna figure out a way out of the city. And he does. Gets out of the city. He's the first Queenstown citizen to ever leave the city unauthorized. So he figures out a way out. Unfortunately, he gets caught, and he ends up in a secret and illegal labor camp. And that's where the fun begins because he meets the underground resistance movement there, and he meets other kids his age who are from different ethnicities.
And Marcos just wants freedom. So if he's like, if I can't free myself alone, then let's just free the whole camp as you do when you're in dystopian novel and you're 18. So that's book one. And then I'll even show you. That's book one. Okay. And then book two, this is Rose. Now Rose is from Little Asia, and she is really smart, whip smart. She's pretty much through college level physics and math and tries out for an elite physicist training program with the, with the regime, and she makes it in. And, of course, her mom doesn't want her to do this because it singles are out, and it's too risky, and she's only a high school graduate, and how will what will everybody think and all these things. But Rose is stubborn, so she just does it anyway.
And in that program, she discovers that Martin has a weapon that is able to destroy an entire nation. And so she realizes, oh, no. This can't happen. She gets taken captive, kidnapped for her knowledge where she learns more. But she has to get out, otherwise millions are gonna die. Millions of people will die if she doesn't get out. So that's book two, Caged. Book three is Harriet's journey of healing from grief of roving into a road trip to Texas, actually. But this is not like a legal road trip. You know? They're gonna be chased the entire time. Right?
[00:34:15] Unknown:
I I I now I'm listening to you to tell the stories, and and I'm like, how do you come up with this? Like, what's the process behind that? Like, how do you, like,
[00:34:26] Unknown:
how do you do it? Part of it is a dream. I'm like, look at it. So it started out with an all night dream where I saw the civil war. I saw America crumble in my dream. I was in it. So it was terrifying. And I woke up, and I was like, lord, what was that? And prayed, went back to sleep. And that's when I met Marcos, Rose, Harriet, and Jason. And I saw each of them in their areas separated, but wanting freedom, wanting to interact. And Marcos was the one who spoke for them. He said, free us. Figure it out and free us. I was like, oh. That was in 2012, and it took me a little bit to, like, figure out how to even start writing. Okay. And then I realized I need to do a lot of research. So I spent two years actually doing research and interviewing people.
So it was it was a long road of, like, the crafting of the story, and it's the story has changed and and melded throughout the years since then, obviously, but I think it's gotten much better, much tighter as I've learned the craft better. Well, that's interest that's that's amazing. I when you
[00:35:34] Unknown:
like, I used to write stuff when I was a kid, you know, and and, you know, like you started, I used to write stuff and I and just the wild imagination, whatever came to mind that you would just write down and and all that stuff, and I kinda put that stuff away. I do have like I tell the other other writers too that I do have a I do have an outline for a book. It has nothing to do with anything like this. It's it's basically it's like a like a memoir type thing is of, my years working for New York City, you know, and I I called it, you know, my, why I wake up screaming, my years working in New York City.
So and each chapter of the book is about a particular person that took that had had some influence or impact on my career as I went through. Because I'm retired from New York City, I worked there for twenty five years. Wow. So, so it's interesting, and and everybody is trying to push me to write it and actually put it together and do it. But I I I don't know, like, I I I sit there, I think about, okay, this is great. I could tell this story. This would be kind of fun, but then I'm like, who the hell is gonna wanna hear this? It's is like
[00:36:37] Unknown:
People have been telling me the same thing that I need to write my own memoir, and I'm like, I got other fun things to write. I don't want to do that right now. Right. And who's gonna read it? Who cares about my life, really? I mean, it's like, it's one of those things. You may be so surprised what people read. People will read everything and anything. There's an audience for everything. Oh, I'm sure there is.
[00:36:56] Unknown:
That's
[00:36:57] Unknown:
what I've learned. But
[00:36:59] Unknown:
I have better things to do right now. I'll say that. Well, these books I'm in this world, and I'm loving it. So Well, these books sound amazing, and I'm looking forward to actually diving into them. Now, I kind of alluded to this a little earlier, but, I was listening to one of your clips from another podcast. I'm not gonna say which one because we don't do that. Now you share that in book three in the series. You you talk about the, the, the Independent Republic Of Texas, which I find I do. Incredibly
[00:37:28] Unknown:
interesting, because I don't know if you could see behind me. I have my I do. I see it. Texas. That's the reason why I decided to come on your podcast too, actually. Oh, okay. Great. If we don't have anything else to talk about, we could talk about the Independent Republic Of Texas. Oh, yes. Yes. I am very, very interested in this. I think that's funny. It's interesting because when part of being a writer and coming up with all this is putting people in a situation and then knowing them well enough to understand how they're gonna react.
[00:38:01] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:38:03] Unknown:
And in my personal opinion, my very personal humble opinion, if the rest of America really goes down the drain and the apocalypse happens, I'm pretty confident Texas is gonna have its stuff together. I agree. And I'm gonna I'm pretty confident in that. So I'm like, this was not a huge for me, a huge stretch of imagination to just say, Texas figures it out first. They get it together, and then they just say forget y'all.
[00:38:33] Unknown:
Actually, I think California's gonna figure it out first. But,
[00:38:37] Unknown:
and I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna explain why I say that. Well, they got in my world, they get bombed. So Well, good. It's nuclear
[00:38:43] Unknown:
weapons, and so anyway, they Do do they end up in the in in the Pacific Ocean somewhere? That that's that's what we care about. Seriously though. So the reason why I I find it very interesting is, is, I am a I am a member of an organization here in Texas called the Texas Nationalist Movement. As a matter of fact, I, on paper right now, because we're still building the chapter out here, but, on paper, I am the deputy county coordinator for that organization for the county that I live in. And, one of the things that the Texas Nationals movement is, is working towards is through, is for Texas independence through the legislative process.
And, it's it's incredible when you when as I'm going through this material and I'm learning more about this whole thing with the TNM, just really how much support there is for Texas to to to leave the union and stand on its own as a free and independent country, like it once did, the Republic Of Texas. Wow. And, it it's an amazing thing. And we have right now, in the Texas state legislature, we have a number of, of elected representatives who have signed a Texas first pledge, and, that that the Texas Nationals movement put out. And, you know, it's very it's it's closer than most people think. And you look if you look at the moves that, governor Abbott here in Texas has taken, I mean, Texas just just recently opened up its own stock exchange. Texas has is already, been well, governor Abbott has been going around making the rounds these mostly ceremonial, of course, mostly ceremonial visits to foreign countries, you know, talking about agreements and and working together with foreign countries and so on and so forth. You know, kinda laying the groundwork for future alliances possibly.
And the sentiment is well, especially under the previous administration, the sentiment was much greater, I think. There was more of an urgency to it, if I can use that word, an urgency to it, for Texas to actually leave the union. And, you know, where I live particularly is a border town. I I I I'm literally just a walk away from from Mexico. Mhmm. And, just a few blocks away from where I live is Shelby Park where where where where we have the standoff between the the feds and the state of Texas, and, you know, with the I don't know if the audience remembers or not, but this is when, the federal government who did not have any jurisdiction at that particular location, tried to remove the concertina wire that the state of Texas put up to prevent people from crossing the Rio Grande into into Texas at that location.
And, it was kinda it was it was a lot more of a tense situation than most people understand. I recently had a great guy in the show. His name is Jason Fry. He wrote a book called National Divorce, The Plan for Peace. And, the way he he described it, and I agree with him a 100%, is all it would have taken was some nervous kid Yeah. You know, with an itchy finger, and it could have it could have gone south really fast. Thank God it didn't, because that's not what the Texas nationalist movement advocates. They advocate through the legislative process. And we're working right now very, very hard to, get, a referendum on the ballot for the people of Texas to vote on whether or not we should pursue this.
And, it came very, very close in the last, Texas house session. The the former speaker of the Texas house, Dave Phelan, through a lot of shenanigans, was able to keep it off the ballot, or or at least off the agenda, and and for discussions. So, polling in Texas is very high for it. The last last I heard, and I might be off on the numbers a little bit, so don't quote me on this. I don't need any correct. You're correct. You're sensing. No. It's, the last polling that I remember seeing was about 60% were in favor of a ballot initiative to to separate from from the union. Now go ahead. I can't say I'm surprised given the history. Like I said earlier,
[00:43:03] Unknown:
culture is transferred, down generations even if we don't realize we're transferring it. And, I guess I didn't know that it was so, much more tangible nowadays. Mhmm. I've heard it jokingly said my entire life, though. I have relatives in Houston. And so I've heard the Independent Republic of Texas, quote, unquote, like, my whole life. So that wasn't a real stretch to put it in my books like that, but I didn't realize it was so, near at hand, maybe you say. Oh, yeah. I do think it's interesting to go down. Okay. So I'm a dystopian writer. You know, I take one issue, and I extrapolate it. What do you think the impact on the rest of The United States would be if Texas succeeds in this?
[00:43:52] Unknown:
Well, first of all, just for the record, Texas is not the only state that is doing this. There are several other states. Last I I think there was like 15 states that have Mhmm. That have legislative processes in place like this. The oldest one, believe it or not, is, New Hampshire. And, they're very, very close, to to that point. And then you also you have you have states like, believe it or not, California. That's why I was saying before, you know, with Yeah. About California. California also, and I know it's mostly a political stance they're doing, but Mhmm. But, they'd have the momentum for it, and they could very easily be the first of the states to separate from the union. The way I look at it is, the country's too big to govern from one central location, and it's just not it's just not feasible. You cannot have cookie cutter policies, you know, because what's what Texas values are not New York values, and New York values are not Wyoming values. You can't have that. It doesn't work.
Our founding generation never envisioned anything like this. They they wanted a small, unimpactful general government that would meet a couple of times a year for trade, purposes and and, and common defense. That's really about it. It has grown, and at the fault of both parties and everybody, really. To the monstrosity it is now where they're so encroaching on your individual rights. Now to answer your question, I kinda went around a bit, it would it would definitely be a shock, I think, to the rest of the country, and I think it would inspire others other states to to step away as well, from what I I I call this the American Union, just like if the European Union is the American Union. The The United States, what a lot of folks seem to forget is The United States is not one nation.
The United States is 50 independent countries that have come together for common trade and mutual defense. Mhmm. That's what it really is. That's why we have borders. That's why we have individual states Mhmm. Just like the European Union. Okay? So Mhmm. Now should Texas leave the union, as as soon as Texas leaves the union, Texas becomes the eighth largest economy in the world Wow. In the world. Yeah. Alright.
[00:46:22] Unknown:
So Yeah. That's gonna be a hit on on everything in The United States, though, because, like, you just think about it. How many of us buy things off of offline online that originally in Texas? Mhmm. Like, now we we we be paying a tariff?
[00:46:39] Unknown:
Possibly.
