Tonight's episode is a special one as we celebrate our 25th episode milestone. Join us, as we navigate through an evening filled with personal stories, insightful discussions, and a special guest appearance.
We kick off the episode with a personal anecdote about a frustrating customer service experience with RODE, highlighting the challenges of dealing with damaged equipment and the contrasting customer service experiences with Amazon. This sets the stage for a broader conversation about the importance of quality service and reliability.
Tonight's special guest is Jack Kammer, a social worker and advocate for men's mental health. We delve into the often overlooked issues surrounding men's mental health, the societal pressures men face, and the alarming statistics on male suicide rates. Jack shares his insights on how men can better communicate their feelings and the importance of addressing emotional health.
We also explore the dynamics of modern relationships, discussing the challenges men face in today's cultural climate, where traditional roles and expectations are being redefined. Jack offers practical advice on how men can navigate these changes and maintain healthy relationships.
As we wrap up, we touch on the topic of Texas independence, exploring the cultural and political landscape of Texas and the growing movement for secession. This episode is a blend of personal stories, expert insights, and thought-provoking discussions that promise to engage and inform our listeners.
You can support me and the show by:
Sending me a boost (or stream sats) with a modern podcast app
Making a donation on my website
Sharing this show with your family, friends and followers on your social media.
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(00:00:50) Introduction and Special Episode Announcement
(00:01:23) Joe's Frustration with RODE Customer Service
(00:06:14) Value for Value Model and Support Options
(00:09:40) Guest Introduction: Jack Kammer on Men's Mental Health
(00:13:56) Discussion on Male Suicide Rates and Societal Pressures
(00:31:56) Signs of Abusive Relationships and Seeking Help
(00:50:29) The Power of 'I Feel' Statements in Relationships
(01:28:05) Men's Hesitation Towards Marriage and Modern Relationships
(01:37:00) Challenges in Divorce and Custody for Men
(01:46:00) Political and Social Solutions for Men's Issues
(01:54:04) Texas Independence Movement and Personal Reflections
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
.
[00:00:10]
Unknown:
This podcast is hosted on PodHome.FM, an intelligent podcasting platform that you can use to host unlimited shows and episodes and have unlimited downloads. PodHome comes with many intelligent features like PodHome AI, which automatically creates transcripts, chapters, suggests titles, show notes, detects people, and creates clips. You can use Pothome AI unlimited for all your episodes and all your shows. Go check it out and start your free seven day trial at pothome.fm.
[00:00:50] Unknown:
Welcome to the podcast where every episode promises an unfiltered dive into the eclectic, the profound, and sometimes the absurd. No topic is off limits. Nothing is sacred, and political correctness takes a back seat.
[00:01:20] Unknown:
Alright. Hey there, folks. This is Joe Rusciello, and it is absolutely fantastic to be here with you tonight on this beautiful Wednesday evening here in Eagle Pass, Texas, and we are broadcasting to you live tonight from the asylum studios, from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass. And folks, we are going to do the very best that we can tonight to bring you the highest quality, the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the podcast. Alright. Well, folks, I hope you guys had a great day today. I had a good day up until just a little while ago.
We'll get into that in just a second because I I have to say something about this one. This is this is just absolutely tripped me out and got me started off on this, on this beautiful night here that I've been so looking forward to, and, tell you why in just a minute. But folks, before I even get any further into this, I gotta tell you tonight is a very, very special night for us here at the podcast. Tonight, are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? We have an announcement to make. A little slow on the board today. Very important announcement to make folks, This is episode number 25.
That may mean nothing to you, and that's totally fine. But for the podcast, that's an achievement because our host platform says that 25 episodes is an achievement. So we are we are gonna get our little badge of honor, later on, once we, close out the show tonight. So, very special night for us at the podcast. So, you should be honored or at least feel honored to be a part of the broadcast tonight, to be a part of this transmission as, Alex Jones would say. Very, very special night for us. Now I'm gonna touch on this very, very quickly because our guest is waiting in the, in the waiting room to come on in. Very, very quickly, folks, I love ROTA products. I use, a RODECaster.
I use RODE mics, RODE stands and booms, and all that stuff. But I am gonna tell you this, after the interaction that I had today with ROTA, I, I am fully intending on, dropping it and, heading back over to shore. And, and I'm gonna tell you why, because I've never had a problem with customer service, with shore the way I have problems with customer service at ROTA. ROTA is they they literally are trying to nickel and dime you every which way you go. So I ordered a new part today for the for the show. Well, a couple days ago. It got delivered today, and it came damaged. I had purchased it through Amazon, and, I reached out to Amazon, let them know it was damaged, and and so on and so forth. They said, well, what you can do is, it's a no hassle, policy that we have. All you need to do is just, go through the warranty process with, with Road, and and they sent me all the information, that I needed. The the website link to start the process, and so on and so forth. So I'm going through the process.
I run to a little bit of a hiccup, I reach out to customer service, customer service tells me, well, no, you have to pay us to, to ship your item back, this way we can replace it. Well, that's not what Amazon said. Amazon says that, it's a, a no return warranty replacement. And, so back and forth of road on this thing, fought with them left and right on this. They wouldn't budge. They were like, it's not part of your warranty. You have to send it back, which is fine. I have no problem sending it back, but you know, road is telling I mean, Amazon is telling us this is a, zero hassle thing. It'll just take take ten minutes to go through the whole process. I was on the phone with them for almost forty five minutes.
So, Rode won't budge on this thing. They won't, they won't refund it, and they won't replace it until I pay to send it back to them. So I reached back out to Amazon, and you know what? You know, say what you will about Amazon, and you know, all the all the things that you hear. But to be honest with you, I have not had a bad customer service experience with with Amazon, and, they are actually replacing the, the damaged item for me. They're sending it out. I'll have it, by Friday, and, we'll be able to get this thing kicked off, and no hassle, no problems, one, two, three. But road, you gotta get up on your game, dude. I really don't wanna have to switch everything over back to shore because when I switched everything to road, I I got rid of most of my most most of my shore stuff. So, you know, I gotta go out and get it again. So it's gonna be a hassle, but, yeah, I think it's well worth the fight.
But, before we get anywhere else, and and I I bring in our guest, just a couple of quick things. Website, head over there, jorociello.com. Jo rociello Com. Head over to our contact sections, open up the web form, send us a message, let us know whatever's on your heart, whatever's in your mind. Any questions, comments, cares, or concerns that you just might have. Also, while you're on the website, look for that support button, and remember that this is a value for value podcast. All that basically means is that if you have received anything of value from the show, no matter what it is that we're doing, good or bad, if you receive anything of value from it, we're asking that you return that value to us in the form of a donation. Now, you could make that donation in several different ways. You could do a one time donation, which, we really do appreciate the one time donations. We're very thankful to receive those, the ones when we do from time to time.
Or you could donate your time, your talent, or your treasure, which is the three t's. Now, when we do that, you're you're you're you're donating your time, you're maybe helping us do some research, getting some things put together and ready for the show. Donating your talent. Hey, you know what? Maybe you're good at running a board. You know, it'll take a lot off my hands while I'm doing it, and I won't have the stupid little mistakes that you heard tonight. Or, perhaps, maybe you have a good voice for this stuff, and you wanna read something for us, do a script, whatever it is, you you can donate your talent. And of course, you can donate your treasure, your money.
And you can do that again as a one time donation, or you can join one of our, one of our, membership clubs, our our monthly recurring, donation clubs. You can get in on the associate producer level at for a monthly recurring donation of $17.76. You can get into the, associate producers, category with a donation, a monthly donation of $18.36, or you could be daring, and bold, and and unafraid, and, cast your lot in with the executive producer membership for a donation of $25 or more a month. All of these donation groups come with, the perks of getting your name included on all of our show notes, our emailers, everything that goes out. You also get the bent the added benefit of having your names included in the show notes, and you get the shout out on every single show. So, you know, little perk here or there.
Also kicking the idea around since, we had Wayne Rankin, who was our executive one of our executive producers, here in town, last week. We had them on the show. You know, that could be a perk. You could, do it remotely, or if you're here in town, if you wanna come and sit there at the at the second chair right across from me and do a show with me here in the studio, that would be fantastic, but that will be reserved for the executive producer tier. So, none of this restricts your content. You're gonna get the same content at all levels. I'm not going behind a paywall or anything like that, you know.
This is just something to help us keep everything going here, keep the lights going, keep everything paid for. So we would really, really appreciate, if you take a look at those donations. Now also, armory one is a is a friend of mine who runs a business, name is Carl Killebrew. He runs the business armory one, which says, Texas license to carry. Carl has over thirty years of military and law enforcement experience in instructing students in the safe use of firearms. He is offering a great deal. You can purchase through armory1.com, any number of gift certificates, any amount, and you can use those gift certificates to redeem for private range time, training, buying merchandise, or or or equipment.
You can buy bullets. You can buy you know, put it towards firearm purchases. Whatever the case may be, that's your business. But where it affects me in the show is is that for every purchase of a of a, gift certificate from Armory One, Armory One donates a portion of that purchase to the podcast. So, we really really do appreciate that, and we're gonna have Carl on the show in a couple of weeks. So we're just working out some details, and, I know that I am looking forward to that. Also, I'm trying to move through this stuff really quick. Also, you can, help us out by visiting our affiliate site, the alexjonesstore.com/joe.
That's right. The podcast is an affiliate to the Alex Jones store. Now I have a bunch of supplements here that I take, that I would recommend to you. I take Atomic Defense, which is an overall health and vitamin supplement that you can take. It's loaded with, oregano, cinnamon, turmeric, garlic extract, echinacea, sea moss, cumin powder, bioprene, honey powder, and so much more. Actually, you know, you could probably sprinkle this on a salad. It would probably mix really well. But, you don't wanna try the atomic defense, we also have the ultimate iris sea moss loaded with iodine, has over 80 different vitamins and minerals that your body needs for for digestive purposes that that, your body needs for healing and for your overall digestive health. This stuff is fantastic. I've been taking it now for three months. And listen, we're among friends. Right?
So, guys, there is an added benefit. Know what I'm saying? We also have the gummy version, so you could try those out too. And then we have the, ultimate turmeric, which is loaded up with, with, ginger root and black pepper, which is fantastic for you. So you can have all of this, and then of course we have what I call liquid grass. This is a product put out by Optimal Human. I take this every day, twice a day. This is, basically it's a it's a it's a superfood greens, functional mushroom, 10,000,000,000 plus probiotic digestive enzymes, ashwagandha, cordyceps, lion's mane, spirulina, prebiotics, chlorella, and many, many, many more supplements. This stuff is fantastic.
I recommend it. May not taste the best. May not look the best, like I said it's liquid grass, but this stuff this stuff rocks, man. This stuff is really good. And, it'll help you with your digestion, help you with weight loss, not of course not FDA, you know, seal approval on that, but I've noticed that since I've been taking it, I have been enjoying the benefit of, weight loss. So this stuff is great. Try it out, OptimalHuman. And there's so much more you can get on the website, so just make sure you head over to the alexjonesstore.com/joe, and get yourself onto the road to better health. Alright. So for those of you listening on audio, don't forget to head over to rumble, rumble Com / rooz, r 0 0 z.
Like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, your family, and your followers across your social media platforms. Help us spread the news about our little show here. Alright. So, got kinda got through that pretty quick. Usually, it takes us a lot longer to get through it. But, we have waiting in the wings for us. Well, I'll mention it when he comes on, but we have waiting in the wings, Jack Kammer. Jack Kammer, who is, a, a social worker, MBA, and, Jack is, gonna be with us tonight. And we're gonna talk about some some issues that involve men's mental health, and the needs that men have through, you know, in in society that oftentimes aren't met.
And, a lot of times men are, on the receiving end of a lot of emotional abuse, physiological abuse that they don't talk about. Why? Because we're men, and we generally don't do that. We tend to bottle all that stuff up and keep it inside. So, Jack, if you're, if you're still out there waiting in the wings, why don't you, why don't you come on here and,
[00:14:37] Unknown:
and join
[00:14:39] Unknown:
us? Jack? Oh, almost. There he goes. And here I am. And there you are. Jack, am I saying your last name right? It's like Hammer. Okay. So Jack Hammer. Yeah. And and you know, I I kinda realized that today. I I was telling a buddy of mine that you're gonna be on, and I was like, Jack Hammer. Yeah.
[00:15:06] Unknown:
I realized it in high school. So for, you know, the first seventeen years of my life, I didn't even know I had a funny name. But you know how high school buddies are. You know? They they, they realized that was a funny name, and they didn't let me forget it. Oh, of course. I would never let you forget it either. Of course not. Of course. What are friends for? Of absolutely right. So, Jack, why don't you, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself before we start getting into our discussion for the f for the evening? Okay. Well, there's a a little bit I could tell you or there's a lot I could tell you, and I guess I gotta try to find the sweet spot.
Okay. So I'll I'll, I'll give it a whirl. Unless you wanna give me some quick guidance here on how much time you want me to go on this. You have, we are your captive audience, sir. Oh, well, jeez. Whether we have anybody listening or watching late, doesn't matter. Go right ahead. Alright. Floor is yours. So so you I'm gonna throw away the key. You guys are my captives. Alright. So I am, well, let's see. I'm 73 years old, so that puts me into a certain, category. In some people's minds, it's like, okay, boomer. You know, because those boomers, we boomers mess things up for for you young guys.
On the other hand, you know, it suggests that I have a certain amount of experience in in what I'm gonna be talking about. In 1982, I started a radio show. It didn't go on the air until '83, but, in '82, I started working on a radio show called The Lives of Men because I was increasingly aware that the male perspective on male female relationships and the male perspective on social issues was not very well understood, was not very well regarded, was not very much cared about, primarily because everybody believed the, the nonsensical statement that it's a man's world and men have all the power. Well, garbage in, garbage out. You put in a crazy idea like it's a man's world and men have all the power and women have none, you put that into your social policy making machinery, you're gonna end up with garbage in and you're gonna get garbage out. Mhmm. A lot of social problems, are befalling America, our states, cities, because of the idea that we don't really need to pay attention to how men are doing, what kind of problems they're having, economic problems, social problems, psychological problems, family problems. We just don't really pay much attention to that.
If, there is an issue between men and women, we gotta we gotta gotta take care of the women first. That's the idea. Mhmm. No matter how much better they're doing, they're not doing perfectly, so we can't take our eyes off the ball. Feminist literature often says, while we've made so much progress over the past sixty years, there is still much more to do, which means until there is no more that needs to be done for the benefit of women, it's not really politically correct to talk at all about anything that men want or need. We gotta stop that because men are human. We haven't been getting much attention over the past fifty, sixty years, and, things have gone south for us in a lot of ways. What ways? Well, primarily, the the most striking one is the rates of suicide among men, older men especially in my demographic, especially after divorce, and also in young men.
Lots of bad things are happening and I am dedicated to the idea that we need to talk about what needs to happen. We need to get active about what needs to happen, and we gotta quit pretending that everything's just fine and only wimps and sissies dare ever to talk about their personal issues. So there I am. That's me. How's that? That's you in a nutshell. Yeah. Well, it's a pretty big nut, but yeah.
[00:19:26] Unknown:
The, it's something you said about male suicide rates, that while you were talking, I was typing this up here, looking looking it up. So, this is what I got off the off, of the interweb. According to the data, the suicide rates among men by age group show significant variation. For the age group, ten to fourteen, the rate is two point eight per one hundred thousand. Wow. That that's pretty high for that age group. In the fifteen to twenty four age group, the rate increases to twenty one point one per 100,000. For men aged 25 to 44, it's, 29.6 per 100,000.
In, my age group, the rate is 29.5 per 100,000, and for your age group, 27.2. So it kinda drops off a little bit. So I'm assuming that's because, you know, natural causes.
[00:20:23] Unknown:
One of the, factors that would be interesting to have if you could find it, but you don't need to look for it now, is what is the suicide rate among divorced older men? Those guys are just feeling, and they got nothing to live for.
[00:20:41] Unknown:
Let me actually, that that I'm gonna let me look that up really quick because that that that bring Okay. That that's that kinda hits close to home. So let me if I could type. See, it would be nice if, if my executive producer was still here, he could be doing all this for me while I'm talking. Let's see. Suicide rates among divorced older men are notably higher, compared to married individuals. According to a study published in PMC, the suicide rate among divorced adults is more than three times that of married adults. It's not really giving me an oh, here it is. The CDC report, from 02/2023 indicates that suicide rates increased significantly for men ages 55 to 74, with men 85 or older having the highest suicide rate of fifty five point seven suicide deaths for every 100,000.
That's insane. That is absolutely insane. It's a
[00:21:43] Unknown:
lot. It's a lot, and
[00:21:46] Unknown:
we're not doing much about it. No. And I I think that society as a whole, like like you said earlier, you know, they they tend tend to gravitate towards, the female. You know, they they tend to, you know, you gotta suck it up. Right? Suck it up, buttercup. Get over it. It. My dad was great with that. And anytime I started feeling pretty down or lower, crappy about something, his thing was, you know, you're a man. Suck it up, deal with it, move on. Not always as easy as it sounds. Really isn't. Because then then you tend to kinda bottle it up, and then one day you just explode. I could tell you I could tell you one story, personal story that that was mine of, many years ago, and I was in my early twenties, and, newly married.
And my, my wife, at the time and I had gotten into some kind of an argument, and it was one of those types of arguments that just would never end. It just continued on from day after day after day. And and it it really it wore me down. It totally wore me down. And it got to the point where I held it in so much, so long that eventually I popped. Now I didn't do anything. I didn't go any physical harm to her. Never I not who I am, ever was, I never will be. But what I did do is I I did in that particular moment reach down and grab the new carpet that we had just installed the day before, and basically ripped up the whole carpet, because it was either that or do something else. So I chose to do that.
And of course, you know, I I called the company that installed the carpet the next day, and said, what the hell kind of crap job you guys do installing these things? Look at this, the whole carpet popped up. You gotta get over here now and fix it. And they came. But but yeah. So what but I you men tend to bottle it all up till the point where they explode. Now me, I I did that. Other men might not do that. Other men might turn around and start drinking, find a way down to the bottom of the bottle until the until there is no way to get out of that bottom of the bottle. Some men might, unfortunately, put the muzzle of a gun in their mouth, pull the trigger.
You know, it it's it really is scary when you think about it. It it really is the the and and culture today, I mean, men, and especially in the in the woke liberal culture are the enemy. You know, when we were talking on Saturday, you know, and and for those of you that are listening, you know, Jack and I, we we spoke on Saturday. That was at our recording day. We're supposed to be our recording day. But we we had gotten so involved in in this conversation. It would have been a great show. It really would have. But we got so involved in this conversation. We talked about so many great things.
And, you know, one of the things we talked about were how these how these woke liberal women, and I played some clips for them. I'm not gonna do that tonight because mostly because I had to clear out the studio for yep, the last night show. So, I don't have it right now. But, but, you know, we we we I showed I showed them this clip of about these these lunatic liberal woke women acting like animals, releasing the hounds, you know, chasing down the male, you know, to teach him a lesson. I mean, this is what this is what the feminist movement has done. It has it has generated these women who really think that I don't need a man to do anything until the day comes when they realize they do need a man.
They do, I think, deep down inside and and I'm you know, we could disagree on this if you want. I don't think we do though, but and if you're if you're watching and you disagree with this, or you're listening to disagree with this, drop a comment in the in the live chat or in the comments down below, or underneath us, and, you know, we'll we'll take a look at that. But, I honestly believe that deep down inside in the heart of every so called feminist, they really do want and need a strong man to take care of them. I really do believe that.
[00:26:09] Unknown:
Uh-oh. Well, if you want my if you if you want my comment on that Yes. I don't know. Do you want my comment on that? Of course I do. I I don't I don't know that that's true. I think that there are there are, first of all, lesbians who do not really feel any great attraction to men. And I gotta tell you, Joe, that I'm sure, like, just about every category, lesbians come in in, lots of different varieties. I once worked with a woman who was a lesbian. And, you know, the standard idea I had about lesbians before I really got to know her was, oh, boy. She probably hated her father. She probably hates all men. Oh, boy. And and I've hired her, and I'm gonna be her boss. Mhmm.
This this woman loved her father more than she loved her mother. So I think we need to be careful about making enemies of lesbians that we don't need to make enemies of. Of course not. There there are there are a lot of lot of women who don't love men romantically but do love men, you know, as brothers, as uncles. Some even have sons. So, yes, there definitely are some lesbians who hate men, but, you know, there are some there are some, heterosexual women
[00:27:35] Unknown:
who hate men. Yeah. Well, I I've come across a few of those over the years. And a lot of times, it has to do with, paternal issues. It also has to do with, abuse in in a relationship at some point in the course in the course of their lives, you know. And that's and that's those are hurdles that you have to pass. But you know something? Men go through that too.
[00:27:56] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Men have difficulties with with women just like women have difficulties with men. Look. You know, if if I think it was was it Einstein who said all things are relative? Somebody said all things are relative. And if if that's true, if all things are relative, if all things are based if your understanding of everything is based on what where you stand having a lot of impact on what you see, you know, it's it's gotta be true that nothing can be more relative than relationships.
[00:28:28] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:28:29] Unknown:
You know? Yeah. So I try to take a little bit of a chill pill and approach these issues with a little bit see, this is where my experience comes in. This is the good part about being an old guy. I'm a little far behind you, you know. Well, you're come on. You're couple decades, aren't you? Maybe. Fifties? I'm in my my mid late fifties. Okay. So I got a couple decades on it. You know? Just for men. Just
[00:28:57] Unknown:
for men does a wonderful thing. Well Okay. Alright. I'm not you well, I I gotta I don't do just for men anymore. I I I now I'm using simpler. So Oh. Which is a lot better. Better for the skin. So
[00:29:09] Unknown:
Well, okay. Now so now isn't that interesting? How modern and we've become. Now men are talk are talking publicly about our skin care products. That's right. See, we are making progress. And I and I use beef tallow, you know, to as a cleanse to to tighten up. I think you Yep. You can probably do better than that. Look, you know, look at your, look at your at your GNC store. They probably got something better than beef fat. Well, it's good though.
[00:29:35] Unknown:
I don't I don't need to get I mean, it it really tightened up, all this stuff. Anyway, folks, this is Well, you'll never starve. Well, there you go. Look, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity on the podcast. You are getting men's grooming care advice from from at least one guy who really doesn't give a crap. You know, he just tries all these things out just to say he did. You know, but, but, you know, talking about relationships, one of the things that that that we talked about on Saturday, is we floated a couple of, real life situations that that people are going through, people that, that that I know personally, and I'm I'm close to personally, that have gone through some really difficult situations, some of their own making, some of some of them, the the recipient of somebody else's making, if if that makes sense.
And one of the things that you said on Saturday that that really struck me that that I I had never considered was the fact of, in in one particular situation, the one closer to me, of of being technically abused in that relationship. And and I'll I'll tell you, honestly, when you when you said that, that was kinda like a smack in the face because in all of my experience in dealing with that situation, I never saw it that way. And, you know, I I wonder now how many other men are in a situation like that that are maybe, the the end result of that person's relationship, or or marriage ended in divorce, but how many other men are actually living through those, types of abusive narcissistic relationships and are doing it just to hold the thing together because that's the honorable thing to do.
