In this episode, Joe recounts a technical mishap from a previous show that ironically attracted the highest viewership despite a streaming error. He shares updates on resolving the issue and expresses gratitude to the audience for their support. Joe also discusses the importance of listener feedback and invites them to contribute ideas and suggestions for future episodes. He emphasizes the value-for-value model of the podcast, encouraging donations of time, talent, or treasure to support the show.
Joe welcomes guest Douglas Robbins, a writer and podcaster, who shares insights into his creative process and discusses his various works, including 'The Cloak Deception.' They delve into themes of human evolution, healing, and the power of words. The conversation also touches on mental health, the importance of emotional intelligence, and the societal challenges of misinformation. Joe and Douglas explore the impact of new experiences on personal growth and the significance of community and connection in overcoming mental health struggles. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to engage with the podcast and support its mission.
Join Joe for an unfiltered dive into the eclectic, the profound, and sometimes the absurd, where no topic is off-limits and political correctness takes a back seat.
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(00:01:09) Introduction and Technical Issues
(00:03:31) Upcoming Guest: Douglas Robbins
(00:05:32) Support and Donations
(00:12:00) Streaming Platforms and Rumble Exclusive
(00:14:39) Signal Gate Controversy
(00:24:27) Interview with Douglas Robbins
(01:14:58) Mental Health Discussion
(01:36:35) Conclusion and Wrap-Up
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
[00:00:07]
Unknown:
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[00:00:47] Unknown:
Tune in for a podcast where the conversation flows freely and where you can truly expect anything and everything. This is the podcast.
[00:01:09] Unknown:
Welcome to the podcast where every episode promises an unfiltered dive into the eclectic, the profound, and political correctness takes a back seat.
[00:01:49] Unknown:
Alright. Hey folks. This is Joe Rusciello, and we are live tonight at the Asylum Studios, bringing you the best quality political talk radio we could muster without all the bluster from the pimple on the backside of Texas. The beautiful city of Eagle Pass, this is the podcast.
[00:02:15] Unknown:
Alright.
[00:02:20] Unknown:
I see everything is working. We had a big problem, last night. Something happened with the stream, don't know exactly what it was but, we had a four zero four page not found. And, I found that to be quite disturbing. It threw off the rest of the night. And, forgot to turn the banners off. Sorry about that. Here we go. So it threw that whole night off. We were just messed up for the rest of the night. So the, the show was, not what I intended it to be. But ironically enough, even though there was no feed, had the most viewers we've ever had. So, that just Yeah. It just goes to shit. It just It just, you know, that's just the way it works with me. I don't know.
But, that that was kind of fun. It was funny to me anyway after the fact. And, but, I reached out to the, the rumble crew, and figured out, whatever the problem was, and got it all squared away, straightened out, and taken care of, and now we are back up and running. So thank God for that. And, thank you for sticking with us, and thank you for, joining us tonight here on the podcast. Now, we're gonna have a guest, checking in with us in about, fifteen minutes or so. And, we'll we'll be expecting, Douglas Robbins as a a well known writer, podcast host, does a numb wears a number of different hats. And we were actually supposed to have our little conversation, last week. But we were unable to do that because of some, issues that had come up on, on Doug's end. But, we rescheduled for tonight. So here we are, and we're gonna you know, we're just gonna kind of dive into, our conversation with Doug as soon as he, checks into the, into the green room. But, in the meantime, we're gonna take care of some housekeeping stuff. And depending on how long we have Doug, tonight, we'll, we'll, get into some of the news, after we, we talk to Doug. And, if not, we just hold on to it for tomorrow because I I think, it's all pretty relevant stuff.
It'll be available to us tomorrow as well. Alright. So, as I said, so some housekeeping stuff as usual. Before we go anywhere else, I'd like you to head over to our website, and, head over to our contact section. And, when you get there, just, head on over to our contact form, open that little baby up, and, why don't you send us over a message? Let us know whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind, any questions, comments, cares, concerns that you have. You could also let us know, any suggestions or ideas that you might have for the show, any guests you'd like us to try to get. I had a a couple actually that I was thinking about earlier today, so I'm gonna be looking into those, probably tomorrow or over the weekend.
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You could also, donate your talent. Maybe you're good at, working, a mixing board. Maybe you're good at, doing website work, and, maybe you're good at social media. God knows, I need help with social media stuff because I suck at social media. And, so so you can help us out with that. There's any number of different things you can do to help us out with your talents. And then also, is there there's your treasure. Now you can help us out in several different ways, with your treasure. One way is that you can donate cryptocurrencies to us. We, we would love to get, some more of that stuff, donated.
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This stuff is just amazing. So I really recommend you try this out. And you can get it in the form of a gummy also, but the capsules are a lot stronger. They're more concentrated, so you get more out of it, in that way. With the gummies, you gotta take like four of those a day just to match what you're gonna get in two of the capsules. Also, I've been taking the, Ultimate Turmeric, which I don't the glare is terrible, I know. Sorry. The Ultimate Turmeric, with ginger root and black pepper. This stuff is great for maintaining healthy joints, inflammation, balance. It's it's, also great for, enhance enhances nutrient absorption, digestion support, boost antioxidant defense, joint health and mobility. This stuff is really good stuff. I've again, I've been taking this now for a few months and starting to really see good results from it. And also, I've been taking the the Atomic Defense, which is loaded up with oregano, cinnamon, turmeric, garlic extract, echinacea, sea moss, cumin powder, bioprene, hu, honey powder. This stuff is great for your overall health and, just totally supports your immune, your immune defense.
Also, some of the ingredients in here also promote and, and help with your cardiovascular health. So this is an all in one supplement that's really excellent. I've been taking this now for a little bit as well as well as well as well. Okay. You see, we're getting there. We're getting there. Not used to starting at this time of the day, so I'm a little off. But, than than anyone else is now. Always off at some point. And then, we also have the optimal human, which, is it sells out really fast. So if you're gonna get on get in on that, you really need to do that now. Optimal human is, is a probiotic compound. It comes in a powder form, a couple, like, one scoop in eight to 10 ounces of water every day, and you get loaded up with over 10,000,000,000 probiotics, functional mushrooms. It's basically a super food. There are so many nutrients on there. If you look at the packaging, they had to use extremely small print to, to to get everything on there. And if you sign up for it now, your first month is 50% off on a monthly recurring subscription of the product.
Alright? And that's a great deal. So you should definitely head over to the alexjonesstore.com/joe. The alexjonesstore.com/joe, and, get yourself some of these great, great supplements. Alright. Also, wanna talk to you a little bit about, Rumble. Our, our show, of course, is ex is streaming right now on Rumble, x, Twitch, and YouTube. Now, as soon as we finish with the opening of the show, we're gonna cut the stream to, to x, YouTube, and Twitch, and only be streaming on Rumble. So if you don't have Rumble, if you don't have your Rumble app, just head over to your app store, get yourself the Rumble app, download that thing. It's free. And then, also when you do that, make sure you look for us. You can find us at Joe Roos. And, we look forward to you following us there. Make sure that you like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, your family, and your followers.
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Alright. So what we're gonna do here at this point, we kinda got through that quickly, and, I don't think I don't think our guest is ready in the room yet, but that's okay because we do have a couple of things we can cover until he does pop in there. So what we'll do here is, we're gonna end up, switching over to our, to our exclusive feed on Rumble. And, we'll do that, and we'll say goodbye to the folks on YouTube, Twitch, and x. So hopefully, you guys come on over to Rumble. You catch the rest of the show. Catch the, catch the conversation that we're gonna have with, Doug Robbins once he, once he checks in. And, hopefully, we'll see you there. Alright, folks. So, if not, then I guess we will see you tomorrow night.
Alright, folks. Take care. Alright. I think, I think we're clear of the folks over on Twitch and YouTube and x. So it's just us now, the, the eight or nine of us that are that are here at the moment. So hopefully, we'll get some more folks checking in, shortly. Alright. Let's see. So yesterday, we talked a a bit about and if you were watching on the video, or you're trying to watch on Rumble, you didn't catch it, so I don't know if you caught it on the audio only. But I I kinda mangled the job a bit about the, the whole signal gate thing that they're calling it now. Some of the one of the things that I really wanted to bring out tonight, given the opportunity, and since since Doug's not checked in yet, we have that opportunity to do it. As I I just wanted to mention, I I had been talking about, the fact that they're basically they're they're headhunting right now, for, Pete Hegseth. They did they the the left, the deep state, globalist, they did not want Pete Hegseth as the secretary of defense to begin with.
He is now going to have to, testify in a court hearing. Strangely enough, the court hearing that was, assigned to, judge Boseberg, the same judge that, that was involved with, the Russia hoax, that the same judge that was involved with withholding Hillary's emails from 02/2016 and not releasing them. The same judge that, tried to, put an injunction on the deportation flights of the, TDA gang and the MS thirteen gang members that were arrested the 260 of them that were sent over to, to, El Salvador, to to, SENCO. Right? Is it SENCO? Something like that. So, the prison in El Salvador.
So interestingly enough, of course, this judge gets assigned this case. I mean, who would have thought, you know, who would have thought that was gonna happen? But apparently, it did, and, so, that's what we're dealing with. Now, here here's the thing. The information that was that was in that private chat on on that signal app, first of all, wasn't classified information. Alright? There were no specifics in the in the chat in the chats, in the texts. We showed those yesterday on the show, and, unfortunately, you guys didn't weren't able to see him. But, all of that information, we we posted it because it was published by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, even though he said he wasn't going to post it. So that just basically tells me that it wasn't classified, in the first place.
And the fact that no repercussions have come from him publishing these things, leads me to, to understand that there was no classified material in there, as as we've said through the entire, conversation yesterday and and tonight. So, yes, there were some mis there were mistakes made, absolutely. Mike Waltz has taken ownership of this. He has taken the blame for this. Is this something that that that that that people should be fired over or prosecuted? Of course not. First of all, the signal app was is an app that is allowed to be used on government, phones and government, computers.
So it wasn't like they it wasn't it wasn't something that wasn't already known to be in use. It wasn't that this group downloaded some app off the app store and and, you know, just randomly started talking about, you know, about, the Houthis and and, all that information. Yeah. And granted, yes, I I will concede that it was sensitive information. It's not something that, you know, that everybody should have been privy to. But somehow, some way, Jeffrey Goldberg got admitted to this group, and he was able to screenshot the texts and the messages that went back and forth. And, again, Jeffrey Goldberg is also well known as a as a known, anti Trump, journalist.
And I use that term journalist loosely because he's a hack, basically. He is also one of these people that, promoted the Russia hoax that, also, promoted the hoax of, president Trump saying in 2020 that, you know, the cemetery in France was loaded with, suckers and losers. And, he didn't wanna go because he didn't wanna mess his hair in the rain, which was absolute ridiculous nonsense. So and and there's many, many other examples we can give, but we're not gonna do that at the moment. But the point is that this is really it's it's it's a non issue that the left is trying to use and make an issue. And the simple fact that they're harping on this should tell you that they're just looking for blood in the water. They're looking for an excuse to, to see either Waltz get fired or Hegseth get fired, and possibly prosecuted, but which of course there is nothing for them to be prosecuted on, because this was not classified material.
This wasn't top secret. This wasn't secret. Sensitive, yes, but that's not a declassification. So, what do I think is gonna come of this? The Democrats are gonna rally behind it. They're going to push to to for for for terminations. President Trump has come out and quite emphatically stead stated that he is not looking to terminate, that there was a mistake. Ownership has been taken of the mistake. It's not something that'll be allowed to happen again, and there's, they're they're gonna have to find other ways to communicate. And and reality of it is, you know, you need to make sure that when you do these kind of chat groups, no matter what platform you're using, that the right people are in there. Now, let's go back to Mike Waltz.
Mike Waltz has basically, you know, took ownership of it, like I said. Now he said he's the one who started the group. We showed the text yesterday that's that showed his name at the top of the list. That is he put together the group, and he and who he invited. Now the question is, did Mike Waltz actually do it himself? Did he staff it out? And, Mike Waltz has been has gone on the record saying that he doesn't know this, this is Jeffrey Goldberg. He's gone on the record saying that, he's he didn't have his phone number in in his contacts. Now, again, you you factor that in. Now, either Mike Waltz is lying, or he shopped it out to somebody else to set the group up, which he most definitely should not have done.
But no matter what how you look at it, no matter how you cut it, he has taken ownership of this. He has accepted the responsibility for it. He, he has president Trump's background backing on this. And, is this something that needs to be, fired about? No. This is not something that somebody needs to be fired over, but precautions do have to be put in place to make sure that these types of things don't happen again. And, hopefully, we'll, be able to, get to that point very, very quickly. And, of course, you know, I fully support Pete Hegseth as the secretary of defense, and I I don't there I don't know why he they're pointing fingers at him at this particular moment.
I guess because he, you know, he was the one who was basically putting down information in the chat, I guess. I don't know. But, again, it was an encrypted app that was approved for government use, and somebody was accidentally added to the group. Again, question is, how come nobody's asking Jeffrey Goldberg any questions? How come nobody is talking to him? How come nobody is calling for his scalp, when he is the one who actually published what was in the text. Did Pete Hegseth publish it? No. Did Mike Waltz publish it? No. Did, did the, Tulsi Gabbard? No.
John Rach? No. Nobody pop nobody that was involved in the chat released that information out to the public. Who did? Jeffrey Goldberg. Why isn't Jeffrey Goldberg being dragged being dragged to court? Why isn't Jeffrey Goldberg being questioned about this? Why are we not hearing anything about that? That should raise a lot of questions in your mind. Considering the judge that got assigned to it, the background of that particular judge, and Jeffrey Goldberg, and his reputation, and his history, and, and and the things that he's been involved with regarding the Clintons, and regarding Donald Trump, and and all the hoaxes, and all the bullcrap articles that he that he had written, that he's had to, walk back, should make you question these things.