[00:46:41] Unknown:
Possibly. Something like that. So it it's interesting to think about that, because there's all sorts of follow on consequences to something like that happening.
[00:46:49] Unknown:
Absolutely. Now also Texas has all the natural resources it needs. It has Oh, yeah. It has the gas, it has the natural gas, it has the gas to everybody. Exactly. It has the warm water seaport, the Gulf Of America, and then, it has all the land you need, it has all the ranches, the farmland, everything you need to be be self sustained, and, it it has the population. It it's it's and also the other I was trying I I I drew a blank for a quick second there, but it was Texas is also not part of the the national power grid. Texas stands by itself.
[00:47:27] Unknown:
So if anything That was that was the reason why you guys got to keep your country in my dystopian novel, because it's an EMP that ends end America, and
[00:47:39] Unknown:
it didn't end Texas. Anyway Well, there there you go. So, so is is it possible? Yeah. It's very possible. Is it gonna happen in my lifetime? I certainly would like to see that. It would be it would be a very interesting thing to experience and go through. I believe it should happen, and it's not for any other reason other than the fact that, you you can't govern 50 independent countries with different values, different sets, of ideals, morals, lifestyles. Again, New York is not Texas. Texas is not Wyoming. Wyoming is not Nevada. You know?
[00:48:14] Unknown:
Yeah. I do wonder though if we learned how to talk and discuss things without getting just so angry and shouting at each other if there couldn't be common ground, found even among very different people. I'm a pastor in a multiethnic church, and we we have some tough conversations sometimes. And people who were white supremacists on one side and then, you know, black lives matter, everything on like, everything and and did not like whites on the other side. And we've seen those people come together in a community and work together and understanding each other.
I just I think the human capacity for understanding
[00:49:06] Unknown:
is much greater than we allow it to be most times. I I yeah. I I do agree with you on on on most of that, but I I unfortunately though, I think that we've gotten to the point in this country where, talking it it's it's it's just not working anymore. And what I think is gonna What I think would end up happening is it should should should there be a separation like this, it would, you know, other the the states would still be able to compact with one another, and I'm sure Texas would have some kind of an arrangement with Louisiana, Florida, you know, the other states that have movements like similar to this in place.
I I I'm gonna use a very dirty word to describe it, you know. We're talking about, you know, I'm sure states will confederate together for those things that they're supposed to do. You know, common trade, defense, and so on and so forth. And of course, you know, even if even if, you look at the United States government, The United States has military installations in a in about a 150 countries around the world. Yeah. You know, and it's, you know, peaceful. I don't agree with it. I think it shouldn't be, but, it would be within the, the American Union's advantage to help Texas, if God forbid there was being some kind of a military invasion or something like that, it would be in the in the best interest because we're your neighbor. We're right here.
But, I I think those things have happened, and and and this isn't an original thought with me that I got this from from somebody else and but you you got to look at this arrangement that we're in right now with the with the government, with with Washington DC or, you know, the established government, Mhmm. Like a like an abusive relationship. You know, there's only so many times you can come home with a bouquet of flowers and say I'm sorry before it gets to the point where you're gonna have where where you have to make a decision. Well, am I gonna continue to be abused like this? Or am I gonna or am I gonna just end the suffering altogether?
And, I think we're at that point. I think right now we have kind of a reprieve with the current administration, I think things are kind of going okay. I don't agree with everything that go that's going on, but, on the whole, I would give the administration an a minus if I was giving it a school grade. But, that's what I think right now we have kind of a reprieve. And then what's gonna end up happening in four years? Or, well, three and a half years now? More executive orders because there there's no stability. There's nothing Yeah. And nothing permanent.
Everything is done by fiat, by signature, and, there's no new laws. There's nothing is being codified. And you just look back. What did what did president Trump do when he came into office? He he did executive orders to cancel out what Joe Biden did, and Joe Biden did that to his executive orders, and and and Obama, and and and Bush, and Clinton, and Bush. You know, it's it's unsustainable. It just can't it it there's just there's just no way that this can continue on. So four years from now, we're we're gonna see new executive orders canceling out which what was just done. The borders will probably get thrown wide open again, you know, if the Democrats steal another election, And, it'll be, you know, chaos again. It it because there's not there's no stability, and you can't govern that way. It's impossible.
So it's an abusive relationship, and sometimes, you know, abusive relationships have to come to an end. And I think that we're at a tipping point with this. I think this is a realistic, possibility.
[00:52:50] Unknown:
I I don't know. I see. I I'm the type that sees dystopian possibilities around every corner and behind every bush. I would say, I don't and maybe this is just because I'm not in Texas. I don't see it quite the same, but it could be because I'm not in Texas where you've got this whole movement, and there are so many differing opinions down there. Mhmm. I I think America would be, we would be less without Texas or California for that matter, or New Hampshire or Wyoming or the many other states you've mentioned. So I I hope that there's time to avoid this, you know, because, you know, we've got a republic if we can keep it. Right? Yeah. We've got a republic if we can keep it. And I've it sounds like a lot of people are questioning if we can keep it, which means they all need to go read my books because when we don't keep it, it's gonna only, like the dog pile is not gonna be pretty.
That's my biggest concern is that when we start fragmenting, then we open everyone up to attack from outside. Of course. And
[00:54:03] Unknown:
and that's that's a real concern, a real issue. And it should be. And that that's that's totally justifiable. The historically though, the average lifespan of a republic is two hundred fifty years. And Mhmm. We're we're And we're getting there. Next year. You know? Next year. And, I don't think the republic has ever been more fragile than it is right now.
[00:54:28] Unknown:
So what you're saying is I need to hurry up and write these folks and then park the living daylights out of them so we can maybe stay together and not Do it. Go for it. Be moved in our beds anyway.
[00:54:38] Unknown:
Do it. Alright. Well, we we we spent a lot of time talking about some dark stuff there, but that's dystopian conversation. I know dystopia is okay. So what are you working on next? Not just a book, but a a vision that you'd like to see take root.
[00:54:51] Unknown:
You wanna get this series out and done. So the next two books we'll be releasing next year, and, I've got some novellas, a a villain origin story that goes to the in drug cartels in Mexico. That's the only spoiler you'll get. Okay. And human involves human trafficking. So that's real. Yeah. And then, another novella, and then gonna play around with some prequel duologies and maybe a stand alone dystopian romance.
[00:55:24] Unknown:
So all in the same world. We're just gonna play in the sandbox for a little while. But why not? It's I mean, it's it's a great storyline. I mean, it it's it's it's intriguing, and the idea And
[00:55:37] Unknown:
so this is this is one of the big curse words in my in my world. So we we had to have trucker hats made. So there's also merch coming. So for the folks listening on the audio stream, the hats had walls, balls.
[00:55:49] Unknown:
That's that's great. It did. But, you know, so and if you are listening, you really should be watching this, and you should check it out. So it's at fifty five minutes into the show, you can see it for yourself. Mhmm.
[00:56:01] Unknown:
So, you should definitely check that. Just a sneak peek. I'm available on my website. Yeah. Okay. They they
[00:56:07] Unknown:
first first view right here, folks. There we go. Now now so fiction is is pretty much when, you know, people feel safe exploring hard truths, and we've talked about a few hard truths. Yeah. What do you hope that readers see about your current, about our current moment when they're reading your books based on what we were just talking about? I really hope it it sparks curiosity,
[00:56:29] Unknown:
to explore and get to know people who maybe aren't like them, and to have real conversations across dinner tables instead of shouting in rows at each other. So I I really hope that that's the end result of it is, curiosity sparks.
[00:56:47] Unknown:
Alright. Alright. Now I know you mentioned that that you were, that that you pastor a church. Yeah. And, so so how do you how do you, I'm trying to think I had a word of question. How do you how do you how do you, you know, tend your inner life, your spiritual, your creative well without burning out and and losing your edge in service?
[00:57:10] Unknown:
So there's times when I've I've probably tipped to one direction or the other, and sometimes I feel like I'm on that teeter totter. But a lot of it is just grounding myself in the word of God every day. Mhmm. And, you know, I get up in the morning. I have my cup of coffee. Yes. It dehydrates my vocal cords. I drink my coffee. And I'm Some things you have to have. Get in my word. And I journal, and I pray, and God deals with me. It's what we've been doing for, like, twenty six years now, so we're not gonna stop now. Nice.
[00:57:43] Unknown:
Like, I I understand what you mean though, because, one of the many hats that I've worn over my my years, I'll be I'll be 55 next month. Wow. We are the same age then? Yes. We are. Yeah. So I'll be 55 next month. And so over the over my years, I've worn many hats. Like I said, I've worked for New York for twenty five years. I've worn many hats there. Law enforcement, investigations, and then operations, and then many other jobs in between. I worked for the US Department of State and the diplomatic security service in the uniform branch for a little while. And, that was that was a real treat, and I say that sarcastically.
[00:58:21] Unknown:
That would be wild.
[00:58:23] Unknown:
But, and I also wore the hat. I was an associate pastor of a of a small independent Baptist church up in New York. And, and, you know, in trying to balance everything that was going on around at the time and so on and so forth. I I it's it's it is a drain, and you do have to rely on the on on the word of God. You do have to spend that time in the scriptures. You do have to study, because what does the Bible say? You know, study to show thyself approved, you know? Yep.
[00:58:50] Unknown:
Yeah. It's always a balance, and sometimes I get out of balance, and so I have to fix fix the life and get back in. And it's hard, especially I was sick for the, much of the last year, and so that was that threw a wrench into everything. And so that was really hard. I haven't preached since last December, and then it was my husband and I, tandem preaching because we weren't sure my voice would hold. Oh, okay. That's gotta be a challenge.
[00:59:18] Unknown:
Yeah. Preaching? Yeah. Well, no. I know preaching is. I've I've done it, and I do it on Sundays on on my show. Well, I teach more than preach. Yeah. No. What I'm saying though is just even vocally,
[00:59:29] Unknown:
we have three services. Mhmm.
[00:59:32] Unknown:
So I'm trying to find out the tandem, you know, preaching tandem. That that's gotta be Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a challenge. Done it before. It works out really well. Alright. Well, you guys got a routine. You got a you got a system in place. That's great. Yeah. So, is there We had a lot of fun. We preached on the book of Ruth, actually. Oh, did you? You know what? You don't really hear a lot of preaching out of book of Ruth. You really don't. Once in a while, maybe. But, at at and and the book of this is a great book. It it it truly is. It's great. I'll send you our sermon, Joe. Okay. Yeah. Do that. I'd like to hear it. That that'd be good. Oh, maybe oh, I know what I'll do. Yeah. Okay. I'll listen to I'll I'll I'll run it on the show, and I'll and I'll I'll comment. I'll critique. Oh, gosh.