Instead of instead of doing what is probably the better thing for them to do it at this especially at this time in the world, and that's stepping away from it, and walking away or maybe running away. What do you think about that?
[00:31:57] Unknown:
Well, I think it gets complicated. The first thing you'd wanna know about the fella that might be best off walking away, running away, getting the hell out of dodge would be, does he have kids? Mhmm. And if he has kids, is he gonna leave her with the the woman who's gone off the reservation?
[00:32:18] Unknown:
Right.
[00:32:20] Unknown:
If he's feeling a need, he's gotta protect them as well as himself. Where does he take them? Domestic violence shelters won't take a man. Sometimes they say they do. Oh, yes. We provide services for men. Well, to test that because the the domestic violence shelter in Baltimore where I live always says, oh, yes. We provide services for men as well as women. And if there's a man who needs shelter, we'll put him up in a hotel if we have to. Of course, he won't get any services there. He'll he and the kids will be alone and bereft and, you know, forgotten and ignored, won't get any services. But it's not even true that they would do that. I called once and said, look. I gotta I gotta get out of this house. I gotta take my kids. My wife is off her rocker.
I'm I'm in danger. My kids are in danger. I gotta get out of here. What can you do for me? What they told me at the at the House of Ruth in Baltimore was that, well, we don't serve men, but we could put you in our batterers program if you would like. We could put you in our program for men who batter women. That's what we that's the services we offer for men. Which is it's it's which is in that. It's it's not a good situation. No. Of of course, you know, what what did we learn in the Watergate investigation from Woodward and Woodward Woodward and Bernstein, the investigative reporters who broke the Watergate story? What did Deep Throat tell them, their informer?
What did he tell them? You said follow the money. Mhmm. And they followed the money, and they worked their way back to what was really going on. If you wanna understand a lot about feminism and their, exaggeration and I'm not saying exaggeration completely because domestic violence is a problem. Mhmm. Women do get beaten up by men. However, men also get beaten up by women, not in the same way, much more often with weapons. But the the pay big payoff for the, women's advocates on harping about domestic violence is that it so perfectly taps into the worst stereotypes of men.
The worst stereotype of men is men are so violent. Right. They get so angry. They can't control themselves. And all of our wonderful male leaders in Congress fall for this and think, well, yes. There are bad men, but, of course, we are good men. And because we're good men, we're gonna put out a lot of money to fight violence against women. Do you know how much the Violence Against Women Act allocates to the domestic violence industry, and I do use that term advisedly, but pointedly, $1,000,000,000 a year goes to the domestic violence industry, which wouldn't be so bad if they also took care of men who needed help. Right. If they also really based their approach on science and what the science shows are the causes of domestic violence and what we can do to lower those causes so that there is less domestic violence, less ideological nonsense about men's lust for power and control as if women have never exhibited that they want to be in power or in control.
Probably the one of the worst things that they do with the billion dollars is that they use it to pay salaries for people who really are not directly involved in serving female victims of domestic violence. They're certainly not interested or involved in serving male victims of domestic violence. But these are people who are involved in fundraising. So it's not just from the government they get money. They get money from philanthropies. They get money from their fundraising galas. But even worse than that, they are also very much involved in state legislatures all over the country Mhmm. Trying to make divorce laws and family relations laws even more onerous for men, even more protective and privileging of women. And this is being done by, people who are paid with domestic violence funds, on the idea that you can't have a healthy marriage if there's violence in the marriage. So everything can be connected Mhmm. To men's violence.
And, you know, it's a stereotype very much like the stereotype back in the fifties and sixties that men cried that women cried too much and women couldn't do math. It's a stereotype that is just an attempt to keep us, disadvantaged in any controversy between what men need and what women need. Men need what they need women need what they need because they have to contend with these violent men Right. As if we're all always violent. You know, not saying men aren't violent sometimes, but women are violent too sometimes. And we gotta be honest about it. And and we are we are not honest about it.
[00:38:00] Unknown:
So I'll stop there, because you might have some comments. Well, actually, I I wanted to ask you a question in in regards to what we have been talking about as far as relationships go. So for somebody who is on the outside looking in and wanting to and and maybe and maybe seeing a certain pattern of behavior in a marriage, what are some of the signs that we should look for in an abusive relationship, in in an abusive marriage that we should be pointing out to people that we think might be going through that?
[00:38:36] Unknown:
Okay. So at this point, I need to say, first of all, I am not a psychotherapist. Right. I am not a family relations counselor. I am a social worker, but I am not the kind of social worker who worked in a clinical program. I was called a macro at the macro level, social work. Okay. Where I worked on laws and policies and cultural issues. So I with that caveat, what I could say, but this is not psychotherapeutic advice. I would say that the first thing that we you wanna encourage this man to do is to try try, and it's gonna be difficult because we're men, and we don't have much practice in this. We were told that it wasn't important for us, but to try to check-in with what he's really I'm gonna say the word. You ready, Joe? Ready. Go ahead. Feeling. He's go what he's feeling.
[00:39:35] Unknown:
You said the word. I know. I know. Well, for that, we need some bourbon. So Yeah. Yes.
[00:39:42] Unknown:
We we we do have feelings. We try to ignore them That's right. Because they get in the way of what we're really supposed to be all about, which is just being a machine and plugging away, manning up, buttercup. Get over it. Get your ass back to work because that's what men do. We are productive. Your emotions, especially if they're sad or bad ones, just get in the way of you being productive and inefficient, which is true, but only temporarily. Because if you aren't paying attention to your feelings and what's really going on with you, yeah, you can put up with it for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple months, maybe a couple of years. But, you know, there's this thing called alcoholism. There's this thing called drug addiction.
There's this thing called, getting into fights, you know, at bars for stupid reasons. There's this thing called domestic violence where you might just go off the handle with your wife because she's picking on you for being a drunken son or whatever whatever whatever. Not that that would be her fault. But, he bounces heads to take notes about it. Your way feelings get in your way temporarily. But your feelings, your emotions are really the spark plugs of your personality. And if you disconnect them, you know, you're basically going nowhere. You're going nowhere good anyhow.
So I would suggest if you're a good buddy of somebody who's having a hard time like this and doesn't wanna talk about what's really going on and and I should mention a big reason men don't wanna talk about what's really going on with a a woman that they're having trouble with is because it's not the honorable thing to do. What goes on between me and my wife is nobody's business but hers and mine. Why? Because she is the mother of my children. She's up on a pedestal. She's the mother of my children. Wouldn't it be wonderful if women felt the same way about treating men with that kind of respect? He's the father of my children. Exactly.
Yeah. Not quite so much, high regard
[00:41:55] Unknown:
for fathers in our society. And and you and when you said that, I I was thinking, like, right off the bat, I said, you know, unfortunately, though, you know, men may hold on to that that that ideal of, you know, I'm not gonna talk about this because, you know, I'm gonna respect my wife and so on and so forth. But and I've seen this in personal experience, in personal situations, how many times the wife or the woman is out ripping apart her husband
[00:42:22] Unknown:
to whoever I remember when I when I was a little boy, I remember feeling bad, hearing my mother talk among her friends about all of the divorces that were happening among my parents' friends. And I remember feeling bad as a boy, future man, that it was always the man's fault. Mhmm. It was always the man's fault. And I felt bad about that until I got into my twenties and early thirties and realized, oh, yeah. Now I get it. The reason I heard it was always the man's fault is because only the women were talking about it.
[00:43:08] Unknown:
Yeah. We
[00:43:11] Unknown:
we we need we need to be much more vocal and honest
[00:43:16] Unknown:
about what's going on in our lives than we we currently are. I agree. And I'm I'm gonna take your lead on that, your leading on that. Because this is something I don't generally talk about, in my own personal life, on the show, so I'm not gonna go into huge details. But, you and I kinda talked about some of this over the weekend. And, I went through a very difficult divorce, recently, and, it was it was one that I really didn't see coming. I was not expecting the cause of the divorce to be what it was, and I don't really think anybody really expects whatever the cause is for the divorce.
I had been through a very difficult period, leading up to the divorce. I had a number of things happen all the same. It was like a chain effect, you know. I my dad passed away. My grandmother passed away a few months later. While she had passed away, excuse me, while she passed away, and we were I was up in New York burying her. My my my little buddy, my dog, he he died under some very questionable circumstances now. At the time, I didn't think anything of it. But looking back, you know, hindsight twenty twenty, you start to start putting the pieces of the puzzle together. And, I I don't know if I mentioned this to you or not.
I I don't think I've mentioned it on this particular podcast before, but my background, is law enforcement. I I I worked for New York City for twenty three years, and, 12 of those twenty three years I was in uniform service. I spent, six years as a as an investigator, in the in the in my agency. You know, I think at some particular point, I I I started putting the pieces together almost like an investigator would, and I started to find patterns and things like that, and I wondered so many times, why am I seeing that so clearly now? Why didn't I see it back then?
And I know I'm not alone in that. I know there's a lot of men out there who will tell you the same exact thing. Why do you think that is? In your experience in your life experience, why do you think that is?
[00:45:29] Unknown:
Because we don't wanna believe it. Yeah. We do not wanna believe it because we grow up with this idea of women as being like angels. They are something wonderful and good in the world. You know, we if if we have a job that we don't particularly like, you know, we gotta deal with people we don't particularly like. There's a lot of competition among the people we spend most of our time with. Coming home to a woman was, at least in the early days of the marriage, something you really looked forward to. Mhmm. Because women just have this brand. You know? It's it's just great marketing of the female brand. Women are pretty and nice and soft and sweet, and they can have sex with you. And and and they are the mothers of my children, and I just love her so much.
She makes living worth living. Right. And then when she turns out to be just a human being, it's pretty freaking disappointing.
[00:46:43] Unknown:
Once that veneer comes off.
[00:46:45] Unknown:
And you don't wanna believe it. You wanna give her every freaking benefit of the doubt. At the same time, you're just a man, and we all know how men are. Men are stupid. They don't have a clue. They don't know. They don't have a they're not in touch with their feelings. They never express their emotions. They just get angry. And that's you know, men are dogs. Let's admit it. Men are dogs. So if there's a problem between me and her, if she's not be treating me nicely, I guess it's my fault. I'm a dog. I'm a bad person. I'm a man. She's a woman. Now, look, we we were talking about what would you do with a buddy who was having a bad problem, that he was having difficulty talking about?
I would suggest a very simple technique that can come in really handy. But, again, it uses that feeling word.
[00:47:55] Unknown:
But
[00:47:55] Unknown:
Can't do that. We we we got feelings, and we might as well put them to use because they're trying to tell us something. So first of all, let's let's get this straight. When men get angry, the psychologist will often refer to anger as a secondary emotion. Men express anger primarily because it is the one unhappy emotion that we are allowed to express because it's so manly. An unhappy emotion like sadness, it's not very manly. I mean, you know, imagine if I were to say to you, Joe, I'm so sad. I am so sad, man. It just makes me so sad. I can't stand it. No. That's just not very manly. Right. But if I say, Joe, I am so goddamn pissed off.
[00:48:59] Unknown:
There's an almost there's there's an immediate reaction to that. Yeah. Of course. And the reaction you get from the person you're saying that to is more immediate than the generally, I know from my experiences, if if someone came to me and and was constantly telling me, I'm sad. I'm this. I'm and after a while, you know, a a guy just like, alright. Just come on, dude. Really.
[00:49:24] Unknown:
Do something about it. Don't don't just talk about it. Make the change. So so, yes, here's something men can do about it, about feeling angry all the time. Anger is often a secondary emotion. Try to dig deep and be honest about yourself, and try to identify what were you feeling just before anger jumped into the situation and said, I'll take care of this. I'm the man around here. We are angry. Goddamn it. No. Just before anger showed up, what were you feeling? Often, especially for men, it's fear. It's sadness. Mhmm. It's insecurity. It's shame.
And here's here's a good technique for men. Now it probably is not gonna work in the worst situations that have been going downhill for twenty years, but it's worth a try. What do you got to lose? There's a really simple technique called the I feel statement. If you tell your wife if you express anger to your wife, that really only serves to push her away. It makes her defensive.
[00:50:44] Unknown:
Right.
[00:50:45] Unknown:
You try to blame her. She says, well, no. I'm blaming you. And it doesn't go anywhere. The I feel statement doesn't put her on the defensive. An I feel statement begins with you trying to understand how you really feel. For instance, it might be, I'm I'm really feeling insecure, right now, and I'm I'm I'm feeling I'm afraid you're gonna leave me. I'm afraid I'm afraid you're falling in love with your tennis instructor. And she might laugh at that, but not maybe in a mean way. She might say, you come on. You can't really feel that. Right. It asks for help.
Now in the current parlance of psychotherapy, men need to express their vulnerability. I, you know, I don't particularly think I don't particularly think asking men to express their vulnerability is the ideal thing to say to them. I think it makes much more sense to to to ask a man to be honest about what danger does he feel like he's in. That's a good point. Because men men respond to danger much more readily than respond to calls to to express their vulnerability. Because, again, expressing your vulnerability is sort of like, oh, I'm I'm so weak and and I'm so I'm so in a bit unable to take care of the situation.
You know, crucify me. I'm vulnerable. No. I'm in danger here, and I would need to take care of the danger that I feel that I'm in. So what I do when I have a problem with my wife and we get along great, it's been a long time since we had a fight. Well, I always remember to when when I when we're having a bad time, I am usually the one to muster the courage to say we need to talk. And I say, please hold my hand. Please just hold my hand. Even though you might hate me right now Mhmm. And I'm not exactly thinking you're the most wonderful person in the world right now, let's just hold hands. And the reason I suggest that we do that is because it's like a lightning rod. It discharges the negative energy. You know? Okay. We don't hate each other.
We're not ready to to kill each other. We're holding hands. We're we're we're together. Okay? Right now, we're together. So the I feel statement starts with I feel. You say that to your wife. You say that to your girlfriend. I feel sad. I feel afraid. I feel ashamed. Whatever it is, I feel ashamed when you did such and such. It's not what you it's not saying to her what what you did was bad. It's saying, I felt bad. I felt sad when you did such and such. Alright. I see. I'm not saying you were wrong, but when you did that, I felt bad. And I would like to talk with you about that. And one of the things I would like to to ask is the next time the situation comes up, could you do this instead?
It's not a demand, and it's not, insisting, and it's not a case of saying, if you really love me, that's what you do. No. It's the opening of a conversation. Mhmm. And when you say to somebody who at least used to love you that you need some help, there might still be a little flicker of love left, and and she'll maybe wanna help and say, oh my god. I had no idea you felt that way or I had no idea that this would make you feel that way. And then you got channels of communication. So when we as men say, oh, I I don't talk about my feelings. It's not honorable. Or I I'm a man, and I just suck it up. No. I think a lot of times when men don't talk to the women in their lives who are really important to them, it's because we are afraid.
We are afraid. And that might be something you need to start off the I feel statement with. Interesting. Yeah. Darling Darling, I feel afraid right now because you are Mike Tyson, and I'm the ninety eight pound weakling when it comes to talking about feelings and emotions. And I know that if you want to, you could beat the crap out of me in the argument that we could have if this doesn't go right. Right. And I don't wanna feel like shit, so I'm afraid right now. So you could, you know, you could start with that amount of honesty. Right. But what I'm what but what I really wanna talk with you about is this feeling I have of being ashamed. You know? Here's an example. Here's just an example. Okay.
Let's say your your wife has a sister who is married to a really rich guy, and you're not a really rich guy. And your wife
[00:56:21] Unknown:
tells you she just heard from her sister in law. Are you looking at the clock there, Joe? No. No. Do you want me to wrap this up? No. No. No. I have I have a a I have a monitor up on the wall here. And Okay. For some very strange reason, it just blinked on and off. Oh. And, Maybe it was trying to tell me to shut the hell up. No. No. Why are you doing okay here? Because it's on daisy chain, so it's it's I'm worried about Alright. No. You're fine. Should I Brother listen. Okay. We can go for as long as you wanna go.
[00:56:46] Unknown:
Okay. So let's say that your your wife has a sister married to a rich man, and your wife mentions, she mentions, that she just heard from her sister that she and and the sister and the husband and the kids are gonna be going to, I don't know, you know, the French Riviera for two weeks on a yacht. Okay? And what you say to her is, baby, hold my hand. I feel really insecure right now. When you told me that your sister-in-law I mean, that that my sister-in-law was gonna be taking their kids to the French Riviera on a yacht for two weeks. I really felt inadequate as a man.
And I worry I'm afraid that you're gonna leave me because, you know, I work at the factory, and I try to get as much OT as I can get. And, you know, I'm never gonna be able to take you or the kids to the French Riviera on a yacht for two weeks. I I just never am. And so what I need this is another part of the I feel statement. And so what I need, baby, right now is for you and me to talk about planning vacations that could be really fun for the kids that don't cost us more than we can afford. Right. And you know what she's gonna say? She's probably not gonna say, well, you are a sorry ass excuse for a man not making an as much money as you should. You know, she's not gonna say that, probably.
She's probably gonna say, oh, Joe, I'm so sorry you felt that way. Had no idea. Yes. Of course. Let's plan on on let's let's do some real planning about having a great time with the kids on a vacation that doesn't cost us more than we can afford. And you know what, Joe? You know that I don't like camping, but what you did just now was so sweet that, yeah, let's take the kids camping for two weeks. That won't cost much, and they'll have a ball. That kind of thing. That kind of thing. But we gotta we gotta, you know, talk about manning up. I mean, that's where you gotta man up. You gotta man up and say, this is how I feel. And I'm not I'm not embarrassed about it. I'm not I'm not gonna hide from the way I feel.
Because, women, you want intimacy. Right, baby? Well, to get intimacy from me, you really gotta be willing to hear what's going on with me, the good and the bad. And the easier it is for me to express both, the more intimate we can be. Right. Yeah. I mean, we can, you know, we can be in sync all of the time. Which All of the time. Which makes total and complete sense. Right?
[00:59:57] Unknown:
Now, just I just wanna back up to to just a couple of quick things. Like, I was taking notes, as you can see, I was writing notes down as you were talking there. It's it's it's interesting how some of the examples that you used are things that I am familiar with, not in the context you were using them, but in, in in in people that I know that have been in in some relationships, marriages that were falling apart and and and such. And a couple of things that you mentioned also are things that that were really kind of, applicable to myself in my, marriage as my marriage was breaking down.
Talking about, the I feel statements. Probably one of the one of the most difficult experiences that I've heard about is when the guy went to his wife and said exactly that, I'm feeling this, and she laughed in his face. You know how you you you said, you know, falling in love with a tennis instructor and all that? I know a guy, good guy, solid guy, had every opportunity where he could have stepped out on his wife and rejected every opportunity to do that. Why? Because he loved his wife. When he would try to be intimate, she would push him away.
When he would try to express how he was feeling, it had to do a lot with, it it came about a lot of, mocking. And probably one of the most painful statements that that this guy told me, that his wife said, is when he tried to initiate intimacy in the bedroom, She was she she was, younger than he was in the marriage, and she told him, at your age, you shouldn't be needing this as much as you do. And now you hear that and you're not in the marriage and you're not in that situation, that hurts. You know? It's like things just kinda shrivel up on you there for a second when you hear that. Could you imagine being the person that's had that said to them, But yet that person stuck it out, did whatever he could to try to, what's the I'm trying to think of the right word.
Did everything he possibly could do to try to, ameliorate the situation and and try to find other ways to demonstrate the the affection and love and all that stuff. At the same time, he was constantly being flirted with, hit on, so on and so forth, and rejected every opportunity to to do anything about it because of the love that he had for his wife, only for her to continue to mock him, tease him, make fun of him.
[01:03:34] Unknown:
You know where I'm going? So Yep. Yes. I I understand I understand completely. So what you have demonstrated is that the I feel statement is not gonna work in every situation. Course not. No. No. There is no fixing that the guaranteed fix to anything. The I feel statement is based on there being some little flicker of love remaining in Mhmm. A distressed relationship.
[01:04:00] Unknown:
Which is where I was going with it. Yeah.
[01:04:02] Unknown:
Yeah. There there does come a time when, despite your best efforts, to be emotionally honest Mhmm. And the woman takes advantage of the opportunity to do exactly what it is that causes men not to wanna be emotionally honest Mhmm. Namely mock, embarrass, and shame the man. That's right. There's there comes a point where the man should do would do very well to consider the possibility that he is in, a toxic relationship, that the woman might have a personality disorder. And maybe he would like to find a trained, honest,
[01:05:06] Unknown:
trustworthy,
[01:05:10] Unknown:
relationship counselor to check him on that. Right. There are relationship counselors that are male, who are good with men. There are also relationship counselors who are female, who are good with men. And there are men who are really no good with men because, you know, they they're they're wonderful men, but, you know, men basically are scum even though I'm wonderful. And there are women who are very bad with men. So if you're wondering, is my relationship really dead? Is there any hope of bringing this back? You can search online, especially in these days when telehealth is popular.
You might find a a a family therapist or a relationship therapist in, you know, Pocatello, Idaho when you live in Texas, and it's quite alright because it's gonna be done by Zoom. You could actually call the therapist and say, look. I don't wanna pay you any money yet, but can I get ten minutes of your time for a chemistry check?
[01:06:24] Unknown:
Right.
[01:06:25] Unknown:
Some therapists will say, no. I'm so booked. I can't do that. But some therapists will say, yeah. We could talk for ten minutes. And if you talk for ten minutes and you they think and you think, yeah, they might be worth they might be worth talking to. I kinda got a good vibe from that person. Then you say, you have to decide for yourself whether they're worth a hundred or a hundred and $50 that an hour of their time would cost you. And then you get yourself in there for an hour maybe if you wanna pay that money, and you get more assurance, perhaps, that this person can help you.
You might get some more assurance, actually, that the best help this person can give you is that you gotta get the hell out of there Right. If you're honest in describing the situation. And that's the problem most, man. And not blaming her for everything. Ideally ideally, you wanna get both of you in there so that she gets a chance to tell her side of the story in a way that she might not have been able to tell you directly. Right. And women will often say, well, I didn't wanna say anything because I knew you'd get mad. I knew you'd get angry.
Well, okay. Sorry you don't trust me enough, you know, that you have to worry that I'm gonna hit you if you say something I don't wanna hear. But okay. Let let's go to this counselor. We'll we can do a Zoom session with him. You know, those are all possibilities. And those are possibilities that empower men as well as empower women. Right now, women run the whole world of relationships and emotions.
[01:08:08] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:08:11] Unknown:
And men are the ninety eight pound weaklings
[01:08:14] Unknown:
for the most part. Right. That that's true.