What's the real motivation back here? What's really going on? Alright. Well, I think we're gonna end that right there because I do see in the, in the waiting room, we have our guest is, standing by. So we're going to, we're gonna bring him in, and we are gonna have our, our guest for the evening. He is a writer. He is a podcaster. He is a, well, according to his bio, he's a well known writer and podcaster. I'd like to welcome, Douglas Robbins. Doug. Thank you, sir. How are you doing tonight, Joe? I am doing great. How are you doing?
[00:24:32] Unknown:
Good, man. Good. The weather is finally,
[00:24:34] Unknown:
turning for the better here in New York, and spring is here, and the sun is out. So it's a good day. That's fantastic. And I and I know you were under the weather last week, so I'm glad you're feeling better from that. So
[00:24:44] Unknown:
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I don't know. It just was run down and, you know, needed needed, some rest, I think.
[00:24:51] Unknown:
Totally understandable. Had a little mishap this weekend myself. I don't, I don't know if you caught any of the, the shows earlier this week or not, but, I somehow, someway on Sunday, I was cooking, and I spilled, some boiling hot water down on my on my right foot. Oh. And I wasn't wearing shoes. I wasn't wearing socks. And, so yeah. I couldn't get the sock off fast enough, so I have nice hollow burns across the top top of my foot and my toes. So I'm I'm very uncomfortable. That hurts. Quite. Very Yeah. Very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. If it wasn't for the bourbon Yeah. If it wasn't for the bourbon and the pain killers Well, there you go. I I don't know. I don't know what I'd be doing, but, but it was nice to be off of work for the week, and I go back tomorrow for a couple hours just to kinda close out the end of the month stuff, and then gonna try to relax again over the weekend, then get back on get back on, on on, the foot again. Yeah. Yeah. That's it's amazing. Like, one little mistake, one little mishap can cause such such havoc, you know, and pain. Oh, for sure. For sure.
So, Doug, you like to write, I see. I've been checking that out.
[00:26:02] Unknown:
It's a loaded question. You like to write, Doug. Yes. It wasn't always the case, but yes.
[00:26:10] Unknown:
How long have you been writing?
[00:26:13] Unknown:
On and off probably for a good twenty plus years. Yeah. I kinda started I was a very rebellious kid and really wanted nothing to do with school, but there was one class, eleventh grade, twelfth grade, whatever it was, the teacher asked us to write, you know, a poem. And, I wrote this poem kinda snarky and, you know, got kind of a nice response from the the teacher, from other kids in the class, from my father who I didn't usually get a lot of, attaboys from. Mhmm. And I was like, wow. There's something to this. There's there's a power in words.
[00:26:53] Unknown:
Well, that's that's true. I mean, what what's what's that saying? You know? Oh, man. It just flipped out of my head. Oh, shoot. That's the painkillers.
[00:27:07] Unknown:
That's that's the pain and the painkillers.
[00:27:11] Unknown:
Yeah. There's life and death in the power of the tongue, Matt. I know that. But, but no, word words are powerful. You know, words are powerful, and and, it's like, something else we used to say too. You know, if you if you live by the book, you're gonna die by the book. Talking about, you know, in in in enforcement world where I grew up mostly. Yeah. But, but words are powerful. Words are very powerful. They they And another thing too is words mean things. Yeah. A lot of And, you know, you say that to somebody, a lot of folks don't understand what that really means. You you have to Right. You know, you do Words actually do mean things. You could say something, there's the eloquent way of saying things, and then there's the shorthand way of saying things.
Yeah. And, a lot of unfortunately, in today's language, there's a lot of, a lot of nuance with the English language today. I think I think back when Shakespeare was writing, it was a lot more, specific in, in their meanings. But, but words do have an effect on people. It's it's incredible when when you realize, especially when you podcast too. I mean, you know this, and you're a podcast yourself, you know? Yeah. You know, you you could you could say something with the with the with the most non confrontational intentions, and it can get totally blown out of proportion.
Yeah. You could be accused of saying things that are that are mean spirited and harsh and, you know, get called all kinds of names. Like, I got called a heretic a few times. You know? It's, Alright. But, but no. But you're right, brother. You know, words words are really really do mean things. And They can inspire and they can condemn. Right? Absolutely. And,
[00:28:48] Unknown:
you know, what is that intention behind it? They've done studies even with, like, dogs that if you're saying something nice, you could be saying a bad word to a dog. But if you're saying it kind of, come here, Fluffy, you know, like, in in a nice manner, the dog will take that as the intention. Mhmm. And that's the thing, you know, like like you said, nuance with words. You can take things out of context, especially with texting and stuff like that. You don't know the nuance perhaps. So Mhmm. It really is the context of the word is the meaning because the meaning of a word can change in different contexts.
[00:29:25] Unknown:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm looking through your website right now, and I'm looking at some of the, some of your books. And, the, the the book that you wrote, The Cloak Deception. Yeah. That I was reading the description on that one. That is that's a really interesting storyline there. So where where did you come up with that?
[00:29:49] Unknown:
I wasn't even on drugs or anything, Joe. You know, it was funny, and I and I'm not saying this. Well, I had been thinking, like, you know you know, this was in sort of the peak of Marvel. Right? Mhmm. And I was thinking, like, you know, you can do so much more with, say, a superhero. You can give him a lot more depth and dimension than just sort of that two dimensional, nothing can stop him kinda thing, and he's gonna win at all at all cost. So I was thinking, like, what if he was a more complicated character and was more tapped into some deeper, broader sort of, ideas or or or information?
But it was strange, and I and I'm not making this up. So I started having these thoughts, and then I swear to god, I started hearing this, like, British gentleman speaking to me. Mhmm. Like, almost in my head or, like, in my ear, just like someone, like, almost like a download of information. Like, this is what the stories and it was a very, refined and reserved sort of manner. So I was when I first wrote, say, the rough draft or the outline of it, it was not in a language I would typically write. Like I said, much more reserved. But that's just where it came from. I started thinking about dimensions and the evolution of souls, and where are these where are these things if you bring in sort of a superhero y type of character?
Because, you know, when you're dealing with reality, you have to adhere to guidelines, to the boundaries of reality. Right. But the beauty of fiction or fantasy, you can create those boundaries, if you will, and really expand out what reality is.
[00:31:39] Unknown:
Yeah. This is really interesting too. I'm gonna read just the, the little blurb you have here for it. He is the last of the sun clan, defenders of the soul's highest order, born to unknowing surrogates on Earth after the toxic attack on Narakin. Am I saying it right? Narakin. Narakin? Whatever. Okay. Well, yeah. You know, you don't wanna you don't wanna offend the the, the author of the material here. So I appreciate it. Reuben Mitchell is ignorant of his true nature except for glimmers in dreams and he's been he's been told to ignore. Now 18, the toxic whispers are coming for him and all sentient beings on Earth. Reuben suffers from a torn mind as do many of the lower in the lower in this lower realm.
Easy pray for the toxic whispers to exploit. I mean, that I'm gonna buy this book. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's good. Because I hope so. Yeah. Let me know what you think. Yeah. No. For sure. This is I mean, I I wish I would have, purchased something earlier. This way we could I could actually break it down with you. But this I mean, this is great stuff. I mean, just reading the little blurb here. I'm really interested in this. And there's a actually a guy that, I'm gonna text you his name, maybe for your own podcast. He writes, books very similar to this. And, Okay. Great. And, I I I'll text you his all his contact information later on. But, I think you guys would have a great conversation. He he writes from the perspective of, someone it's it's a it's a it's a fantasy type novel. It it's it's it's kind of, in the realm of like, a Tolkien type style.
And Yeah. What makes it really interesting is that the the main character is on the spectrum.
[00:33:19] Unknown:
Okay. So it makes it really very interesting, and and, I I think you guys do really well talking together. Yeah. Please. Always looking to connect. You know? Always looking to connect. So but I actually will have the second Naracon out. I'm I'm about three quarters of the way through the second one. Okay. And, yeah, it's it's a ride. I gotta tell you, it's, like, really fun to write, because you could just sort of go in all these directions. But Naracon was interesting because, you know, we all often feel dualistic.
Right? We have feels like this higher self is we're trying to get to this other place, and we're often stuck by emotions and beliefs and other, you know, physical, you know, impairments, but there's this thing that's pulling at us. And so one of one of the things in Naracon is that there's a beacon within us, right, to get to this higher place. Mhmm. And it's sort of where the soul is or that solar plexus type of area, maybe a little little below the navel. But there's always something calling to us, pulling to us, and it's that beacon. And it's that beacon that is calling us to this higher realm, this truth.
And this is something that toxic whispers are trying to get at and break. Mhmm. And they're trying to break that code because if you can break that code and submerge humanity into darkness or disconnect them from that light, if you will, they'll be submerged into eternal darkness.
[00:34:51] Unknown:
Wow. That's man, I'm telling you. I gotta get the book. Alright. Thank you, brother. Yeah. You do. Let me know. I mean, you just you just totally, like, intrigued me more than I already was. Okay. But so, I well, my next question was gonna be, you know, are you working on anything else? So you you already you already got into that. Yes, sir. So, what's, what's down the road for you though? I mean, is this is this something that, is this is the you're gonna stick with this type of material or you're going to branch? Because I know some of the other books in your in in your collection here, aren't exactly in that same
[00:35:27] Unknown:
theme. I mean, you're No. You're very eclectic in what you're in what you're putting out there. And nobody would ever recommend that, because, you know, it's like stay in your lane. You know, write horror, write fantasy, or or whatever. I I can't. That's just not who I am. I have to sort of follow what I'm called to write. So I'm coming out with a a a book in a couple months about Native Americans and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Okay. Naracon, you know, the second one will will be coming, after that. I'll have a third one. Writing another book that I that was really about rock and roll and sort of an issue I had with a a very conservative college I went to and the battle I had with the administration and and whatnot. But, you know, I think the thread always in these books, the undercurrent is or the theme is human evolution, healing, moving forward, and reaching connecting to those dreams, those potentials, but that higher self. Right.
It drives me mad, but at the same time, that's, you know, ultimately what we're all here for was to sort of move forward in that regard.
[00:36:45] Unknown:
But and and you're you're working on how many projects at the same time?
[00:36:50] Unknown:
Well, Joe, so I have this, the the Native American piece, which is really, I think, probably my my best work to date. That should be done in a couple months, Narric. So, you know, I think with writing, and maybe this is true with other art or creative endeavors, like, you work diligently on something until sort of the reservoir has emptied, then maybe you go to something else or you're just sick of it. You know? You can't think about it anymore, then you go to something else for a while, and then you kinda come back to it, because you come back with fresh eyes. Right. You know, now you're looking at it almost like a reader or a spectator. Now you see it more more, you can fill it out that much more. But if you just keep at something, it just it gets drained, of all sort of interest and creativity. And, and after a while, you can't even see it anymore because you read it so many times. So, so right now, you know, the the Native American book and Naracon and the the book I mentioned about the rock and roll called enter the fire, there you go. I have more, but that those three are the ones I'm focusing on and Naracon one. Once I get the Native American one, I gotta get Naracon out because I feel like it's it's been too long, and I've had so many people say, hey, man. When's this next one coming out? The Native American one, is that is that fiction, or is that is that a historical? That's fiction, but it's more of a historical fiction, sort of bringing the past into the present.
Contemporary issues on reservations, obviously past atrocities, but at the same time bringing, you know, this is all part of the American family, so it's sort of about healing the past because, ultimately, that's the only way any of us move forward is healing the past.
[00:38:37] Unknown:
And and, actually, that that's a great lead into to my next question. I took up cooking. I know it's not to do with writing, but I I I took I took up cooking as a as a therapy, basically. Yeah. You know, something to distract me from things that had been going on in my life. I also I wrote I used to write too when I was in college. I would write little short stories and stuff like that. I just recently actually, when I moved, I found a binder with, which I didn't even think I still had. I thought they were long lost gone. But, Right. I found a little binder with some of the some of the stories that I had written way back then. So I'm I'm kinda, like, going through them now and saying, oh my god.
That's awesome. Like, what the hell is wrong with you?
[00:39:21] Unknown:
Well, that's a whole another question. Yeah. Exactly. That's awesome. And good feel with the cooking. I gotta tell you, so I was out at dinner with my wife and daughter tonight. And the reason we were out at dinner because I was going to make something, they're like, no, dad. We don't want your cooking. Oh, no. You know, like, my wife calls it, like, bachelor survival cooking or something. Like, you know, we appreciate it, but it's not good. Yeah. Well, I,
[00:39:46] Unknown:
I I I started I took up cooking as as, as a therapy, really, therapeutic, release. And I started that back out in, 02/2001, '2 thousand '2, right around right around 09:11. I like we had spoken previously. I I told you my back my back story. Yes, sir. Yeah. I know that. So, I I used, you know, I I I kinda took that up to kinda distract myself from from all that other mess. But, recent events have kind of reinvigorated that need to have that outlet. And I was wondering if Yeah. If if your writing is like that for you. Is that something that's that, that, that that helps you heal? Is it something that's therapeutic for you at times? Or, Yeah. Or do you ever find yourself in that type of situation where you felt like you needed just sit down and clear your head out and just forget the world going on around you and just Yeah. Lose yourself in the world that you're creating for yourself?
[00:40:44] Unknown:
All the above, Joe. Because, you know, like, there's things inside of all of us that we need to express. Right? Mhmm. You know, we are here to express things, not bury them. And so yeah. I mean, it's a great place to spend time often. It can be frustrating, but it's often a great space to spend time. You can get lost in it because it's sort of timeless. It's like this other sacred realm in a way. Like, you're not in you're not in the world. You're in this other space. So it can be very, cathartic, to write. And I used to write much more more observations, about myself and just humanity and whatever. Mhmm. And that's kinda morphed into these stories. It's sort of the same.