If you do that, I'm not I'm not gonna be here because I'll be in service. You know, you know, the the funny the funny thing is, I I say that kidding, Rob, but when I went to bible school, that's what they did to us. We had to, you know, get up and preach, and, and or or at least And they run the tape. Yeah. Or submit it. To. Yeah. And, you had to hear the critiques, and and it was funny, because some of these people some of these guys made some comments, you know, that were just, like, ridiculous. Because then when they did their when it was their turn, they did the same thing that I did. And then I was like, You see?
[01:00:47] Unknown:
Well, our teaching team, we we have a debrief afterward. And so, yeah, we we do this every week. Oh, nice. But we're not probably that mean. Nice. It's constructive.
[01:00:58] Unknown:
I'll never I'll never forget when when I was I was preaching up in New York, the the senior pastor of our church, I I and, man, I I miss him. I really do. He he's with the Lord now, but, he had asked me to to to preach for him, because he he had just he's been really he was really sick at the time, and he just couldn't he just couldn't do it. So, he had me preach, six, seven, eight eight weeks straight. So I was like, oh, my first opportunity to to do like a series. I could do a series here. So I picked I picked, from Ephesians chapter six, the whole armor of God. Okay. And I and each week I took one part of the armor, and that's what I preached on. Alright? And, by the third week, when he he he was up at the pulpit, and he was, going through his his part and calling me up to preach.
I'll never forget it because I I was like, what? Really? He said he goes, alright. I'm gonna have pastor Joe come up and yell at us for an hour and a half. And I was like Now I know your style of preaching. Okay. Well, I I am a pulpit pounding, fire and brimstone, King James, bible believing, Baptist preacher. You know? But, I've calmed down since I don't I don't I don't shout
[01:02:16] Unknown:
anymore. I don't shout. I never shouted. It wasn't possible. It it was
[01:02:21] Unknown:
I I remember the first time I did, just the the look on the on on the on the crowd, man. They were like, you know, because because our senior pastor was such a very soft spoken man, and he was very, you know, very calm, very relaxed. He was but he was also he was also in his seventies at the time too, and he had a lifetime of preaching. He was an evangelist for a while, and then he planted a couple of churches, and then he he settled in where he where he was. Confident in who he is, and I was trying to Exactly. Like everybody. Yeah. I'll never forget that the pastor was gonna come and yell at us for an hour and a half, and I was like, alright. I didn't I didn't yell that day.
But the following week, I had I had gotten sick during the week, and I lost my voice. And I did the best I could to to preach through it, and by the end, like if if you if you listen to to it, by the end, like, you could hear I am struggling to get the words out. So it sounds like I'm yelling, but I'm not. I was just trying to get enough out. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. You've done it. So Thank you. All too well, unfortunately.
[01:03:25] Unknown:
All too well. Yeah. And that just makes me, like, cringe for your voice. Yeah.
[01:03:31] Unknown:
Your poor vocal cords and your muscles supporting your voice. Oh, I know. I know. I know my voice is deeper now than it ever was, You know? So it's just I guess that's the way it is. So who's somebody that you respect right now? What are they doing that inspires you?
[01:03:45] Unknown:
That's a great question. Someone I respect right now. I would say living? Do they have to be living? No. No. Okay. Good. Bishop Desmond Tutu always comes to mind, because he he worked in the midst of a civil war to bring peace. Okay. So I you know, that's just brave. He could've fled the nation. You know? He was an Anglican bishop. He could've, like, gone back to to England and been safe, but he didn't do that. Mhmm. He risked his life
[01:04:25] Unknown:
to bring peace to a nation. So I Yeah. Respect the living days, Elder Man. So that so, obviously, we can't say what he's doing now to inspire you because Yeah. He's passed. Yeah. He's he's a few feet under right now. Listen, I just say when it comes on my mind. So I'm sorry. I don't mean to be I don't mean to be disrespectful, but, you know, that's what it is. Alright. He's gone on to his glory. I'm sure. His direction. Oh, I'm sure. I'm very, very sure. He's with the Lord for sure. So where can the audience go to learn more about you, your work?
[01:04:57] Unknown:
Yeah. So that's pretty easy. Actually, my website is ccrobinson, and that's there's no e's in my name, just ccrobinsonauthor.com. And if they go to ccrobinsonauthor.com backslash or forward slash, whichever way the slashes go, when you make an extension. Yes. Joe Roos, your show title, they get,
[01:05:20] Unknown:
the ebook version of Upheaval for free, and they get to see how we end up in the mess we end up in. Oh, that's awesome. I didn't know you were gonna do that. Thank you. That's awesome. Well, you got to e bill you that link or something, so I can put it up on the website, and I'll put it in the show notes later on. In the chat. Alright. Well then I gotta I gotta remember to get that, because once I close the studio it disappears. So, alright. Well, CC Robinson, thank you. This was a great night. I really enjoyed this immensely, and I'm looking forward to reading your books. And, I'm I'm also, anytime you wanna come back on the show, just let me know. I'd love to have you and talk about anything new coming on, any new projects is, that you're working on, whatever you got.
[01:05:59] Unknown:
You got it. Alright. When the trade comes out, we might need to come out back on, and you'll have to read it though. You gotta read it. Yes. No. I want to. Like I said We can actually talk about how Texas ends up. Okay. We'll do that.
[01:06:11] Unknown:
For sure. Alright. Outstanding. CC Robinson, thank you so much. Have a great night. Thank you. God bless you. Have a great night. God bless. Alright, folks. CC Robinson, that was great. I hope you guys enjoyed that. That was a lot of fun. Alright. I don't think, I don't think our our friend Wayne here is gonna make it tonight. I know he he had some, some surgical procedure taken care of this week. So, he he let me know he wasn't really feeling well. He was gonna try to tonight, but that's alright. Wayne, he he and if if you don't know folks, Wayne is one of our executive producers, and, as part of the as part of the perk of being an executive producer of the show, you you get to come on here with us and, and do a show with us, you know, whenever you can. And, so we were looking forward to talking to him, but find out where he is with his show that he's getting started and his project that he's working on. So we're looking forward to talking to him soon. Alright, folks. Just a couple of quick announcements before we say goodnight. Don't forget to head over to our website, joeroos.com.
Sign up for the, programming announcements email list that we have. This way, we can keep you updated on upcoming shows. Again, we're not gonna sell you stuff. We're not gonna spam you. We're not gonna send you stuff you don't want. We're just gonna send you stuff about the show. Alright? And it's important because it keeps you up to date on what we're doing, and it's the easiest, best way for us to keep in touch with everybody because I am crappy with social media. You know that already. So just check it out. And, you know, like I said, we're not gonna sell you anything. We're not gonna spam you. We're not gonna share your information. We're not gonna sell it to anybody. And it's free. It's free. So it means it don't cost you anything. So sign up for it. Joeroos.com.
Little pop up will come right up on your screen. Alright. So, I know I said Sunday Friday show. I don't think we're doing a show, for Friday night. So, because we're gonna do the show Saturday with, our resident crypto psychic, Marissa Lee. So make sure you tune in for that. Also, we'll see you on Saturday for that show. Also, don't forget to check us out on the socials even though I'm not great at it, on Twix at Joe Roo's, truth social, Joe Roo's, Minds, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Getter. We're on all of it. Alright. So check us out there. Now our shout outs, of course, to our executive producers, Wayne Rankin, Rosanna Rankin, Carolina Jimenez, Marissa Lee, and Ernesto Naval, anonymous Angela. Thank you guys so much for what you guys have done in, helping and support the show and through your through your time, your talent, your treasure. We really appreciate it, and we wouldn't be able to do the things that we're doing without you. So so I really do appreciate it. Thank you so so very much. And, folks, if you wanna get in on the action and you wanna join the fun, you can help us out. You could do a recurring donation in any amount. You could do a one time donation in any amount. But if you want the producer credit, associate producer starts at $17.76 a month. Producer is $18.36 a month. Executive producer is $25 a month or more.
And then the perks are you get to shout out in every show, get included in all the show notes. And as an executive producer, you get to come on the show with us just like Wayne does, on a weekly basis. And, except this week, of course, because he's not feeling well. But, but that's an option for you. So just check it out. If you can do it, if you have the means to do it, just click that support button and sign up. Alright? That'll be great. We'd really appreciate that. Also, we wanna say thank you to all the folks that are streaming SATS to us across the modern podcast apps like Podcast Guru, fountain.fm, True Fans, all of those great apps, Podverse, Pocketcast. I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on. Pod home, on and on and on.
Check them out. Check them out. Alright? You can find them at modernpodcastapps.com, podcastindex.org. And one of the great little things with that is you could stream stats to us, which are just micro payments of Bitcoin. You can stream those stats to us through those apps. Just set your wallet up. It's easy to do. I've done it myself, and I'm an old guy, and I was able to figure it out. Alright? So try it out. Alright? It's it's it's you'll you'll be happy with it. Alright. Also, wanted to remind you guys of our partner of american hemp hub dot com. Make sure you head over to americanhemphub.com, some great hemp based products. And if you use promo code Rooz, r o o z, at checkout, you get free shipping on orders over $40.
Alright. So check them out. Must be over 21. Don't forget that. And, you're gonna like those products. They're pretty good. Alright. I think that should just about do it for us for tonight. So with that, we're gonna say good night folks. And, again, thank you for taking the time to be with us tonight. Thank you again to CC Robinson for joining us. Wayne, we hope you feel better. And folks, don't forget, make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride. Keep talking. And we'll see you Saturday, folks. God bless you. Have a good night. Others are.
Transmitting live from the asylum studios deep in the bowels of Southwest Texas, it's the Joe Roos Show. The show where we talk about anything and everything. Where nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down, and nothing is PC. Alrighty. Hey, folks. This is Joe Roos, and it is great
[00:04:35] Unknown:
to be with you guys once again on a Thursday night for a change. But we're here live, as always, from the asylum studios, transmitting from the pimple on the back side of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass. And tonight, we're gonna do the very best we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the Joe Ryu Show. Alrighty. Thursday night in the desert. How we doing tonight folks? I wanna apologize first of all for canceling the show last night. The regular job got in the way once again, but we're here on Thursday. Our guest was gracious enough to join us tonight in place of yesterday, so we're grateful for that, we're very thankful for it, And we'll be bringing her on here just in a few moments.
But folks, I hope you guys are ready for a weekend. It's Thursday. We got one more day, and then it's Friday. I'm not gonna do my Friday shout. We'll do that tomorrow. But, but we got, we got a packed one for you tonight. We got CC Robinson waiting in the wings. We're gonna be bringing her on here shortly. And then this weekend on Saturday, we have our crypto psychic, our resident crypto psychic joining us to talk about the latest trends in cryptocurrencies and, what you should and should not be, spending your time looking at. So we'll be getting into all of that on Saturday. Looking forward to it. It's always a lot of fun when we sit down with, with Marissa Lee. Folks, also, just don't forget that, that, next week next week, we got a packed week of guests next week as well.