[01:08:18] Unknown:
We can become there's lots of empowered women these days. Right? I'm a powerful woman. Yes. Great. It's about time men got empowered where we have been weak, and we have been weak in being able to talk about how we really feel. Now talking about how you really feel isn't the same thing as talking about what you should get. It's just talking about how you feel, which makes you think that maybe what you need to get is such and such, but that's only, you know, your side of the bargain. Maybe for her, that's not gonna work, and you need to hear it each other out. And a relationship counselor is trained to do that, but you gotta be careful as a man to make sure that your counselor is not biased against men. And the reason I say that is because especially if the counselor you're thinking of is from the social works profession.
Social work is very heavily feminist, and it's all about power and control. And you know who the ones who need to be in power and control are. It's the it's men. And women are, you know, virtuous and and oppressed, by the big bad man. But other counselors are not social workers, And I'm not saying all social workers are bad, but other counselors are just really well trained to see into what the issues are behind what's being said about what the issues are. Mhmm. And they can draw you out in nice ways and with and and and if you get into a situation like a relationship counseling, one of the things the relationship counselor is gonna wanna see is, can she, can he both admit that they have not been perfect as spouses?
And, of course, by virtue of the fact that both he and she are humans, the counselor knows they haven't been perfect. Yeah. And if the man says, no. I've haven't done anything wrong. I've never done she knows he's an idiot. If she says, oh, no. It's all his fault. She knows the counselor knows she's an idiot. So don't be an idiot and be honest and say, yeah. I mean, I've I've screwed up. Yeah. And I could've done such and such better. And then you're on the road to recovery.
[01:10:55] Unknown:
And and I found that to be very, very, very true. In in in my particular situation, there were a few times early on when there were the hints of trouble in the marriage that were coming about, and I'll never forget this one. I I I, you know, I I I went to her. We were talking about things and about the things that were going on in the marriage, and I said, look, I know I am not faultless in all of this. I know I have my issues in this. And you know something, when I said that, I could see the confusion come across her face, you know. Like she wasn't expecting me to say, hey, look, I I'm just I'm just as as guilty in all this stuff as as as you are, you know.
That that look of confusion that that came across. So I I knew at that moment that I had her attention that she was like, alright, I wanna hear this. And, so I I went through all the things. I was like, I know I'm wrong in this, I know I'm wrong in that, I wanna fix this, I wanna get I wanna get back on track with this, that, and the other thing. I said, but this is what I see on the other end of it. And I see this is where you're failing, and and you're you're not putting up the best that you could possibly put forward to it. Let's go to counseling.
Do you know what the answer I got was?
[01:12:12] Unknown:
I'm not going to counseling. It's your fault.
[01:12:14] Unknown:
Very similar. I'm not the one who needs counseling. You do. That's the answer that I got. And I and I did. I I I actually, I went to I went to see a counselor by myself and the guy was great. He was he was hysterical. I walked in and and I sat down, he comes in and and, he he just sat at his desk, like, he didn't say anything. He just sat there and he was take he was writing some notes and I was I'm I'm just sitting there, I'm like, what's going on? And so I so I said, do do you wanna start? He goes, start what? What's the point of being here if your wife's not here? Oh, well, you could you could have said that and saved me the hundred and $50 that it just cost me to come in here, you know, before I got here.
Can we talk? I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a couple's therapist. I I'm not an individual therapist. So if she's not coming, you can leave, but I still want my one fifty. Wow. That's pretty rude. Yeah. It was. That's pretty rude. It was. Well, he was apparently trying to make a point, but he could have made the point in a whole different way, kind of like saying, be sure to bring your wife. Yeah. But that's the other problem too. Like, I and, you know, you you you can't you can't what's the old saying? You know, you you can you could, teach a horse how to drink. You could bring the horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You know? Right. Not And she wasn't coming. And she wasn't coming. No. The cow wasn't coming. So, Yeah.
[01:13:43] Unknown:
So he didn't wanna hear the counselor didn't wanna hear anything about how you tried to get her to come. Oh, well, maybe that I don't I don't even know if that would be ethical, really. But who knows? I'm not that kind of a counselor. Yeah. It was funny, though. Okay. So, you know, there is an example of how we, as men, are the ninety eight pounds weight ninety eight pound weaklings in the whole world of relationships. Right. We don't even know how the game is played.
[01:14:11] Unknown:
I think men We get beat up. I think men are oftentimes and and I think this is this is a result of of of modern culture. Men are men are off balance. They don't know. I I I could say for myself, I sir I certainly don't know sometimes. And I am not a PC person. I say what's on my mind. I just let it rip, and if you can't handle it, buy, you know, you can take off. Funny interesting thing about that too is, about a year two years ago, I I had I had a lady come to my house for dinner. I I cooked this I I love to cook. Cooking is like my my thing. I am I am a fantastic, amateur home chef.
Okay? And I will be happy to send you some photos of some of the things I take. I'd I do glamour shots for the food. So, Yeah. But I can't eat them. Send me some food.
[01:15:10] Unknown:
Yeah. We'll we'll work something out for sure. Hey. Look. I'm I'm an I'm an eighth Italian, Joe. We used to have spaghetti every Sunday. Okay. So come on. Come on. Alright. Alright. Alright. I I know probably your best dishes aren't Italian, are they?
[01:15:25] Unknown:
No. Because no. Here's the funny thing. I don't find Italian cooking challenging enough. Oh, okay. Well, maybe that's why I can do it. I I I I tend believe it or not, I tend to drift toward French Creole style cooking. Oh my god. So Sheesh. Because I I find it challenging. I interrupted you with my No. No. You're fine. Go ahead. No. You're fine. Okay. So I I invited this lady over for dinner, and, she came, and I was very surprised that she came. Now now for those of so for those of you who are uninitiated to the podcast, I have two beautiful, adorable, the best ever little partners in my in my family. They're my family.
My my two French bulldogs. Alright. I have my girl who's four years old. Her name is well, her her her full name is is Winnie Jean, but, ever since we brought her home, she was only about that big, so we called her Bean. So that's that's become her name, but, so I have Bean, and then I have my boy who's named after two serial killers. He's named after Charles Manson and a fictitious one named Dexter Morgan. And there's there's reasons for it because he's he's a lunatic and it's and I love him. But he's my buddy. He's my pal, you know, and he's three. So they are everything in the world to me. When when and I and I say that, and I and I always preface this when I'm when I'm talking to somebody, anybody about the dogs.
When I was at my lowest, they were the only two things, if you wanna put it that way, that were there for me and and and were by my side. When I went through I went through a period of time where, you can call it a TA period, a temporary alcoholic period, where, I was going through about 2 to maybe $300 a week on alcohol. Okay? Finishing bottle after bottle after bottle just going through. I went through a very, very bad depression. I was, I was mixing antidepressants with alcohol, just trying to make myself remember remember the Pink Floyd song Comfortably Numb? Mhmm. That's what I was striving for. That feeling, that comfortable, numb feeling, just forgetting everything in the world.
It was the only thing it was the only way I was able to sleep at night without replaying everything that I had seen, and you and I had spoken about that privately. I'm not gonna get into details on it, on the show here. But, it was the only way I was able to sleep at night without constantly replaying everything that I had seen. But I had a point where it got really bad, and when it got to that point where I was literally laying on the floor of my bathroom, crying, bleeding because, not that I voluntarily laid down, I passed out and hit my head on the ceramic tile and all that stuff. And, you know, who was there for me?
When I felt myself going down that way, I called seven or eight people. I'd and I have I prove it. Like, I have the phone records. Seven or eight people that I called, not one of them was able to come and sit with me prior to that to so that that wouldn't happen. But my two dogs were there with me. They lay there on the floor with me. My girl was licking the tears out of my eyes. My boy was laying right next to me as close almost to the point where it was like, if he could get any closer, he'd be in my skin. You know, they were there for me when I needed them the most. So all of that to say this. So I had this lady come to the house for dinner one night. I cooked this beautiful dinner. It's called, poulet de provence, and it is, it's basically it's just it's it's a it's a roasted chicken breast served on top of a of a of a homemade crouton, with this, tomato cream sauce and and seared ham, and it's just it's a beautiful dish. It's absolutely beautiful.
So I I went through all this effort for that, and, we sat down for dinner and I and I served everything out and and she looked down and she saw the dogs laying. They weren't they weren't even begging, they they don't stand at your chair, they don't look for food, they were just laying at my feet. One on one side, one on the other, and she looked down and she goes, what about them? What about them? I'll feed them when we're finished. I have I I made I made a plate for them. Same thing we're having, I made it for them too, so they'll eat when we're finished. She's like, no. No. No.
What? Why are they in the house? They're my dogs. Where else would they be? Well, dogs belong outside. Not French bulldogs. No. Not when it's a 15 degrees outside. No. They don't go outside. So she's like, really? So so you actually eat where the dogs are? Yes. I do. And I saw where it was going. So my sarcastic ass turns around and says, and you know something? And I actually Jack as my witness, God is my witness, I just I did exactly this, I just leaned in and I went, they sleep with me too. She was like, what? She said, oh, no. I said, yeah. I said, my girl sleeps under the blankets on my back.
My boy sleeps across the pillow with his butt facing me. She's like, no. No. That's not gonna work. I don't she goes, I don't compete with dogs. I'm not asking you to. I got up. I went to the door. I opened the door. You can leave.
[01:21:43] Unknown:
Wow.
[01:21:45] Unknown:
So So she didn't wanna leave. So to make her leave, I took her plate off the table, and I put it on the floor, and I gave it to the dogs to eat. I said, now you can leave.
[01:21:59] Unknown:
So Yes. What did you what did you conclude from all this?
[01:22:03] Unknown:
I I'm an asshole. Or at least I have my moments where I can be. But, you know what? I I I came to realize that, you know, I I don't need anybody to be happy in my life, like, another person to to share my life. I I have come to the point in my life where look, and and I've told you this privately, and I'll I'll say it here. You know, despite everything that happened, you know, I I I love my ex, and I I wish nothing but the best for her. I hope I hope she's happy with the decision she's made, and I and I hope she's enjoying her life with her her new life, with her her new husband and new family. God bless you. Enjoy it. I love you. Just be happy.
Me? I've come to understand and appreciate. It took me three years to rediscover who I really am, because I've spent so many years of my life putting other people in front of me and ahead of me. Now, I get to sit down, and I can do a podcast five nights a week if I want to. I can go and I can travel out to the ranch as often as I like to. If I wanna go and blow as much money as I wanna blow on something stupid, I can go do that. I don't have to check-in with anybody. I don't have to get anybody's approval or clearance to do that. If I wanna study, I wanna go back to school, I don't have to say, well, if I do that, then how's that gonna affect this?
No. No, sir. You know what? I am happy. I found myself. I am I took that time to rediscover who I am. And and I actually I talked to another friend of mine about this, about a year ago. In a lot of ways also that's a mistake because I because now I have a problem. You know? There there there is there is somebody that that I really do like and I do care about. And as as much as I say that if I want a relationship, this would be the person that I would have the relationship with, I can't pull the trigger on that because I don't wanna give up the liberty, the freedom that I have now.
And sometimes I feel like that's incredibly wrong of me, but at the same time, I'm not gonna no. I'm I I love my life. I love where things are in my life. Are there things to be better? Sure. Yeah. Things could be a little better. But I'm happy. I found who I am. I'm building that person up. I'm getting strength in that person, and, I'm enjoying it. I am absolutely enjoying it. So, yeah, I could be a jerk. I could be an ass, but, you know, go ahead.
[01:24:48] Unknown:
So are you saying that you love your life now Mhmm. But you did say you don't have a romantic relationship now, and you might like one, but you're torn because
[01:25:07] Unknown:
you love your life now. Yeah. It's it's one of those it's one of those crazy things that, you know, it's this So so here's here's what
[01:25:17] Unknown:
little old me would ask you to think about. Mhmm. The bad relationship was really bad, and it sorta got etched into your circuit boards.
[01:25:34] Unknown:
Yes.
[01:25:35] Unknown:
That this bad piece of software gets etched into your computer's firmware. And that's your idea of how a committed relationship needs to go between two people concerning what you get to do with your preferences and with your time, your free time. You realize that wasn't working for you, so you throw in that piece of firmware away. That circuit board is in the trash, and now you got a whole different operating system that pretty much lets you do whatever you wanna do whenever you wanna do it. Wouldn't it have been good
[01:26:29] Unknown:
if I call it open instead of you get I call it open I call it open source.
[01:26:33] Unknown:
Open source. Okay. So wouldn't it have been good would wouldn't it have been good if your previous relationship had not been allowed to etch into your circuit board Oh, absolutely. This thing that you really found to be full of bugs.
[01:26:56] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:26:57] Unknown:
A very poorly written program for how to be a couple. And so maybe you can take your happy life now and modify it a little bit within proper parameters, being very clear about what the requirements of the software are. Yep. And you approach the relationship that you'd like to have with the requirement that it's never gonna get like that first relationship was, which was doomed to fail from the start. I mean, you know, it is possible to find a middle ground. Oh, of course. Absolutely. But
[01:27:46] Unknown:
do you know the old saying, you know, happy happy wife, happy life? Yep. My thing now is happy life with no wife. So Okay. And and that's gonna and that's and that leads me into this next thing that I I wanted to ask you about. You see a lot of things here in in and if you if you if you pay attention to the news every now and then they throw a little interesting little tidbit out there. And one of the things that I that I've been seeing trending a lot, especially now also on social media stuff, that is that, a lot of men, especially younger men, are shying away from marriage and that type of familial responsibility.
I personally think it has to do with a lot of the, because of the the, the, the disposable nature of relationships these days. You know, I came from a generation, especially as as from an Italian family that, you know, you have a problem in your marriage, you fix it. You don't throw it away, you don't run away from it, you fix it, and you stay together to the end. Alright. My dad and my mom, I love I love my parents more than anything in the world. I I miss them every day. They they both passed away way too soon and too close to each other. It's it's my dad passed away, then it then about a year later, my mom passed away. It it was very, very hard.
My dad to me was, someone that I looked up to as far as how his relationship was with my mom. My dad was very, very sick. Very sick. My dad had some, the the name of the of the disease that he had is is just not in my head at the moment, but it was something that is so rare. It's like one in literally one in a million guessed this thing. And, my dad never told anybody in the family. Never said a word. My dad had liver problems, kidney problems, a lot of which I attribute to his time in service in Vietnam. My dad had numerous health problems that I I mean, I I can say rattled my my sister's my sister has the it's like the the encyclopedic mind for all the stuff that my dad was dealing with because she was caring for him more than I was. She was right there. She lived literally walking distance from their house, so she was with them all the time.
But my dad never told anybody just how sick he was. He would tell us, you have doctor's appointment. Dad, how'd it go with the doctor? No problem. We're good. We're all good. Really? We're okay? Yeah. Yeah. We're fine. Yeah. Just gotta adjust some medications here or there, but other than that, I'm fine. Alright. What else are you gonna do? You mean you can't, you know, I can't force him to tell me something, but that's what he said. So he hid how sick he was for many, many years, wasn't getting properly cared for because my mom suffered from, she had end stage emphysema, COPD.
She had, on top of that, gone through three strokes, and and she had severe rheumatoid arthritis where she couldn't even un like, her hands were like this all the time. Like, she couldn't even open up her hands enough to do anything. My dad, I we talked my sister and I talked to my dad many, many times about, dad, you need help. You can't do this by yourself, you know. No. It's my responsibility. I'm gonna take care of your mother to the and he did that up until he couldn't do it anymore and he and he died because of it, because he didn't take care of himself. That's the generation that I grew up with. That's the role model that I had. And my grandfather was the same way. My grandfather had a lot of health issues. My grandfather oh, man. My grandfather, at 12 years old in nineteen twenty something was a concert violinist.
My grandfather played, I think, eight or 10 instruments. You know, he had everything laid before him, but he was devoted to his wife. He was devoted to his children, his family. He put all that stuff aside, then he went to work on Wall Street, had four heart attacks working on the on the on the trading floor in Wall Street, plus a stroke. He died at 64 when I was 16 years old. The last thing I ever said to him was, I love you grandpa, and I love you too pal. Last thing last words we ever spoke to each other. Never forget it. But my grandfather my grandfather loved my grandmother so much that despite whatever problems they had, he would randomly stop people on the street, strangers, and tell them the story of how he met my grandmother, stole her heart from somebody else, promised to marry her even though she laughed in his face, ended up marrying her, having four beautiful children, who grew up to be incredibly successful in their lives.
And that's that's the role models that I had growing up. So that stayed with me my life. And sometimes I look at it and say, you know what? That was a mistake for me to try to follow that today in this disposable relationship age.
[01:33:24] Unknown:
Okay. I get you. Might be a mistake in this disposable relationship age. However, tell the truth. Mhmm. You you would like to. You would like to find somebody like that Oh, for sure. To have a life okay. Oh, for sure. For sure. And and I think that the young men you're talking about who have sort of given up on the idea of relationships in this crazy age of male female rancor that we're in. Yeah. I understand. I understand why they are fed up and don't wanna deal with women these days. I mean, if if for no other reason that it just makes no sense to young men these days, makes no sense to this old man these days, that young women still think that men should pay for the first date. Mhmm.
Yeah. It just does not make sense to me. And and the idea of of that being an entitlement that a lot of women sort of feel in this age of supposed equality between men and women, yet I'm more equal than you are, and you're getting more out of being with me than I'm getting from being with you. Yeah. So you're gonna pay for the date. I understand why young men are like, no. I'm not doing this. This is a violation of my integrity. But I think that as much as they've sworn off women, they they many of them, I believe, would still like to find a woman that they could have a loving relationship with. I agree with that. And it's very it's very disappointing for this younger generation to be dealing with women who seem to have very little disregard for the idea of fairness and respect for men.
[01:35:21] Unknown:
And of of course, also, today's modern approach to, marriage and divorce, you you have divorce on demand, you could just, you know, you don't even need to have your partner's consent anymore. You know, you just go into the courthouse one day, file the paperwork for divorce, and done. You know? And then you have all the all the laws that are attached with, divorce, where it is so punitive against the man in the relationship even though maybe the man wasn't the cause of the divorce. Maybe in a certain may maybe the maybe the wife was the one who stepped out and cheated and, you know, and and and filed the divorce claim and all that stuff, but yet it's punitive against the man.
The man is the one who has to give up half of his pension. The man is the one who has to give up the, the alimony and support payments. The man is the one who has to do now if you have kids, yeah, I look. If you have kids, you are you take care of your kids. Plain and simple. You know? It's all the other stuff. You know? You get married. You're married for a couple years, and all of a sudden, you know, that person's entitled to half of your assets.
[01:36:36] Unknown:
Yeah. This has been going on since forever. Well, not forever, but for a long time, generation, several generations, this is the situation has been going on. You will often hear people say, oh, but it's getting better for fathers. Yeah. It's getting better for fathers in some states. But there are also some very strong pushbacks. There's a lot of backlash.
[01:37:01] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:37:02] Unknown:
Just as men were not crazy about women getting equality in the in the, skyscraper that might represent the the male domain of money and politics and, you know, that kind of power, women are no more eager to have men, get equality in the, convention center, which is the location of women's heavy investment primarily in relationships. Mhmm. You know, everybody does better if they have work life balance. For some men, 99.99% work is great, and that's how they get balanced. They don't need much home life and vice versa. Mhmm. But for most people, you know, something like sixty forty, 50 50, 40 60, that's, you know, that that would be ideal. One of the big problems I think we as men are facing is that we have had to allow women to have equality in our traditional domain of money.
They have not had to give us equal access to the world of love and relationships and friendships and cooperation and intimacy, it's you know, that still belongs to women. And when there was a divorce, even though the law might say the best interests of the children and even if the custody evaluator says, oh, I think these are both good parents, and it should be a fifty fifty deal, if the woman says, your honor, I'm afraid of him, sometimes he gets so angry. And, oh, by the way, Johnny and Susie don't like him anymore either. That's pretty much all she's gotta say, and she's got the judge on the spot. That's right. Yeah.
Because when the judge hears a suggestion that this man is violent, which is a very easy suggestion to make because we all are ready to believe that men are scum Correct. And violent and horrible people, If he dares to dismiss the woman's assertion that he's violent and she's afraid of him and says, I don't I don't really believe you there. I think he's a pretty good father, and so it's gonna be joint custody. And he's wrong, and the father really does do something bad, or the judge is right, and the woman somehow succeeds in pissing off the man so greatly that he does do something she can take a picture of, you know, like a bruise or something Right.
Then, you know, that judge can be a big trouble That's right. With the with the judicial board. It's it's it's not a fair playing field in that in in for for men in the world of relationships and emotions, and it needs to be for our mental health, for our social health, for our kids. And
[01:40:30] Unknown:
we we're not fighting for that. We're not fighting for that. Well, I just wanna interrupt you for one second. We have a comment Go ahead. We have a comment in the, in the chat, from the Texan DM, who I I know personally. He says, great topic tonight. And then, he goes on to say, sounds like animal form. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
[01:40:52] Unknown:
Yeah. It's great. Yeah. That was a great line. Yeah. Yep. Thank you for that. Yep.
[01:40:59] Unknown:
So I I didn't mean to cut you off, brother. I wanted to get that in before. Yeah. I let's let's give a shout out to
[01:41:05] Unknown:
The Texian DM. Text land what is it? The Texian. The Texland m. No. Texian DM. Oh, the Texian. Yes. The Texian. Yes. Okay. He's actually Thank you for that. He's actually a very good friend of mine. So,
[01:41:19] Unknown:
and, if you, if if you're curious, you can go back through our, archive shows, and you'll see that, he was actually a guest on our show, and we had a pretty lengthy conversation. So Great. Check it out. So so what what
[01:41:34] Unknown:
we need to do as men is to start talking about this in public. Like, if you ever get to go to a a a town hall where a a congressman or a city council person is is trying to get your vote, you know, summon up your courage, maybe go with a buddy, and raise your hand and say, mister city councilman, can you tell me what you've done to address the fact that, boys commit suicide three and a half times more often than girls in our town? Just say that. And, of course, he'll stammer and have nothing to say. And you can leave him, you know, hanging out to dry. But afterwards, you might go up to him and say, well, look. I knew that was a tough question. And I'd love to have you start paying attention to these things because suicide is just the tip of the iceberg.
But it's interesting. You know, Republicans and Democrats both have different reasons for ignoring that. You know? Yeah. Republicans tend Republicans tend to believe that that men are bad and women are virtuous, and the Democrats have a tendency to believe that men are bad in a different kind of way, oppressors, patriarchal oppressors oppressors, and women are victims of that oppression. And so, therefore, we must do everything we can to aid the people who are oppressed. So there really is no natural party or or there is no party that feels like they they need to pay attention to men, that it's a winning proposition.
And, you know, for electoral purposes, there's a lot of truth to that because men vote on the economy. Why do they vote on the economy? Because they got so much pressure on them to make money. That's right. Yeah.
[01:43:40] Unknown:
Yeah. So It's the driving factor behind them.
[01:43:43] Unknown:
Yeah. So shifting our focus to be, a recognition that you'll probably make more money in your life if you have good mental health in your life. You know, you will probably less likely to be an alcoholic and miss three years of work. Right. You know? So it's it's not a it's not an either or proposition. Good mental health, good social policies for men are good for men and their ability to be the kinds of people we want them to be, which is productive, economically productive, and providers. I personally think that's kind of old fashioned, but, you know, I'd certainly recognize that there are a lot of men who who buy into that and like it, and it makes them feel good to be the provider. Right.