It's just now sort of within broader stories and within characters.
[00:41:42] Unknown:
Now do you do you base your characters off people that have have come in and out of your life over time? Or or how do you go about creating your characters?
[00:41:51] Unknown:
That is a fine question, Joe. Yeah. Glad. Where do these characters come from? You know, a, they're all you know, parts of them are amalgamations of me or things I've thought or things I've seen, or people I've experienced. And some people, you know, it's like an amalgamation of of people and ideas and and, you know, put them together. And some you know, they're all just coming from imagination, but it is through the filter, of the mind and the filter of experience and thoughts.
[00:42:28] Unknown:
Well, let's see. I'm trying to think of a character that I that I I I in one of the stories that I that I saw recently, in my little binder there. There were death there was definitely a character that I that I I, I I pulled out from a a relationship that I was in at that time back then. And, I wrote I wrote that character. I changed the gender. I I went from I'm because I I the person I was dating obviously was a woman and and, so I I flipped it around, but I made that that character to be the meanest, nastiest, most most wicked, horrible creature you could possibly imagine.
And Yeah. I I I loved the character. I thought it was great. Yeah. You know? Right. But I saw so much of that person that I was dating at the time in that character. And, it actually it it it actually, it helped me with the breakup. It helped me, you know Yeah. Because I was I put down certain circumstances and situations that I was actually going through with her in that in that character. And I saw it when I saw it all written out on paper, I was like, there it is. That's the reason. Yeah. And it and it helped so much with with healing from that. And Right. It's the and it's very similar, in in some ways with with with the, the meal preps and cooking that I do. Now, I don't I don't cook, bachelor survival food.
You know, I'll I'll I'll say that. I I I will say I will say this, I I I have, I I spend a lot of time in in teaching myself how to present and to properly plate. And my dogs love when when when dad cooks because they're gonna eat a nice Did you say your dogs? Yes.
[00:44:27] Unknown:
Well, okay. Your dogs would like anything though. They'd like my bachelor survival probably. I I don't know because
[00:44:33] Unknown:
be okay. Because one time, I made, I made, bacon wrapped filet mignon with, a red wine reduction.
[00:44:44] Unknown:
Wow.
[00:44:46] Unknown:
And one of the two sniffed it, looked at me, and walked away. And the other one trashed it. Like, devoured it in, like, a swallow. Yeah. That's funny. But then at the same time, I I made just a very basic, scrambled eggs, and the one who turned the nose up to the filet mignon Right. Tore into the scrambled eggs. So he's more of the bachelor survival kind of, Yeah. Palate. Yeah. Well That's funny. But, no. But I love I love the present and I I and I do. I I get I kinda get lost in what I'm doing, and I I forget all this all the troubles and all that stuff that's going on around me. Right. And then, if I'm cooking for someone, I I I appreciate preparing the food for them,
[00:45:34] Unknown:
because Right. It helps me to to see them enjoy it. I don't I don't that makes any sense? It it makes total sense, Joe, because you're you're caring about something. Right. And it's a way you're saying, I this is the way I connect. I wanna share. This is the way, you know, this me. This is meaningful to me. And, you know, like, people need this. Right? You can't just be caught up in social media and the news and all this crap that just, you know, makes you feel like crap half the time. So, like, we need things that are sustainable or or, sustenance for our souls, you know, sustenance for our our beings. And to go back to what you're saying about the writing, you can do a lot of writing because you can find justice in writing that maybe you can't find in the world.
You you can give someone a voice that maybe didn't have a voice in the world, and you can have them win where maybe they wouldn't have won. And, you know, in writing, like, you know, in in the world, you don't get to edit your comments. Right? Yeah. You're like because it's how many times you'd be like, oh, if I had only thought of that sooner Mhmm. You know? Fill in the blank. So that's the beauty of writing is you can bring that to the stage. You can give that voice to these people, and give them that power that ultimately all we all want in this world. Right? Mhmm.
[00:46:56] Unknown:
That's a good that's a really good point. That really that's a that's a really good point. Now when when you I'm thinking back to to, you know, what what I said about, you know, cooking and and seeing people enjoy that. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine you kinda get the same rush when someone is when you when you see somebody reading your books that are enjoying the book that are getting something out of the books and and that are helpful to them. Yeah. You know, because I was like I said, I I was reading I was reading the blurbs on on I didn't read all of them yet, but I was reading the blurbs on most of these things. And the subject matter that you put out is is really deep subject matter. Thanks, man. You know, I don't know about Max Johnny though.
[00:47:45] Unknown:
Max Johnny was early, but, like, love in a dying town, for instance. Yeah. It was actually called single father for many years. Okay. And I remember, you know, like, you know, you it's like it was like a Flint, Michigan type of scenario, old dying industrial town. Yeah. And I started thinking, like, you know, but people are still raising kids in these towns. They're still showing them right from wrong even as industries close and houses are are shuttered and, people are foreclosed upon and all that. So I was like, wouldn't that be interesting to raise a child in that setting?
And so you say, where did that come from? Like, so I I married a woman who had children previously, so I was sort of the stepfather or the father in this, and, you know, throw in a crazy ex wife and, some other struggles. And, you know, you see people come together. You see ambition kinda thwarted because he this this main character can't get out of the town. And, again, it's always about that people yearning, people yearning, trying to get to that, you know, sunnier horizon.
[00:49:01] Unknown:
Wow. That's you see, like I said, you have a lot of deep, deep material here. And folks, I'm not I'm not just saying that because he's sitting up, you know, on on the other side of the camera there. I'm I'm serious, you know. Thank you. I'm I'm reading like, Baseball Dreams and Bikers. Yes, sir. You know, this is this is this is something interesting to me because I love baseball. I've always loved baseball, you know. I've, I I've, I've hitched myself to a to a team that really challenges your, your fortitude. It really helps build character. You know, I've been a Mets fan my whole life. Oh, the Mets. Okay. You know? Yeah. So it's it's it's it's tough, but, you know, this reading this as as we were talking, this Just reading some of this reminded me of a lot of stories about my dad. And Yeah. And spending time with my dad playing ball and going to the ballgame. Like my dad when, I was was it 1978, '70 '9? Somewhere around there. So I was like eight or nine years old.
My dad used to drive a yellow cab, as a side job. And Right. He picked up, and it was a long it was a long fair for him. He he picked up the, the bullpen coach for the, for the Yankees. Oh, wow. And, they hit it off and, you know, and they had this long conversation on the thing, and and he invited my dad to come to a game. And, you know, and he was like, you know, if you if you come, just let me know. And, you know, I'll I'll I'll I'll get you access to the clubhouse. Wow. So, at so so my dad was, of course, all excited. My dad's a big Yankee fan, and, which I got a great story about that too. How I just how my dad and I would torture each other.
[00:50:49] Unknown:
Yeah. Mets fan and a Yankee fan under one house? No. It gets oh, it gets better.
[00:50:54] Unknown:
But so at at eight years old, my dad, you know, gets me all ready to go, and whisks me off to Yankee Stadium. We get into the clubhouse, and I'm meeting. I met Bucky Dent, and Craig Nettles, and Billy Martin. Wow. And, you know, all those I met Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Bill White, you know, all those guys. And, like, I was so un unimpressed. My dad couldn't understand it. He was like, who what's wrong with you? What's wrong? And I'm like You're not my son. I'm a Mets fan, you know. I mean I I mean I was only eight or nine, but I I knew that I Right. Okay. Well this is good, you know, this is exciting. Right. So I have all these autographs and pictures and stuff like that, but you know, from that that time period. And my dad was so disappointed that I wasn't like gushing over and thrilled. As a matter of fact, I I brought my Mets hat with me, when we went, and he wouldn't let me bring it in. So we had to leave it in the car.
[00:51:47] Unknown:
Yeah. Right. But,
[00:51:49] Unknown:
but that was that. But but years later, my dad and I look, I'm a Rangers fan. My dad was an Islanders fan. My dad liked the Knicks. I liked the Nets. My dad was a Yankee fan, I was a Mets fan. That's always the Wow. That's always the way it was and it was Giants, Jets? Giant. Well, yeah. Well, but I also we also have to be, we have to be Packers fans by default. Okay. Because of a family connection. So Alright. My, my cousin my I guess my second cousin, has a trophy named after him. Oh, okay. The Vince Lombardi trophy.
[00:52:32] Unknown:
Are you saying your cousin was Vince Lombardi? Vince Lombardi. Yes. Yeah. So you have to be a You have to be a Packers fan. Yeah. So You're who's wait. Who's whose side was Vince Lombardi? My mother's side.
[00:52:44] Unknown:
Wow. Yeah. So it was, very very interesting growing up Yeah. Like that. I mean Wow. That that's royalty right there. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, my my my mom used to tell me that she had pictures, because I was an infant, when Vince Lombardi passed away. But, my mom used to tell me that she had pictures of of him holding me as a child, as a baby. Wow. And I and and when after after my mom passed away, my dad passed away, my sister, we we looked through every photo album there was, could not find one anywhere. Oh, no. So, I I don't know. But, but yeah. So, like, by default, we have, you know, that that connection happened to do that. But Yes. But, a couple a couple years ago, oh man, maybe more. Maybe So my dad my dad passed away two years ago, three years ago. So, we're talking maybe ten years ago. Eight to ten years ago.
It was Father's Day. So I I went and I and I bought my dad a an authentic MLB field usable jersey. I had the whole thing done up. I had the big number one put on the back. I had his name, you know, you know Right. The embroidery, all that stuff, and got him a fitted hat and everything. And, I took it to I took it to him, and, you know, just just gotta twist him a little bit, bring it over to him. Dad, happy father's day. Oh, thanks, son. You know, we don't have to do this. Oh, I know dad, but, you know, I love you. I want you to have this. This is, you know, something special, you know. I'd you know. Yeah. It must must be expensive. And I'm like, no. Don't worry about the money. It's fine. You know, whatever. So he Yeah. So he starts opening it up. So he gets to the box, and he takes the cover of the box. And what does he see? He sees Boston Red Sox tissue paper.
My dad's a Yankee fan.
[00:54:32] Unknown:
Yeah. Right? That's blasphemous.
[00:54:34] Unknown:
So Yeah. So he just looked at me, like like gave me a side look. And I was like, oh, just don't worry. Just open it. You're gonna love it. So he he opens up the papers, you know, he pulls out his very own Boston Red Sox travel jersey with his name on the back. It's terrible. The big number one for the number one fan, the fitted Red Sox hat, and he just looked at it. He said, Joseph. It's just this is beautiful. I love it, Joseph. Thank you. I love you pal. He came over, gave me a hug, and all that stuff, and and he took it, and he put it all back in the box, and he walked out of the room with it. And my mom was sitting there, and I looked at my mom, and I was like, well that didn't go where I thought it was gonna go. Right. You know? So she goes, nah. Well, you know, he hasn't been feeling well, so he's probably just in one of his moods. And I'm like, oh, okay. Well, so I'm sitting there having a conversation with my mom about fifteen minutes past, and I'm like, well, where is he? You know, I came here to see him. Where's where'd he go?
So I get up, and I I walk out the living room to the kitchen, and then they have these sliding doors that went out to the backyard. And I see my dad sitting outside in the backyard. And he has a he's sitting there, and he he he he has a cup of coffee, and he has the fire pit going and all that stuff. And so Uh-oh. So I walk out there, I'm like, dad, what are you doing? And I I I looked down, and he goes he goes, I started a fire. And I look in there, and there's the Red Sox jersey, the hat, all that stuff. I was like, dad, what are you doing? Do you have any idea how much that cost?
He was like, well, who's more who's who's more the fool, Joe? And I was like, He turned that practical joke around, didn't he? Yeah. But that's but that was our relationship though. As we got older, we we would we would just zing each other. So, you know, so books like this, you know, remind me of of those stories. So so this is really this is great. I'm looking forward to probably getting this one too at some point. Good. But, Baseball, James, and Bikers is actually,
[00:56:29] Unknown:
there there are three stories in it. Baseball, James, and Bikers is the longest one, and they're all really about those dreams we feel inside of us and those potentials. And Baseball Dreams and Bikers is probably a little bit about me in that, not that I was, but it's about a a baseball prodigy. Parents start struggling. The father loses job, and, they get separated. The father had been a minor league ball player but got injured, so he didn't get to fulfill his dream. And then the kid starts falling off the track a bit. You know, he's an amazing player, but because of the struggles at home, he starts going the wrong direction. Right.
And, you know, we don't realize that we're going the wrong direction away from the dream. We think, oh, the dream's always gonna be there. And as you and I know, the older you get, you go, oh, shit. Pardon me. I don't know if I can curse on on this. But Yeah. You can say whatever you want. You know, I don't you know, like, sometimes you get years and years away and go, oh my god. What happened? Mhmm. And so the story is really about let's just say there's a bit of an intervention. His uncle's an ex con. He's just getting out of prison. He's the biker in in the book. Okay. Tough tough guy. I won't give any more away, but it's about staying on course because it's very easy to fall off.
[00:57:58] Unknown:
Yeah. I I like I like what you wrote here, in the blurb. You know, Baseball Dreams and Bikers explores the fragility of dreams, the impact of familial bonds, and the unforeseen challenges that can shape lives. Yeah. Wow. Well, I'm looking forward to these, brother. I mean, really, This sounds like good writing. I mean, I don't know. It does. You know, we'll find out. You know, I'll I'll I'll Yeah. Exactly. I'll do the review. I'm still Find out. Yeah. I'm still waiting for my barbecue dinner though.