Now with the job situation, I'm just gonna give you guys a heads up now. I'm on a, we are expecting a, a very important state inspection, this week. Well, we're anticipating on this week, not that we're expecting, we're anticipating it this week. So if that is the case, there might be some delayed starts, because who knows when they show up. Alright? So but I'll keep you up to date on that. We'll we'll get through all that stuff. Make sure you sign up for the email list. That's the best way we're gonna be able to keep everybody up to date on it. Alright? Now, folks, as always, this show is brought to you tonight by Ezra Healing. Ezra Healing is a substantial part of the new wellness paradigm currently being born in North America and around the globe. The global citizenry are no longer satisfied with the sick care version of health care. Band aid medicine, endless 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 lifestyle is 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 for more information, of course, always head over to their website, ezrahealing.com. That's ezrahealing.com.
And, when you get there, if you do if you do have any interactions with any of the folks there, which by the way, they are fantastic, great bunch of people, just let them know that you heard it here on the Joe Russo so that they know their money's being well spent. Okay? So, that's our deal. Alright. And I don't know if you guys caught the show on Tuesday, Tuesday night show, with, Corey. That was great. We were talking about the photo therapy patches. Those things are amazing. I'm looking forward to getting my my bundle, sometime this week or early next week, and, get started on that. Then I'll give you a full analysis of what they do, how they work, and how I feel with them. So we'll let you know all about that. Alright. Also, the show is also sponsored by podhome.fm.
PodHome is the most modern and easy to use podcast hosting platform on the market today. Use it to publish your episodes, enhance your audio, automatically generate transcripts, chapters, title, show notes, and more. And with podhome.fm, you can even podcast live across the modern podcast two point o apps. So check them out. You also get a website. You get everything that you need for one affordable monthly subscription of $15.99 a month. Just $15.99 a month. And if you go there today, you sign up, you get thirty days free. So you get thirty days to play with it, and then $15.99 a month after that. I've been using Pod Home for the last three years for this show, and the the show I did previous to this, fantastic platform, wouldn't go anywhere else. And when I tell you that it actually feels like you have a whole team working with you to publish your episodes, it's exactly what it is. It is a fantastic platform. You need to try it out. So $15.99 a month, first thirty days free. Head over to podhome.fm to check them out. Podhome.fm.
Alright? Also, folks, don't forget to head over to our website, joeroos.com. That's joeroos.com. And, head over to that contact section, open up that little web form, and, send us over any questions, comments, cares, or concerns that you might have. Maybe you have a suggestion for a guest or a topic you'd like us to discuss. Drop it down there. Let us know. Send it on over to us. You could also, drop a comment right there right there somewhere, down below somewhere over there, or you could do it in the live chat, wherever. And if you don't wanna use any of that stuff, you can always email me directly at [email protected]. That's [email protected].
And then, of course, also don't forget to hit that support button if you, have the means to do so. And if you'd like to help us out, remember this is a value for value show. And all that simply means that if you receive anything of value from what we're putting out, we're asking that you return that value to us in the form of a donation. It could be your time, your talent, your treasure. It could be one, two, three. It could be all of them. However it is that you have the means to do it, that's what we're asking. So if you're able to, please, send over at that, that donation. And, of course, as always, I'll lay out all of the ways for you that you could do this at the end of the show when we go do do our shout outs for our producing team.
Alright. I think that should just about do it for all the housekeeping stuff. So tonight's guest has a background in medicine, global service, and imaginative storytelling. Folks, meet CC Robinson, a doctor, public health leader, nonprofit, Folks, meet Cece Robinson, a doctor, public health leader, nonprofit founder, and author. Cece earned her MD and master of public health from Vanderbilt. Then she went on to lead medical clinics, leadership programs in war torn regions like Sierra Leone, Colombia, and South Africa. She's detailed she's delivered, excuse me, she's delivered care by truck, motorcycle, and sometimes just boots on the ground in the bush. Cece is the author of divided of the divided series, a dystopian tetralogy set in Cincinnati built on threads of history, rebellion, and social justice. Cece enjoys hiking, gardening, dancing, swimming, and driving her Jeep through the woods.
See, I was gonna say that this sounds like it's a, it's like one of those dating app things, but she has a husband and three kids. So, folks like to welcome Cece Robinson to the Joe Root Show. Cece, welcome. Hey, everyone. I hope you're having a great night tonight. Well, we are. We're gonna have a fantastic night tonight. No matter what anybody else says, we're gonna have a great night tonight. They can try to sabotage the exert of the day, but no. Never. No. No. We we hang in there. So, Cece, I always like to ask guests, and I don't know if you were able to check out any of our other shows, but, I always ask my my guests some some two very important questions to start off with. The first one is, what is something that most people don't know about you but should?
[00:12:09] Unknown:
I'm kind of obsessed with outside. Like, when it gets warm and you know, I'm in Cincinnati, Ohio, so it gets kinda cold over the winter. The first few days out like, it's nice. I'm outside, and I love when it's warm enough to put my feet in the wet grass in the morning. But it it's only in the spring. Like, I don't like doing it in the summer or the fall. Like, it's just a weird thing, I guess. But I will even, like, walk in the garden on the, like, the prickly mulch with bare feet. I guess it's called earthing, but I don't know. I just I grew up in the South, and we didn't wear shoes. So I just connecting with my history and my roots, I guess. But it's still a thing with me. No. That's awesome, though. That that there's nothing wrong with that. And I think they call it grounding also. Right? When Grounding? Is that what it's called? Okay. I think that's something called grounding. I said it the other day to someone, and they're like, oh, that's called earthing. I'm like, what? Well, you know It's called walking bare feet because I'm from the South.
[00:13:06] Unknown:
Well, I mean, I guess you could use both. I mean, I I don't think it's I don't think it's an issue, but, but I understand that that, grounding is is, is used more of in a in a meditative state maybe. So that's, that's that's great, though. And I try to do that here in Texas. I try to go out barefoot once in a while, but there's always something really sharp in the grass and and then we gotta deal with the fire ants and all that stuff, and, you know, you don't wanna step on those things. You know, you got some big bugs there and some, like, lizard type things and snakes in Texas. Yep. Scorpions?
[00:13:37] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I'd be like, no thanks. Yeah. Get it like, I'd have my nice little patch of grass hermetically sealed. I don't have to step on anything. Good. Maybe that's why I don't do it in the summer because we do get, yellow jackets up here, and they like the ground. Oh, yeah. No. I I'm I'm from I'm from the Northeast originally, so we used to deal with Yellowjackets all the time too. They they are the worst. I remember when I was a kid, my mom,
[00:13:59] Unknown:
a Yellowjack actually landed on her sandwich, and she didn't know it. And she took a bite, and it stung her in the mouth. It was terrible. I felt so felt so bad. That would be awful. Yeah. Her all swollen. She couldn't she couldn't talk. It was terrible. But, I'll tell you I mean, I've heard of people, like, drinking out of, like, a Coke can and, like, getting their lip stung. Yeah. Because they like Coke cans. Oh, they do. Well, it's the sweetness. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have, well, here, I I I was out. It was a Saturday, I think, and I I was out, and I came back in, and I was gonna do some work here in the studio. And when I got to the doorway to the studio, my dog Charlie, one of my dogs, Charlie was standing in the in the doorway, and he was like staring, like like getting low, staring and growling, and I was like, what is going on? So I flipped the light on, had a tarantula about that big, slowly Are you kidding? Slowly walking across my carpet.
[00:14:50] Unknown:
Joe, I'm not coming. I'm not coming.
[00:14:54] Unknown:
We can do this. Spiritual's great. Perfect. Right? Yeah. That's that was the first and only time I've seen that here in this house. I I mean, I've seen them outside the place, and I've seen them my my job. We see them every now and then, but that was the first time I actually saw one in the house. So, of course, you know, I being the lunatic that I am, I went and got my home defense spray and the hazmat suit, and went out there, and started spraying everything everywhere. Like, sounded like like I'd have to call animal control if I found a tarantula in my house. I wouldn't know what to do. Yeah. They're big here. And the other thing we don't have them in Ohio. The other thing I noticed about insects down here in Texas, they have no fear. They they will they will fly right in your face. I don't remember that when I was growing up up up in the Northeast, but they, here you will open your door and boom, right in your face. It drives you crazy.
It really does. Alright. So next question for you is, what is your go to beverage to help you unwind at the end of the day?
[00:15:50] Unknown:
I love tea, and I've discovered a a great brand of mint tea in particular. And I use Manuka honey as we were talking about in the studio. I've had some vocal issues over the last, like, actually last year, and Manuka honey is really good for vocal cord lubrication. And so I will drink, like, my mint tea with my manuka honey,
[00:16:13] Unknown:
and I just love it. Well, I got I got to remember that because, when I did the shows, I don't know I don't know what it is. I don't I don't shout, yell, scream, or anything like that. And but some by the end of the show, my my my throat's killing me. And,
[00:16:28] Unknown:
when I started to drink I'm learning how to talk again. That's right. Yeah. Through you you go through the vocal therapies. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, you know, I didn't know how to breathe, and I just discovered I also don't know how to talk. I'm 54 years old, and I can't breathe or talk. It's a good thing I can walk.
[00:16:46] Unknown:
That's always a good thing. That's great. Well, what I drink now is I I I've I've started drinking, well, I've gone back to it really. Green tea with, with raw honey and some fresh lime, and it helps. It helps. So I'm gonna try to remember the Manuka honey, because, I'm gonna I'm willing to try anything.
[00:17:07] Unknown:
So, Yeah. And tonight, I don't even have tea, because even teas can sometimes dehydrate the cord. So I just have hot water and manuka honey. It's like I mean, it looks like tea, but it's not. It's just Manuka honey. Well, I And I get, like, the 500 something strength. It's not sweet.
[00:17:25] Unknown:
Well, I'm I'm drinking coffee tonight because I need it.
[00:17:29] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I've had a rough day. Definitely dehydrate my vocal cords.
[00:17:35] Unknown:
Well, let's just be happy. I I didn't crack the bottle of bourbon and have it sitting out here while we're doing the show. You know, I'll tell you a funny story before we get into the rest of it. Talking about bourbons and things like that, way back when I first started this show, it was nothing like this. It it was audio only, and it was just, you know, whenever whenever I felt like doing it. It did not it suddenly suddenly blew up to five, six days a week, just fairly recently. But I interviewed, a friend who, who was the former city manager here for Eagle Pass, and, he actually came here to the studio. I had it I had it set up, you know, for for for multiple, mic stations.