But the essential thing is no matter what you think your primary purpose is and how you go about your life, you gotta be taking care of your mental health or you're gonna be hurting yourself, shooting yourself in the foot, so to speak. Well yeah. So we so so we can talk about that. We should talk about that. And we should embarrass some politicians because they don't think about it, and they're supposedly our leaders. You know, and they're so afraid they're so afraid of alienating women. So afraid. Yeah. I hate using that term when it comes to them. When when I think a lot of women are really sort of wondering when are man men gonna stop being such big chumps and speak up about what they need?
You know, women don't particularly like weak and wimpy men.
[01:45:23] Unknown:
We we are, in many ways, weak and wimpy. We have a great question from the from the taxi and DM again. He says, Hey. Put it up on the screen here.
[01:45:31] Unknown:
Okay. Is the solution political or social? Well, you know, they sort of go together, don't they? But, you know, maybe there's a difference. It's both. You know, it's not just about laws. But then again, there are laws that make a difference. Let's see. Was there another question? Oh, it's the same question. Yeah. Same question. I actually left it up. Yeah. Okay. I hope that's a decent answer for you, Texian.
[01:45:57] Unknown:
We'll see. We'll see if he pops up with something else. But, Yeah. Let's see. What I think we'll do is here at this point, I think we're gonna we're gonna start to wrap it up because, we're approaching almost two hours. And, what I I need to go through the ending of the show and the closing of the show. And then, Jack, what I'd love to do, as I would love to get you again at a later time when you when you have some extra time in your hands, to come back on again and we could we could pick up this conversation. Because this is this is an absolutely fascinating conversation. We have barely scratched the service on number, the issues that you and I had talked about, previously.
And, and just looking at some of the numbers coming through on on the audio stream, and this is this is a good conversation. I think people need to hear this stuff. And, I just wanna say thank you so much for all the time that you, you gave to us. Let's see. Texty and DM. Let's see. Here we go. Let's see what you got to say. He says, definitely, there is a school of thought that says policy and politics are downstream of culture. That's Breitbart. What can we do to impact the culture and turn this around? Great question.
[01:47:07] Unknown:
Well, who is the culture? It's us. Right? It's us. And who changes the culture? Influencers. What are influencers? There are people who say, I have an idea. I know what's good. Try this. You'll like it. We gotta have vision about what we want and some clarity about why we want it and how it's gonna be good for everybody. Our nation will be healthier when its men are healthier, And our nation will be happier when its men are happier. And our kids will also be better off because kids, both boys and girls, need their fathers. Oh. And they need strong, confident fathers.
Talk about being influencers. You know, fathers are hugely important influencers of their children. Absolutely.
[01:48:07] Unknown:
Absolutely. I I'm I'm when I when I think about my own my own life, where would I be right now if I was if it wasn't for my dad? My dad was such a huge influence on me and my my developmental stages and and my, not just physically, but just just the way I think and the way I I I interact with people. You know, your you know, the the dad absent from the home is and and I'm sorry. I don't I don't well, let me not say I'm sorry because this is a, a a a show where we don't care. You know, we say what we have to say. You know, two moms, two dads in a home doesn't do it.
It needs the balance. Male, female. Have have me back on, and and I'd like to pick that up. I'd like to pick that up. We'll absolutely do that. That would be I would love that. That that'd be a great conversation, and I think the audience would like would appreciate that as well. Alright. Let me clear that, and there we go. Alright. So, Jack, why don't you, as we close this thing up, just let us know where we can find you, anything that you wanna, share with us, to track you down. I I if you want, I can give out your phone number. People can call you. No. I'm kidding. I would never do that.
[01:49:20] Unknown:
Thank you. Well, Mail Friendly Media, you can see it on the on the back wall back there behind me. Mail friendly media, one word, no hyphen. Mailfriendlymedia.com is where I put all my stuff. Since we're talking to since I'm talking to to you in Texas Mhmm. I wanna mention one last idea, because it sort of centers around everything we've sort of been talking about. You know, it's the idea of being a real man. Mhmm. And I know that you guys in Texas, you wanna be real men. And I know that a lot of guys wear a big hat, but they don't have any cattle. Right? Right?
So they pretend to be, you know, tough guy.
[01:50:07] Unknown:
Why did you have to say that while I was swallowing some coffee? Because ham was spit it out across the
[01:50:13] Unknown:
Well, isn't that a saying in Texas?
[01:50:15] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:50:16] Unknown:
Yeah. I think Isn't that isn't that a saying Oh, where'd you go?
[01:50:21] Unknown:
I think we lost Jack there for a second.
[01:50:26] Unknown:
See. Okay. Am I back? You are back, but your picture's not back yet. Hey. Let me click that. Let's see. Turn camera on and join the stage. There I am. Is that good? Yes. Welcome back.
[01:50:37] Unknown:
Talking about big hat snow cattle. That's a saying you guys have down there, isn't it? I have not heard that, but, but but maybe the Texian DM has. He's been here a lot longer than I have. Alright.
[01:50:48] Unknown:
Well, so it's up here in Maryland. We have heard that saying, and what it means is, yeah, the guy puts on a good show, but there ain't, you know, nothing behind it. Yeah. Big hat, no cattle.
[01:50:59] Unknown:
All hat, no cattle, he says.
[01:51:01] Unknown:
All hat oh, is that what it says? All hat, no cattle. I'll pop I'll pop it up on the screen there. There you go. Okay. How do we know the Texian is really from Texas? That's what I would Oh, believe me, this man is from Texas.
[01:51:13] Unknown:
Absolutely. Believe me, this man is from Texas. And when you listen to the 27 generations of being in Texas. Alright. And when if if you listen to the episode that we, that we did together, you'll definitely know that this man is Texan. No doubt. Alright. Alright.
[01:51:25] Unknown:
Well, I just wanna mention for all of the men in Texas who are thinking about getting a big hat even though they don't have any cattle is that you don't need to. Because the best definition of a real man is a man who does not care at all about anybody else's definition of a real man.
[01:51:45] Unknown:
Jack Scott. Just be yourself. Jack Scott's be jokes. Do you see that on the screen that Jack Scott jokes?
[01:51:51] Unknown:
Jack Scott jokes. Yeah. But the none none of them are funny. I don't hear anybody laughing. I'm laughing. Me see a Texian.
[01:51:58] Unknown:
Am I laugh I'm I'm Where is he? I'm nobody? Wait. I mean, what? I'm laughing.
[01:52:06] Unknown:
Alright. Nobody's laughing. Yeah. I yeah. I'm dying. I'm dying here. I'm dying here. Dude's staring up, and nobody's laughing. A ruddy Dangerfield. Yeah. No respect. Yeah. No respect. No respect. No respect. No respect.
[01:52:23] Unknown:
Alright, Jack. So I don't know if you wanna stick around while I close out this beast of a show, but, if you do, just Yeah. I'd like to see how you do your intro. Just, just just mute your mic, and we'll be good to go. Okay.
[01:52:33] Unknown:
It was great talking to you, Joe. Same here. Great talking to you, mister Texian. Take care. Jack
[01:52:39] Unknown:
is oh, he put it up there. That's great. Unmute your mic. His his mic is your mic is still muted.
[01:52:58] Unknown:
Alright, Texe. We're gonna go to therapy together, bud. We'll take care of this. Yeehaw.
[01:53:04] Unknown:
And and and since and since I know he's still listening, I'm I'm gonna say this because, you know, we we we're running out of time. We don't have, time for our our Texit fact of the day, but, I think, I think, the men in Texas will become the men of Texas when Texas finally finally lifts its head among the free and independent nations of the world.
[01:53:27] Unknown:
Oh my god. Yeah. Well, I guess we gotta talk about that too, Yes, sir. Hey. You know what? Everybody's Hey, Daniel.
[01:53:35] Unknown:
When when, when we have Jack back on, would you like to join us on the video stream? And, we can have a nice three way conversation. We could do that. Just let me know. You have my number. Just give me a call, and, we'll we'll we can definitely do that. I think we would have a a a hell of a good time. But, yes, and I but I do I I do agree, and I think, personally speaking, that, Texas men will step up and be Texas men when Texas stands alone in the nations among the nations. So, Jack, I don't know if you know this enough, but I am a member of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which is a, basically, it's a it's a political action committee of p,
[01:54:18] Unknown:
I get therapized live. Jack will quit the what? Profession. Quit the profession. Yeah. But I don't do therapy as a profession, so it's okay. There we go. So We'll get some we'll we'll have some adult drinks. We'll have some adult drinks, and we'll talk about that. Union.
[01:54:34] Unknown:
Yes. Texas is, well, the Texas Nationals Movement is an organization that, Daniel Miller, the Texian DM, is actually the president of the organization. Oh. And, it's a basically, it's a it's a basically, it's a PAC, and, we are seeking, through leg through the legislative process, a peaceful separation from the American Union so that Texas will once again reassert itself as an independent free nation among the nations of the world. And, there's a lot of things about Texas that a lot of people don't really know, which is why usually when I close the show out, I do a a Texit FAQ, FAQ, which you can get all the information about Texit from the website, texitnow.org.
You can go to my website, joerusiello.com/tandm, and you can find out. I am, just to answer your question, Jack, I am the, the the deputy district the desk the deputy county coordinator for Maverick County down here in in, in Eagle Pass. And, even though I am not a native born Texan or Texian, which is what the actual term is, The, I I am by adoption a Texian, and I I think Daniel will tell you that I think they adopted me within the organization there. My my me and my New York ways. I've been, supporting the organization since 02/2016 when I still lived in New York.
And, once, once I obtained my independence down here in Texas, meeting my divorce, I was able to reroute funding and so so on and so forth and became a full member of the Texas Nationalist Movement and, jumped right on board and got involved with, trying to get, the county here, set up and running. So, the county leadership team. So, it's a great organization, bunch great bunch of people, and believe it or not, there there are almost 700,000 people involved in this in this organization that are working towards Texas independence. And on top of that, public opinion right now on the Texas on on Texas independence, we're we're polling at, like, over 60% of Texans are in favor of Texas leaving the American Union and standing alone.
If that happened, Texas will become easily the eighth or the twelfth largest GDP in the world in the world, which is huge. Texas has the population, it has the land mass, it has the seaports. It has its, Texas is not part of the national grid. Texas has its own power grid supply. Texas can very easily, very, very easily take its place among the nations. You know, people joke around about, well, how could how could Texas leave the union and be by itself? How are you gonna defend yourself? You know? But the thing is, you look at countries smaller than Texas like, Mauritania and and Moldova and places like that that didn't exist prior to World War two are all of a sudden now in free and independent countries, you know, among the nations of the world. Why is it okay for them to be able to do that? But God forbid, a state of the union tries to assert its independence or talk about its independence and it's it's it's mocked and and put down. Did you Jack, did you know that there are 25 states in the union right now that have secession legislation going through the the legislative process?
No. I didn't know there were 25. I knew there was a lot of rancor and unhappiness. But there are and and it's not just people think, oh, there's there's a red state, you know, the heck. No. California, New Hampshire, Vermont, they all have very vibrant and active secession movements working their working its way through the legislative process. This is exactly what Texas is doing. Now we have in the Texas legislature, we have more elected representatives in the Texas legislator let legislator now that have signed the Texas First pledge than ever before.
Which is what? The Texas First pledge to protect Texas first above anything and everything. The needs of Texas come before the needs of any other state. The needs of Texas come before any other before The United States as a whole, Texas first. So, the winds of change are blowing, my friend. I'm hoping and it's it's been it's my it's my prayer, honestly, you know, I'm I'm you know, you know what I believe. It I pray for this on a daily basis that the day will come in my lifetime when Texas will, again, assert itself among the nations and that I will have a small part in that, You know, no matter what it is, as small as a part of it as it is, that I can I can say to to posterity that, yeah, you know what? It's not often that you get to build your own nation.
You know, what was it John Adams that said when he was, in in, in in congress when they were they were about to, vote on the passing of the declaration of independence? John Adams stood up and said, let me have a country. My country. A free country. He wasn't talking about the 13 states. He was talking about Massachusetts, because Massachusetts was his country. Remember, the count The United States was founded on independent individual states that compacted together for really only two things, to regulate commerce, which in seventeen hundreds language only means only to make commerce regular between the states, like a normal thing, and to come together for mutual defense.
The monstrosity that we see right now in Washington DC is not what the founding generation ever ever thought or wanted for this country. This, our gen the founding generation rebelled against a much more powerful and established government. And if you think about it, they actually did what? They seceded from a secession is a natural thing. Think of it like this. And as and as someone who deals with relationships, right, and as we've been talking all night, if you are in an abusive relationship, wouldn't the tendency be to wanna leave that abusive relationship?
Texas has been abused by the federal monstrosity that we have in Washington DC. We went through four years of an unsecured border. We went through four years of, lawfare against the state of Texas to prevent Texas from securing its border and protecting its citizens. I live in a border town. I live in Eagle Pass. I am less than two miles away from Shelby Park where that standoff took place between the federal government and the state of Texas. You know? I can tell you firsthand of the things that I've seen on the streets of Eagle Pass that I had not seen prior to, the previous administration.
So and then you look at the amount of money. Do you know that, I don't have the I don't have the number off the top of my head. And if if, if the taxi and DM is still is still listening or watching the show, maybe you can pipe in on this one on the in the in the live chat. But the, the amount of money that Texas overpays into the federal system would fully fund the Texas government as it is right now without any reduction in services to the population. Texas can and will stand alone. The question is, is it gonna be in my lifetime or the next? I'm hoping it's my lifetime. I wanna see that. I wanna see the place that I live that I love. I love Texas.
Yes, I was born and raised in New York. Yes. I love, you know, where I came from, the culture that I came from. I love it. I just don't agree with the politics of it. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to come to Texas. I got here. I love it here. I would never leave Texas. I may move around Texas. I may not be too thrilled with Eagle Pass right now, but I will never leave Texas. I love it here. This is liberty, this is freedom. To, a year or so ago, I went to New York to visit my sister. I know we're trying to wrap up the show, but here I go. I'm on I'm on my soapbox. A year or so ago, I went to New York to visit my sister, and the difference in the atmosphere of the people, not necessarily air quality, because people I say that people think, oh, the air is different. No. It's not different. It's just it's just the people.
There's a difference. You come to Texas. There's freedom. There's liberty here. You go up and and the only way you can experience it is if you spent time in Texas and then go back to where you came from to see what it's like. You went I went back to New York. It was like oppressive. Nobody smiled. Nobody said a word to you over you walk down the street. I don't even know who half these people are in my neighborhood. Hey, good morning. Good morning. How you doing today? Have a great day. God bless you. Have a great one. You know, it's it's like, I'm a New Yorker. Why are you talking to me?
You know? And that's just a small thing. But the freedom that that you you you feel the difference in it once you leave here and go there and come back. Man, when I got back to Texas after I made that trip, I got out of my car, man. I I and I am not exaggerating this. I I brother, I got out of my car. I got down on my knees in my driveway and kissed the ground that I was home. Liberty. Freedom. You go to New York, every single street corner has a camera watching every move you make. There are no cameras here. They're not watching everything you do. You are free to do what you want as long as you don't hurt somebody else.
My thing is, and I get this in Texas. Okay? My thing is, I want the government to do one thing. Only one thing. It's all I want them to do. It's just one thing. And that's to protect my right to do for myself. I don't want government handouts. I don't want them taking my money to hand out to other people. I want to I want government to leave me alone, let me live my life, and as long as I don't kill somebody and break some major law, I shouldn't have to worry about what's going on in Washington, DC. I should have to hear about it. That's what our founding generation wanted. They don't they they even said I think it was, oh, who was it? It was, was it, John Quincy? Who said it? John Quincy Adams?
Who said that the activities in Washington in in Washington should never never even cross the mind of the average citizen in another state. It that's how small and significant it should be. And, you know, that's why I I love Texas. I'll never leave. And that's why I became part of this organization. That's why I wanted to do this and and, I became as involved as I did. I could have just been a member and just donate donations or whatnot. No. I wanna see that flag, Texas independence. You know? I wanna see this flag. Texas is probably one of the only states that I've ever been to that I see the state flag flying more on even private property than the American flag.
You go to New York. I'm I'm sure it's where where you lived as well. You do you do you ever see anybody with their flagpole in front of their house flying the state flag?
[02:07:41] Unknown:
Actually, Maryland's flag is
[02:07:44] Unknown:
very popular here. Is it really? It's probably the, yeah, it's probably the very coolest looking state flag. Oh, I've seen it. Proud of it. Oh, I I've seen it. It is it is a it is a pretty flag. I love those things. Yeah. But Yeah. In reality, in all the places that I've ever been to, this is the Texas is the only place that that that you actually see the pride of Texas. There's something about Texas that you're not gonna find anywhere else anywhere else in in the American Union. And I call it that's for a reason. It's deliberate. You know, because a lot of people think that, you know, we are one nation under God. No. We're not one nation. We are a union of 50 individual independent countries that came together for mutual defense and regular trade.
It's all it is. And for for people to say, well, Texas can't leave the union. No. If you voluntarily entered the union, you can voluntarily leave the union. I don't know if you know, there was a there's a podcast named Benny Johnson. I don't know if you've heard of him. He made a comment the other day and I and and and I don't usually watch him, and I just happen to turn it on right there. And and at this one particular moment that just set me off, and he said that, he was talking about how when, Texas, seceded from Mexico and became an independent country, and then a few years later voluntarily joined the union, he said that now, you know, Texas, or or The United States owned Texas. No.
Oh, dude. No. 50 individual independent sovereign states. What's another term for a state? Country. We call it the state of Israel. Is Israel a state of the American Union? No. The state of it the state of North Korea. Is that a part of the American? No. Although with Donald Trump, you never you never know. But and I'm a Trump fan. I love Trump, but, you know, with his, you know, Greenland thing and Canada and all that stuff, you never know who's asking next. But is so the term state is is in reference to a country. It's It's an it's an independent sovereign country. So these 50 states that make up this union of states, the American Union, voluntarily entered and can voluntarily leave. There's nothing in the constitution of The United States that says that they can't.
Where the constitution is silent on a specific thing goes to the tenth amendment. The tenth amendment says that all power lies with within the state and the people. So if the state says we don't wanna be part of this anymore, we can walk away, and there's nothing anyone can really say about it. That whole thing with, with the Supreme Court talking, with the Supreme Court back in in the days of the civil war, I I I the name of the, of of the case just flipped out of my head for a second. But the, where they said they only know you can't leave the union, you're not allowed to. That had nothing that case had nothing to do with secession. That had to do with money. Who's paying for the reconstruction? That's what that whole case was about. The comment that, well, you shouldn't have left in the first place was an aside, and I'm paraphrasing it, of course, but it was an aside. It was something that was not even on the record, but somebody jotted it down and said, well, it's easy. The the Supreme Court said you can't.
That's not what it was about. Nothing to do with it whatsoever. Alright. So I am way on I'm on the soapbox. I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap this whole mess up here. So, let me let me let me do my closing here. Jack, again, thank you so very much for being with us here tonight. I really loved having you here. I I think we have a we got a kinship here, brother. We got a kinship going on. And, I knew it when we spoke on Saturday that that we definitely have a good a good chemistry here, and and I'm looking forward to having you on the show again, and I hope you come on very very soon. Love to have you. Really quickly though, folks, before we before we finally do the shut ups and, you know, all that stuff, I've been trying to do this since Wednesday.
The new segment of the show, the the who gives a shit file. Okay? So, a couple of days ago, the, and this is part and I have to come up with music for it so I can introduce it. But from the files of who gives a shit, the New York Yankees have decided that they're allowed to grow beards now on the team. I don't know if you a lot of people knew that or not, but, for for about fifty years, no Yankees player was allowed to have any facial hair whatsoever. Alright? And that was the rule of the team, and you had to agree to that, sign a contract to it, but now the Yankees have decided that, well, we'll let you have a well manicured beard.
Wonderful. Did that need to be breaking news that flew across my screen? So that is our installment of the who gives a shit file for today. So folks, quick shout outs. We have no birthdays to announce, but again, just to remind everybody, if you have a birthday, you'd like us to shout it out for you, we'll we'll sing happy birthday to you. Well, I won't sing happy birthday to you, but we have a track that we'll play. We'll sing happy birthday. Just let us know when your birthday is, and, when that day come, boom boom boom. If we have a show, we'll do it. Or either that, or we'll do it before or after the show. Quick shout outs to say thank you to our executive producers, Wayne and Rosanna Rankin. Thank you so very much for your contribution and your, your your help and everything over the last couple of weeks. Guys, you've been great. Thank you so very much for it.
Also, just want to, say thank you to all of the folks that have been streaming SATs to us over the modern podcast apps. So SATs are basically it's, if you're not if you're not familiar with it, it's cryptocurrencies. It's micropayments of Bitcoin. Honestly, it's pennies. Okay? So, I I use this as an example of the other day. Last month rather, somebody donated, 7,600 and something sats to the show. Alright? Wow. Great. Not saying that to be, obnoxious. It huge help, but people hear that number and think, wow. That's a lot of money. No. It's not. It's $10.
Like, $10. Alright? And that went to, and that immediately went to paying for the, the the cloud service that I used to, manage my crypto wallet because I am an idiot and can't do it myself. So, I use GetAlbi. I recommend GetAlbi. Check them out. Getalbi.com. Also, listen to episode number three of our show here where we interview the founder of GetAlbi. Great guy named Moritz Kaminski. Smart guy, really knows his stuff. I had no idea what he was talking about. I just nodded. I had an agreement. But, great great app. Let me see what's this.
I had to duck out. What did he say there? I had to duck out and take a call. You guys are still rolling. Yep. That's right. We are. And you probably missed it, Daniel, where we we invited you to come on the show so we can have a a a a three way conversation here, and, we we can work that out. But just, give me a call whenever you have time. I know you're busy, so, we'd love to hear from you and and get you on the show with us. But, so, back to the stats. So you guys can so so if you wanna donate to us in Satoshis, our crypto wallets on our our support page, you can do that. That's great. We appreciate it. It all helps. And when I say the streaming stats to us on the modern podcast apps, well, you can go to modernpodcastapps.com, and you can download one of these great modern podcast apps. Like, I love Podcast Guru. I just love the interface of it. It's it's beautiful. It's a well built app.
No problems with it whatsoever. No buffering. Never have an issue with it, and it's a great app. Also, there's fountain.fm. Now found what I love about fountain is that you could set up a crypto wallet with fountain that's that's stored on the fountain servers. And when you listen to podcasts, you can earn satoshis or sats, and then you can use those sats to boost and, to to send boosts to another podcast or boost a gram, which is which is some some, sats with a little note saying you suck, whatever it is. You know, those things are great. Plus, with the modern podcast apps, you get transcripts, you get chapter art covers, you get, like, for example, with, with Jack here on the show today, we have, I have his picture, and I have his little bio and his website information all set up there in in the distribution app. And once I'm done here, that information will go out. All is it all of his information is loaded up into the stream, into the RSS feed that I have. And on the modern podcast app, you'll see his picture, his background, his website information, all the stuff that I have that's publicly accessible will all be there included in the show notes.