[00:58:23] Unknown:
Are you? You didn't get it? Not yet. No. When did you sign up?
[00:58:28] Unknown:
Earlier today.
[00:58:30] Unknown:
Oh, well, it's supposed to go out automatically. I will check. I'm a write it down. You know, I these darn softwares, like, they work and then they don't work and, it might have gone to your spam folder.
[00:58:41] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm I'm looking actually right now. Alright. Oh, yeah. There it is. Okay. Perfect.
[00:58:47] Unknown:
You know, that's the thing. Like, all the the servers are, like, watching anything that's coming from, like, email blasts or whatever. So, yeah, there you go. Barbecue. It's a good little story. Barbecue dinner.
[00:59:01] Unknown:
Yes, sir. It looks like it. Not as good as Baseball James Bikers. But Which is which interestingly interestingly enough is the, the book that's being advertised on the on the mailer I got. Say again? The mailer I got, from you. It's, Hello Dreamer. Are your dreams waiting for you? Meet the Dream Seekers. Uncle Bobby, Donnie, Tim, Samantha, with the right influence Yeah. Dreams come true. Yeah. It's, Baseball Bikers and Baseball Dreams and Bikers. Funny we were just we were talking about that. See, this that I'm telling you, it's that it's, you know, they're they're listening to us, these things. They they know.
[00:59:43] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Barbecue dinner is from an earlier, short story book called Leaves Piled High. But I think when we were updating the, the email funnel or whatever,
[00:59:56] Unknown:
baseball games and bikers had just come out. So that's why we were kind of Right. That was part of the sequence, if you will. Yeah. Now when when we spoke last week, we had a we had a great conversation. And, Yeah. You know, I I really enjoyed that. Now now you're a New Yorker, just like I am. Mhmm. Yeah. So so how are things up there in the Big Apple? What's going on?
[01:00:16] Unknown:
That's a loaded question. I live up Upstate. So I live about two hours north of the city in the Catskills or just outside the Catskills. I used to live in New Rochelle and lived in the city and all that, and I I don't think I could ever live in in that area again. Just too congested and all that noisy and too many people. Yeah. So I live in a more farm farming community. There is a college in town, Bard Bard College. But for the most part, it's kind of a mix of farming, you know, people and some some, it's a small college, but just small town, five, ten thousand people, and then there's another town nearest Rhinebeck at another five, ten thousand historic, city. But, so it's kinda nice.
You know, there's two lights in my town. It's a pretty mellow town. You know, nothing
[01:01:00] Unknown:
too crazy is going on here. When I lived in New York, I used to love to go upstate. I I I would try to get up I try to make a trip up at least once a month just to just just to get out of the city, just to get away from it all. Absolutely. Because you can get trapped in there. And I remember I didn't have any money when I was living there, and I felt trapped. Yeah. Oh, for sure. And Yeah. The interesting thing is, like, when when I moved here to Texas, especially in in in Eagle Pass, which is, I'm right on the border with Mexico. Right. So, it's like, you know, people when they when they hear I'm from New York, they're they're, like, mystified. Like, why are you here? Why? Because anywhere is better than New York. That's what that's New York City at least.
Right. But when you but when you start to talk to them a little bit about, like, how the difference between Upstate and Downstate, you know, it's like Oh, yeah. It's two different worlds altogether. It's it's Oh, yeah. You know, I Upstate, they they they think different, act different, vote different, talk different, you know. Yeah.
[01:02:00] Unknown:
It's farmlands, dairy farms, apple orchards, you know, it's beautiful Upstate. I love Upstate New York. It's a beautiful place to live. But, you know, Downstate is just too stressful, man. It's just too noisy, too stressful. Yeah.
[01:02:13] Unknown:
You know, like traffic everywhere. Like, I can't deal with that. Bro, it when I worked when I worked for New York City, I I lived 13 miles door to door. Alright. So from my from my front door to my office door was 13 miles. How long? Long? It would take me two and a half to three hours to get to work every day. And then it would take me about three hours to three to four hours to get home.
[01:02:37] Unknown:
You can just live at the job. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's it's, I mean, that's what it is. Just too many people and, you know, whatever. But so we live up here. My wife has horses. She grew up with horses in in Arizona Nice. And, riding in the desert with her grandfather. And and, so it's nice. You know, we live, you know, we we have acre and a half, but we could see the the mountains, and there's water all around. And it's just great hiking. And, again, much there's too much, pardon me, fucking stress in the world, so I don't wanna add to it. And I don't really wanna be,
[01:03:14] Unknown:
you know, surrounded by it. Yeah. I mean You know, day to day. You know, people people in in that that have grown up in small towns like like this, like here where I am, they don't understand the stresses of living in a city like New York, where Yeah. Everything is just the cost of living is ridiculous. Yeah. The congestion is ridiculous. Like, for example, Eagle Pass, geographically is about the same size as Staten Island. Okay. Okay. So, and that's where I lived, when I lived in New York. I grew up in Brooklyn. I grew up in Brooklyn. I moved to Staten Island, you know, made the the progression to get out. But, but geographically, you know, more or less, it's about the same size as as where I am now.
But Staten Island, when I left, had a population of 630 something thousand people. Mhmm. You know, here, you have a population of just over 30,000.
[01:04:07] Unknown:
So That sounds the least populated Yes. Of the borough. Yeah.
[01:04:11] Unknown:
Yeah. So I try to I try to explain that to people when they ask me about it. And I'm like, they're like, really? That many people? And that yeah. Yeah. I see. You you you take for granted all this open flat space that you have here. Yeah. You know, and where I'm from, there is none of this. It's it's everything is built up. There is no out. Yeah. Do you have if you do get if you do buy a house, you you you're lucky if your backyard is the size of a postage stamp.
[01:04:39] Unknown:
You know, it's it's Yeah. You know, people people that grew up in small towns like this really have no idea how how how blessed they really are. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I'm raising we're raising our daughter in this great little town. Mhmm. Great little school district. You know? I don't know. Few hundred kids in the school, whatever the hell it is. It's just a great positive place to grow up. You know? It's like a little Mayberry in a way. You know? And it's like, man, I wish I had kinda gone to this school and, like, been this in this environment, and, I probably wouldn't have been as crazy as I was. You know? But, you know. You you you you you're born where you are, and you're you're born into the family you're born into, you know. Can't choose them. Can't choose your family. No, sir. You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family.
That's about it. But, but,
[01:05:29] Unknown:
you know, it's it's I I I love it here. I do. I don't see myself ever coming back to New York as far as to live. I do have to get back Yeah. And visit my family, my sister. It's just me and my sister now. Right. My my kids are older. They they live, my daughter, her husband, and and, three kids live in Staten Island right now still. My my son lives up in Pennsylvania, in the in the hinterlands of Pennsylvania. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm kinda wondering if he started picking a banjo yet. That's how far up he lives after in PA. But, I used there there was a place, what was the place? It was called it was, Yulin, New York. Do you know where that is?
It's Yulin? Yulin. It's, I think it was, I think it was, Y U L A N or Y U L I N, something like that. It it was it was right near the border with Pennsylvania. There was a little town called, called Cheahola, Pennsylvania.
[01:06:29] Unknown:
Okay. It's all yeah. That's a couple hours away from here. Yeah. So, I,
[01:06:33] Unknown:
used to go up there a lot, and, I had I had family that that had a, a little cabin up there. And, man, I used to Delaware Delaware River area? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I used to love going up there, man. That that was I I used to love to make the drive. It was it was Yeah. Just beautiful. Just beautiful. People don't understand the difference. You know? They really don't. That, you know, New York is not just Manhattan. New York is a big state. Yeah. It has a lot of ground.
[01:06:59] Unknown:
You know, it's funny. When when I grew up when I was young, and I grew up in New Rochelle, which is, like, ten minutes outside the Bronx, and, you know, just a a suburb and whatever. And I even in my own mind, I would think, oh, New York is just New York City and suburbs. Like, that's all it is. But the truth is, actually, New York is a pretty rural state in general. Some old industrial towns, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, etcetera. But there's a lot of beauty. I mean, Adirondacks, the Catskills, a lot of water. So it's yeah.
It's it's it's it's not it's a you know, Rochester's a million miles from New York City, really. Yeah.
[01:07:42] Unknown:
Yeah. And Rochester's a nice place too. I've I've been there a few times. That's where Kodak used to be. Are they still there? Kodak? I don't know. Wow. It's not that nice of a town, but Not well, not anymore. It used to be. It it it Right. At one point Like a lot of old industrial towns. Yeah. Yeah. At one point, it was a really really nice place. Absolutely. Yeah. But, they've been to Buffalo a few times. Buffalo's an interesting place, say the least.
[01:08:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I've only been there, but I mean, it's probably six or seven hours for most. I mean, we're right outside of Kingston. Mhmm. So it's really basically up Route 87 or Interstate 87,
[01:08:21] Unknown:
hour and a half from the city, two hours, something like that. You know? Yeah. Well, I I know where Bard is. I've I've I've been to to to the school. Okay. So yeah. So I I kinda I kinda know where you where you are. But Yeah. Alright. Yeah. But, it's yeah. And and people don't realize just how big New York state is either. You know? It's it's Yeah. You know, from one end of the state to the other. Well, for me to get to to Niagara from from Staten Island used to take me twelve hours, and that was taking the shortcut cutting through Pennsylvania. Yeah. Yeah. So I'd leave New York, go to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and then come back into New York. It would still take twelve hours.
[01:08:55] Unknown:
Yeah. No. I mean, it's long from, say, New York City to Montreal or or Buffalo to Vermont or something like that. No. It's pretty sizable. And that's the beauty of, like, road trips. Mhmm. Once you get on the road and you start driving or riding a motorcycle, you start seeing, oh my god. This is a vast nation we have. It is.
[01:09:14] Unknown:
When I made the drive, last, last year, last November not this one, past the year before. Me and the dogs, we we took a drive from Eagle Pass to New York, for for Thanksgiving. Beautiful. Yep. Long? Yes.
[01:09:30] Unknown:
Right. But
[01:09:31] Unknown:
but, you know, you don't realize just, like you said, how how big this country really is until you just hit the road with it. It's just it's to me to me. And the and the the sights are just absolutely beautiful. There's some breathtaking breathtaking scenery along the way. It's absolutely gorgeous. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. And, you know, and and but I also I found myself just to tie it back into writing. When I made the drive, you know, I I would you know, kinda wax poetic in some of the things. You know? So I was as I was looking at the scenery, you know, I would, like, send little text to my sister and, you know, and she was like, oh, jeez. Here he goes. Right. He's getting he's getting a little more his worse.
[01:10:11] Unknown:
No. This is an important subject you're bringing up, and that is new experiences. New environments, new experiences because it makes us see differently. Right? If you're in the same place, you're gonna have the same thoughts. If you're doing the same stuff day in and day, you're gonna have the same reactions, the same results. But when you go do things like that, it changes your brain chemistry, it changes your thoughts, and it changes your point of view. And this is why it's so important for all of us to be exposed to new things, to go check out this or that. I mean, this country is so vast, and it's it's multifaceted.
Right? Mhmm. Dude, there's so much history and so many different cultures within the country, so much different history within the country. So it's really eye opening when you have those type of experiences because it's all it's very easy for us all to sit on our at behind our desks and and criticize the world or one way or another. You know? But when you get out there and see it, you go, this it expands our minds. It expands our our point of view and ultimately changes our understanding of of reality.
[01:11:23] Unknown:
Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things I've I've always wanted to do, and I and I think that, I think I'm gonna end up doing that probably when I retire, which which would be well, retire from career two. Yeah. Which would hopefully be very soon. I wanna go on a, a historical marker hunt. You know? Okay. Just just just find the historical markers. Go check them out. See what they're all about. See what history took place. There's so much history out there that we don't even know about, you know, in in our own country. And, who knows? Maybe I'll write a travel book. Who knows? Yeah.
Absolutely. Why not? I don't think there's much of a market for travel books though anymore, at least.
[01:12:03] Unknown:
You could,
[01:12:04] Unknown:
reignite it. Or do a travel blog. There you go.
[01:12:07] Unknown:
There we go. Do a travel blog. Travel blog. Look. I mean, there's so many people who love history. Yeah. You know? And if you had historical markers of Nebraska or wherever the heck, because it's it's so interesting because each state and south, North the North was obviously more, revolutionary war. The South was more, civil war. And so, like, you know, there are spots or landmarks that are more kind of connected to our different, points in time Mhmm. In our histories or our different, almost like the rings of a tree sort of. Right. Yeah.
[01:12:48] Unknown:
So this could be a I'll read the blog. Alright. Yeah. I'm gonna hold you to it. You'll be my first subscriber. There you go. You got it. Alright. Well, brother, I I had you for an hour already. So almost. Yeah. Yeah. Almost.
[01:13:02] Unknown:
Butterflies.
[01:13:03] Unknown:
So I know it's getting late where you are. So I get sleepy, Joe. Oh, I that's okay. You're, yeah, you're an old guy. I gotcha. You know? Thanks, man. But, hey, why don't you why don't you, plug your stuff and, tell us where we could find you, and then, we'll we'll, we'll catch up.
[01:13:22] Unknown:
I'll text you, tomorrow probably, and we'll we'll just touch base. Okay. Yeah. As Joe said, you know, author Douglas Robbins, you could find my books on Amazon. Naracon, the Cloak Deception is the one Joe and I were discussing about, the fantasy and kind of other worlds and, you know, it's just other dimensions and, you know, this guy was a a surrogate. And he became a surrogate or he became part of a surrogate family while his family was being attacked. I won't explain how he did, but, essentially, they were procreating when he was sort of being reduced, if you will. Okay.
For
[01:14:08] Unknown:
This is gonna be interesting. Okay.