And, and, you know, so we we chatted for about two hours, and about halfway through we started to, well, let's try some of this, and start, you know, drinking some bourbons, and, you know, sampling bourbons while we're talking. On air? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, I I don't know. By by the end of the by end of the show, I don't think either one of us would be able to put a coherent word together. No. But but it was fun. It was a lot of fun. It was funny. So, Joe, I'm a Kentucky girl. Mhmm. But I don't drink bourbon. Oh, I love bourbons. I I've gotten better with it though. I've I've cut back quite a bit. But Yeah.
[00:18:56] Unknown:
My dad used to use it in a hot toddy. Mhmm. And so the smell of bourbon makes me think of being sick as a kid. Oh, no. No. No. No. I just don't like it. It just is like
[00:19:09] Unknown:
No. Can't do it. Bourbon bourbon is like the nectar of the gods for me. So it's one of the You and most of my state mates in Kentucky. Like, what I like to do is I'll I'll, I'll go out to the backyard, and I I got a fire pit, and I'll sit by the fire pit, smoke a cigar, and have a have a bourbon or two, and just kinda relax on a weekend or something. But I don't do it all the time. Like I said, I've cut back quite a bit. There was one point where it was pretty pretty consistent, and it was getting disturbing that it was so easy to do. So I just decided, alright, that's it. I'm done. I'm done. And I'll tell you honest, and and this is not a plug or anything like that, but you heard me do the read for, Ezra Healing.
They are a great sponsor of ours. I actually do a show with the founder of Ezra Healing on Tuesdays, and they were very, inspirational for me to to kinda correct a lot of things that I was doing in my life. And so, since I since I've been with them, and, since they've been a sponsor, and they've been kinda coaching me along through things, I have successfully come off of every prescription medication that I've been on. I am no longer on the blood pressure meds or or anything. And, I feel That's amazing. I feel incredible. I really do. And just That's amazing. That's amazing. Lost a little bit of weight, got a little bit of better shape, you know, lost my hair a little bit, but that's okay. Yeah. Well, that's aging. It'll grow back. It's fine. No. I I shaved it. That's good. It'll grow back. Alright.
So before we, before we get into your your life as an author, tell us about some of the experiences you had working in Sierra Leone, and or any of the any of the other countries that you worked in, as a doctor in in the in these medical clinics.
[00:20:50] Unknown:
We we tended to work in the pretty, like, extreme, you know, kind of situations where no one else really wanted to go. And when we told them where we were going, they were like, can you even get there? Like like, how does that work? And so, in Sierra Leone in particular, we were, we started work right after their civil war ended, and it was a thirty year civil war. Mhmm. And at that time, the country was about 5,000,000 people, but they had five doctors in one city,
[00:21:26] Unknown:
and that was it. And how big was the population?
[00:21:30] Unknown:
5,000,000. 5,000,000. Wow. In the nation. Can you imagine a a nation the size of, you know, I would say, putting it in The United States, it's it's probably, you know, a little smaller than Georgia, 5,000,000 people Wow. And five doctors in the entire nation. No dentists. Health care was being delivered by sort of our equivalent of nurse assistants, if at all. Wow. Most places didn't have any health care or any any attendance for births. Like, there were no no medicines, no vaccines, you know, so everything was rampant. Maternal mortality was out of the roof, through the roof. Childhood mortality was through the roof. Life expect life expectancy was in the thirties.
Oh my gosh. And that's the that's the landscape we went into. So if you can imagine this, the medical system looks like that. What do the roads look like? Not much better. Actually course. I mean Maybe even worse because they actually got bombed out. So, you know, getting from Freetown to Beau was like driving through an obstacle course. We'd have to go off into the bush, and I'm talking bush, not like, oh, this is, like, landscaped. It's the ditch. No. It's the bush. We're dodging trees and shrubs and running over some of them and took nine hours to get an hour and a half. So that's the setting we came into. But I'll have to tell you, they're some of the most amazing people I've ever met on the face of this earth.
At first, they were broken, horribly broken. And yet, when we challenged them to say, you can rebuild your nation, and we poured into them with leadership training, and we brought resources, and we brought encouragement, then they were like, you know what? We can do this. And they are some of the finest leaders on the face of the earth, and I would work with them again in a minute. Wow. They just had hope even though they survived their version of the apocalypse.
[00:23:42] Unknown:
It was really amazing. It it I I I'm trying to picture this in my head, like, how how all this would come about. And, I I I, you know, I have to give credit where credit's due. You know, folks like yourself that go into these areas and into these into these countries that are that are so torn apart by by conflict, by war, that are so behind in in just the basic essentials of life, and and and do the work that you do there with a limited resource. I mean, you guys, I mean, you're heroes, you know, without us, you know, without saying, you know, without a shadow of a doubt. It's it's amazing work that that you guys do, and and that that's amazing. It's a great story. That that's amazing.
[00:24:19] Unknown:
Yeah. So we did that. We worked in Sierra Leone for about, ten years, and then realized that, hey, you know, they're they're cooking on their own. So they don't kinda need us anymore. And at that time, my husband and I were also moving up to Cincinnati to help plant a church. And Cincinnati is a racially divided city. Tensions, we've had riots, everything before. So, it was time to move on, but at the same time, I just I love those lessons from those those times in, these nations, and they definitely, they've affected me, impacted me years afterward.
[00:24:58] Unknown:
Now you started writing stories in your mind as a kid. Mhmm. And you even published a little, I don't wanna say little, but a 27 page work in fourth grade. Because for fourth grade, 27 pages is not little. Did you all did you did you always feel like you were drawn to to both medicine and writing and, or or did one of them come first?
[00:25:19] Unknown:
Writing came first. I was I I'll tell you the story of medicine in a minute. But I always wanted to write. I just never thought there was a way to do it professionally, if that makes sense. Mhmm. You know, I grew up in a household that, you know, we were taught from early on, you know, you gotta make your way in the world. And so I actually studied economics and business in college. I know. I know. I I took that route too. Yeah. And ended up as a as a commercial lender in Chicago for, like, six years, and I hated it. I hated selling money. I just felt so, like, worn Mhmm. Worn down. And other people are great at it. I just wasn't. It wasn't where it belonged. And so that's when I took the left turn into medicine.
And I really wanted to do public health, but I realized to do what I wanna do, I have to have an MD. So I did. I got an MD and an Miles per hour, and then we started working overseas. So it was pretty crazy. And authoring didn't come until many years later. Mhmm. I wrote that whole time. Just didn't publish.
[00:26:33] Unknown:
You okay? Yeah. I'm good. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now, I wanna talk to you about your books here because This is what I got going on. I I I feel you. Trust me. Now now your books, Mhmm. Like I said earlier, they they kinda go this this dystopian route.
[00:26:53] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:26:55] Unknown:
Can you explain to to us why, or explain dystopian literature and and why you decided to write using this particular style for, you know, for young young kid adult young adults, teenagers?
[00:27:10] Unknown:
First, they're the best. Dystop young adult dystopian novels are, like, the best. I mean, Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, Ender's Game, one, they're exciting. They're packed with action adventure. I mean, if there's, like, a little romance, it's just like, whatever, kinda thrown off to the side. There's big enemies, but big heroes. And, honestly, I love the heroes in young adult dystopian because they're the unlikely heroes. They're the people that, at least in our society, that we look at and go, oh, you need a few more years, honey. You know? Go off to college. You go learn a trade. Go do something productive, and then come and fix the world. Not in You dystopian novels, it's a bunch of 18 year olds fixing the world and turning everything upside down. So I love it just for the inner rebel in me. I just love that.
But I also love it because you can take an issue in our current day and kinda blow it up and make it the controlling factor in the world. So in my books, I took racial hatred and prejudice and blew it up as a controlling factor in the world. And so we get this divided world, and then we see years and decades out that these kids haven't even met someone from another ethnicity, let alone interacted, let alone be friends with. So it's it's just a real, like, different world to ours, but similar in ways because you still have these cultures that are gonna be somewhat familiar, but they're very different after spending forty five years apart. So I just I love it for that that ability to take an issue and really dive in and explore in a futuristic way. What will this look like if if this became our controlling factor now? What will this look like then?
[00:29:00] Unknown:
I've I've read synopsis of both of your books, and I I have to tell you, I I find them just from just from the synopsis incredibly interesting to I'm looking forward to actually reading the book itself. Yay. I want I, I do try to do that before I have an author on the show. I like I try to read at least some of the books beforehand, but I just did not have an opportunity to do that with Your That's Why. I looked for the synopsis and or or summary of the book. And I I think it's great. And and and I think the fact that you draw from these real, historical threads, like, the the underground tunnels in Cincinnati, you know, what what inspired you to blend dystopia with local history in your storytelling?
[00:29:48] Unknown:
I really feel like it's important for a story to be grounded in a place and time, even if it's in a future time and and that place in the future. It's almost like though, I I feel like Cincinnati would always have a certain culture even if the people in it don't realize it. Okay. The same way Texas is always gonna have a certain culture even if the government changes. Even if the things on the outside change, the people don't change that much. You know, from generation to generation, you still have that culture passed down from your parents. Sure. And so I like the idea of grounding it in Cincinnati,
[00:30:28] Unknown:
making this the the starting place. And it's just the starting place. We come to Texas in book three. We go to Minnesota in book three, and then we go to Pittsburgh. So it's kinda fun. Alright. Well, we're gonna come to that in a in a second, because because because I I I heard a clip on a podcast that you did, and it it really peaked my curiosity. And and I'm we'll we'll come to that in a second, because what I'd like you to do for us, I'd like you to talk to us about the Divided series. I know you have the two books. You there's a third one on the way. So just tell us about it, you know, from start to finish, like Mhmm. Without giving up spoil you know, no spoilers or anything like that. No. No spoilers. Yeah. So
[00:31:04] Unknown:
the setting is if you would imagine our world forty five years after we fight a civil war over racial issues. A drug lord turned dictator takes power and then separates out all of us into our ethnic groups without really asking us where we belong, to be honest. Just puts us somewhere it looks right and puts walls up between everyone. And then forty five years later, you've got kids growing up who've never met someone from another ethnicity. Enter in four teenagers, one from each of the major ethnic groups. We have Marcos, our Havana teen, whose father is abusive. Honestly, Hector, his father is not a good person.
Hector wants to control Marcos. He wants him to go into an administrative job because that's prestigious.
[00:31:55] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:31:56] Unknown:
Marcos doesn't want to do that. He really wanted to go to college to study science, but college spots are limited, and they only go to the privileged few. And so Marcos ends up in the driver corps, and his dad is really upset by this. And in a fit of anger, Marcos decides he's gonna figure out a way out of the city. And he does. Gets out of the city. He's the first Queenstown citizen to ever leave the city unauthorized. So he figures out a way out. Unfortunately, he gets caught, and he ends up in a secret and illegal labor camp. And that's where the fun begins because he meets the underground resistance movement there, and he meets other kids his age who are from different ethnicities.