So these modern podcast apps are great. You don't get that with Spotify. You don't get that with Apple or iHeart or or TuneIn or anything like that, but you get it with the modern podcast app. So modernpodcastapps.com or podcastindex.org. You can check them out there. And, let's see. Now, like, we were talking about the Texas Nationalist Movement, so just one more thing. If you really wanna get involved if you really wanna get involved with shaping the future of a free and independent Texas, head over to our website, joerussello.com. Let me let me throw this baby up on the screen there if I can really quick because people don't know it. They don't understand it. Alright. Joe russello dot com.
You can go over to our website /tnm. We have a QR code up there. We have a link up there. Just scan it. You can register your support, become a member, or donate to the Texas Nationalist Movement, and, and and help us work towards making Texas a free and independent state. And, it seems like we just lost our feed really quickly, so hopefully, we'll get everybody back. There he is. There he is. We lost our feed for a second there. Sorry. And then what else? Let's see. Also, don't forget, open up that web form. Send us open any questions, comments, cares, concerns that you might have. We look forward to hearing from everybody, that's been listening to the show tonight. We really value your input, so please please get in touch with us. Let us know how we're doing. Don't forget also to, support us with a value for value donation. You can do a one time donation in any amount. You can also do, your time, your talent, your treasure, or you can take part in one of our, three membership, donation clubs.
The alexjonesstore.com/joe. Check us out over there. This way, your purchases on that site help us to fund what we're doing here. So that's the alexjonesstore.com/joe. Get yourself some vitamins. Get yourself some supplements. Get yourself some patriotic apparel. Get yourself onto the road to better health. You need it. I need it. We all need it. Right? Alright. Socials, don't forget those. X, TikTok, truth social, minds at joe rooz, r o o z. Instagram is not joe rooz because when I opened my Instagram account for the very first before I even finished the sign in process, they banned my account under Joe Roos. Don't know why.
Still don't know why. But for some strange reason, not Joe Roos was accepted. I don't know. I used the same email address, all the same information, just put not Joe Roos. So that's what that is. And then, unfortunately, we have a Facebook page, so you can find us there at The Podcast with Joe Rusciello. Alright. Well, folks, I think that's gonna do it for us for tonight. Don't forget, like, subscribe, and share. With all your friends, your family, and your followers, make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride, and happy trails. We'll see you next time. Good night.
Well, that's about it really. The film ends mainly visually.
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[00:00:50] Unknown:
Welcome to the podcast where every episode promises an unfiltered dive into the eclectic, the profound, and sometimes the absurd. No topic is off limits. Nothing is sacred, and political correctness takes a back seat.
[00:01:20] Unknown:
Alright. Hey there, folks. This is Joe Rusciello, and it is absolutely fantastic to be here with you tonight on this beautiful Wednesday evening here in Eagle Pass, Texas, and we are broadcasting to you live tonight from the asylum studios, from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass. And folks, we are going to do the very best that we can tonight to bring you the highest quality, the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the podcast. Alright. Well, folks, I hope you guys had a great day today. I had a good day up until just a little while ago.
We'll get into that in just a second because I I have to say something about this one. This is this is just absolutely tripped me out and got me started off on this, on this beautiful night here that I've been so looking forward to, and, tell you why in just a minute. But folks, before I even get any further into this, I gotta tell you tonight is a very, very special night for us here at the podcast. Tonight, are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? We have an announcement to make. A little slow on the board today. Very important announcement to make folks, This is episode number 25.
That may mean nothing to you, and that's totally fine. But for the podcast, that's an achievement because our host platform says that 25 episodes is an achievement. So we are we are gonna get our little badge of honor, later on, once we, close out the show tonight. So, very special night for us at the podcast. So, you should be honored or at least feel honored to be a part of the broadcast tonight, to be a part of this transmission as, Alex Jones would say. Very, very special night for us. Now I'm gonna touch on this very, very quickly because our guest is waiting in the, in the waiting room to come on in. Very, very quickly, folks, I love ROTA products. I use, a RODECaster.
I use RODE mics, RODE stands and booms, and all that stuff. But I am gonna tell you this, after the interaction that I had today with ROTA, I, I am fully intending on, dropping it and, heading back over to shore. And, and I'm gonna tell you why, because I've never had a problem with customer service, with shore the way I have problems with customer service at ROTA. ROTA is they they literally are trying to nickel and dime you every which way you go. So I ordered a new part today for the for the show. Well, a couple days ago. It got delivered today, and it came damaged. I had purchased it through Amazon, and, I reached out to Amazon, let them know it was damaged, and and so on and so forth. They said, well, what you can do is, it's a no hassle, policy that we have. All you need to do is just, go through the warranty process with, with Road, and and they sent me all the information, that I needed. The the website link to start the process, and so on and so forth. So I'm going through the process.
I run to a little bit of a hiccup, I reach out to customer service, customer service tells me, well, no, you have to pay us to, to ship your item back, this way we can replace it. Well, that's not what Amazon said. Amazon says that, it's a, a no return warranty replacement. And, so back and forth of road on this thing, fought with them left and right on this. They wouldn't budge. They were like, it's not part of your warranty. You have to send it back, which is fine. I have no problem sending it back, but you know, road is telling I mean, Amazon is telling us this is a, zero hassle thing. It'll just take take ten minutes to go through the whole process. I was on the phone with them for almost forty five minutes.
So, Rode won't budge on this thing. They won't, they won't refund it, and they won't replace it until I pay to send it back to them. So I reached back out to Amazon, and you know what? You know, say what you will about Amazon, and you know, all the all the things that you hear. But to be honest with you, I have not had a bad customer service experience with with Amazon, and, they are actually replacing the, the damaged item for me. They're sending it out. I'll have it, by Friday, and, we'll be able to get this thing kicked off, and no hassle, no problems, one, two, three. But road, you gotta get up on your game, dude. I really don't wanna have to switch everything over back to shore because when I switched everything to road, I I got rid of most of my most most of my shore stuff. So, you know, I gotta go out and get it again. So it's gonna be a hassle, but, yeah, I think it's well worth the fight.
But, before we get anywhere else, and and I I bring in our guest, just a couple of quick things. Website, head over there, jorociello.com. Jo rociello Com. Head over to our contact sections, open up the web form, send us a message, let us know whatever's on your heart, whatever's in your mind. Any questions, comments, cares, or concerns that you just might have. Also, while you're on the website, look for that support button, and remember that this is a value for value podcast. All that basically means is that if you have received anything of value from the show, no matter what it is that we're doing, good or bad, if you receive anything of value from it, we're asking that you return that value to us in the form of a donation. Now, you could make that donation in several different ways. You could do a one time donation, which, we really do appreciate the one time donations. We're very thankful to receive those, the ones when we do from time to time.
Or you could donate your time, your talent, or your treasure, which is the three t's. Now, when we do that, you're you're you're you're donating your time, you're maybe helping us do some research, getting some things put together and ready for the show. Donating your talent. Hey, you know what? Maybe you're good at running a board. You know, it'll take a lot off my hands while I'm doing it, and I won't have the stupid little mistakes that you heard tonight. Or, perhaps, maybe you have a good voice for this stuff, and you wanna read something for us, do a script, whatever it is, you you can donate your talent. And of course, you can donate your treasure, your money.
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I recommend it. May not taste the best. May not look the best, like I said it's liquid grass, but this stuff this stuff rocks, man. This stuff is really good. And, it'll help you with your digestion, help you with weight loss, not of course not FDA, you know, seal approval on that, but I've noticed that since I've been taking it, I have been enjoying the benefit of, weight loss. So this stuff is great. Try it out, OptimalHuman. And there's so much more you can get on the website, so just make sure you head over to the alexjonesstore.com/joe, and get yourself onto the road to better health. Alright. So for those of you listening on audio, don't forget to head over to rumble, rumble Com / rooz, r 0 0 z.
Like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, your family, and your followers across your social media platforms. Help us spread the news about our little show here. Alright. So, got kinda got through that pretty quick. Usually, it takes us a lot longer to get through it. But, we have waiting in the wings for us. Well, I'll mention it when he comes on, but we have waiting in the wings, Jack Kammer. Jack Kammer, who is, a, a social worker, MBA, and, Jack is, gonna be with us tonight. And we're gonna talk about some some issues that involve men's mental health, and the needs that men have through, you know, in in society that oftentimes aren't met.
And, a lot of times men are, on the receiving end of a lot of emotional abuse, physiological abuse that they don't talk about. Why? Because we're men, and we generally don't do that. We tend to bottle all that stuff up and keep it inside. So, Jack, if you're, if you're still out there waiting in the wings, why don't you, why don't you come on here and,
[00:14:37] Unknown:
and join
[00:14:39] Unknown:
us? Jack? Oh, almost. There he goes. And here I am. And there you are. Jack, am I saying your last name right? It's like Hammer. Okay. So Jack Hammer. Yeah. And and you know, I I kinda realized that today. I I was telling a buddy of mine that you're gonna be on, and I was like, Jack Hammer. Yeah.
[00:15:06] Unknown:
I realized it in high school. So for, you know, the first seventeen years of my life, I didn't even know I had a funny name. But you know how high school buddies are. You know? They they, they realized that was a funny name, and they didn't let me forget it. Oh, of course. I would never let you forget it either. Of course not. Of course. What are friends for? Of absolutely right. So, Jack, why don't you, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself before we start getting into our discussion for the f for the evening? Okay. Well, there's a a little bit I could tell you or there's a lot I could tell you, and I guess I gotta try to find the sweet spot.
Okay. So I'll I'll, I'll give it a whirl. Unless you wanna give me some quick guidance here on how much time you want me to go on this. You have, we are your captive audience, sir. Oh, well, jeez. Whether we have anybody listening or watching late, doesn't matter. Go right ahead. Alright. Floor is yours. So so you I'm gonna throw away the key. You guys are my captives. Alright. So I am, well, let's see. I'm 73 years old, so that puts me into a certain, category. In some people's minds, it's like, okay, boomer. You know, because those boomers, we boomers mess things up for for you young guys.
On the other hand, you know, it suggests that I have a certain amount of experience in in what I'm gonna be talking about. In 1982, I started a radio show. It didn't go on the air until '83, but, in '82, I started working on a radio show called The Lives of Men because I was increasingly aware that the male perspective on male female relationships and the male perspective on social issues was not very well understood, was not very well regarded, was not very much cared about, primarily because everybody believed the, the nonsensical statement that it's a man's world and men have all the power. Well, garbage in, garbage out. You put in a crazy idea like it's a man's world and men have all the power and women have none, you put that into your social policy making machinery, you're gonna end up with garbage in and you're gonna get garbage out. Mhmm. A lot of social problems, are befalling America, our states, cities, because of the idea that we don't really need to pay attention to how men are doing, what kind of problems they're having, economic problems, social problems, psychological problems, family problems. We just don't really pay much attention to that.
If, there is an issue between men and women, we gotta we gotta gotta take care of the women first. That's the idea. Mhmm. No matter how much better they're doing, they're not doing perfectly, so we can't take our eyes off the ball. Feminist literature often says, while we've made so much progress over the past sixty years, there is still much more to do, which means until there is no more that needs to be done for the benefit of women, it's not really politically correct to talk at all about anything that men want or need. We gotta stop that because men are human. We haven't been getting much attention over the past fifty, sixty years, and, things have gone south for us in a lot of ways. What ways? Well, primarily, the the most striking one is the rates of suicide among men, older men especially in my demographic, especially after divorce, and also in young men.
Lots of bad things are happening and I am dedicated to the idea that we need to talk about what needs to happen. We need to get active about what needs to happen, and we gotta quit pretending that everything's just fine and only wimps and sissies dare ever to talk about their personal issues. So there I am. That's me. How's that? That's you in a nutshell. Yeah. Well, it's a pretty big nut, but yeah.
[00:19:26] Unknown:
The, it's something you said about male suicide rates, that while you were talking, I was typing this up here, looking looking it up. So, this is what I got off the off, of the interweb. According to the data, the suicide rates among men by age group show significant variation. For the age group, ten to fourteen, the rate is two point eight per one hundred thousand. Wow. That that's pretty high for that age group. In the fifteen to twenty four age group, the rate increases to twenty one point one per 100,000. For men aged 25 to 44, it's, 29.6 per 100,000.
In, my age group, the rate is 29.5 per 100,000, and for your age group, 27.2. So it kinda drops off a little bit. So I'm assuming that's because, you know, natural causes.
[00:20:23] Unknown:
One of the, factors that would be interesting to have if you could find it, but you don't need to look for it now, is what is the suicide rate among divorced older men? Those guys are just feeling, and they got nothing to live for.
[00:20:41] Unknown:
Let me actually, that that I'm gonna let me look that up really quick because that that that bring Okay. That that's that kinda hits close to home. So let me if I could type. See, it would be nice if, if my executive producer was still here, he could be doing all this for me while I'm talking. Let's see. Suicide rates among divorced older men are notably higher, compared to married individuals. According to a study published in PMC, the suicide rate among divorced adults is more than three times that of married adults. It's not really giving me an oh, here it is. The CDC report, from 02/2023 indicates that suicide rates increased significantly for men ages 55 to 74, with men 85 or older having the highest suicide rate of fifty five point seven suicide deaths for every 100,000.
That's insane. That is absolutely insane. It's a
[00:21:43] Unknown:
lot. It's a lot, and
[00:21:46] Unknown:
we're not doing much about it. No. And I I think that society as a whole, like like you said earlier, you know, they they tend tend to gravitate towards, the female. You know, they they tend to, you know, you gotta suck it up. Right? Suck it up, buttercup. Get over it. It. My dad was great with that. And anytime I started feeling pretty down or lower, crappy about something, his thing was, you know, you're a man. Suck it up, deal with it, move on. Not always as easy as it sounds. Really isn't. Because then then you tend to kinda bottle it up, and then one day you just explode. I could tell you I could tell you one story, personal story that that was mine of, many years ago, and I was in my early twenties, and, newly married.
And my, my wife, at the time and I had gotten into some kind of an argument, and it was one of those types of arguments that just would never end. It just continued on from day after day after day. And and it it really it wore me down. It totally wore me down. And it got to the point where I held it in so much, so long that eventually I popped. Now I didn't do anything. I didn't go any physical harm to her. Never I not who I am, ever was, I never will be. But what I did do is I I did in that particular moment reach down and grab the new carpet that we had just installed the day before, and basically ripped up the whole carpet, because it was either that or do something else. So I chose to do that.
And of course, you know, I I called the company that installed the carpet the next day, and said, what the hell kind of crap job you guys do installing these things? Look at this, the whole carpet popped up. You gotta get over here now and fix it. And they came. But but yeah. So what but I you men tend to bottle it all up till the point where they explode. Now me, I I did that. Other men might not do that. Other men might turn around and start drinking, find a way down to the bottom of the bottle until the until there is no way to get out of that bottom of the bottle. Some men might, unfortunately, put the muzzle of a gun in their mouth, pull the trigger.
You know, it it's it really is scary when you think about it. It it really is the the and and culture today, I mean, men, and especially in the in the woke liberal culture are the enemy. You know, when we were talking on Saturday, you know, and and for those of you that are listening, you know, Jack and I, we we spoke on Saturday. That was at our recording day. We're supposed to be our recording day. But we we had gotten so involved in in this conversation. It would have been a great show. It really would have. But we got so involved in this conversation. We talked about so many great things.
And, you know, one of the things we talked about were how these how these woke liberal women, and I played some clips for them. I'm not gonna do that tonight because mostly because I had to clear out the studio for yep, the last night show. So, I don't have it right now. But, but, you know, we we we I showed I showed them this clip of about these these lunatic liberal woke women acting like animals, releasing the hounds, you know, chasing down the male, you know, to teach him a lesson. I mean, this is what this is what the feminist movement has done. It has it has generated these women who really think that I don't need a man to do anything until the day comes when they realize they do need a man.
They do, I think, deep down inside and and I'm you know, we could disagree on this if you want. I don't think we do though, but and if you're if you're watching and you disagree with this, or you're listening to disagree with this, drop a comment in the in the live chat or in the comments down below, or underneath us, and, you know, we'll we'll take a look at that. But, I honestly believe that deep down inside in the heart of every so called feminist, they really do want and need a strong man to take care of them. I really do believe that.
[00:26:09] Unknown:
Uh-oh. Well, if you want my if you if you want my comment on that Yes. I don't know. Do you want my comment on that? Of course I do. I I don't I don't know that that's true. I think that there are there are, first of all, lesbians who do not really feel any great attraction to men. And I gotta tell you, Joe, that I'm sure, like, just about every category, lesbians come in in, lots of different varieties. I once worked with a woman who was a lesbian. And, you know, the standard idea I had about lesbians before I really got to know her was, oh, boy. She probably hated her father. She probably hates all men. Oh, boy. And and I've hired her, and I'm gonna be her boss. Mhmm.
This this woman loved her father more than she loved her mother. So I think we need to be careful about making enemies of lesbians that we don't need to make enemies of. Of course not. There there are there are a lot of lot of women who don't love men romantically but do love men, you know, as brothers, as uncles. Some even have sons. So, yes, there definitely are some lesbians who hate men, but, you know, there are some there are some, heterosexual women
[00:27:35] Unknown:
who hate men. Yeah. Well, I I've come across a few of those over the years. And a lot of times, it has to do with, paternal issues. It also has to do with, abuse in in a relationship at some point in the course in the course of their lives, you know. And that's and that's those are hurdles that you have to pass. But you know something? Men go through that too.
[00:27:56] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Men have difficulties with with women just like women have difficulties with men. Look. You know, if if I think it was was it Einstein who said all things are relative? Somebody said all things are relative. And if if that's true, if all things are relative, if all things are based if your understanding of everything is based on what where you stand having a lot of impact on what you see, you know, it's it's gotta be true that nothing can be more relative than relationships.
[00:28:28] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:28:29] Unknown:
You know? Yeah. So I try to take a little bit of a chill pill and approach these issues with a little bit see, this is where my experience comes in. This is the good part about being an old guy. I'm a little far behind you, you know. Well, you're come on. You're couple decades, aren't you? Maybe. Fifties? I'm in my my mid late fifties. Okay. So I got a couple decades on it. You know? Just for men. Just
[00:28:57] Unknown:
for men does a wonderful thing. Well Okay. Alright. I'm not you well, I I gotta I don't do just for men anymore. I I I now I'm using simpler. So Oh. Which is a lot better. Better for the skin. So
[00:29:09] Unknown:
Well, okay. Now so now isn't that interesting? How modern and we've become. Now men are talk are talking publicly about our skin care products. That's right. See, we are making progress. And I and I use beef tallow, you know, to as a cleanse to to tighten up. I think you Yep. You can probably do better than that. Look, you know, look at your, look at your at your GNC store. They probably got something better than beef fat. Well, it's good though.
[00:29:35] Unknown:
I don't I don't need to get I mean, it it really tightened up, all this stuff. Anyway, folks, this is Well, you'll never starve. Well, there you go. Look, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity on the podcast. You are getting men's grooming care advice from from at least one guy who really doesn't give a crap. You know, he just tries all these things out just to say he did. You know, but, but, you know, talking about relationships, one of the things that that that we talked about on Saturday, is we floated a couple of, real life situations that that people are going through, people that, that that I know personally, and I'm I'm close to personally, that have gone through some really difficult situations, some of their own making, some of some of them, the the recipient of somebody else's making, if if that makes sense.
And one of the things that you said on Saturday that that really struck me that that I I had never considered was the fact of, in in one particular situation, the one closer to me, of of being technically abused in that relationship. And and I'll I'll tell you, honestly, when you when you said that, that was kinda like a smack in the face because in all of my experience in dealing with that situation, I never saw it that way. And, you know, I I wonder now how many other men are in a situation like that that are maybe, the the end result of that person's relationship, or or marriage ended in divorce, but how many other men are actually living through those, types of abusive narcissistic relationships and are doing it just to hold the thing together because that's the honorable thing to do.
Instead of instead of doing what is probably the better thing for them to do it at this especially at this time in the world, and that's stepping away from it, and walking away or maybe running away. What do you think about that?
[00:31:57] Unknown:
Well, I think it gets complicated. The first thing you'd wanna know about the fella that might be best off walking away, running away, getting the hell out of dodge would be, does he have kids? Mhmm. And if he has kids, is he gonna leave her with the the woman who's gone off the reservation?
[00:32:18] Unknown:
Right.
[00:32:20] Unknown:
If he's feeling a need, he's gotta protect them as well as himself. Where does he take them? Domestic violence shelters won't take a man. Sometimes they say they do. Oh, yes. We provide services for men. Well, to test that because the the domestic violence shelter in Baltimore where I live always says, oh, yes. We provide services for men as well as women. And if there's a man who needs shelter, we'll put him up in a hotel if we have to. Of course, he won't get any services there. He'll he and the kids will be alone and bereft and, you know, forgotten and ignored, won't get any services. But it's not even true that they would do that. I called once and said, look. I gotta I gotta get out of this house. I gotta take my kids. My wife is off her rocker.
I'm I'm in danger. My kids are in danger. I gotta get out of here. What can you do for me? What they told me at the at the House of Ruth in Baltimore was that, well, we don't serve men, but we could put you in our batterers program if you would like. We could put you in our program for men who batter women. That's what we that's the services we offer for men. Which is it's it's which is in that. It's it's not a good situation. No. Of of course, you know, what what did we learn in the Watergate investigation from Woodward and Woodward Woodward and Bernstein, the investigative reporters who broke the Watergate story? What did Deep Throat tell them, their informer?
What did he tell them? You said follow the money. Mhmm. And they followed the money, and they worked their way back to what was really going on. If you wanna understand a lot about feminism and their, exaggeration and I'm not saying exaggeration completely because domestic violence is a problem. Mhmm. Women do get beaten up by men. However, men also get beaten up by women, not in the same way, much more often with weapons. But the the pay big payoff for the, women's advocates on harping about domestic violence is that it so perfectly taps into the worst stereotypes of men.
The worst stereotype of men is men are so violent. Right. They get so angry. They can't control themselves. And all of our wonderful male leaders in Congress fall for this and think, well, yes. There are bad men, but, of course, we are good men. And because we're good men, we're gonna put out a lot of money to fight violence against women. Do you know how much the Violence Against Women Act allocates to the domestic violence industry, and I do use that term advisedly, but pointedly, $1,000,000,000 a year goes to the domestic violence industry, which wouldn't be so bad if they also took care of men who needed help. Right. If they also really based their approach on science and what the science shows are the causes of domestic violence and what we can do to lower those causes so that there is less domestic violence, less ideological nonsense about men's lust for power and control as if women have never exhibited that they want to be in power or in control.