[01:14:11] Unknown:
Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of good stuff, and I think I really write things that and I'm not tooting my own home, but connect to people because I'm not it's not it's escape. You can you it's entertaining, but I think people see themselves in the books. And that's really why I write them because I see myself in them. Mhmm. And there's an old line that Steven Spielberg had said, like, he makes the movies that he wanted to see. But, anyway, douglasrobbinsauthor.com. You could get the the story of barbecue dinner. It's a sweet little story. It might go to your spam, as we found out. But, you know, lots of good books, and I have a a podcast called The Douglas Robin Show, speaks on similar topics, mental health, education, America, anything that just sort of hits the human human, condition.
[01:14:59] Unknown:
And I would love for you to come back on the show another time when, we could we could talk a little bit more about mental health issues and, some other stuff. I think that'll be a I'm happy to stay on for a few minutes longer. Oh, yeah. Go on. I mean Okay. Sure. That'd be that's fine. As long as you're as long as you're good. I don't wanna, you know Yeah. I wanna interrupt, you know, old man. Mental health is to me the biggest, most important, you know, illness right now that's plaguing our nation. Oh, absolute. I agree with you. Absolutely. I I think, I think, I don't know if it has to do with misdiagnosis or if it has to do with, just, I don't know. Trying to think of how how to how to say this.
I think a lot of a lot of issues with over medication, you know, you know, prescribing things that people don't necessarily need can also, you know, trigger those things. Sure. I think depression is is a huge issue. I I I I deal with depression. You know, I deal with PTSD issues. Yeah. I don't I don't necessarily personally, I don't consider PTSD a mental health issue. You know, I I think it has elements of a few different things that that bring that about. But there are definitely triggers that says set it off. You know, I I It's a struggle. It really is a struggle. And, as somebody who deals with PTSD, and somebody who does deal with depression, it's it's hard sometimes. And, you find that a lot of people really don't understand, and a lot of people really don't wanna take the time to understand what it is that you might be dealing with when you're going through those particular episodes.
Like, I I find myself, I I I get into a into very dark places when I when I get into a depression. You know? Yeah. I think things that I ought not be thinking. I I say things that I shouldn't say. And I contemplate things that I shouldn't. You know? And when you and, I've I've actually lost a lot of friends or quote unquote friends. When I went through those things, especially, in the last couple years, like, like, the audience knows, and I I think we talked about it briefly. I went through a period just a couple years ago where I lost everything in in a very, very short period of time. I lost my mom. Yeah. I lost my dad, my grandmother, my mom, my wife. I you know, all Yeah. All within a year and a half. And, man, I'll tell you, I you know, that that knocked me down. That that wrecked me for a while.
You know? Yeah. And just and more so just recently, I I start been starting to feel more like myself. You know, I took time to rediscover myself, and rediscover who I am, and what makes me tick. You know? Something an old boss of mine had told me, some years ago, when I was transferring out from working in investigations going into operations. He he told me, and and and it and it it hit me just a few months ago. Like, it it just popped into my memory. He said, don't ever forget who you are and where you came from. You know? And for some reason, I guess, you know, I guess somewhere down the recesses of of the of my mind, it it it was time for that to come out.
And that was actually the catalyst. That was the point when I I started to hey. You know what? Let me start doing this again. Let me start cooking. Let me start taking care of this. Let me start doing that, and and, you know, reef you know, finding myself again, and and doing the things that I wanted to do. You know, Yep. I I I had a I had I cracked a joke one time. You know, you know the old saying, you know, happy wife, happy life. You know, I I over this over the past few months, I've come to realize, you know, happy life with no wife. You know, I I I come and go as I please. I do what I wanna do. I go where I wanna go. You know, if I if I wanna if I wanna take a few hundred bucks and dump it on something like that, I can, you know, not have to worry about, you know, somebody barking at me over my shoulder, or, you know, I or if I wanna just load load the kids up in the car, the dogs, and and and take a drive someplace for Yeah. Disappear for a few hours, I can do that.
Yeah. That that's probably the one thing that I would tell folks that that deal with, depression and and things like along those lines is that you gotta take time to to rediscover yourself and who you are. Otherwise, it's just gonna the the the depression is just gonna isolate you, and it's gonna it's gonna wreck your life.
[01:19:38] Unknown:
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I Used to battle more with depression, and it's so debilitating. And, like, you you know, you you wonder why you even get up out of bed kinda thing and you're not productive. You feel disconnected and and alone and lonely. And, do you go down that that rabbit hole of, a, I mean, a, self pity. You know, woe is me because I I feel bad and I feel like, you know, I can't get what I want. I'm not, you know, not happy, whatever it is. Like, you feel broken. Yes. And, and it takes I remember it would sometimes takes days, if not weeks, to kinda come back out of it. And like I said, it's just so debilitating. You're you're not productive. All you wanna do is sit around and watch TV or or escape via drugs, whatever it might be, eating, watching something. You know?
But, you know, movement is is a remarkable soother. And, you know, when a baby is crying, you know, mom or dad can help soothe it by picking it up and moving it or driving it around. Babies are known to love being in cars and sleeping. Right. Right? Some parents will just drive around until the baby stops crying and, you know,
[01:21:08] Unknown:
I've done that.
[01:21:10] Unknown:
Right. Right. And so we all need this. You know, this is a vast topic. You know, I don't know if you remember. You know Neil Pert is the drummer or was the drummer of of Rush. Right? Yeah. Sure. So he his daughter had died. Yeah. A drunk driver had hit her. Mhmm. She had just gone off to college, and then his, she wasn't a wife, but his partner, they've been together for twenty years with her. She was so devastated that she spiraled down, and she developed cancer and was also gone in ten months. And Neil Herb was, like, so devastated and lost that he told the other two guys in the band, I can't play. I need to stop. We gotta shut the band down. This is one of the biggest bands in the world. Yeah.
Gotta shut the band down. All he did was ride his motorcycle for two years. Mhmm. And this movement because that's all he could do to to survive was move. And he wrote something like 55,000 miles or something like that. It's a great book of his called Ghost Rider, I think he wrote. He he had written a number of books, but and it was just the only way he knew to protect himself is just ride and ride and ride. And I understand that because that's what I I have a motorcycle also, and I've done not that I have the same, you know, experience or or or or tragedies, but, I mean, there were times that I just, like in o eight, I was working for a corporation, and it was just sucking the life out of me. And, you know, I was like, I'm gonna quit this job even though the recession had just hit. And friend a couple of friends said, where are you gonna leave your job in the worst economy? It's like, yeah. I don't care about the economy. I I gotta survive here. Yeah. And I put my all my stuff in storage. I gave my apartment and just rode for several months.
And it can change your life. It it can, you know, open open you're seeing new things like I was saying. It's fresh stuff. It's not the same shit you're thinking day in and day out. Right. But I think, you know, America suffers from from mental health crisis for for many reasons. And I don't wanna go too far into it, but but, you know, I've done some shows on this, and I've had some psychologists on the show. And we had one, that I labeled mental health in America. And it and, you know, when you develop, right, going through school and and wherever, but mostly through school. Right? You might have parents, you know, that are trying to help, but mostly it's schooling, and you're learning intellectually, generally speaking.
Do math, regurgitate history, you know, whatever it might be. It's it's intellect. And it's often your IQ tests and all these kind of things. So that's been the focus of school is IQ. Mhmm. Now they don't teach you emotional fortitude. They don't teach you emotional development, and this is my theory is this is why you have so many adult babies is because they've never dealt with their shit. So they're the same stuck kid that they were, and I've had my own issues, stuck when they were three, something happened, or eight, or however whatever age, they didn't develop past that because they are not developing it in school or anywhere else. They're not learning tools. They're not learning anything on how to address it. And so you come out of school an adult baby. That's right. You might have an intelligence, and you can do math or or whatever, but you are undeveloped. And to me, the EQ, the emotional quotient or emotional intelligence is is what governs our lives.
It's our belief system. It's where our our fears are are are are hanging out or hiding. This is where depression is, but it's also because we feel disconnected. Right? We're not in a tribe. We're not in in a in a community. We're not in a village. It's often that kind of you're you're isolated. You're alone to do it. You often feel like you against the world. The world's much bigger than you, obviously. And so all these factors lead to mental health issues. So if you only do it's like a car that you have four tires. Right? You keep pumping up one tire, and you go, what the fuck's wrong with this car? Why are you so messed up?
Well, because you've only been paying attention to the one tire. That's why. Right. Right. It's good to hear. So, like, we're so much broader kinda talking about, like, we're talking about some of the riding. We're so much broader than the intellect. We're so much broader than these sort of two dimensional, you know, goals of, you know, college and GPAs and four zero one k's and the the house. And we're so much more than that. The humanity within us is so much broader than that. And this is where you know, I just did a podcast the other day called humanity versus society. It's like the humanity is so much broader because we are from humanity. Society is from us or from certain people, if you will. So it's often the square peg into the round hole. It doesn't work. Right. The humanity wants something different. Humanity doesn't give a shit about genes that make you look nice. You know?
Humanity cares about connection, living meaningful lives, bringing purpose, love, laughter. That's what humanity is about. Not how many downloads did you get or how many likes did you get or something. You know? So that's kind of my take on is we're not developing the whole person. We're developing a part of the person, and the part that really governs the life that needs to be developed is the part that gets stuck. That emotional stuff, the childhood stuff, whatever. If you're not developing it, you'll be the same person you were when you come out of school, when you're when you're 20, when you're 30. That's why you have so many narcissistic assholes and babies who are 20 and 30 and 40 because they don't know how to deal with their shit. And, additionally, middle aged white men in particular have the highest suicide rate of any demographic.
Yeah. Actually, that's true because, I we did And they've done let me say one thing. And they don't studies that many of these men have less than one good friend.
[01:27:45] Unknown:
That I did that I was not aware of.
[01:27:48] Unknown:
Very good friend. Yeah. I have a
[01:27:50] Unknown:
I did a show, a few weeks ago with, with a guy, and, his name is Jack Cammer. And, he's a he's a social worker, and he specializes in in men's mental health issues. Yeah. And, we we actually talked about that specific thing too, about, suicide rates among adult adult men. And and how as as the age increases, the suicide rate increases. And but the that that's one thing that we didn't talk about is is is the the the friend connection to the whole thing. Like, I I that I wasn't aware of.
[01:28:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, women live longer, and they're more social creatures.
[01:28:31] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, that's true.
[01:28:33] Unknown:
Right? And so the correlation is often friendship, connection, community. Mhmm. You know, what happens when you're all alone too much? Those negative thoughts start eating at you. Right? Yeah. True. But the the other thing too is is, a lot of times in
[01:28:52] Unknown:
in society, they they, you know, if if a if a man is is too open, if a man is too Of course. Too, friendly or too engaging and too inviting into into their life, they they, you know Yeah. Society thinks there's something wrong with that. Yeah. You know? And that doesn't then that makes it even harder for a for a man to develop those friendships.
[01:29:15] Unknown:
Yeah. You know? It it's hard. You know? Right. But that's why there's a there's sort of a movement right now, men's movement of men's groups and things like that where where men can share their stuff. And because, right, men are not taught to you know, boys don't cry, you know, suck it up, but, you know, like Mhmm. All these kind of things. I'll give you something to cry about a sec, but, you know, we're all emotional beings. We all have emotions. No. You know, like and men are often taught to be stoic, and we talk about football. You talk about sports. You talk about politics and work and and do you know, whatever. But, like, you don't talk about that that stuff. But that's more America. I think there are other countries that do actually, you know, encourage them. But that's again, these are we're parts of ourselves.
This is why there's so much anger because a lot of this stuff isn't being addressed. Mhmm. Right? It turns into something else when we can't bring it up and deal with it. You know what happens when you get triggered? Someone hits your button, you you go kaboom. Right? Because you had you got something in there that hasn't been healed or dealt with. So right. But if you develop someone, you mature their emotions, now you have an adult. Now you have an an evolved adult who can make reasonable decisions
[01:30:38] Unknown:
instead of a baby who's reacting and having a tantrum. Yeah. Well, if you if you watch the news at all, you see a lot of that, you know. Yes. And and not to get on the political stuff, but, you know, it's you look at the you look at the people that right now are lashing out against Elon Musk and and or at least in their minds, they're lashing out against Elon Musk Yeah. By damaging other people's properties. Yeah. You know, not realizing that, you know, yeah. Okay. Fine. You you may go out in there and key my car to pieces, but who's that's Elon Musk isn't suffering from that. Right. That's just stupid. Yeah. You know, and then you see and you see the videos of of of, you know, people on the street just screaming in in people's faces because they have a different political view.
And and howling and and and and Yeah. Top of the lung. I mean, to me, that that that's not somebody who's able to cope with reality, You know, and accept other people's opinions and, you know, your opinion doesn't matter unless it aligns with aligns with mine. You know, and I think a lot of that has to do with what you said about, you know, they're not taught that in school, they're not taught that at home, they're and a lot of the immature childish behaviors are more coddled and and more encouraged, you know, to to come out.
[01:31:55] Unknown:
Yeah. And, yeah, we have a real danger in our society right now with with misinformation. Yes. And it it is a on both sides, and it's a dangerous place because it manipulates people. People most people, I think, doesn't matter if you're on the right or the left. Most people are looking for fairness and justice Mhmm. And wanna be treated well. They wanna treat the other people well. You know, beyond that and then you have the manipulation of the narrative. And that's where the real danger is because people are trying to make decisions based upon these narrative or what is quote, unquote news or information, and it's often misleading deliberately.