And Marcos just wants freedom. So if he's like, if I can't free myself alone, then let's just free the whole camp as you do when you're in dystopian novel and you're 18. So that's book one. And then I'll even show you. That's book one. Okay. And then book two, this is Rose. Now Rose is from Little Asia, and she is really smart, whip smart. She's pretty much through college level physics and math and tries out for an elite physicist training program with the, with the regime, and she makes it in. And, of course, her mom doesn't want her to do this because it singles are out, and it's too risky, and she's only a high school graduate, and how will what will everybody think and all these things. But Rose is stubborn, so she just does it anyway.
And in that program, she discovers that Martin has a weapon that is able to destroy an entire nation. And so she realizes, oh, no. This can't happen. She gets taken captive, kidnapped for her knowledge where she learns more. But she has to get out, otherwise millions are gonna die. Millions of people will die if she doesn't get out. So that's book two, Caged. Book three is Harriet's journey of healing from grief of roving into a road trip to Texas, actually. But this is not like a legal road trip. You know? They're gonna be chased the entire time. Right?
[00:34:15] Unknown:
I I I now I'm listening to you to tell the stories, and and I'm like, how do you come up with this? Like, what's the process behind that? Like, how do you, like,
[00:34:26] Unknown:
how do you do it? Part of it is a dream. I'm like, look at it. So it started out with an all night dream where I saw the civil war. I saw America crumble in my dream. I was in it. So it was terrifying. And I woke up, and I was like, lord, what was that? And prayed, went back to sleep. And that's when I met Marcos, Rose, Harriet, and Jason. And I saw each of them in their areas separated, but wanting freedom, wanting to interact. And Marcos was the one who spoke for them. He said, free us. Figure it out and free us. I was like, oh. That was in 2012, and it took me a little bit to, like, figure out how to even start writing. Okay. And then I realized I need to do a lot of research. So I spent two years actually doing research and interviewing people.
So it was it was a long road of, like, the crafting of the story, and it's the story has changed and and melded throughout the years since then, obviously, but I think it's gotten much better, much tighter as I've learned the craft better. Well, that's interest that's that's amazing. I when you
[00:35:34] Unknown:
like, I used to write stuff when I was a kid, you know, and and, you know, like you started, I used to write stuff and I and just the wild imagination, whatever came to mind that you would just write down and and all that stuff, and I kinda put that stuff away. I do have like I tell the other other writers too that I do have a I do have an outline for a book. It has nothing to do with anything like this. It's it's basically it's like a like a memoir type thing is of, my years working for New York City, you know, and I I called it, you know, my, why I wake up screaming, my years working in New York City.
So and each chapter of the book is about a particular person that took that had had some influence or impact on my career as I went through. Because I'm retired from New York City, I worked there for twenty five years. Wow. So, so it's interesting, and and everybody is trying to push me to write it and actually put it together and do it. But I I I don't know, like, I I I sit there, I think about, okay, this is great. I could tell this story. This would be kind of fun, but then I'm like, who the hell is gonna wanna hear this? It's is like
[00:36:37] Unknown:
People have been telling me the same thing that I need to write my own memoir, and I'm like, I got other fun things to write. I don't want to do that right now. Right. And who's gonna read it? Who cares about my life, really? I mean, it's like, it's one of those things. You may be so surprised what people read. People will read everything and anything. There's an audience for everything. Oh, I'm sure there is.
[00:36:56] Unknown:
That's
[00:36:57] Unknown:
what I've learned. But
[00:36:59] Unknown:
I have better things to do right now. I'll say that. Well, these books I'm in this world, and I'm loving it. So Well, these books sound amazing, and I'm looking forward to actually diving into them. Now, I kind of alluded to this a little earlier, but, I was listening to one of your clips from another podcast. I'm not gonna say which one because we don't do that. Now you share that in book three in the series. You you talk about the, the, the Independent Republic Of Texas, which I find I do. Incredibly
[00:37:28] Unknown:
interesting, because I don't know if you could see behind me. I have my I do. I see it. Texas. That's the reason why I decided to come on your podcast too, actually. Oh, okay. Great. If we don't have anything else to talk about, we could talk about the Independent Republic Of Texas. Oh, yes. Yes. I am very, very interested in this. I think that's funny. It's interesting because when part of being a writer and coming up with all this is putting people in a situation and then knowing them well enough to understand how they're gonna react.
[00:38:01] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:38:03] Unknown:
And in my personal opinion, my very personal humble opinion, if the rest of America really goes down the drain and the apocalypse happens, I'm pretty confident Texas is gonna have its stuff together. I agree. And I'm gonna I'm pretty confident in that. So I'm like, this was not a huge for me, a huge stretch of imagination to just say, Texas figures it out first. They get it together, and then they just say forget y'all.
[00:38:33] Unknown:
Actually, I think California's gonna figure it out first. But,
[00:38:37] Unknown:
and I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna explain why I say that. Well, they got in my world, they get bombed. So Well, good. It's nuclear
[00:38:43] Unknown:
weapons, and so anyway, they Do do they end up in the in in the Pacific Ocean somewhere? That that's that's what we care about. Seriously though. So the reason why I I find it very interesting is, is, I am a I am a member of an organization here in Texas called the Texas Nationalist Movement. As a matter of fact, I, on paper right now, because we're still building the chapter out here, but, on paper, I am the deputy county coordinator for that organization for the county that I live in. And, one of the things that the Texas Nationals movement is, is working towards is through, is for Texas independence through the legislative process.
And, it's it's incredible when you when as I'm going through this material and I'm learning more about this whole thing with the TNM, just really how much support there is for Texas to to to leave the union and stand on its own as a free and independent country, like it once did, the Republic Of Texas. Wow. And, it it's an amazing thing. And we have right now, in the Texas state legislature, we have a number of, of elected representatives who have signed a Texas first pledge, and, that that the Texas Nationals movement put out. And, you know, it's very it's it's closer than most people think. And you look if you look at the moves that, governor Abbott here in Texas has taken, I mean, Texas just just recently opened up its own stock exchange. Texas has is already, been well, governor Abbott has been going around making the rounds these mostly ceremonial, of course, mostly ceremonial visits to foreign countries, you know, talking about agreements and and working together with foreign countries and so on and so forth. You know, kinda laying the groundwork for future alliances possibly.
And the sentiment is well, especially under the previous administration, the sentiment was much greater, I think. There was more of an urgency to it, if I can use that word, an urgency to it, for Texas to actually leave the union. And, you know, where I live particularly is a border town. I I I I'm literally just a walk away from from Mexico. Mhmm. And, just a few blocks away from where I live is Shelby Park where where where where we have the standoff between the the feds and the state of Texas, and, you know, with the I don't know if the audience remembers or not, but this is when, the federal government who did not have any jurisdiction at that particular location, tried to remove the concertina wire that the state of Texas put up to prevent people from crossing the Rio Grande into into Texas at that location.
And, it was kinda it was it was a lot more of a tense situation than most people understand. I recently had a great guy in the show. His name is Jason Fry. He wrote a book called National Divorce, The Plan for Peace. And, the way he he described it, and I agree with him a 100%, is all it would have taken was some nervous kid Yeah. You know, with an itchy finger, and it could have it could have gone south really fast. Thank God it didn't, because that's not what the Texas nationalist movement advocates. They advocate through the legislative process. And we're working right now very, very hard to, get, a referendum on the ballot for the people of Texas to vote on whether or not we should pursue this.
And, it came very, very close in the last, Texas house session. The the former speaker of the Texas house, Dave Phelan, through a lot of shenanigans, was able to keep it off the ballot, or or at least off the agenda, and and for discussions. So, polling in Texas is very high for it. The last last I heard, and I might be off on the numbers a little bit, so don't quote me on this. I don't need any correct. You're correct. You're sensing. No. It's, the last polling that I remember seeing was about 60% were in favor of a ballot initiative to to separate from from the union. Now go ahead. I can't say I'm surprised given the history. Like I said earlier,
[00:43:03] Unknown:
culture is transferred, down generations even if we don't realize we're transferring it. And, I guess I didn't know that it was so, much more tangible nowadays. Mhmm. I've heard it jokingly said my entire life, though. I have relatives in Houston. And so I've heard the Independent Republic of Texas, quote, unquote, like, my whole life. So that wasn't a real stretch to put it in my books like that, but I didn't realize it was so, near at hand, maybe you say. Oh, yeah. I do think it's interesting to go down. Okay. So I'm a dystopian writer. You know, I take one issue, and I extrapolate it. What do you think the impact on the rest of The United States would be if Texas succeeds in this?
[00:43:52] Unknown:
Well, first of all, just for the record, Texas is not the only state that is doing this. There are several other states. Last I I think there was like 15 states that have Mhmm. That have legislative processes in place like this. The oldest one, believe it or not, is, New Hampshire. And, they're very, very close, to to that point. And then you also you have you have states like, believe it or not, California. That's why I was saying before, you know, with Yeah. About California. California also, and I know it's mostly a political stance they're doing, but Mhmm. But, they'd have the momentum for it, and they could very easily be the first of the states to separate from the union. The way I look at it is, the country's too big to govern from one central location, and it's just not it's just not feasible. You cannot have cookie cutter policies, you know, because what's what Texas values are not New York values, and New York values are not Wyoming values. You can't have that. It doesn't work.
Our founding generation never envisioned anything like this. They they wanted a small, unimpactful general government that would meet a couple of times a year for trade, purposes and and, and common defense. That's really about it. It has grown, and at the fault of both parties and everybody, really. To the monstrosity it is now where they're so encroaching on your individual rights. Now to answer your question, I kinda went around a bit, it would it would definitely be a shock, I think, to the rest of the country, and I think it would inspire others other states to to step away as well, from what I I I call this the American Union, just like if the European Union is the American Union. The The United States, what a lot of folks seem to forget is The United States is not one nation.
The United States is 50 independent countries that have come together for common trade and mutual defense. Mhmm. That's what it really is. That's why we have borders. That's why we have individual states Mhmm. Just like the European Union. Okay? So Mhmm. Now should Texas leave the union, as as soon as Texas leaves the union, Texas becomes the eighth largest economy in the world Wow. In the world. Yeah. Alright.
[00:46:22] Unknown:
So Yeah. That's gonna be a hit on on everything in The United States, though, because, like, you just think about it. How many of us buy things off of offline online that originally in Texas? Mhmm. Like, now we we we be paying a tariff?
[00:46:39] Unknown:
Possibly.
[00:46:41] Unknown:
Possibly. Something like that. So it it's interesting to think about that, because there's all sorts of follow on consequences to something like that happening.