Probably the one of the worst things that they do with the billion dollars is that they use it to pay salaries for people who really are not directly involved in serving female victims of domestic violence. They're certainly not interested or involved in serving male victims of domestic violence. But these are people who are involved in fundraising. So it's not just from the government they get money. They get money from philanthropies. They get money from their fundraising galas. But even worse than that, they are also very much involved in state legislatures all over the country Mhmm. Trying to make divorce laws and family relations laws even more onerous for men, even more protective and privileging of women. And this is being done by, people who are paid with domestic violence funds, on the idea that you can't have a healthy marriage if there's violence in the marriage. So everything can be connected Mhmm. To men's violence.
And, you know, it's a stereotype very much like the stereotype back in the fifties and sixties that men cried that women cried too much and women couldn't do math. It's a stereotype that is just an attempt to keep us, disadvantaged in any controversy between what men need and what women need. Men need what they need women need what they need because they have to contend with these violent men Right. As if we're all always violent. You know, not saying men aren't violent sometimes, but women are violent too sometimes. And we gotta be honest about it. And and we are we are not honest about it.
[00:38:00] Unknown:
So I'll stop there, because you might have some comments. Well, actually, I I wanted to ask you a question in in regards to what we have been talking about as far as relationships go. So for somebody who is on the outside looking in and wanting to and and maybe and maybe seeing a certain pattern of behavior in a marriage, what are some of the signs that we should look for in an abusive relationship, in in an abusive marriage that we should be pointing out to people that we think might be going through that?
[00:38:36] Unknown:
Okay. So at this point, I need to say, first of all, I am not a psychotherapist. Right. I am not a family relations counselor. I am a social worker, but I am not the kind of social worker who worked in a clinical program. I was called a macro at the macro level, social work. Okay. Where I worked on laws and policies and cultural issues. So I with that caveat, what I could say, but this is not psychotherapeutic advice. I would say that the first thing that we you wanna encourage this man to do is to try try, and it's gonna be difficult because we're men, and we don't have much practice in this. We were told that it wasn't important for us, but to try to check-in with what he's really I'm gonna say the word. You ready, Joe? Ready. Go ahead. Feeling. He's go what he's feeling.
[00:39:35] Unknown:
You said the word. I know. I know. Well, for that, we need some bourbon. So Yeah. Yes.
[00:39:42] Unknown:
We we we do have feelings. We try to ignore them That's right. Because they get in the way of what we're really supposed to be all about, which is just being a machine and plugging away, manning up, buttercup. Get over it. Get your ass back to work because that's what men do. We are productive. Your emotions, especially if they're sad or bad ones, just get in the way of you being productive and inefficient, which is true, but only temporarily. Because if you aren't paying attention to your feelings and what's really going on with you, yeah, you can put up with it for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple months, maybe a couple of years. But, you know, there's this thing called alcoholism. There's this thing called drug addiction.
There's this thing called, getting into fights, you know, at bars for stupid reasons. There's this thing called domestic violence where you might just go off the handle with your wife because she's picking on you for being a drunken son or whatever whatever whatever. Not that that would be her fault. But, he bounces heads to take notes about it. Your way feelings get in your way temporarily. But your feelings, your emotions are really the spark plugs of your personality. And if you disconnect them, you know, you're basically going nowhere. You're going nowhere good anyhow.
So I would suggest if you're a good buddy of somebody who's having a hard time like this and doesn't wanna talk about what's really going on and and I should mention a big reason men don't wanna talk about what's really going on with a a woman that they're having trouble with is because it's not the honorable thing to do. What goes on between me and my wife is nobody's business but hers and mine. Why? Because she is the mother of my children. She's up on a pedestal. She's the mother of my children. Wouldn't it be wonderful if women felt the same way about treating men with that kind of respect? He's the father of my children. Exactly.
Yeah. Not quite so much, high regard
[00:41:55] Unknown:
for fathers in our society. And and you and when you said that, I I was thinking, like, right off the bat, I said, you know, unfortunately, though, you know, men may hold on to that that that ideal of, you know, I'm not gonna talk about this because, you know, I'm gonna respect my wife and so on and so forth. But and I've seen this in personal experience, in personal situations, how many times the wife or the woman is out ripping apart her husband
[00:42:22] Unknown:
to whoever I remember when I when I was a little boy, I remember feeling bad, hearing my mother talk among her friends about all of the divorces that were happening among my parents' friends. And I remember feeling bad as a boy, future man, that it was always the man's fault. Mhmm. It was always the man's fault. And I felt bad about that until I got into my twenties and early thirties and realized, oh, yeah. Now I get it. The reason I heard it was always the man's fault is because only the women were talking about it.
[00:43:08] Unknown:
Yeah. We
[00:43:11] Unknown:
we we need we need to be much more vocal and honest
[00:43:16] Unknown:
about what's going on in our lives than we we currently are. I agree. And I'm I'm gonna take your lead on that, your leading on that. Because this is something I don't generally talk about, in my own personal life, on the show, so I'm not gonna go into huge details. But, you and I kinda talked about some of this over the weekend. And, I went through a very difficult divorce, recently, and, it was it was one that I really didn't see coming. I was not expecting the cause of the divorce to be what it was, and I don't really think anybody really expects whatever the cause is for the divorce.
I had been through a very difficult period, leading up to the divorce. I had a number of things happen all the same. It was like a chain effect, you know. I my dad passed away. My grandmother passed away a few months later. While she had passed away, excuse me, while she passed away, and we were I was up in New York burying her. My my my little buddy, my dog, he he died under some very questionable circumstances now. At the time, I didn't think anything of it. But looking back, you know, hindsight twenty twenty, you start to start putting the pieces of the puzzle together. And, I I don't know if I mentioned this to you or not.
I I don't think I've mentioned it on this particular podcast before, but my background, is law enforcement. I I I worked for New York City for twenty three years, and, 12 of those twenty three years I was in uniform service. I spent, six years as a as an investigator, in the in the in my agency. You know, I think at some particular point, I I I started putting the pieces together almost like an investigator would, and I started to find patterns and things like that, and I wondered so many times, why am I seeing that so clearly now? Why didn't I see it back then?
And I know I'm not alone in that. I know there's a lot of men out there who will tell you the same exact thing. Why do you think that is? In your experience in your life experience, why do you think that is?
[00:45:29] Unknown:
Because we don't wanna believe it. Yeah. We do not wanna believe it because we grow up with this idea of women as being like angels. They are something wonderful and good in the world. You know, we if if we have a job that we don't particularly like, you know, we gotta deal with people we don't particularly like. There's a lot of competition among the people we spend most of our time with. Coming home to a woman was, at least in the early days of the marriage, something you really looked forward to. Mhmm. Because women just have this brand. You know? It's it's just great marketing of the female brand. Women are pretty and nice and soft and sweet, and they can have sex with you. And and and they are the mothers of my children, and I just love her so much.
She makes living worth living. Right. And then when she turns out to be just a human being, it's pretty freaking disappointing.
[00:46:43] Unknown:
Once that veneer comes off.
[00:46:45] Unknown:
And you don't wanna believe it. You wanna give her every freaking benefit of the doubt. At the same time, you're just a man, and we all know how men are. Men are stupid. They don't have a clue. They don't know. They don't have a they're not in touch with their feelings. They never express their emotions. They just get angry. And that's you know, men are dogs. Let's admit it. Men are dogs. So if there's a problem between me and her, if she's not be treating me nicely, I guess it's my fault. I'm a dog. I'm a bad person. I'm a man. She's a woman. Now, look, we we were talking about what would you do with a buddy who was having a bad problem, that he was having difficulty talking about?
I would suggest a very simple technique that can come in really handy. But, again, it uses that feeling word.
[00:47:55] Unknown:
But
[00:47:55] Unknown:
Can't do that. We we we got feelings, and we might as well put them to use because they're trying to tell us something. So first of all, let's let's get this straight. When men get angry, the psychologist will often refer to anger as a secondary emotion. Men express anger primarily because it is the one unhappy emotion that we are allowed to express because it's so manly. An unhappy emotion like sadness, it's not very manly. I mean, you know, imagine if I were to say to you, Joe, I'm so sad. I am so sad, man. It just makes me so sad. I can't stand it. No. That's just not very manly. Right. But if I say, Joe, I am so goddamn pissed off.
[00:48:59] Unknown:
There's an almost there's there's an immediate reaction to that. Yeah. Of course. And the reaction you get from the person you're saying that to is more immediate than the generally, I know from my experiences, if if someone came to me and and was constantly telling me, I'm sad. I'm this. I'm and after a while, you know, a a guy just like, alright. Just come on, dude. Really.
[00:49:24] Unknown:
Do something about it. Don't don't just talk about it. Make the change. So so, yes, here's something men can do about it, about feeling angry all the time. Anger is often a secondary emotion. Try to dig deep and be honest about yourself, and try to identify what were you feeling just before anger jumped into the situation and said, I'll take care of this. I'm the man around here. We are angry. Goddamn it. No. Just before anger showed up, what were you feeling? Often, especially for men, it's fear. It's sadness. Mhmm. It's insecurity. It's shame.
And here's here's a good technique for men. Now it probably is not gonna work in the worst situations that have been going downhill for twenty years, but it's worth a try. What do you got to lose? There's a really simple technique called the I feel statement. If you tell your wife if you express anger to your wife, that really only serves to push her away. It makes her defensive.
[00:50:44] Unknown:
Right.
[00:50:45] Unknown:
You try to blame her. She says, well, no. I'm blaming you. And it doesn't go anywhere. The I feel statement doesn't put her on the defensive. An I feel statement begins with you trying to understand how you really feel. For instance, it might be, I'm I'm really feeling insecure, right now, and I'm I'm I'm feeling I'm afraid you're gonna leave me. I'm afraid I'm afraid you're falling in love with your tennis instructor. And she might laugh at that, but not maybe in a mean way. She might say, you come on. You can't really feel that. Right. It asks for help.
Now in the current parlance of psychotherapy, men need to express their vulnerability. I, you know, I don't particularly think I don't particularly think asking men to express their vulnerability is the ideal thing to say to them. I think it makes much more sense to to to ask a man to be honest about what danger does he feel like he's in. That's a good point. Because men men respond to danger much more readily than respond to calls to to express their vulnerability. Because, again, expressing your vulnerability is sort of like, oh, I'm I'm so weak and and I'm so I'm so in a bit unable to take care of the situation.
You know, crucify me. I'm vulnerable. No. I'm in danger here, and I would need to take care of the danger that I feel that I'm in. So what I do when I have a problem with my wife and we get along great, it's been a long time since we had a fight. Well, I always remember to when when I when we're having a bad time, I am usually the one to muster the courage to say we need to talk. And I say, please hold my hand. Please just hold my hand. Even though you might hate me right now Mhmm. And I'm not exactly thinking you're the most wonderful person in the world right now, let's just hold hands. And the reason I suggest that we do that is because it's like a lightning rod. It discharges the negative energy. You know? Okay. We don't hate each other.
We're not ready to to kill each other. We're holding hands. We're we're we're together. Okay? Right now, we're together. So the I feel statement starts with I feel. You say that to your wife. You say that to your girlfriend. I feel sad. I feel afraid. I feel ashamed. Whatever it is, I feel ashamed when you did such and such. It's not what you it's not saying to her what what you did was bad. It's saying, I felt bad. I felt sad when you did such and such. Alright. I see. I'm not saying you were wrong, but when you did that, I felt bad. And I would like to talk with you about that. And one of the things I would like to to ask is the next time the situation comes up, could you do this instead?
It's not a demand, and it's not, insisting, and it's not a case of saying, if you really love me, that's what you do. No. It's the opening of a conversation. Mhmm. And when you say to somebody who at least used to love you that you need some help, there might still be a little flicker of love left, and and she'll maybe wanna help and say, oh my god. I had no idea you felt that way or I had no idea that this would make you feel that way. And then you got channels of communication. So when we as men say, oh, I I don't talk about my feelings. It's not honorable. Or I I'm a man, and I just suck it up. No. I think a lot of times when men don't talk to the women in their lives who are really important to them, it's because we are afraid.
We are afraid. And that might be something you need to start off the I feel statement with. Interesting. Yeah. Darling Darling, I feel afraid right now because you are Mike Tyson, and I'm the ninety eight pound weakling when it comes to talking about feelings and emotions. And I know that if you want to, you could beat the crap out of me in the argument that we could have if this doesn't go right. Right. And I don't wanna feel like shit, so I'm afraid right now. So you could, you know, you could start with that amount of honesty. Right. But what I'm what but what I really wanna talk with you about is this feeling I have of being ashamed. You know? Here's an example. Here's just an example. Okay.
Let's say your your wife has a sister who is married to a really rich guy, and you're not a really rich guy. And your wife
[00:56:21] Unknown:
tells you she just heard from her sister in law. Are you looking at the clock there, Joe? No. No. Do you want me to wrap this up? No. No. No. I have I have a a I have a monitor up on the wall here. And Okay. For some very strange reason, it just blinked on and off. Oh. And, Maybe it was trying to tell me to shut the hell up. No. No. Why are you doing okay here? Because it's on daisy chain, so it's it's I'm worried about Alright. No. You're fine. Should I Brother listen. Okay. We can go for as long as you wanna go.
[00:56:46] Unknown:
Okay. So let's say that your your wife has a sister married to a rich man, and your wife mentions, she mentions, that she just heard from her sister that she and and the sister and the husband and the kids are gonna be going to, I don't know, you know, the French Riviera for two weeks on a yacht. Okay? And what you say to her is, baby, hold my hand. I feel really insecure right now. When you told me that your sister-in-law I mean, that that my sister-in-law was gonna be taking their kids to the French Riviera on a yacht for two weeks. I really felt inadequate as a man.
And I worry I'm afraid that you're gonna leave me because, you know, I work at the factory, and I try to get as much OT as I can get. And, you know, I'm never gonna be able to take you or the kids to the French Riviera on a yacht for two weeks. I I just never am. And so what I need this is another part of the I feel statement. And so what I need, baby, right now is for you and me to talk about planning vacations that could be really fun for the kids that don't cost us more than we can afford. Right. And you know what she's gonna say? She's probably not gonna say, well, you are a sorry ass excuse for a man not making an as much money as you should. You know, she's not gonna say that, probably.
She's probably gonna say, oh, Joe, I'm so sorry you felt that way. Had no idea. Yes. Of course. Let's plan on on let's let's do some real planning about having a great time with the kids on a vacation that doesn't cost us more than we can afford. And you know what, Joe? You know that I don't like camping, but what you did just now was so sweet that, yeah, let's take the kids camping for two weeks. That won't cost much, and they'll have a ball. That kind of thing. That kind of thing. But we gotta we gotta, you know, talk about manning up. I mean, that's where you gotta man up. You gotta man up and say, this is how I feel. And I'm not I'm not embarrassed about it. I'm not I'm not gonna hide from the way I feel.
Because, women, you want intimacy. Right, baby? Well, to get intimacy from me, you really gotta be willing to hear what's going on with me, the good and the bad. And the easier it is for me to express both, the more intimate we can be. Right. Yeah. I mean, we can, you know, we can be in sync all of the time. Which All of the time. Which makes total and complete sense. Right?
[00:59:57] Unknown:
Now, just I just wanna back up to to just a couple of quick things. Like, I was taking notes, as you can see, I was writing notes down as you were talking there. It's it's it's interesting how some of the examples that you used are things that I am familiar with, not in the context you were using them, but in, in in in people that I know that have been in in some relationships, marriages that were falling apart and and and such. And a couple of things that you mentioned also are things that that were really kind of, applicable to myself in my, marriage as my marriage was breaking down.
Talking about, the I feel statements. Probably one of the one of the most difficult experiences that I've heard about is when the guy went to his wife and said exactly that, I'm feeling this, and she laughed in his face. You know how you you you said, you know, falling in love with a tennis instructor and all that? I know a guy, good guy, solid guy, had every opportunity where he could have stepped out on his wife and rejected every opportunity to do that. Why? Because he loved his wife. When he would try to be intimate, she would push him away.
When he would try to express how he was feeling, it had to do a lot with, it it came about a lot of, mocking. And probably one of the most painful statements that that this guy told me, that his wife said, is when he tried to initiate intimacy in the bedroom, She was she she was, younger than he was in the marriage, and she told him, at your age, you shouldn't be needing this as much as you do. And now you hear that and you're not in the marriage and you're not in that situation, that hurts. You know? It's like things just kinda shrivel up on you there for a second when you hear that. Could you imagine being the person that's had that said to them, But yet that person stuck it out, did whatever he could to try to, what's the I'm trying to think of the right word.
Did everything he possibly could do to try to, ameliorate the situation and and try to find other ways to demonstrate the the affection and love and all that stuff. At the same time, he was constantly being flirted with, hit on, so on and so forth, and rejected every opportunity to to do anything about it because of the love that he had for his wife, only for her to continue to mock him, tease him, make fun of him.
[01:03:34] Unknown:
You know where I'm going? So Yep. Yes. I I understand I understand completely. So what you have demonstrated is that the I feel statement is not gonna work in every situation. Course not. No. No. There is no fixing that the guaranteed fix to anything. The I feel statement is based on there being some little flicker of love remaining in Mhmm. A distressed relationship.
[01:04:00] Unknown:
Which is where I was going with it. Yeah.
[01:04:02] Unknown:
Yeah. There there does come a time when, despite your best efforts, to be emotionally honest Mhmm. And the woman takes advantage of the opportunity to do exactly what it is that causes men not to wanna be emotionally honest Mhmm. Namely mock, embarrass, and shame the man. That's right. There's there comes a point where the man should do would do very well to consider the possibility that he is in, a toxic relationship, that the woman might have a personality disorder. And maybe he would like to find a trained, honest,
[01:05:06] Unknown:
trustworthy,
[01:05:10] Unknown:
relationship counselor to check him on that. Right. There are relationship counselors that are male, who are good with men. There are also relationship counselors who are female, who are good with men. And there are men who are really no good with men because, you know, they they're they're wonderful men, but, you know, men basically are scum even though I'm wonderful. And there are women who are very bad with men. So if you're wondering, is my relationship really dead? Is there any hope of bringing this back? You can search online, especially in these days when telehealth is popular.
You might find a a a family therapist or a relationship therapist in, you know, Pocatello, Idaho when you live in Texas, and it's quite alright because it's gonna be done by Zoom. You could actually call the therapist and say, look. I don't wanna pay you any money yet, but can I get ten minutes of your time for a chemistry check?
[01:06:24] Unknown:
Right.
[01:06:25] Unknown:
Some therapists will say, no. I'm so booked. I can't do that. But some therapists will say, yeah. We could talk for ten minutes. And if you talk for ten minutes and you they think and you think, yeah, they might be worth they might be worth talking to. I kinda got a good vibe from that person. Then you say, you have to decide for yourself whether they're worth a hundred or a hundred and $50 that an hour of their time would cost you. And then you get yourself in there for an hour maybe if you wanna pay that money, and you get more assurance, perhaps, that this person can help you.
You might get some more assurance, actually, that the best help this person can give you is that you gotta get the hell out of there Right. If you're honest in describing the situation. And that's the problem most, man. And not blaming her for everything. Ideally ideally, you wanna get both of you in there so that she gets a chance to tell her side of the story in a way that she might not have been able to tell you directly. Right. And women will often say, well, I didn't wanna say anything because I knew you'd get mad. I knew you'd get angry.
Well, okay. Sorry you don't trust me enough, you know, that you have to worry that I'm gonna hit you if you say something I don't wanna hear. But okay. Let let's go to this counselor. We'll we can do a Zoom session with him. You know, those are all possibilities. And those are possibilities that empower men as well as empower women. Right now, women run the whole world of relationships and emotions.
[01:08:08] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:08:11] Unknown:
And men are the ninety eight pound weaklings
[01:08:14] Unknown:
for the most part. Right. That that's true.
[01:08:18] Unknown:
We can become there's lots of empowered women these days. Right? I'm a powerful woman. Yes. Great. It's about time men got empowered where we have been weak, and we have been weak in being able to talk about how we really feel. Now talking about how you really feel isn't the same thing as talking about what you should get. It's just talking about how you feel, which makes you think that maybe what you need to get is such and such, but that's only, you know, your side of the bargain. Maybe for her, that's not gonna work, and you need to hear it each other out. And a relationship counselor is trained to do that, but you gotta be careful as a man to make sure that your counselor is not biased against men. And the reason I say that is because especially if the counselor you're thinking of is from the social works profession.
Social work is very heavily feminist, and it's all about power and control. And you know who the ones who need to be in power and control are. It's the it's men. And women are, you know, virtuous and and oppressed, by the big bad man. But other counselors are not social workers, And I'm not saying all social workers are bad, but other counselors are just really well trained to see into what the issues are behind what's being said about what the issues are. Mhmm. And they can draw you out in nice ways and with and and and if you get into a situation like a relationship counseling, one of the things the relationship counselor is gonna wanna see is, can she, can he both admit that they have not been perfect as spouses?
And, of course, by virtue of the fact that both he and she are humans, the counselor knows they haven't been perfect. Yeah. And if the man says, no. I've haven't done anything wrong. I've never done she knows he's an idiot. If she says, oh, no. It's all his fault. She knows the counselor knows she's an idiot. So don't be an idiot and be honest and say, yeah. I mean, I've I've screwed up. Yeah. And I could've done such and such better. And then you're on the road to recovery.
[01:10:55] Unknown:
And and I found that to be very, very, very true. In in in my particular situation, there were a few times early on when there were the hints of trouble in the marriage that were coming about, and I'll never forget this one. I I I, you know, I I I went to her. We were talking about things and about the things that were going on in the marriage, and I said, look, I know I am not faultless in all of this. I know I have my issues in this. And you know something, when I said that, I could see the confusion come across her face, you know. Like she wasn't expecting me to say, hey, look, I I'm just I'm just as as guilty in all this stuff as as as you are, you know.
That that look of confusion that that came across. So I I knew at that moment that I had her attention that she was like, alright, I wanna hear this. And, so I I went through all the things. I was like, I know I'm wrong in this, I know I'm wrong in that, I wanna fix this, I wanna get I wanna get back on track with this, that, and the other thing. I said, but this is what I see on the other end of it. And I see this is where you're failing, and and you're you're not putting up the best that you could possibly put forward to it. Let's go to counseling.
Do you know what the answer I got was?
[01:12:12] Unknown:
I'm not going to counseling. It's your fault.
[01:12:14] Unknown:
Very similar. I'm not the one who needs counseling. You do. That's the answer that I got. And I and I did. I I I actually, I went to I went to see a counselor by myself and the guy was great. He was he was hysterical. I walked in and and I sat down, he comes in and and, he he just sat at his desk, like, he didn't say anything. He just sat there and he was take he was writing some notes and I was I'm I'm just sitting there, I'm like, what's going on? And so I so I said, do do you wanna start? He goes, start what? What's the point of being here if your wife's not here? Oh, well, you could you could have said that and saved me the hundred and $50 that it just cost me to come in here, you know, before I got here.