Mhmm. It's a divisive, misinformation. And to me, that's the biggest danger of where we are right now is the misinformation sort of bubble, and it's very hard for people to to discern what's real and what isn't real. And, they've done studies that, like, people can't tell the difference. But, you know, what I would also say is, like, you know, critical thinking is is not so common. Right? It's it's people often just take too much BS at face value and accept it as truth. Right. And that's a danger. You know, I often wonder, like, what is Elon's motivation really here? Mhmm. Like, he's not laying in bed at night going, oh, if only America was more efficient.
Like, that's not his endgame. And so, like, you know, it's easy to watch people's bloviate and stomp and make big grand gestures because they're good sound bites. It's good video. Mhmm. But there's often something a little more behind it. Right? And so that's why I wonder, it's like, you know, it's not words, it's deeds. And what are the deeds? And so, again, I'm like, this richest guy in the world isn't fucking laying in bed at night wonder worrying about America's, you know, inefficiencies in in governments. And it's so hard to everybody likes to say right or left or blah blah blah. It's a year this year. And these labels, people are so much more than labels. Agreed.
And it doesn't matter which label, but people are so much more than these little petty labels that all they do is create you against me and me against you. And now we're fighting each other. We're now I'm done now, Joe. I think I lost you.
[01:34:32] Unknown:
Are you there? You there, buddy? I think I lost you. Yeah. I think Oh, there you are. We're having a little bit a bit of a Internet connection issue at the moment. But, I just wanna I just wanna go back to something you said about critical thinking, and, and I think a lot of that has to do with the education system in this country. Because in this country primarily teaches people what to think and not how to think. Absolutely. You know, and I and and and you're starting to see the fruit of that after the last, what, thirty, forty years? Regurgitate. Yeah. Exactly. And I think once people lose the ability to to know how to think, this is why we're seeing a lot of these outbursts and these public displays of of instability.
[01:35:17] Unknown:
There's there's a great line, and I don't remember who said it. He said, it's easier to get angry and violent. It's easier to do to to do violence than it is to think.
[01:35:33] Unknown:
I've not heard that, but that makes sense. It does. It it the emotional response Yeah. It's a lot easier, and and it takes less energy to to respond emotionally than it does to to stop and think before you act. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's really good. That's really good. Well, brother, we're having problems here with the Internet. So, Okay. What do you say we, we we wrap this up and then, Sounds good. And then what we'll do is, I will reach out to you, tomorrow and, we'll touch base and we'll have you on again and we'll we'll do we'll do some more talk about this. This is a great conversation, brother. I love talking to you. I knew we connected right away when we had our conversation. So Yeah. So this is fantastic.
Alright, folks. Doug Robbins, thank you so much again for being with us tonight, and, look forward to talking to you again. And, don't forget to, if I buy my if I buy the books through your website, don't forget to sign them. Anytime. Absolutely. You got a deal. Alright, brother. You have a great night. Alright, bro. Take care, man. Alrighty.
[01:36:34] Unknown:
Take care. Bye bye.
[01:36:35] Unknown:
Alright, folks. So we that was, Doug Robbins, and we wanna say thank you to Doug for being here with us tonight on the podcast. Alright. So, I'm not we're not gonna go any further with the, with the the clips for tonight as far as the, the political discussion because we're almost at two hours on the show. So we're gonna we're gonna wrap it up here, for the evening. Alright, folks. So again, just, just to remind you, just don't forget to head over to our website, joerusiello.com or joerus.com. I keep forgetting we changed the website. Joeroos.com.
Head over to the contact section. Send us over any questions or comments that you might have. If you have anything you'd like to ask Doug, just, just send it on over to us. I'll forward it over to him, and we'll get, we'll get some answers, for you. Also, look for that support button, and if you could help us out with a, with a, donation in any amount, we would really, really appreciate it. Also wanna give a shout out to our executive producers, Wayne and Wayne and Rosanna Rankin. Thank you so very much for your contributions and all of your help. And, we look forward to, working on a few more projects in the, in in the coming weeks.
I know, Wayne is up or was up in Alaska, so we're waiting for him to get back so we can, we can connect here again. Alright. Let's see what else we got. Don't forget the socials on x at joe roos. Instagram is not joe roos. Mine's Joe Roux, Facebook, the podcast with Joe Roux, and please head over to Truth Social. Folks, you would love Truth Social. Get yourself an account there. If you're if you're following anything the administration is doing, they will post it on truth social before anywhere else. So, head over there and check it out at truthsocial. You could find me there at Joe Ruse as well.
Alright, folks. That's gonna do it for us for tonight. Don't forget, let's make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride, and we will see you tomorrow night on the podcast. Good night.
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[00:00:47] Unknown:
Tune in for a podcast where the conversation flows freely and where you can truly expect anything and everything. This is the podcast.
[00:01:09] Unknown:
Welcome to the podcast where every episode promises an unfiltered dive into the eclectic, the profound, and political correctness takes a back seat.
[00:01:49] Unknown:
Alright. Hey folks. This is Joe Rusciello, and we are live tonight at the Asylum Studios, bringing you the best quality political talk radio we could muster without all the bluster from the pimple on the backside of Texas. The beautiful city of Eagle Pass, this is the podcast.
[00:02:15] Unknown:
Alright.
[00:02:20] Unknown:
I see everything is working. We had a big problem, last night. Something happened with the stream, don't know exactly what it was but, we had a four zero four page not found. And, I found that to be quite disturbing. It threw off the rest of the night. And, forgot to turn the banners off. Sorry about that. Here we go. So it threw that whole night off. We were just messed up for the rest of the night. So the, the show was, not what I intended it to be. But ironically enough, even though there was no feed, had the most viewers we've ever had. So, that just Yeah. It just goes to shit. It just It just, you know, that's just the way it works with me. I don't know.
But, that that was kind of fun. It was funny to me anyway after the fact. And, but, I reached out to the, the rumble crew, and figured out, whatever the problem was, and got it all squared away, straightened out, and taken care of, and now we are back up and running. So thank God for that. And, thank you for sticking with us, and thank you for, joining us tonight here on the podcast. Now, we're gonna have a guest, checking in with us in about, fifteen minutes or so. And, we'll we'll be expecting, Douglas Robbins as a a well known writer, podcast host, does a numb wears a number of different hats. And we were actually supposed to have our little conversation, last week. But we were unable to do that because of some, issues that had come up on, on Doug's end. But, we rescheduled for tonight. So here we are, and we're gonna you know, we're just gonna kind of dive into, our conversation with Doug as soon as he, checks into the, into the green room. But, in the meantime, we're gonna take care of some housekeeping stuff. And depending on how long we have Doug, tonight, we'll, we'll, get into some of the news, after we, we talk to Doug. And, if not, we just hold on to it for tomorrow because I I think, it's all pretty relevant stuff.
It'll be available to us tomorrow as well. Alright. So, as I said, so some housekeeping stuff as usual. Before we go anywhere else, I'd like you to head over to our website, and, head over to our contact section. And, when you get there, just, head on over to our contact form, open that little baby up, and, why don't you send us over a message? Let us know whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind, any questions, comments, cares, concerns that you have. You could also let us know, any suggestions or ideas that you might have for the show, any guests you'd like us to try to get. I had a a couple actually that I was thinking about earlier today, so I'm gonna be looking into those, probably tomorrow or over the weekend.
And if you don't wanna use the web form to message us, that's fine. You can always email us directly at, [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Also, don't forget to, check out the support page. And just want you to remember that this is a value for value podcast, and really all that means is that, if you've gotten anything of value from what we've been doing here with the podcast, we're asking that you would return that value to us in the form of a donation of, of any type. You could donate your time, your talent, or your treasure. Any one of those would be incredibly helpful. Your time, you could maybe help us do research. Maybe you can help us put some some things together.
You could also, donate your talent. Maybe you're good at, working, a mixing board. Maybe you're good at, doing website work, and, maybe you're good at social media. God knows, I need help with social media stuff because I suck at social media. And, so so you can help us out with that. There's any number of different things you can do to help us out with your talents. And then also, is there there's your treasure. Now you can help us out in several different ways, with your treasure. One way is that you can donate cryptocurrencies to us. We, we would love to get, some more of that stuff, donated.
And right now, you can go over to our website on the support page and click our wallet, and you could make a donation in the form of, SATs or Satoshis, which is just a micropayment of Bitcoin. It really it really kinda translates to to pennies, to be honest with you. I think I think a hundred sats right now is about 10¢, something like that. So, I don't think that's a a bank breaker for many. So if you wanna help us out with that, we would appreciate it. Or you could, you could, donate to us through the modern podcast apps like fountain.fm or podcast guru or, truefans.fm, pro cast, Podverse.
So many different, apps out there right now that you can make those types of donations. They're called boosts on those new apps, so you should check those out. You could also, make a one time donation in any amount. We have our donate button up on the page as well. And, you could also sign up for our monthly recurring producer tiers. Alright. Let let me explain to you how that works. We have the associate producer tier, which is, for a monthly recurring donation of $17.76 a month. We also have the the, producers tier, which is for $18.36 a month. And then we also have our executive producer tier, which is a monthly recurring donation of $25 a month or more.
And, all the tiers get similar benefits. They get the, the shout out on every show. They get included in all the show notes. They also get included in all of the emails that we send out. And then for the executive producer tier, you get a very special perk, and that is the opportunity to, join us on the show for a segment and, let your voice be heard. So, no matter how you wanna go about it, no matter which tier you wanna try out, we would appreciate, all of the, support that we, that we would be able to get through it. It'd be a lot of fun too. We did it a few weeks ago with, with one of our executive producers, Wayne. He was with us for a few days, and, that was that was a lot of fun. And so, you can jump in on that as well.
Now, also, if you wanna help us out, we also have our affiliate link with the Alex Jones store, and that, that link is the alexjonesstore.com/joe. Should be coming up on your screen any second. That's the alexjonesstore.com/joe. And when you get over there, you could shop from a catalog of really fantastic high quality vitamin supplements, and you could also get yourself some patriotic apparel. Like I've told you guys already, I I I take a number of the different supplements that are there. I take, we have the Irish Sea Moss that I take. These these are the capsules. These things are are amazing. They are loaded loaded with iodine, and this stuff is great for, your natural detox. It supports skin vitality, promotes joint health.
This stuff is just amazing. So I really recommend you try this out. And you can get it in the form of a gummy also, but the capsules are a lot stronger. They're more concentrated, so you get more out of it, in that way. With the gummies, you gotta take like four of those a day just to match what you're gonna get in two of the capsules. Also, I've been taking the, Ultimate Turmeric, which I don't the glare is terrible, I know. Sorry. The Ultimate Turmeric, with ginger root and black pepper. This stuff is great for maintaining healthy joints, inflammation, balance. It's it's, also great for, enhance enhances nutrient absorption, digestion support, boost antioxidant defense, joint health and mobility. This stuff is really good stuff. I've again, I've been taking this now for a few months and starting to really see good results from it. And also, I've been taking the the Atomic Defense, which is loaded up with oregano, cinnamon, turmeric, garlic extract, echinacea, sea moss, cumin powder, bioprene, hu, honey powder. This stuff is great for your overall health and, just totally supports your immune, your immune defense.
Also, some of the ingredients in here also promote and, and help with your cardiovascular health. So this is an all in one supplement that's really excellent. I've been taking this now for a little bit as well as well as well as well. Okay. You see, we're getting there. We're getting there. Not used to starting at this time of the day, so I'm a little off. But, than than anyone else is now. Always off at some point. And then, we also have the optimal human, which, is it sells out really fast. So if you're gonna get on get in on that, you really need to do that now. Optimal human is, is a probiotic compound. It comes in a powder form, a couple, like, one scoop in eight to 10 ounces of water every day, and you get loaded up with over 10,000,000,000 probiotics, functional mushrooms. It's basically a super food. There are so many nutrients on there. If you look at the packaging, they had to use extremely small print to, to to get everything on there. And if you sign up for it now, your first month is 50% off on a monthly recurring subscription of the product.
Alright? And that's a great deal. So you should definitely head over to the alexjonesstore.com/joe. The alexjonesstore.com/joe, and, get yourself some of these great, great supplements. Alright. Also, wanna talk to you a little bit about, Rumble. Our, our show, of course, is ex is streaming right now on Rumble, x, Twitch, and YouTube. Now, as soon as we finish with the opening of the show, we're gonna cut the stream to, to x, YouTube, and Twitch, and only be streaming on Rumble. So if you don't have Rumble, if you don't have your Rumble app, just head over to your app store, get yourself the Rumble app, download that thing. It's free. And then, also when you do that, make sure you look for us. You can find us at Joe Roos. And, we look forward to you following us there. Make sure that you like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, your family, and your followers.
That way you'll help us to spread the word about the show, build up an audience, build up a following, and, get a lot of, get get a make make a lot of headway here. Get our message out. Alright. The main thing we wanna do is we wanna bring out the news. We wanna bring out truth. We wanna bring out interesting and, compelling and thought provoking, topics of discussion. I think we've done pretty well, for the most part with, with all of that, and, we're looking forward to continue to do that. So, just have them come on over and check us out. We would love this we'd love to see more folks here. Alright? And, also, if you, if you don't wanna download the app right now, you can just head over to rumble.com/joeroos, and you can find us there as well. And don't forget, hit that notification bell, like, subscribe, and share it, and, we will see you guys there shortly, I hope, anyway.
Alright. So what we're gonna do here at this point, we kinda got through that quickly, and, I don't think I don't think our guest is ready in the room yet, but that's okay because we do have a couple of things we can cover until he does pop in there. So what we'll do here is, we're gonna end up, switching over to our, to our exclusive feed on Rumble. And, we'll do that, and we'll say goodbye to the folks on YouTube, Twitch, and x. So hopefully, you guys come on over to Rumble. You catch the rest of the show. Catch the, catch the conversation that we're gonna have with, Doug Robbins once he, once he checks in. And, hopefully, we'll see you there. Alright, folks. So, if not, then I guess we will see you tomorrow night.