[00:46:49] Unknown:
Absolutely. Now also Texas has all the natural resources it needs. It has Oh, yeah. It has the gas, it has the natural gas, it has the gas to everybody. Exactly. It has the warm water seaport, the Gulf Of America, and then, it has all the land you need, it has all the ranches, the farmland, everything you need to be be self sustained, and, it it has the population. It it's it's and also the other I was trying I I I drew a blank for a quick second there, but it was Texas is also not part of the the national power grid. Texas stands by itself.
[00:47:27] Unknown:
So if anything That was that was the reason why you guys got to keep your country in my dystopian novel, because it's an EMP that ends end America, and
[00:47:39] Unknown:
it didn't end Texas. Anyway Well, there there you go. So, so is is it possible? Yeah. It's very possible. Is it gonna happen in my lifetime? I certainly would like to see that. It would be it would be a very interesting thing to experience and go through. I believe it should happen, and it's not for any other reason other than the fact that, you you can't govern 50 independent countries with different values, different sets, of ideals, morals, lifestyles. Again, New York is not Texas. Texas is not Wyoming. Wyoming is not Nevada. You know?
[00:48:14] Unknown:
Yeah. I do wonder though if we learned how to talk and discuss things without getting just so angry and shouting at each other if there couldn't be common ground, found even among very different people. I'm a pastor in a multiethnic church, and we we have some tough conversations sometimes. And people who were white supremacists on one side and then, you know, black lives matter, everything on like, everything and and did not like whites on the other side. And we've seen those people come together in a community and work together and understanding each other.
I just I think the human capacity for understanding
[00:49:06] Unknown:
is much greater than we allow it to be most times. I I yeah. I I do agree with you on on on most of that, but I I unfortunately though, I think that we've gotten to the point in this country where, talking it it's it's it's just not working anymore. And what I think is gonna What I think would end up happening is it should should should there be a separation like this, it would, you know, other the the states would still be able to compact with one another, and I'm sure Texas would have some kind of an arrangement with Louisiana, Florida, you know, the other states that have movements like similar to this in place.
I I I'm gonna use a very dirty word to describe it, you know. We're talking about, you know, I'm sure states will confederate together for those things that they're supposed to do. You know, common trade, defense, and so on and so forth. And of course, you know, even if even if, you look at the United States government, The United States has military installations in a in about a 150 countries around the world. Yeah. You know, and it's, you know, peaceful. I don't agree with it. I think it shouldn't be, but, it would be within the, the American Union's advantage to help Texas, if God forbid there was being some kind of a military invasion or something like that, it would be in the in the best interest because we're your neighbor. We're right here.
But, I I think those things have happened, and and and this isn't an original thought with me that I got this from from somebody else and but you you got to look at this arrangement that we're in right now with the with the government, with with Washington DC or, you know, the established government, Mhmm. Like a like an abusive relationship. You know, there's only so many times you can come home with a bouquet of flowers and say I'm sorry before it gets to the point where you're gonna have where where you have to make a decision. Well, am I gonna continue to be abused like this? Or am I gonna or am I gonna just end the suffering altogether?
And, I think we're at that point. I think right now we have kind of a reprieve with the current administration, I think things are kind of going okay. I don't agree with everything that go that's going on, but, on the whole, I would give the administration an a minus if I was giving it a school grade. But, that's what I think right now we have kind of a reprieve. And then what's gonna end up happening in four years? Or, well, three and a half years now? More executive orders because there there's no stability. There's nothing Yeah. And nothing permanent.
Everything is done by fiat, by signature, and, there's no new laws. There's nothing is being codified. And you just look back. What did what did president Trump do when he came into office? He he did executive orders to cancel out what Joe Biden did, and Joe Biden did that to his executive orders, and and and Obama, and and and Bush, and Clinton, and Bush. You know, it's it's unsustainable. It just can't it it there's just there's just no way that this can continue on. So four years from now, we're we're gonna see new executive orders canceling out which what was just done. The borders will probably get thrown wide open again, you know, if the Democrats steal another election, And, it'll be, you know, chaos again. It it because there's not there's no stability, and you can't govern that way. It's impossible.
So it's an abusive relationship, and sometimes, you know, abusive relationships have to come to an end. And I think that we're at a tipping point with this. I think this is a realistic, possibility.
[00:52:50] Unknown:
I I don't know. I see. I I'm the type that sees dystopian possibilities around every corner and behind every bush. I would say, I don't and maybe this is just because I'm not in Texas. I don't see it quite the same, but it could be because I'm not in Texas where you've got this whole movement, and there are so many differing opinions down there. Mhmm. I I think America would be, we would be less without Texas or California for that matter, or New Hampshire or Wyoming or the many other states you've mentioned. So I I hope that there's time to avoid this, you know, because, you know, we've got a republic if we can keep it. Right? Yeah. We've got a republic if we can keep it. And I've it sounds like a lot of people are questioning if we can keep it, which means they all need to go read my books because when we don't keep it, it's gonna only, like the dog pile is not gonna be pretty.
That's my biggest concern is that when we start fragmenting, then we open everyone up to attack from outside. Of course. And
[00:54:03] Unknown:
and that's that's a real concern, a real issue. And it should be. And that that's that's totally justifiable. The historically though, the average lifespan of a republic is two hundred fifty years. And Mhmm. We're we're And we're getting there. Next year. You know? Next year. And, I don't think the republic has ever been more fragile than it is right now.
[00:54:28] Unknown:
So what you're saying is I need to hurry up and write these folks and then park the living daylights out of them so we can maybe stay together and not Do it. Go for it. Be moved in our beds anyway.
[00:54:38] Unknown:
Do it. Alright. Well, we we we spent a lot of time talking about some dark stuff there, but that's dystopian conversation. I know dystopia is okay. So what are you working on next? Not just a book, but a a vision that you'd like to see take root.
[00:54:51] Unknown:
You wanna get this series out and done. So the next two books we'll be releasing next year, and, I've got some novellas, a a villain origin story that goes to the in drug cartels in Mexico. That's the only spoiler you'll get. Okay. And human involves human trafficking. So that's real. Yeah. And then, another novella, and then gonna play around with some prequel duologies and maybe a stand alone dystopian romance.
[00:55:24] Unknown:
So all in the same world. We're just gonna play in the sandbox for a little while. But why not? It's I mean, it's it's a great storyline. I mean, it it's it's it's intriguing, and the idea And
[00:55:37] Unknown:
so this is this is one of the big curse words in my in my world. So we we had to have trucker hats made. So there's also merch coming. So for the folks listening on the audio stream, the hats had walls, balls.
[00:55:49] Unknown:
That's that's great. It did. But, you know, so and if you are listening, you really should be watching this, and you should check it out. So it's at fifty five minutes into the show, you can see it for yourself. Mhmm.
[00:56:01] Unknown:
So, you should definitely check that. Just a sneak peek. I'm available on my website. Yeah. Okay. They they
[00:56:07] Unknown:
first first view right here, folks. There we go. Now now so fiction is is pretty much when, you know, people feel safe exploring hard truths, and we've talked about a few hard truths. Yeah. What do you hope that readers see about your current, about our current moment when they're reading your books based on what we were just talking about? I really hope it it sparks curiosity,
[00:56:29] Unknown:
to explore and get to know people who maybe aren't like them, and to have real conversations across dinner tables instead of shouting in rows at each other. So I I really hope that that's the end result of it is, curiosity sparks.
[00:56:47] Unknown:
Alright. Alright. Now I know you mentioned that that you were, that that you pastor a church. Yeah. And, so so how do you how do you, I'm trying to think I had a word of question. How do you how do you how do you, you know, tend your inner life, your spiritual, your creative well without burning out and and losing your edge in service?
[00:57:10] Unknown:
So there's times when I've I've probably tipped to one direction or the other, and sometimes I feel like I'm on that teeter totter. But a lot of it is just grounding myself in the word of God every day. Mhmm. And, you know, I get up in the morning. I have my cup of coffee. Yes. It dehydrates my vocal cords. I drink my coffee. And I'm Some things you have to have. Get in my word. And I journal, and I pray, and God deals with me. It's what we've been doing for, like, twenty six years now, so we're not gonna stop now. Nice.
[00:57:43] Unknown:
Like, I I understand what you mean though, because, one of the many hats that I've worn over my my years, I'll be I'll be 55 next month. Wow. We are the same age then? Yes. We are. Yeah. So I'll be 55 next month. And so over the over my years, I've worn many hats. Like I said, I've worked for New York for twenty five years. I've worn many hats there. Law enforcement, investigations, and then operations, and then many other jobs in between. I worked for the US Department of State and the diplomatic security service in the uniform branch for a little while. And, that was that was a real treat, and I say that sarcastically.
[00:58:21] Unknown:
That would be wild.
[00:58:23] Unknown:
But, and I also wore the hat. I was an associate pastor of a of a small independent Baptist church up in New York. And, and, you know, in trying to balance everything that was going on around at the time and so on and so forth. I I it's it's it is a drain, and you do have to rely on the on on the word of God. You do have to spend that time in the scriptures. You do have to study, because what does the Bible say? You know, study to show thyself approved, you know? Yep.
[00:58:50] Unknown:
Yeah. It's always a balance, and sometimes I get out of balance, and so I have to fix fix the life and get back in. And it's hard, especially I was sick for the, much of the last year, and so that was that threw a wrench into everything. And so that was really hard. I haven't preached since last December, and then it was my husband and I, tandem preaching because we weren't sure my voice would hold. Oh, okay. That's gotta be a challenge.
[00:59:18] Unknown:
Yeah. Preaching? Yeah. Well, no. I know preaching is. I've I've done it, and I do it on Sundays on on my show. Well, I teach more than preach. Yeah. No. What I'm saying though is just even vocally,
[00:59:29] Unknown:
we have three services. Mhmm.
[00:59:32] Unknown:
So I'm trying to find out the tandem, you know, preaching tandem. That that's gotta be Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a challenge. Done it before. It works out really well. Alright. Well, you guys got a routine. You got a you got a system in place. That's great. Yeah. So, is there We had a lot of fun. We preached on the book of Ruth, actually. Oh, did you? You know what? You don't really hear a lot of preaching out of book of Ruth. You really don't. Once in a while, maybe. But, at at and and the book of this is a great book. It it it truly is. It's great. I'll send you our sermon, Joe. Okay. Yeah. Do that. I'd like to hear it. That that'd be good. Oh, maybe oh, I know what I'll do. Yeah. Okay. I'll listen to I'll I'll I'll run it on the show, and I'll and I'll I'll comment. I'll critique. Oh, gosh.