Can we talk? I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a couple's therapist. I I'm not an individual therapist. So if she's not coming, you can leave, but I still want my one fifty. Wow. That's pretty rude. Yeah. It was. That's pretty rude. It was. Well, he was apparently trying to make a point, but he could have made the point in a whole different way, kind of like saying, be sure to bring your wife. Yeah. But that's the other problem too. Like, I and, you know, you you you can't you can't what's the old saying? You know, you you can you could, teach a horse how to drink. You could bring the horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You know? Right. Not And she wasn't coming. And she wasn't coming. No. The cow wasn't coming. So, Yeah.
[01:13:43] Unknown:
So he didn't wanna hear the counselor didn't wanna hear anything about how you tried to get her to come. Oh, well, maybe that I don't I don't even know if that would be ethical, really. But who knows? I'm not that kind of a counselor. Yeah. It was funny, though. Okay. So, you know, there is an example of how we, as men, are the ninety eight pounds weight ninety eight pound weaklings in the whole world of relationships. Right. We don't even know how the game is played.
[01:14:11] Unknown:
I think men We get beat up. I think men are oftentimes and and I think this is this is a result of of of modern culture. Men are men are off balance. They don't know. I I I could say for myself, I sir I certainly don't know sometimes. And I am not a PC person. I say what's on my mind. I just let it rip, and if you can't handle it, buy, you know, you can take off. Funny interesting thing about that too is, about a year two years ago, I I had I had a lady come to my house for dinner. I I cooked this I I love to cook. Cooking is like my my thing. I am I am a fantastic, amateur home chef.
Okay? And I will be happy to send you some photos of some of the things I take. I'd I do glamour shots for the food. So, Yeah. But I can't eat them. Send me some food.
[01:15:10] Unknown:
Yeah. We'll we'll work something out for sure. Hey. Look. I'm I'm an I'm an eighth Italian, Joe. We used to have spaghetti every Sunday. Okay. So come on. Come on. Alright. Alright. Alright. I I know probably your best dishes aren't Italian, are they?
[01:15:25] Unknown:
No. Because no. Here's the funny thing. I don't find Italian cooking challenging enough. Oh, okay. Well, maybe that's why I can do it. I I I I tend believe it or not, I tend to drift toward French Creole style cooking. Oh my god. So Sheesh. Because I I find it challenging. I interrupted you with my No. No. You're fine. Go ahead. No. You're fine. Okay. So I I invited this lady over for dinner, and, she came, and I was very surprised that she came. Now now for those of so for those of you who are uninitiated to the podcast, I have two beautiful, adorable, the best ever little partners in my in my family. They're my family.
My my two French bulldogs. Alright. I have my girl who's four years old. Her name is well, her her her full name is is Winnie Jean, but, ever since we brought her home, she was only about that big, so we called her Bean. So that's that's become her name, but, so I have Bean, and then I have my boy who's named after two serial killers. He's named after Charles Manson and a fictitious one named Dexter Morgan. And there's there's reasons for it because he's he's a lunatic and it's and I love him. But he's my buddy. He's my pal, you know, and he's three. So they are everything in the world to me. When when and I and I say that, and I and I always preface this when I'm when I'm talking to somebody, anybody about the dogs.
When I was at my lowest, they were the only two things, if you wanna put it that way, that were there for me and and and were by my side. When I went through I went through a period of time where, you can call it a TA period, a temporary alcoholic period, where, I was going through about 2 to maybe $300 a week on alcohol. Okay? Finishing bottle after bottle after bottle just going through. I went through a very, very bad depression. I was, I was mixing antidepressants with alcohol, just trying to make myself remember remember the Pink Floyd song Comfortably Numb? Mhmm. That's what I was striving for. That feeling, that comfortable, numb feeling, just forgetting everything in the world.
It was the only thing it was the only way I was able to sleep at night without replaying everything that I had seen, and you and I had spoken about that privately. I'm not gonna get into details on it, on the show here. But, it was the only way I was able to sleep at night without constantly replaying everything that I had seen. But I had a point where it got really bad, and when it got to that point where I was literally laying on the floor of my bathroom, crying, bleeding because, not that I voluntarily laid down, I passed out and hit my head on the ceramic tile and all that stuff. And, you know, who was there for me?
When I felt myself going down that way, I called seven or eight people. I'd and I have I prove it. Like, I have the phone records. Seven or eight people that I called, not one of them was able to come and sit with me prior to that to so that that wouldn't happen. But my two dogs were there with me. They lay there on the floor with me. My girl was licking the tears out of my eyes. My boy was laying right next to me as close almost to the point where it was like, if he could get any closer, he'd be in my skin. You know, they were there for me when I needed them the most. So all of that to say this. So I had this lady come to the house for dinner one night. I cooked this beautiful dinner. It's called, poulet de provence, and it is, it's basically it's just it's it's a it's a roasted chicken breast served on top of a of a of a homemade crouton, with this, tomato cream sauce and and seared ham, and it's just it's a beautiful dish. It's absolutely beautiful.
So I I went through all this effort for that, and, we sat down for dinner and I and I served everything out and and she looked down and she saw the dogs laying. They weren't they weren't even begging, they they don't stand at your chair, they don't look for food, they were just laying at my feet. One on one side, one on the other, and she looked down and she goes, what about them? What about them? I'll feed them when we're finished. I have I I made I made a plate for them. Same thing we're having, I made it for them too, so they'll eat when we're finished. She's like, no. No. No.
What? Why are they in the house? They're my dogs. Where else would they be? Well, dogs belong outside. Not French bulldogs. No. Not when it's a 15 degrees outside. No. They don't go outside. So she's like, really? So so you actually eat where the dogs are? Yes. I do. And I saw where it was going. So my sarcastic ass turns around and says, and you know something? And I actually Jack as my witness, God is my witness, I just I did exactly this, I just leaned in and I went, they sleep with me too. She was like, what? She said, oh, no. I said, yeah. I said, my girl sleeps under the blankets on my back.
My boy sleeps across the pillow with his butt facing me. She's like, no. No. That's not gonna work. I don't she goes, I don't compete with dogs. I'm not asking you to. I got up. I went to the door. I opened the door. You can leave.
[01:21:43] Unknown:
Wow.
[01:21:45] Unknown:
So So she didn't wanna leave. So to make her leave, I took her plate off the table, and I put it on the floor, and I gave it to the dogs to eat. I said, now you can leave.
[01:21:59] Unknown:
So Yes. What did you what did you conclude from all this?
[01:22:03] Unknown:
I I'm an asshole. Or at least I have my moments where I can be. But, you know what? I I I came to realize that, you know, I I don't need anybody to be happy in my life, like, another person to to share my life. I I have come to the point in my life where look, and and I've told you this privately, and I'll I'll say it here. You know, despite everything that happened, you know, I I I love my ex, and I I wish nothing but the best for her. I hope I hope she's happy with the decision she's made, and I and I hope she's enjoying her life with her her new life, with her her new husband and new family. God bless you. Enjoy it. I love you. Just be happy.
Me? I've come to understand and appreciate. It took me three years to rediscover who I really am, because I've spent so many years of my life putting other people in front of me and ahead of me. Now, I get to sit down, and I can do a podcast five nights a week if I want to. I can go and I can travel out to the ranch as often as I like to. If I wanna go and blow as much money as I wanna blow on something stupid, I can go do that. I don't have to check-in with anybody. I don't have to get anybody's approval or clearance to do that. If I wanna study, I wanna go back to school, I don't have to say, well, if I do that, then how's that gonna affect this?
No. No, sir. You know what? I am happy. I found myself. I am I took that time to rediscover who I am. And and I actually I talked to another friend of mine about this, about a year ago. In a lot of ways also that's a mistake because I because now I have a problem. You know? There there there is there is somebody that that I really do like and I do care about. And as as much as I say that if I want a relationship, this would be the person that I would have the relationship with, I can't pull the trigger on that because I don't wanna give up the liberty, the freedom that I have now.
And sometimes I feel like that's incredibly wrong of me, but at the same time, I'm not gonna no. I'm I I love my life. I love where things are in my life. Are there things to be better? Sure. Yeah. Things could be a little better. But I'm happy. I found who I am. I'm building that person up. I'm getting strength in that person, and, I'm enjoying it. I am absolutely enjoying it. So, yeah, I could be a jerk. I could be an ass, but, you know, go ahead.
[01:24:48] Unknown:
So are you saying that you love your life now Mhmm. But you did say you don't have a romantic relationship now, and you might like one, but you're torn because
[01:25:07] Unknown:
you love your life now. Yeah. It's it's one of those it's one of those crazy things that, you know, it's this So so here's here's what
[01:25:17] Unknown:
little old me would ask you to think about. Mhmm. The bad relationship was really bad, and it sorta got etched into your circuit boards.
[01:25:34] Unknown:
Yes.
[01:25:35] Unknown:
That this bad piece of software gets etched into your computer's firmware. And that's your idea of how a committed relationship needs to go between two people concerning what you get to do with your preferences and with your time, your free time. You realize that wasn't working for you, so you throw in that piece of firmware away. That circuit board is in the trash, and now you got a whole different operating system that pretty much lets you do whatever you wanna do whenever you wanna do it. Wouldn't it have been good
[01:26:29] Unknown:
if I call it open instead of you get I call it open I call it open source.
[01:26:33] Unknown:
Open source. Okay. So wouldn't it have been good would wouldn't it have been good if your previous relationship had not been allowed to etch into your circuit board Oh, absolutely. This thing that you really found to be full of bugs.
[01:26:56] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:26:57] Unknown:
A very poorly written program for how to be a couple. And so maybe you can take your happy life now and modify it a little bit within proper parameters, being very clear about what the requirements of the software are. Yep. And you approach the relationship that you'd like to have with the requirement that it's never gonna get like that first relationship was, which was doomed to fail from the start. I mean, you know, it is possible to find a middle ground. Oh, of course. Absolutely. But
[01:27:46] Unknown:
do you know the old saying, you know, happy happy wife, happy life? Yep. My thing now is happy life with no wife. So Okay. And and that's gonna and that's and that leads me into this next thing that I I wanted to ask you about. You see a lot of things here in in and if you if you if you pay attention to the news every now and then they throw a little interesting little tidbit out there. And one of the things that I that I've been seeing trending a lot, especially now also on social media stuff, that is that, a lot of men, especially younger men, are shying away from marriage and that type of familial responsibility.
I personally think it has to do with a lot of the, because of the the, the, the disposable nature of relationships these days. You know, I came from a generation, especially as as from an Italian family that, you know, you have a problem in your marriage, you fix it. You don't throw it away, you don't run away from it, you fix it, and you stay together to the end. Alright. My dad and my mom, I love I love my parents more than anything in the world. I I miss them every day. They they both passed away way too soon and too close to each other. It's it's my dad passed away, then it then about a year later, my mom passed away. It it was very, very hard.
My dad to me was, someone that I looked up to as far as how his relationship was with my mom. My dad was very, very sick. Very sick. My dad had some, the the name of the of the disease that he had is is just not in my head at the moment, but it was something that is so rare. It's like one in literally one in a million guessed this thing. And, my dad never told anybody in the family. Never said a word. My dad had liver problems, kidney problems, a lot of which I attribute to his time in service in Vietnam. My dad had numerous health problems that I I mean, I I can say rattled my my sister's my sister has the it's like the the encyclopedic mind for all the stuff that my dad was dealing with because she was caring for him more than I was. She was right there. She lived literally walking distance from their house, so she was with them all the time.
But my dad never told anybody just how sick he was. He would tell us, you have doctor's appointment. Dad, how'd it go with the doctor? No problem. We're good. We're all good. Really? We're okay? Yeah. Yeah. We're fine. Yeah. Just gotta adjust some medications here or there, but other than that, I'm fine. Alright. What else are you gonna do? You mean you can't, you know, I can't force him to tell me something, but that's what he said. So he hid how sick he was for many, many years, wasn't getting properly cared for because my mom suffered from, she had end stage emphysema, COPD.
She had, on top of that, gone through three strokes, and and she had severe rheumatoid arthritis where she couldn't even un like, her hands were like this all the time. Like, she couldn't even open up her hands enough to do anything. My dad, I we talked my sister and I talked to my dad many, many times about, dad, you need help. You can't do this by yourself, you know. No. It's my responsibility. I'm gonna take care of your mother to the and he did that up until he couldn't do it anymore and he and he died because of it, because he didn't take care of himself. That's the generation that I grew up with. That's the role model that I had. And my grandfather was the same way. My grandfather had a lot of health issues. My grandfather oh, man. My grandfather, at 12 years old in nineteen twenty something was a concert violinist.
My grandfather played, I think, eight or 10 instruments. You know, he had everything laid before him, but he was devoted to his wife. He was devoted to his children, his family. He put all that stuff aside, then he went to work on Wall Street, had four heart attacks working on the on the on the trading floor in Wall Street, plus a stroke. He died at 64 when I was 16 years old. The last thing I ever said to him was, I love you grandpa, and I love you too pal. Last thing last words we ever spoke to each other. Never forget it. But my grandfather my grandfather loved my grandmother so much that despite whatever problems they had, he would randomly stop people on the street, strangers, and tell them the story of how he met my grandmother, stole her heart from somebody else, promised to marry her even though she laughed in his face, ended up marrying her, having four beautiful children, who grew up to be incredibly successful in their lives.
And that's that's the role models that I had growing up. So that stayed with me my life. And sometimes I look at it and say, you know what? That was a mistake for me to try to follow that today in this disposable relationship age.
[01:33:24] Unknown:
Okay. I get you. Might be a mistake in this disposable relationship age. However, tell the truth. Mhmm. You you would like to. You would like to find somebody like that Oh, for sure. To have a life okay. Oh, for sure. For sure. And and I think that the young men you're talking about who have sort of given up on the idea of relationships in this crazy age of male female rancor that we're in. Yeah. I understand. I understand why they are fed up and don't wanna deal with women these days. I mean, if if for no other reason that it just makes no sense to young men these days, makes no sense to this old man these days, that young women still think that men should pay for the first date. Mhmm.
Yeah. It just does not make sense to me. And and the idea of of that being an entitlement that a lot of women sort of feel in this age of supposed equality between men and women, yet I'm more equal than you are, and you're getting more out of being with me than I'm getting from being with you. Yeah. So you're gonna pay for the date. I understand why young men are like, no. I'm not doing this. This is a violation of my integrity. But I think that as much as they've sworn off women, they they many of them, I believe, would still like to find a woman that they could have a loving relationship with. I agree with that. And it's very it's very disappointing for this younger generation to be dealing with women who seem to have very little disregard for the idea of fairness and respect for men.
[01:35:21] Unknown:
And of of course, also, today's modern approach to, marriage and divorce, you you have divorce on demand, you could just, you know, you don't even need to have your partner's consent anymore. You know, you just go into the courthouse one day, file the paperwork for divorce, and done. You know? And then you have all the all the laws that are attached with, divorce, where it is so punitive against the man in the relationship even though maybe the man wasn't the cause of the divorce. Maybe in a certain may maybe the maybe the wife was the one who stepped out and cheated and, you know, and and and filed the divorce claim and all that stuff, but yet it's punitive against the man.
The man is the one who has to give up half of his pension. The man is the one who has to give up the, the alimony and support payments. The man is the one who has to do now if you have kids, yeah, I look. If you have kids, you are you take care of your kids. Plain and simple. You know? It's all the other stuff. You know? You get married. You're married for a couple years, and all of a sudden, you know, that person's entitled to half of your assets.
[01:36:36] Unknown:
Yeah. This has been going on since forever. Well, not forever, but for a long time, generation, several generations, this is the situation has been going on. You will often hear people say, oh, but it's getting better for fathers. Yeah. It's getting better for fathers in some states. But there are also some very strong pushbacks. There's a lot of backlash.
[01:37:01] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:37:02] Unknown:
Just as men were not crazy about women getting equality in the in the, skyscraper that might represent the the male domain of money and politics and, you know, that kind of power, women are no more eager to have men, get equality in the, convention center, which is the location of women's heavy investment primarily in relationships. Mhmm. You know, everybody does better if they have work life balance. For some men, 99.99% work is great, and that's how they get balanced. They don't need much home life and vice versa. Mhmm. But for most people, you know, something like sixty forty, 50 50, 40 60, that's, you know, that that would be ideal. One of the big problems I think we as men are facing is that we have had to allow women to have equality in our traditional domain of money.
They have not had to give us equal access to the world of love and relationships and friendships and cooperation and intimacy, it's you know, that still belongs to women. And when there was a divorce, even though the law might say the best interests of the children and even if the custody evaluator says, oh, I think these are both good parents, and it should be a fifty fifty deal, if the woman says, your honor, I'm afraid of him, sometimes he gets so angry. And, oh, by the way, Johnny and Susie don't like him anymore either. That's pretty much all she's gotta say, and she's got the judge on the spot. That's right. Yeah.
Because when the judge hears a suggestion that this man is violent, which is a very easy suggestion to make because we all are ready to believe that men are scum Correct. And violent and horrible people, If he dares to dismiss the woman's assertion that he's violent and she's afraid of him and says, I don't I don't really believe you there. I think he's a pretty good father, and so it's gonna be joint custody. And he's wrong, and the father really does do something bad, or the judge is right, and the woman somehow succeeds in pissing off the man so greatly that he does do something she can take a picture of, you know, like a bruise or something Right.
Then, you know, that judge can be a big trouble That's right. With the with the judicial board. It's it's it's not a fair playing field in that in in for for men in the world of relationships and emotions, and it needs to be for our mental health, for our social health, for our kids. And
[01:40:30] Unknown:
we we're not fighting for that. We're not fighting for that. Well, I just wanna interrupt you for one second. We have a comment Go ahead. We have a comment in the, in the chat, from the Texan DM, who I I know personally. He says, great topic tonight. And then, he goes on to say, sounds like animal form. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
[01:40:52] Unknown:
Yeah. It's great. Yeah. That was a great line. Yeah. Yep. Thank you for that. Yep.
[01:40:59] Unknown:
So I I didn't mean to cut you off, brother. I wanted to get that in before. Yeah. I let's let's give a shout out to
[01:41:05] Unknown:
The Texian DM. Text land what is it? The Texian. The Texland m. No. Texian DM. Oh, the Texian. Yes. The Texian. Yes. Okay. He's actually Thank you for that. He's actually a very good friend of mine. So,
[01:41:19] Unknown:
and, if you, if if you're curious, you can go back through our, archive shows, and you'll see that, he was actually a guest on our show, and we had a pretty lengthy conversation. So Great. Check it out. So so what what
[01:41:34] Unknown:
we need to do as men is to start talking about this in public. Like, if you ever get to go to a a a town hall where a a congressman or a city council person is is trying to get your vote, you know, summon up your courage, maybe go with a buddy, and raise your hand and say, mister city councilman, can you tell me what you've done to address the fact that, boys commit suicide three and a half times more often than girls in our town? Just say that. And, of course, he'll stammer and have nothing to say. And you can leave him, you know, hanging out to dry. But afterwards, you might go up to him and say, well, look. I knew that was a tough question. And I'd love to have you start paying attention to these things because suicide is just the tip of the iceberg.
But it's interesting. You know, Republicans and Democrats both have different reasons for ignoring that. You know? Yeah. Republicans tend Republicans tend to believe that that men are bad and women are virtuous, and the Democrats have a tendency to believe that men are bad in a different kind of way, oppressors, patriarchal oppressors oppressors, and women are victims of that oppression. And so, therefore, we must do everything we can to aid the people who are oppressed. So there really is no natural party or or there is no party that feels like they they need to pay attention to men, that it's a winning proposition.
And, you know, for electoral purposes, there's a lot of truth to that because men vote on the economy. Why do they vote on the economy? Because they got so much pressure on them to make money. That's right. Yeah.
[01:43:40] Unknown:
Yeah. So It's the driving factor behind them.
[01:43:43] Unknown:
Yeah. So shifting our focus to be, a recognition that you'll probably make more money in your life if you have good mental health in your life. You know, you will probably less likely to be an alcoholic and miss three years of work. Right. You know? So it's it's not a it's not an either or proposition. Good mental health, good social policies for men are good for men and their ability to be the kinds of people we want them to be, which is productive, economically productive, and providers. I personally think that's kind of old fashioned, but, you know, I'd certainly recognize that there are a lot of men who who buy into that and like it, and it makes them feel good to be the provider. Right.
But the essential thing is no matter what you think your primary purpose is and how you go about your life, you gotta be taking care of your mental health or you're gonna be hurting yourself, shooting yourself in the foot, so to speak. Well yeah. So we so so we can talk about that. We should talk about that. And we should embarrass some politicians because they don't think about it, and they're supposedly our leaders. You know, and they're so afraid they're so afraid of alienating women. So afraid. Yeah. I hate using that term when it comes to them. When when I think a lot of women are really sort of wondering when are man men gonna stop being such big chumps and speak up about what they need?
You know, women don't particularly like weak and wimpy men.
[01:45:23] Unknown:
We we are, in many ways, weak and wimpy. We have a great question from the from the taxi and DM again. He says, Hey. Put it up on the screen here.
[01:45:31] Unknown:
Okay. Is the solution political or social? Well, you know, they sort of go together, don't they? But, you know, maybe there's a difference. It's both. You know, it's not just about laws. But then again, there are laws that make a difference. Let's see. Was there another question? Oh, it's the same question. Yeah. Same question. I actually left it up. Yeah. Okay. I hope that's a decent answer for you, Texian.
[01:45:57] Unknown:
We'll see. We'll see if he pops up with something else. But, Yeah. Let's see. What I think we'll do is here at this point, I think we're gonna we're gonna start to wrap it up because, we're approaching almost two hours. And, what I I need to go through the ending of the show and the closing of the show. And then, Jack, what I'd love to do, as I would love to get you again at a later time when you when you have some extra time in your hands, to come back on again and we could we could pick up this conversation. Because this is this is an absolutely fascinating conversation. We have barely scratched the service on number, the issues that you and I had talked about, previously.
And, and just looking at some of the numbers coming through on on the audio stream, and this is this is a good conversation. I think people need to hear this stuff. And, I just wanna say thank you so much for all the time that you, you gave to us. Let's see. Texty and DM. Let's see. Here we go. Let's see what you got to say. He says, definitely, there is a school of thought that says policy and politics are downstream of culture. That's Breitbart. What can we do to impact the culture and turn this around? Great question.
[01:47:07] Unknown:
Well, who is the culture? It's us. Right? It's us. And who changes the culture? Influencers. What are influencers? There are people who say, I have an idea. I know what's good. Try this. You'll like it. We gotta have vision about what we want and some clarity about why we want it and how it's gonna be good for everybody. Our nation will be healthier when its men are healthier, And our nation will be happier when its men are happier. And our kids will also be better off because kids, both boys and girls, need their fathers. Oh. And they need strong, confident fathers.
Talk about being influencers. You know, fathers are hugely important influencers of their children. Absolutely.
[01:48:07] Unknown:
Absolutely. I I'm I'm when I when I think about my own my own life, where would I be right now if I was if it wasn't for my dad? My dad was such a huge influence on me and my my developmental stages and and my, not just physically, but just just the way I think and the way I I I interact with people. You know, your you know, the the dad absent from the home is and and I'm sorry. I don't I don't well, let me not say I'm sorry because this is a, a a a show where we don't care. You know, we say what we have to say. You know, two moms, two dads in a home doesn't do it.