Alright, folks. Take care. Alright. I think, I think we're clear of the folks over on Twitch and YouTube and x. So it's just us now, the, the eight or nine of us that are that are here at the moment. So hopefully, we'll get some more folks checking in, shortly. Alright. Let's see. So yesterday, we talked a a bit about and if you were watching on the video, or you're trying to watch on Rumble, you didn't catch it, so I don't know if you caught it on the audio only. But I I kinda mangled the job a bit about the, the whole signal gate thing that they're calling it now. Some of the one of the things that I really wanted to bring out tonight, given the opportunity, and since since Doug's not checked in yet, we have that opportunity to do it. As I I just wanted to mention, I I had been talking about, the fact that they're basically they're they're headhunting right now, for, Pete Hegseth. They did they the the left, the deep state, globalist, they did not want Pete Hegseth as the secretary of defense to begin with.
He is now going to have to, testify in a court hearing. Strangely enough, the court hearing that was, assigned to, judge Boseberg, the same judge that, that was involved with, the Russia hoax, that the same judge that was involved with withholding Hillary's emails from 02/2016 and not releasing them. The same judge that, tried to, put an injunction on the deportation flights of the, TDA gang and the MS thirteen gang members that were arrested the 260 of them that were sent over to, to, El Salvador, to to, SENCO. Right? Is it SENCO? Something like that. So, the prison in El Salvador.
So interestingly enough, of course, this judge gets assigned this case. I mean, who would have thought, you know, who would have thought that was gonna happen? But apparently, it did, and, so, that's what we're dealing with. Now, here here's the thing. The information that was that was in that private chat on on that signal app, first of all, wasn't classified information. Alright? There were no specifics in the in the chat in the chats, in the texts. We showed those yesterday on the show, and, unfortunately, you guys didn't weren't able to see him. But, all of that information, we we posted it because it was published by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, even though he said he wasn't going to post it. So that just basically tells me that it wasn't classified, in the first place.
And the fact that no repercussions have come from him publishing these things, leads me to, to understand that there was no classified material in there, as as we've said through the entire, conversation yesterday and and tonight. So, yes, there were some mis there were mistakes made, absolutely. Mike Waltz has taken ownership of this. He has taken the blame for this. Is this something that that that that that people should be fired over or prosecuted? Of course not. First of all, the signal app was is an app that is allowed to be used on government, phones and government, computers.
So it wasn't like they it wasn't it wasn't something that wasn't already known to be in use. It wasn't that this group downloaded some app off the app store and and, you know, just randomly started talking about, you know, about, the Houthis and and, all that information. Yeah. And granted, yes, I I will concede that it was sensitive information. It's not something that, you know, that everybody should have been privy to. But somehow, some way, Jeffrey Goldberg got admitted to this group, and he was able to screenshot the texts and the messages that went back and forth. And, again, Jeffrey Goldberg is also well known as a as a known, anti Trump, journalist.
And I use that term journalist loosely because he's a hack, basically. He is also one of these people that, promoted the Russia hoax that, also, promoted the hoax of, president Trump saying in 2020 that, you know, the cemetery in France was loaded with, suckers and losers. And, he didn't wanna go because he didn't wanna mess his hair in the rain, which was absolute ridiculous nonsense. So and and there's many, many other examples we can give, but we're not gonna do that at the moment. But the point is that this is really it's it's it's a non issue that the left is trying to use and make an issue. And the simple fact that they're harping on this should tell you that they're just looking for blood in the water. They're looking for an excuse to, to see either Waltz get fired or Hegseth get fired, and possibly prosecuted, but which of course there is nothing for them to be prosecuted on, because this was not classified material.
This wasn't top secret. This wasn't secret. Sensitive, yes, but that's not a declassification. So, what do I think is gonna come of this? The Democrats are gonna rally behind it. They're going to push to to for for for terminations. President Trump has come out and quite emphatically stead stated that he is not looking to terminate, that there was a mistake. Ownership has been taken of the mistake. It's not something that'll be allowed to happen again, and there's, they're they're gonna have to find other ways to communicate. And and reality of it is, you know, you need to make sure that when you do these kind of chat groups, no matter what platform you're using, that the right people are in there. Now, let's go back to Mike Waltz.
Mike Waltz has basically, you know, took ownership of it, like I said. Now he said he's the one who started the group. We showed the text yesterday that's that showed his name at the top of the list. That is he put together the group, and he and who he invited. Now the question is, did Mike Waltz actually do it himself? Did he staff it out? And, Mike Waltz has been has gone on the record saying that he doesn't know this, this is Jeffrey Goldberg. He's gone on the record saying that, he's he didn't have his phone number in in his contacts. Now, again, you you factor that in. Now, either Mike Waltz is lying, or he shopped it out to somebody else to set the group up, which he most definitely should not have done.
But no matter what how you look at it, no matter how you cut it, he has taken ownership of this. He has accepted the responsibility for it. He, he has president Trump's background backing on this. And, is this something that needs to be, fired about? No. This is not something that somebody needs to be fired over, but precautions do have to be put in place to make sure that these types of things don't happen again. And, hopefully, we'll, be able to, get to that point very, very quickly. And, of course, you know, I fully support Pete Hegseth as the secretary of defense, and I I don't there I don't know why he they're pointing fingers at him at this particular moment.
I guess because he, you know, he was the one who was basically putting down information in the chat, I guess. I don't know. But, again, it was an encrypted app that was approved for government use, and somebody was accidentally added to the group. Again, question is, how come nobody's asking Jeffrey Goldberg any questions? How come nobody is talking to him? How come nobody is calling for his scalp, when he is the one who actually published what was in the text. Did Pete Hegseth publish it? No. Did Mike Waltz publish it? No. Did, did the, Tulsi Gabbard? No.
John Rach? No. Nobody pop nobody that was involved in the chat released that information out to the public. Who did? Jeffrey Goldberg. Why isn't Jeffrey Goldberg being dragged being dragged to court? Why isn't Jeffrey Goldberg being questioned about this? Why are we not hearing anything about that? That should raise a lot of questions in your mind. Considering the judge that got assigned to it, the background of that particular judge, and Jeffrey Goldberg, and his reputation, and his history, and, and and the things that he's been involved with regarding the Clintons, and regarding Donald Trump, and and all the hoaxes, and all the bullcrap articles that he that he had written, that he's had to, walk back, should make you question these things.
What's the real motivation back here? What's really going on? Alright. Well, I think we're gonna end that right there because I do see in the, in the waiting room, we have our guest is, standing by. So we're going to, we're gonna bring him in, and we are gonna have our, our guest for the evening. He is a writer. He is a podcaster. He is a, well, according to his bio, he's a well known writer and podcaster. I'd like to welcome, Douglas Robbins. Doug. Thank you, sir. How are you doing tonight, Joe? I am doing great. How are you doing?
[00:24:32] Unknown:
Good, man. Good. The weather is finally,
[00:24:34] Unknown:
turning for the better here in New York, and spring is here, and the sun is out. So it's a good day. That's fantastic. And I and I know you were under the weather last week, so I'm glad you're feeling better from that. So
[00:24:44] Unknown:
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I don't know. It just was run down and, you know, needed needed, some rest, I think.
[00:24:51] Unknown:
Totally understandable. Had a little mishap this weekend myself. I don't, I don't know if you caught any of the, the shows earlier this week or not, but, I somehow, someway on Sunday, I was cooking, and I spilled, some boiling hot water down on my on my right foot. Oh. And I wasn't wearing shoes. I wasn't wearing socks. And, so yeah. I couldn't get the sock off fast enough, so I have nice hollow burns across the top top of my foot and my toes. So I'm I'm very uncomfortable. That hurts. Quite. Very Yeah. Very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. If it wasn't for the bourbon Yeah. If it wasn't for the bourbon and the pain killers Well, there you go. I I don't know. I don't know what I'd be doing, but, but it was nice to be off of work for the week, and I go back tomorrow for a couple hours just to kinda close out the end of the month stuff, and then gonna try to relax again over the weekend, then get back on get back on, on on, the foot again. Yeah. Yeah. That's it's amazing. Like, one little mistake, one little mishap can cause such such havoc, you know, and pain. Oh, for sure. For sure.
So, Doug, you like to write, I see. I've been checking that out.
[00:26:02] Unknown:
It's a loaded question. You like to write, Doug. Yes. It wasn't always the case, but yes.
[00:26:10] Unknown:
How long have you been writing?
[00:26:13] Unknown:
On and off probably for a good twenty plus years. Yeah. I kinda started I was a very rebellious kid and really wanted nothing to do with school, but there was one class, eleventh grade, twelfth grade, whatever it was, the teacher asked us to write, you know, a poem. And, I wrote this poem kinda snarky and, you know, got kind of a nice response from the the teacher, from other kids in the class, from my father who I didn't usually get a lot of, attaboys from. Mhmm. And I was like, wow. There's something to this. There's there's a power in words.
[00:26:53] Unknown:
Well, that's that's true. I mean, what what's what's that saying? You know? Oh, man. It just flipped out of my head. Oh, shoot. That's the painkillers.
[00:27:07] Unknown:
That's that's the pain and the painkillers.
[00:27:11] Unknown:
Yeah. There's life and death in the power of the tongue, Matt. I know that. But, but no, word words are powerful. You know, words are powerful, and and, it's like, something else we used to say too. You know, if you if you live by the book, you're gonna die by the book. Talking about, you know, in in in enforcement world where I grew up mostly. Yeah. But, but words are powerful. Words are very powerful. They they And another thing too is words mean things. Yeah. A lot of And, you know, you say that to somebody, a lot of folks don't understand what that really means. You you have to Right. You know, you do Words actually do mean things. You could say something, there's the eloquent way of saying things, and then there's the shorthand way of saying things.
Yeah. And, a lot of unfortunately, in today's language, there's a lot of, a lot of nuance with the English language today. I think I think back when Shakespeare was writing, it was a lot more, specific in, in their meanings. But, but words do have an effect on people. It's it's incredible when when you realize, especially when you podcast too. I mean, you know this, and you're a podcast yourself, you know? Yeah. You know, you you could you could say something with the with the with the most non confrontational intentions, and it can get totally blown out of proportion.
Yeah. You could be accused of saying things that are that are mean spirited and harsh and, you know, get called all kinds of names. Like, I got called a heretic a few times. You know? It's, Alright. But, but no. But you're right, brother. You know, words words are really really do mean things. And They can inspire and they can condemn. Right? Absolutely. And,
[00:28:48] Unknown:
you know, what is that intention behind it? They've done studies even with, like, dogs that if you're saying something nice, you could be saying a bad word to a dog. But if you're saying it kind of, come here, Fluffy, you know, like, in in a nice manner, the dog will take that as the intention. Mhmm. And that's the thing, you know, like like you said, nuance with words. You can take things out of context, especially with texting and stuff like that. You don't know the nuance perhaps. So Mhmm. It really is the context of the word is the meaning because the meaning of a word can change in different contexts.
[00:29:25] Unknown:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm looking through your website right now, and I'm looking at some of the, some of your books. And, the, the the book that you wrote, The Cloak Deception. Yeah. That I was reading the description on that one. That is that's a really interesting storyline there. So where where did you come up with that?
[00:29:49] Unknown:
I wasn't even on drugs or anything, Joe. You know, it was funny, and I and I'm not saying this. Well, I had been thinking, like, you know you know, this was in sort of the peak of Marvel. Right? Mhmm. And I was thinking, like, you know, you can do so much more with, say, a superhero. You can give him a lot more depth and dimension than just sort of that two dimensional, nothing can stop him kinda thing, and he's gonna win at all at all cost. So I was thinking, like, what if he was a more complicated character and was more tapped into some deeper, broader sort of, ideas or or or information?
But it was strange, and I and I'm not making this up. So I started having these thoughts, and then I swear to god, I started hearing this, like, British gentleman speaking to me. Mhmm. Like, almost in my head or, like, in my ear, just like someone, like, almost like a download of information. Like, this is what the stories and it was a very, refined and reserved sort of manner. So I was when I first wrote, say, the rough draft or the outline of it, it was not in a language I would typically write. Like I said, much more reserved. But that's just where it came from. I started thinking about dimensions and the evolution of souls, and where are these where are these things if you bring in sort of a superhero y type of character?
Because, you know, when you're dealing with reality, you have to adhere to guidelines, to the boundaries of reality. Right. But the beauty of fiction or fantasy, you can create those boundaries, if you will, and really expand out what reality is.
[00:31:39] Unknown:
Yeah. This is really interesting too. I'm gonna read just the, the little blurb you have here for it. He is the last of the sun clan, defenders of the soul's highest order, born to unknowing surrogates on Earth after the toxic attack on Narakin. Am I saying it right? Narakin. Narakin? Whatever. Okay. Well, yeah. You know, you don't wanna you don't wanna offend the the, the author of the material here. So I appreciate it. Reuben Mitchell is ignorant of his true nature except for glimmers in dreams and he's been he's been told to ignore. Now 18, the toxic whispers are coming for him and all sentient beings on Earth. Reuben suffers from a torn mind as do many of the lower in the lower in this lower realm.
Easy pray for the toxic whispers to exploit. I mean, that I'm gonna buy this book. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's good. Because I hope so. Yeah. Let me know what you think. Yeah. No. For sure. This is I mean, I I wish I would have, purchased something earlier. This way we could I could actually break it down with you. But this I mean, this is great stuff. I mean, just reading the little blurb here. I'm really interested in this. And there's a actually a guy that, I'm gonna text you his name, maybe for your own podcast. He writes, books very similar to this. And, Okay. Great. And, I I I'll text you his all his contact information later on. But, I think you guys would have a great conversation. He he writes from the perspective of, someone it's it's a it's a it's a fantasy type novel. It it's it's it's kind of, in the realm of like, a Tolkien type style.