If you do that, I'm not I'm not gonna be here because I'll be in service. You know, you know, the the funny the funny thing is, I I say that kidding, Rob, but when I went to bible school, that's what they did to us. We had to, you know, get up and preach, and, and or or at least And they run the tape. Yeah. Or submit it. To. Yeah. And, you had to hear the critiques, and and it was funny, because some of these people some of these guys made some comments, you know, that were just, like, ridiculous. Because then when they did their when it was their turn, they did the same thing that I did. And then I was like, You see?
[01:00:47] Unknown:
Well, our teaching team, we we have a debrief afterward. And so, yeah, we we do this every week. Oh, nice. But we're not probably that mean. Nice. It's constructive.
[01:00:58] Unknown:
I'll never I'll never forget when when I was I was preaching up in New York, the the senior pastor of our church, I I and, man, I I miss him. I really do. He he's with the Lord now, but, he had asked me to to to preach for him, because he he had just he's been really he was really sick at the time, and he just couldn't he just couldn't do it. So, he had me preach, six, seven, eight eight weeks straight. So I was like, oh, my first opportunity to to do like a series. I could do a series here. So I picked I picked, from Ephesians chapter six, the whole armor of God. Okay. And I and each week I took one part of the armor, and that's what I preached on. Alright? And, by the third week, when he he he was up at the pulpit, and he was, going through his his part and calling me up to preach.
I'll never forget it because I I was like, what? Really? He said he goes, alright. I'm gonna have pastor Joe come up and yell at us for an hour and a half. And I was like Now I know your style of preaching. Okay. Well, I I am a pulpit pounding, fire and brimstone, King James, bible believing, Baptist preacher. You know? But, I've calmed down since I don't I don't I don't shout
[01:02:16] Unknown:
anymore. I don't shout. I never shouted. It wasn't possible. It it was
[01:02:21] Unknown:
I I remember the first time I did, just the the look on the on on the on the crowd, man. They were like, you know, because because our senior pastor was such a very soft spoken man, and he was very, you know, very calm, very relaxed. He was but he was also he was also in his seventies at the time too, and he had a lifetime of preaching. He was an evangelist for a while, and then he planted a couple of churches, and then he he settled in where he where he was. Confident in who he is, and I was trying to Exactly. Like everybody. Yeah. I'll never forget that the pastor was gonna come and yell at us for an hour and a half, and I was like, alright. I didn't I didn't yell that day.
But the following week, I had I had gotten sick during the week, and I lost my voice. And I did the best I could to to preach through it, and by the end, like if if you if you listen to to it, by the end, like, you could hear I am struggling to get the words out. So it sounds like I'm yelling, but I'm not. I was just trying to get enough out. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. You've done it. So Thank you. All too well, unfortunately.
[01:03:25] Unknown:
All too well. Yeah. And that just makes me, like, cringe for your voice. Yeah.
[01:03:31] Unknown:
Your poor vocal cords and your muscles supporting your voice. Oh, I know. I know. I know my voice is deeper now than it ever was, You know? So it's just I guess that's the way it is. So who's somebody that you respect right now? What are they doing that inspires you?
[01:03:45] Unknown:
That's a great question. Someone I respect right now. I would say living? Do they have to be living? No. No. Okay. Good. Bishop Desmond Tutu always comes to mind, because he he worked in the midst of a civil war to bring peace. Okay. So I you know, that's just brave. He could've fled the nation. You know? He was an Anglican bishop. He could've, like, gone back to to England and been safe, but he didn't do that. Mhmm. He risked his life
[01:04:25] Unknown:
to bring peace to a nation. So I Yeah. Respect the living days, Elder Man. So that so, obviously, we can't say what he's doing now to inspire you because Yeah. He's passed. Yeah. He's he's a few feet under right now. Listen, I just say when it comes on my mind. So I'm sorry. I don't mean to be I don't mean to be disrespectful, but, you know, that's what it is. Alright. He's gone on to his glory. I'm sure. His direction. Oh, I'm sure. I'm very, very sure. He's with the Lord for sure. So where can the audience go to learn more about you, your work?
[01:04:57] Unknown:
Yeah. So that's pretty easy. Actually, my website is ccrobinson, and that's there's no e's in my name, just ccrobinsonauthor.com. And if they go to ccrobinsonauthor.com backslash or forward slash, whichever way the slashes go, when you make an extension. Yes. Joe Roos, your show title, they get,
[01:05:20] Unknown:
the ebook version of Upheaval for free, and they get to see how we end up in the mess we end up in. Oh, that's awesome. I didn't know you were gonna do that. Thank you. That's awesome. Well, you got to e bill you that link or something, so I can put it up on the website, and I'll put it in the show notes later on. In the chat. Alright. Well then I gotta I gotta remember to get that, because once I close the studio it disappears. So, alright. Well, CC Robinson, thank you. This was a great night. I really enjoyed this immensely, and I'm looking forward to reading your books. And, I'm I'm also, anytime you wanna come back on the show, just let me know. I'd love to have you and talk about anything new coming on, any new projects is, that you're working on, whatever you got.
[01:05:59] Unknown:
You got it. Alright. When the trade comes out, we might need to come out back on, and you'll have to read it though. You gotta read it. Yes. No. I want to. Like I said We can actually talk about how Texas ends up. Okay. We'll do that.
[01:06:11] Unknown:
For sure. Alright. Outstanding. CC Robinson, thank you so much. Have a great night. Thank you. God bless you. Have a great night. God bless. Alright, folks. CC Robinson, that was great. I hope you guys enjoyed that. That was a lot of fun. Alright. I don't think, I don't think our our friend Wayne here is gonna make it tonight. I know he he had some, some surgical procedure taken care of this week. So, he he let me know he wasn't really feeling well. He was gonna try to tonight, but that's alright. Wayne, he he and if if you don't know folks, Wayne is one of our executive producers, and, as part of the as part of the perk of being an executive producer of the show, you you get to come on here with us and, and do a show with us, you know, whenever you can. And, so we were looking forward to talking to him, but find out where he is with his show that he's getting started and his project that he's working on. So we're looking forward to talking to him soon. Alright, folks. Just a couple of quick announcements before we say goodnight. Don't forget to head over to our website, joeroos.com.
Sign up for the, programming announcements email list that we have. This way, we can keep you updated on upcoming shows. Again, we're not gonna sell you stuff. We're not gonna spam you. We're not gonna send you stuff you don't want. We're just gonna send you stuff about the show. Alright? And it's important because it keeps you up to date on what we're doing, and it's the easiest, best way for us to keep in touch with everybody because I am crappy with social media. You know that already. So just check it out. And, you know, like I said, we're not gonna sell you anything. We're not gonna spam you. We're not gonna share your information. We're not gonna sell it to anybody. And it's free. It's free. So it means it don't cost you anything. So sign up for it. Joeroos.com.
Little pop up will come right up on your screen. Alright. So, I know I said Sunday Friday show. I don't think we're doing a show, for Friday night. So, because we're gonna do the show Saturday with, our resident crypto psychic, Marissa Lee. So make sure you tune in for that. Also, we'll see you on Saturday for that show. Also, don't forget to check us out on the socials even though I'm not great at it, on Twix at Joe Roo's, truth social, Joe Roo's, Minds, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Getter. We're on all of it. Alright. So check us out there. Now our shout outs, of course, to our executive producers, Wayne Rankin, Rosanna Rankin, Carolina Jimenez, Marissa Lee, and Ernesto Naval, anonymous Angela. Thank you guys so much for what you guys have done in, helping and support the show and through your through your time, your talent, your treasure. We really appreciate it, and we wouldn't be able to do the things that we're doing without you. So so I really do appreciate it. Thank you so so very much. And, folks, if you wanna get in on the action and you wanna join the fun, you can help us out. You could do a recurring donation in any amount. You could do a one time donation in any amount. But if you want the producer credit, associate producer starts at $17.76 a month. Producer is $18.36 a month. Executive producer is $25 a month or more.
And then the perks are you get to shout out in every show, get included in all the show notes. And as an executive producer, you get to come on the show with us just like Wayne does, on a weekly basis. And, except this week, of course, because he's not feeling well. But, but that's an option for you. So just check it out. If you can do it, if you have the means to do it, just click that support button and sign up. Alright? That'll be great. We'd really appreciate that. Also, we wanna say thank you to all the folks that are streaming SATS to us across the modern podcast apps like Podcast Guru, fountain.fm, True Fans, all of those great apps, Podverse, Pocketcast. I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on. Pod home, on and on and on.
Check them out. Check them out. Alright? You can find them at modernpodcastapps.com, podcastindex.org. And one of the great little things with that is you could stream stats to us, which are just micro payments of Bitcoin. You can stream those stats to us through those apps. Just set your wallet up. It's easy to do. I've done it myself, and I'm an old guy, and I was able to figure it out. Alright? So try it out. Alright? It's it's it's you'll you'll be happy with it. Alright. Also, wanted to remind you guys of our partner of american hemp hub dot com. Make sure you head over to americanhemphub.com, some great hemp based products. And if you use promo code Rooz, r o o z, at checkout, you get free shipping on orders over $40.
Alright. So check them out. Must be over 21. Don't forget that. And, you're gonna like those products. They're pretty good. Alright. I think that should just about do it for us for tonight. So with that, we're gonna say good night folks. And, again, thank you for taking the time to be with us tonight. Thank you again to CC Robinson for joining us. Wayne, we hope you feel better. And folks, don't forget, make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride. Keep talking. And we'll see you Saturday, folks. God bless you. Have a good night. Others are.
Cold open and show intro from Asylum Studios
Thursday switch-up, schedule changes, and weekend tease
Tonight’s lineup: guest Cece Robinson and upcoming crypto talk
Job inspection heads-up and email list for updates
Introducing guest Cece Robinson: MD, public health leader, author
Icebreakers: grounding, bugs, and Texas critter stories
Wind-down drinks: tea, Manuka honey, and voice care
Bourbon tales, Kentucky roots, and lifestyle changes
Field medicine in Sierra Leone: rebuilding after civil war
From global service to Cincinnati: lessons and local tensions
Cece’s path: writing first, detour into business, then medicine
Why YA dystopia? Heroes, action, and amplified issues
Blending dystopia with real places: Cincinnati and beyond
The Divided series overview: Book 1 Upheaval, Book 2 Caged
Book 3 tease: Harriet’s road trip to Texas under pursuit
Origins and process: the dream, research, and character voices
On memoirs, storytelling courage, and audiences
Texas in Book 3: the Independent Republic of Texas idea
Real-world Texas independence talk and state sovereignty
Debating union vs. secession: stability, community, and risk
What’s next: releases, novellas, and “walls, balls” merch reveal
Hopes for readers: curiosity, hard conversations, shared tables
Faith and balance: pastoring, illness, and finding rhythm
Preaching styles, ministry memories, and voice wear
Role models: Desmond Tutu’s courage in conflict
Where to find Cece and a free ebook for listeners
Wrap-up: thanks, community updates, and sign-off