It needs the balance. Male, female. Have have me back on, and and I'd like to pick that up. I'd like to pick that up. We'll absolutely do that. That would be I would love that. That that'd be a great conversation, and I think the audience would like would appreciate that as well. Alright. Let me clear that, and there we go. Alright. So, Jack, why don't you, as we close this thing up, just let us know where we can find you, anything that you wanna, share with us, to track you down. I I if you want, I can give out your phone number. People can call you. No. I'm kidding. I would never do that.
[01:49:20] Unknown:
Thank you. Well, Mail Friendly Media, you can see it on the on the back wall back there behind me. Mail friendly media, one word, no hyphen. Mailfriendlymedia.com is where I put all my stuff. Since we're talking to since I'm talking to to you in Texas Mhmm. I wanna mention one last idea, because it sort of centers around everything we've sort of been talking about. You know, it's the idea of being a real man. Mhmm. And I know that you guys in Texas, you wanna be real men. And I know that a lot of guys wear a big hat, but they don't have any cattle. Right? Right?
So they pretend to be, you know, tough guy.
[01:50:07] Unknown:
Why did you have to say that while I was swallowing some coffee? Because ham was spit it out across the
[01:50:13] Unknown:
Well, isn't that a saying in Texas?
[01:50:15] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:50:16] Unknown:
Yeah. I think Isn't that isn't that a saying Oh, where'd you go?
[01:50:21] Unknown:
I think we lost Jack there for a second.
[01:50:26] Unknown:
See. Okay. Am I back? You are back, but your picture's not back yet. Hey. Let me click that. Let's see. Turn camera on and join the stage. There I am. Is that good? Yes. Welcome back.
[01:50:37] Unknown:
Talking about big hat snow cattle. That's a saying you guys have down there, isn't it? I have not heard that, but, but but maybe the Texian DM has. He's been here a lot longer than I have. Alright.
[01:50:48] Unknown:
Well, so it's up here in Maryland. We have heard that saying, and what it means is, yeah, the guy puts on a good show, but there ain't, you know, nothing behind it. Yeah. Big hat, no cattle.
[01:50:59] Unknown:
All hat, no cattle, he says.
[01:51:01] Unknown:
All hat oh, is that what it says? All hat, no cattle. I'll pop I'll pop it up on the screen there. There you go. Okay. How do we know the Texian is really from Texas? That's what I would Oh, believe me, this man is from Texas.
[01:51:13] Unknown:
Absolutely. Believe me, this man is from Texas. And when you listen to the 27 generations of being in Texas. Alright. And when if if you listen to the episode that we, that we did together, you'll definitely know that this man is Texan. No doubt. Alright. Alright.
[01:51:25] Unknown:
Well, I just wanna mention for all of the men in Texas who are thinking about getting a big hat even though they don't have any cattle is that you don't need to. Because the best definition of a real man is a man who does not care at all about anybody else's definition of a real man.
[01:51:45] Unknown:
Jack Scott. Just be yourself. Jack Scott's be jokes. Do you see that on the screen that Jack Scott jokes?
[01:51:51] Unknown:
Jack Scott jokes. Yeah. But the none none of them are funny. I don't hear anybody laughing. I'm laughing. Me see a Texian.
[01:51:58] Unknown:
Am I laugh I'm I'm Where is he? I'm nobody? Wait. I mean, what? I'm laughing.
[01:52:06] Unknown:
Alright. Nobody's laughing. Yeah. I yeah. I'm dying. I'm dying here. I'm dying here. Dude's staring up, and nobody's laughing. A ruddy Dangerfield. Yeah. No respect. Yeah. No respect. No respect. No respect. No respect.
[01:52:23] Unknown:
Alright, Jack. So I don't know if you wanna stick around while I close out this beast of a show, but, if you do, just Yeah. I'd like to see how you do your intro. Just, just just mute your mic, and we'll be good to go. Okay.
[01:52:33] Unknown:
It was great talking to you, Joe. Same here. Great talking to you, mister Texian. Take care. Jack
[01:52:39] Unknown:
is oh, he put it up there. That's great. Unmute your mic. His his mic is your mic is still muted.
[01:52:58] Unknown:
Alright, Texe. We're gonna go to therapy together, bud. We'll take care of this. Yeehaw.
[01:53:04] Unknown:
And and and since and since I know he's still listening, I'm I'm gonna say this because, you know, we we we're running out of time. We don't have, time for our our Texit fact of the day, but, I think, I think, the men in Texas will become the men of Texas when Texas finally finally lifts its head among the free and independent nations of the world.
[01:53:27] Unknown:
Oh my god. Yeah. Well, I guess we gotta talk about that too, Yes, sir. Hey. You know what? Everybody's Hey, Daniel.
[01:53:35] Unknown:
When when, when we have Jack back on, would you like to join us on the video stream? And, we can have a nice three way conversation. We could do that. Just let me know. You have my number. Just give me a call, and, we'll we'll we can definitely do that. I think we would have a a a hell of a good time. But, yes, and I but I do I I do agree, and I think, personally speaking, that, Texas men will step up and be Texas men when Texas stands alone in the nations among the nations. So, Jack, I don't know if you know this enough, but I am a member of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which is a, basically, it's a it's a political action committee of p,
[01:54:18] Unknown:
I get therapized live. Jack will quit the what? Profession. Quit the profession. Yeah. But I don't do therapy as a profession, so it's okay. There we go. So We'll get some we'll we'll have some adult drinks. We'll have some adult drinks, and we'll talk about that. Union.
[01:54:34] Unknown:
Yes. Texas is, well, the Texas Nationals Movement is an organization that, Daniel Miller, the Texian DM, is actually the president of the organization. Oh. And, it's a basically, it's a it's a basically, it's a PAC, and, we are seeking, through leg through the legislative process, a peaceful separation from the American Union so that Texas will once again reassert itself as an independent free nation among the nations of the world. And, there's a lot of things about Texas that a lot of people don't really know, which is why usually when I close the show out, I do a a Texit FAQ, FAQ, which you can get all the information about Texit from the website, texitnow.org.
You can go to my website, joerusiello.com/tandm, and you can find out. I am, just to answer your question, Jack, I am the, the the deputy district the desk the deputy county coordinator for Maverick County down here in in, in Eagle Pass. And, even though I am not a native born Texan or Texian, which is what the actual term is, The, I I am by adoption a Texian, and I I think Daniel will tell you that I think they adopted me within the organization there. My my me and my New York ways. I've been, supporting the organization since 02/2016 when I still lived in New York.
And, once, once I obtained my independence down here in Texas, meeting my divorce, I was able to reroute funding and so so on and so forth and became a full member of the Texas Nationalist Movement and, jumped right on board and got involved with, trying to get, the county here, set up and running. So, the county leadership team. So, it's a great organization, bunch great bunch of people, and believe it or not, there there are almost 700,000 people involved in this in this organization that are working towards Texas independence. And on top of that, public opinion right now on the Texas on on Texas independence, we're we're polling at, like, over 60% of Texans are in favor of Texas leaving the American Union and standing alone.
If that happened, Texas will become easily the eighth or the twelfth largest GDP in the world in the world, which is huge. Texas has the population, it has the land mass, it has the seaports. It has its, Texas is not part of the national grid. Texas has its own power grid supply. Texas can very easily, very, very easily take its place among the nations. You know, people joke around about, well, how could how could Texas leave the union and be by itself? How are you gonna defend yourself? You know? But the thing is, you look at countries smaller than Texas like, Mauritania and and Moldova and places like that that didn't exist prior to World War two are all of a sudden now in free and independent countries, you know, among the nations of the world. Why is it okay for them to be able to do that? But God forbid, a state of the union tries to assert its independence or talk about its independence and it's it's it's mocked and and put down. Did you Jack, did you know that there are 25 states in the union right now that have secession legislation going through the the legislative process?
No. I didn't know there were 25. I knew there was a lot of rancor and unhappiness. But there are and and it's not just people think, oh, there's there's a red state, you know, the heck. No. California, New Hampshire, Vermont, they all have very vibrant and active secession movements working their working its way through the legislative process. This is exactly what Texas is doing. Now we have in the Texas legislature, we have more elected representatives in the Texas legislator let legislator now that have signed the Texas First pledge than ever before.
Which is what? The Texas First pledge to protect Texas first above anything and everything. The needs of Texas come before the needs of any other state. The needs of Texas come before any other before The United States as a whole, Texas first. So, the winds of change are blowing, my friend. I'm hoping and it's it's been it's my it's my prayer, honestly, you know, I'm I'm you know, you know what I believe. It I pray for this on a daily basis that the day will come in my lifetime when Texas will, again, assert itself among the nations and that I will have a small part in that, You know, no matter what it is, as small as a part of it as it is, that I can I can say to to posterity that, yeah, you know what? It's not often that you get to build your own nation.
You know, what was it John Adams that said when he was, in in, in in congress when they were they were about to, vote on the passing of the declaration of independence? John Adams stood up and said, let me have a country. My country. A free country. He wasn't talking about the 13 states. He was talking about Massachusetts, because Massachusetts was his country. Remember, the count The United States was founded on independent individual states that compacted together for really only two things, to regulate commerce, which in seventeen hundreds language only means only to make commerce regular between the states, like a normal thing, and to come together for mutual defense.
The monstrosity that we see right now in Washington DC is not what the founding generation ever ever thought or wanted for this country. This, our gen the founding generation rebelled against a much more powerful and established government. And if you think about it, they actually did what? They seceded from a secession is a natural thing. Think of it like this. And as and as someone who deals with relationships, right, and as we've been talking all night, if you are in an abusive relationship, wouldn't the tendency be to wanna leave that abusive relationship?
Texas has been abused by the federal monstrosity that we have in Washington DC. We went through four years of an unsecured border. We went through four years of, lawfare against the state of Texas to prevent Texas from securing its border and protecting its citizens. I live in a border town. I live in Eagle Pass. I am less than two miles away from Shelby Park where that standoff took place between the federal government and the state of Texas. You know? I can tell you firsthand of the things that I've seen on the streets of Eagle Pass that I had not seen prior to, the previous administration.
So and then you look at the amount of money. Do you know that, I don't have the I don't have the number off the top of my head. And if if, if the taxi and DM is still is still listening or watching the show, maybe you can pipe in on this one on the in the in the live chat. But the, the amount of money that Texas overpays into the federal system would fully fund the Texas government as it is right now without any reduction in services to the population. Texas can and will stand alone. The question is, is it gonna be in my lifetime or the next? I'm hoping it's my lifetime. I wanna see that. I wanna see the place that I live that I love. I love Texas.
Yes, I was born and raised in New York. Yes. I love, you know, where I came from, the culture that I came from. I love it. I just don't agree with the politics of it. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to come to Texas. I got here. I love it here. I would never leave Texas. I may move around Texas. I may not be too thrilled with Eagle Pass right now, but I will never leave Texas. I love it here. This is liberty, this is freedom. To, a year or so ago, I went to New York to visit my sister. I know we're trying to wrap up the show, but here I go. I'm on I'm on my soapbox. A year or so ago, I went to New York to visit my sister, and the difference in the atmosphere of the people, not necessarily air quality, because people I say that people think, oh, the air is different. No. It's not different. It's just it's just the people.
There's a difference. You come to Texas. There's freedom. There's liberty here. You go up and and the only way you can experience it is if you spent time in Texas and then go back to where you came from to see what it's like. You went I went back to New York. It was like oppressive. Nobody smiled. Nobody said a word to you over you walk down the street. I don't even know who half these people are in my neighborhood. Hey, good morning. Good morning. How you doing today? Have a great day. God bless you. Have a great one. You know, it's it's like, I'm a New Yorker. Why are you talking to me?
You know? And that's just a small thing. But the freedom that that you you you feel the difference in it once you leave here and go there and come back. Man, when I got back to Texas after I made that trip, I got out of my car, man. I I and I am not exaggerating this. I I brother, I got out of my car. I got down on my knees in my driveway and kissed the ground that I was home. Liberty. Freedom. You go to New York, every single street corner has a camera watching every move you make. There are no cameras here. They're not watching everything you do. You are free to do what you want as long as you don't hurt somebody else.
My thing is, and I get this in Texas. Okay? My thing is, I want the government to do one thing. Only one thing. It's all I want them to do. It's just one thing. And that's to protect my right to do for myself. I don't want government handouts. I don't want them taking my money to hand out to other people. I want to I want government to leave me alone, let me live my life, and as long as I don't kill somebody and break some major law, I shouldn't have to worry about what's going on in Washington, DC. I should have to hear about it. That's what our founding generation wanted. They don't they they even said I think it was, oh, who was it? It was, was it, John Quincy? Who said it? John Quincy Adams?
Who said that the activities in Washington in in Washington should never never even cross the mind of the average citizen in another state. It that's how small and significant it should be. And, you know, that's why I I love Texas. I'll never leave. And that's why I became part of this organization. That's why I wanted to do this and and, I became as involved as I did. I could have just been a member and just donate donations or whatnot. No. I wanna see that flag, Texas independence. You know? I wanna see this flag. Texas is probably one of the only states that I've ever been to that I see the state flag flying more on even private property than the American flag.
You go to New York. I'm I'm sure it's where where you lived as well. You do you do you ever see anybody with their flagpole in front of their house flying the state flag?
[02:07:41] Unknown:
Actually, Maryland's flag is
[02:07:44] Unknown:
very popular here. Is it really? It's probably the, yeah, it's probably the very coolest looking state flag. Oh, I've seen it. Proud of it. Oh, I I've seen it. It is it is a it is a pretty flag. I love those things. Yeah. But Yeah. In reality, in all the places that I've ever been to, this is the Texas is the only place that that that you actually see the pride of Texas. There's something about Texas that you're not gonna find anywhere else anywhere else in in the American Union. And I call it that's for a reason. It's deliberate. You know, because a lot of people think that, you know, we are one nation under God. No. We're not one nation. We are a union of 50 individual independent countries that came together for mutual defense and regular trade.
It's all it is. And for for people to say, well, Texas can't leave the union. No. If you voluntarily entered the union, you can voluntarily leave the union. I don't know if you know, there was a there's a podcast named Benny Johnson. I don't know if you've heard of him. He made a comment the other day and I and and and I don't usually watch him, and I just happen to turn it on right there. And and at this one particular moment that just set me off, and he said that, he was talking about how when, Texas, seceded from Mexico and became an independent country, and then a few years later voluntarily joined the union, he said that now, you know, Texas, or or The United States owned Texas. No.
Oh, dude. No. 50 individual independent sovereign states. What's another term for a state? Country. We call it the state of Israel. Is Israel a state of the American Union? No. The state of it the state of North Korea. Is that a part of the American? No. Although with Donald Trump, you never you never know. But and I'm a Trump fan. I love Trump, but, you know, with his, you know, Greenland thing and Canada and all that stuff, you never know who's asking next. But is so the term state is is in reference to a country. It's It's an it's an independent sovereign country. So these 50 states that make up this union of states, the American Union, voluntarily entered and can voluntarily leave. There's nothing in the constitution of The United States that says that they can't.
Where the constitution is silent on a specific thing goes to the tenth amendment. The tenth amendment says that all power lies with within the state and the people. So if the state says we don't wanna be part of this anymore, we can walk away, and there's nothing anyone can really say about it. That whole thing with, with the Supreme Court talking, with the Supreme Court back in in the days of the civil war, I I I the name of the, of of the case just flipped out of my head for a second. But the, where they said they only know you can't leave the union, you're not allowed to. That had nothing that case had nothing to do with secession. That had to do with money. Who's paying for the reconstruction? That's what that whole case was about. The comment that, well, you shouldn't have left in the first place was an aside, and I'm paraphrasing it, of course, but it was an aside. It was something that was not even on the record, but somebody jotted it down and said, well, it's easy. The the Supreme Court said you can't.
That's not what it was about. Nothing to do with it whatsoever. Alright. So I am way on I'm on the soapbox. I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap this whole mess up here. So, let me let me let me do my closing here. Jack, again, thank you so very much for being with us here tonight. I really loved having you here. I I think we have a we got a kinship here, brother. We got a kinship going on. And, I knew it when we spoke on Saturday that that we definitely have a good a good chemistry here, and and I'm looking forward to having you on the show again, and I hope you come on very very soon. Love to have you. Really quickly though, folks, before we before we finally do the shut ups and, you know, all that stuff, I've been trying to do this since Wednesday.
The new segment of the show, the the who gives a shit file. Okay? So, a couple of days ago, the, and this is part and I have to come up with music for it so I can introduce it. But from the files of who gives a shit, the New York Yankees have decided that they're allowed to grow beards now on the team. I don't know if you a lot of people knew that or not, but, for for about fifty years, no Yankees player was allowed to have any facial hair whatsoever. Alright? And that was the rule of the team, and you had to agree to that, sign a contract to it, but now the Yankees have decided that, well, we'll let you have a well manicured beard.
Wonderful. Did that need to be breaking news that flew across my screen? So that is our installment of the who gives a shit file for today. So folks, quick shout outs. We have no birthdays to announce, but again, just to remind everybody, if you have a birthday, you'd like us to shout it out for you, we'll we'll sing happy birthday to you. Well, I won't sing happy birthday to you, but we have a track that we'll play. We'll sing happy birthday. Just let us know when your birthday is, and, when that day come, boom boom boom. If we have a show, we'll do it. Or either that, or we'll do it before or after the show. Quick shout outs to say thank you to our executive producers, Wayne and Rosanna Rankin. Thank you so very much for your contribution and your, your your help and everything over the last couple of weeks. Guys, you've been great. Thank you so very much for it.
Also, just want to, say thank you to all of the folks that have been streaming SATs to us over the modern podcast apps. So SATs are basically it's, if you're not if you're not familiar with it, it's cryptocurrencies. It's micropayments of Bitcoin. Honestly, it's pennies. Okay? So, I I use this as an example of the other day. Last month rather, somebody donated, 7,600 and something sats to the show. Alright? Wow. Great. Not saying that to be, obnoxious. It huge help, but people hear that number and think, wow. That's a lot of money. No. It's not. It's $10.
Like, $10. Alright? And that went to, and that immediately went to paying for the, the the cloud service that I used to, manage my crypto wallet because I am an idiot and can't do it myself. So, I use GetAlbi. I recommend GetAlbi. Check them out. Getalbi.com. Also, listen to episode number three of our show here where we interview the founder of GetAlbi. Great guy named Moritz Kaminski. Smart guy, really knows his stuff. I had no idea what he was talking about. I just nodded. I had an agreement. But, great great app. Let me see what's this.
I had to duck out. What did he say there? I had to duck out and take a call. You guys are still rolling. Yep. That's right. We are. And you probably missed it, Daniel, where we we invited you to come on the show so we can have a a a a three way conversation here, and, we we can work that out. But just, give me a call whenever you have time. I know you're busy, so, we'd love to hear from you and and get you on the show with us. But, so, back to the stats. So you guys can so so if you wanna donate to us in Satoshis, our crypto wallets on our our support page, you can do that. That's great. We appreciate it. It all helps. And when I say the streaming stats to us on the modern podcast apps, well, you can go to modernpodcastapps.com, and you can download one of these great modern podcast apps. Like, I love Podcast Guru. I just love the interface of it. It's it's beautiful. It's a well built app.
No problems with it whatsoever. No buffering. Never have an issue with it, and it's a great app. Also, there's fountain.fm. Now found what I love about fountain is that you could set up a crypto wallet with fountain that's that's stored on the fountain servers. And when you listen to podcasts, you can earn satoshis or sats, and then you can use those sats to boost and, to to send boosts to another podcast or boost a gram, which is which is some some, sats with a little note saying you suck, whatever it is. You know, those things are great. Plus, with the modern podcast apps, you get transcripts, you get chapter art covers, you get, like, for example, with, with Jack here on the show today, we have, I have his picture, and I have his little bio and his website information all set up there in in the distribution app. And once I'm done here, that information will go out. All is it all of his information is loaded up into the stream, into the RSS feed that I have. And on the modern podcast app, you'll see his picture, his background, his website information, all the stuff that I have that's publicly accessible will all be there included in the show notes.
So these modern podcast apps are great. You don't get that with Spotify. You don't get that with Apple or iHeart or or TuneIn or anything like that, but you get it with the modern podcast app. So modernpodcastapps.com or podcastindex.org. You can check them out there. And, let's see. Now, like, we were talking about the Texas Nationalist Movement, so just one more thing. If you really wanna get involved if you really wanna get involved with shaping the future of a free and independent Texas, head over to our website, joerussello.com. Let me let me throw this baby up on the screen there if I can really quick because people don't know it. They don't understand it. Alright. Joe russello dot com.
You can go over to our website /tnm. We have a QR code up there. We have a link up there. Just scan it. You can register your support, become a member, or donate to the Texas Nationalist Movement, and, and and help us work towards making Texas a free and independent state. And, it seems like we just lost our feed really quickly, so hopefully, we'll get everybody back. There he is. There he is. We lost our feed for a second there. Sorry. And then what else? Let's see. Also, don't forget, open up that web form. Send us open any questions, comments, cares, concerns that you might have. We look forward to hearing from everybody, that's been listening to the show tonight. We really value your input, so please please get in touch with us. Let us know how we're doing. Don't forget also to, support us with a value for value donation. You can do a one time donation in any amount. You can also do, your time, your talent, your treasure, or you can take part in one of our, three membership, donation clubs.
The alexjonesstore.com/joe. Check us out over there. This way, your purchases on that site help us to fund what we're doing here. So that's the alexjonesstore.com/joe. Get yourself some vitamins. Get yourself some supplements. Get yourself some patriotic apparel. Get yourself onto the road to better health. You need it. I need it. We all need it. Right? Alright. Socials, don't forget those. X, TikTok, truth social, minds at joe rooz, r o o z. Instagram is not joe rooz because when I opened my Instagram account for the very first before I even finished the sign in process, they banned my account under Joe Roos. Don't know why.
Still don't know why. But for some strange reason, not Joe Roos was accepted. I don't know. I used the same email address, all the same information, just put not Joe Roos. So that's what that is. And then, unfortunately, we have a Facebook page, so you can find us there at The Podcast with Joe Rusciello. Alright. Well, folks, I think that's gonna do it for us for tonight. Don't forget, like, subscribe, and share. With all your friends, your family, and your followers, make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride, and happy trails. We'll see you next time. Good night.
Well, that's about it really. The film ends mainly visually.
Introduction and Special Episode Announcement
Joe's Frustration with RODE Customer Service
Value for Value Model and Support Options
Guest Introduction: Jack Kammer on Men's Mental Health
Discussion on Male Suicide Rates and Societal Pressures
Signs of Abusive Relationships and Seeking Help
The Power of 'I Feel' Statements in Relationships
Men's Hesitation Towards Marriage and Modern Relationships
Challenges in Divorce and Custody for Men
Political and Social Solutions for Men's Issues
Texas Independence Movement and Personal Reflections