And Yeah. What makes it really interesting is that the the main character is on the spectrum.
[00:33:19] Unknown:
Okay. So it makes it really very interesting, and and, I I think you guys do really well talking together. Yeah. Please. Always looking to connect. You know? Always looking to connect. So but I actually will have the second Naracon out. I'm I'm about three quarters of the way through the second one. Okay. And, yeah, it's it's a ride. I gotta tell you, it's, like, really fun to write, because you could just sort of go in all these directions. But Naracon was interesting because, you know, we all often feel dualistic.
Right? We have feels like this higher self is we're trying to get to this other place, and we're often stuck by emotions and beliefs and other, you know, physical, you know, impairments, but there's this thing that's pulling at us. And so one of one of the things in Naracon is that there's a beacon within us, right, to get to this higher place. Mhmm. And it's sort of where the soul is or that solar plexus type of area, maybe a little little below the navel. But there's always something calling to us, pulling to us, and it's that beacon. And it's that beacon that is calling us to this higher realm, this truth.
And this is something that toxic whispers are trying to get at and break. Mhmm. And they're trying to break that code because if you can break that code and submerge humanity into darkness or disconnect them from that light, if you will, they'll be submerged into eternal darkness.
[00:34:51] Unknown:
Wow. That's man, I'm telling you. I gotta get the book. Alright. Thank you, brother. Yeah. You do. Let me know. I mean, you just you just totally, like, intrigued me more than I already was. Okay. But so, I well, my next question was gonna be, you know, are you working on anything else? So you you already you already got into that. Yes, sir. So, what's, what's down the road for you though? I mean, is this is this something that, is this is the you're gonna stick with this type of material or you're going to branch? Because I know some of the other books in your in in your collection here, aren't exactly in that same
[00:35:27] Unknown:
theme. I mean, you're No. You're very eclectic in what you're in what you're putting out there. And nobody would ever recommend that, because, you know, it's like stay in your lane. You know, write horror, write fantasy, or or whatever. I I can't. That's just not who I am. I have to sort of follow what I'm called to write. So I'm coming out with a a a book in a couple months about Native Americans and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Okay. Naracon, you know, the second one will will be coming, after that. I'll have a third one. Writing another book that I that was really about rock and roll and sort of an issue I had with a a very conservative college I went to and the battle I had with the administration and and whatnot. But, you know, I think the thread always in these books, the undercurrent is or the theme is human evolution, healing, moving forward, and reaching connecting to those dreams, those potentials, but that higher self. Right.
It drives me mad, but at the same time, that's, you know, ultimately what we're all here for was to sort of move forward in that regard.
[00:36:45] Unknown:
But and and you're you're working on how many projects at the same time?
[00:36:50] Unknown:
Well, Joe, so I have this, the the Native American piece, which is really, I think, probably my my best work to date. That should be done in a couple months, Narric. So, you know, I think with writing, and maybe this is true with other art or creative endeavors, like, you work diligently on something until sort of the reservoir has emptied, then maybe you go to something else or you're just sick of it. You know? You can't think about it anymore, then you go to something else for a while, and then you kinda come back to it, because you come back with fresh eyes. Right. You know, now you're looking at it almost like a reader or a spectator. Now you see it more more, you can fill it out that much more. But if you just keep at something, it just it gets drained, of all sort of interest and creativity. And, and after a while, you can't even see it anymore because you read it so many times. So, so right now, you know, the the Native American book and Naracon and the the book I mentioned about the rock and roll called enter the fire, there you go. I have more, but that those three are the ones I'm focusing on and Naracon one. Once I get the Native American one, I gotta get Naracon out because I feel like it's it's been too long, and I've had so many people say, hey, man. When's this next one coming out? The Native American one, is that is that fiction, or is that is that a historical? That's fiction, but it's more of a historical fiction, sort of bringing the past into the present.
Contemporary issues on reservations, obviously past atrocities, but at the same time bringing, you know, this is all part of the American family, so it's sort of about healing the past because, ultimately, that's the only way any of us move forward is healing the past.
[00:38:37] Unknown:
And and, actually, that that's a great lead into to my next question. I took up cooking. I know it's not to do with writing, but I I I took I took up cooking as a as a therapy, basically. Yeah. You know, something to distract me from things that had been going on in my life. I also I wrote I used to write too when I was in college. I would write little short stories and stuff like that. I just recently actually, when I moved, I found a binder with, which I didn't even think I still had. I thought they were long lost gone. But, Right. I found a little binder with some of the some of the stories that I had written way back then. So I'm I'm kinda, like, going through them now and saying, oh my god.
That's awesome. Like, what the hell is wrong with you?
[00:39:21] Unknown:
Well, that's a whole another question. Yeah. Exactly. That's awesome. And good feel with the cooking. I gotta tell you, so I was out at dinner with my wife and daughter tonight. And the reason we were out at dinner because I was going to make something, they're like, no, dad. We don't want your cooking. Oh, no. You know, like, my wife calls it, like, bachelor survival cooking or something. Like, you know, we appreciate it, but it's not good. Yeah. Well, I,
[00:39:46] Unknown:
I I I started I took up cooking as as, as a therapy, really, therapeutic, release. And I started that back out in, 02/2001, '2 thousand '2, right around right around 09:11. I like we had spoken previously. I I told you my back my back story. Yes, sir. Yeah. I know that. So, I I used, you know, I I I kinda took that up to kinda distract myself from from all that other mess. But, recent events have kind of reinvigorated that need to have that outlet. And I was wondering if Yeah. If if your writing is like that for you. Is that something that's that, that, that that helps you heal? Is it something that's therapeutic for you at times? Or, Yeah. Or do you ever find yourself in that type of situation where you felt like you needed just sit down and clear your head out and just forget the world going on around you and just Yeah. Lose yourself in the world that you're creating for yourself?
[00:40:44] Unknown:
All the above, Joe. Because, you know, like, there's things inside of all of us that we need to express. Right? Mhmm. You know, we are here to express things, not bury them. And so yeah. I mean, it's a great place to spend time often. It can be frustrating, but it's often a great space to spend time. You can get lost in it because it's sort of timeless. It's like this other sacred realm in a way. Like, you're not in you're not in the world. You're in this other space. So it can be very, cathartic, to write. And I used to write much more more observations, about myself and just humanity and whatever. Mhmm. And that's kinda morphed into these stories. It's sort of the same.
It's just now sort of within broader stories and within characters.
[00:41:42] Unknown:
Now do you do you base your characters off people that have have come in and out of your life over time? Or or how do you go about creating your characters?
[00:41:51] Unknown:
That is a fine question, Joe. Yeah. Glad. Where do these characters come from? You know, a, they're all you know, parts of them are amalgamations of me or things I've thought or things I've seen, or people I've experienced. And some people, you know, it's like an amalgamation of of people and ideas and and, you know, put them together. And some you know, they're all just coming from imagination, but it is through the filter, of the mind and the filter of experience and thoughts.
[00:42:28] Unknown:
Well, let's see. I'm trying to think of a character that I that I I I in one of the stories that I that I saw recently, in my little binder there. There were death there was definitely a character that I that I I, I I pulled out from a a relationship that I was in at that time back then. And, I wrote I wrote that character. I changed the gender. I I went from I'm because I I the person I was dating obviously was a woman and and, so I I flipped it around, but I made that that character to be the meanest, nastiest, most most wicked, horrible creature you could possibly imagine.
And Yeah. I I I loved the character. I thought it was great. Yeah. You know? Right. But I saw so much of that person that I was dating at the time in that character. And, it actually it it it actually, it helped me with the breakup. It helped me, you know Yeah. Because I was I put down certain circumstances and situations that I was actually going through with her in that in that character. And I saw it when I saw it all written out on paper, I was like, there it is. That's the reason. Yeah. And it and it helped so much with with healing from that. And Right. It's the and it's very similar, in in some ways with with with the, the meal preps and cooking that I do. Now, I don't I don't cook, bachelor survival food.
You know, I'll I'll I'll say that. I I I will say I will say this, I I I have, I I spend a lot of time in in teaching myself how to present and to properly plate. And my dogs love when when when dad cooks because they're gonna eat a nice Did you say your dogs? Yes.
[00:44:27] Unknown:
Well, okay. Your dogs would like anything though. They'd like my bachelor survival probably. I I don't know because
[00:44:33] Unknown:
be okay. Because one time, I made, I made, bacon wrapped filet mignon with, a red wine reduction.
[00:44:44] Unknown:
Wow.
[00:44:46] Unknown:
And one of the two sniffed it, looked at me, and walked away. And the other one trashed it. Like, devoured it in, like, a swallow. Yeah. That's funny. But then at the same time, I I made just a very basic, scrambled eggs, and the one who turned the nose up to the filet mignon Right. Tore into the scrambled eggs. So he's more of the bachelor survival kind of, Yeah. Palate. Yeah. Well That's funny. But, no. But I love I love the present and I I and I do. I I get I kinda get lost in what I'm doing, and I I forget all this all the troubles and all that stuff that's going on around me. Right. And then, if I'm cooking for someone, I I I appreciate preparing the food for them,
[00:45:34] Unknown:
because Right. It helps me to to see them enjoy it. I don't I don't that makes any sense? It it makes total sense, Joe, because you're you're caring about something. Right. And it's a way you're saying, I this is the way I connect. I wanna share. This is the way, you know, this me. This is meaningful to me. And, you know, like, people need this. Right? You can't just be caught up in social media and the news and all this crap that just, you know, makes you feel like crap half the time. So, like, we need things that are sustainable or or, sustenance for our souls, you know, sustenance for our our beings. And to go back to what you're saying about the writing, you can do a lot of writing because you can find justice in writing that maybe you can't find in the world.
You you can give someone a voice that maybe didn't have a voice in the world, and you can have them win where maybe they wouldn't have won. And, you know, in writing, like, you know, in in the world, you don't get to edit your comments. Right? Yeah. You're like because it's how many times you'd be like, oh, if I had only thought of that sooner Mhmm. You know? Fill in the blank. So that's the beauty of writing is you can bring that to the stage. You can give that voice to these people, and give them that power that ultimately all we all want in this world. Right? Mhmm.
[00:46:56] Unknown:
That's a good that's a really good point. That really that's a that's a really good point. Now when when you I'm thinking back to to, you know, what what I said about, you know, cooking and and seeing people enjoy that. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine you kinda get the same rush when someone is when you when you see somebody reading your books that are enjoying the book that are getting something out of the books and and that are helpful to them. Yeah. You know, because I was like I said, I I was reading I was reading the blurbs on on I didn't read all of them yet, but I was reading the blurbs on most of these things. And the subject matter that you put out is is really deep subject matter. Thanks, man. You know, I don't know about Max Johnny though.
[00:47:45] Unknown:
Max Johnny was early, but, like, love in a dying town, for instance. Yeah. It was actually called single father for many years. Okay. And I remember, you know, like, you know, you it's like it was like a Flint, Michigan type of scenario, old dying industrial town. Yeah. And I started thinking, like, you know, but people are still raising kids in these towns. They're still showing them right from wrong even as industries close and houses are are shuttered and, people are foreclosed upon and all that. So I was like, wouldn't that be interesting to raise a child in that setting?
And so you say, where did that come from? Like, so I I married a woman who had children previously, so I was sort of the stepfather or the father in this, and, you know, throw in a crazy ex wife and, some other struggles. And, you know, you see people come together. You see ambition kinda thwarted because he this this main character can't get out of the town. And, again, it's always about that people yearning, people yearning, trying to get to that, you know, sunnier horizon.
[00:49:01] Unknown:
Wow. That's you see, like I said, you have a lot of deep, deep material here. And folks, I'm not I'm not just saying that because he's sitting up, you know, on on the other side of the camera there. I'm I'm serious, you know. Thank you. I'm I'm reading like, Baseball Dreams and Bikers. Yes, sir. You know, this is this is this is something interesting to me because I love baseball. I've always loved baseball, you know. I've, I I've, I've hitched myself to a to a team that really challenges your, your fortitude. It really helps build character. You know, I've been a Mets fan my whole life. Oh, the Mets. Okay. You know? Yeah. So it's it's it's it's tough, but, you know, this reading this as as we were talking, this Just reading some of this reminded me of a lot of stories about my dad. And Yeah. And spending time with my dad playing ball and going to the ballgame. Like my dad when, I was was it 1978, '70 '9? Somewhere around there. So I was like eight or nine years old.
My dad used to drive a yellow cab, as a side job. And Right. He picked up, and it was a long it was a long fair for him. He he picked up the, the bullpen coach for the, for the Yankees. Oh, wow. And, they hit it off and, you know, and they had this long conversation on the thing, and and he invited my dad to come to a game. And, you know, and he was like, you know, if you if you come, just let me know. And, you know, I'll I'll I'll I'll get you access to the clubhouse. Wow. So, at so so my dad was, of course, all excited. My dad's a big Yankee fan, and, which I got a great story about that too. How I just how my dad and I would torture each other.
[00:50:49] Unknown:
Yeah. Mets fan and a Yankee fan under one house? No. It gets oh, it gets better.
[00:50:54] Unknown:
But so at at eight years old, my dad, you know, gets me all ready to go, and whisks me off to Yankee Stadium. We get into the clubhouse, and I'm meeting. I met Bucky Dent, and Craig Nettles, and Billy Martin. Wow. And, you know, all those I met Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Bill White, you know, all those guys. And, like, I was so un unimpressed. My dad couldn't understand it. He was like, who what's wrong with you? What's wrong? And I'm like You're not my son. I'm a Mets fan, you know. I mean I I mean I was only eight or nine, but I I knew that I Right. Okay. Well this is good, you know, this is exciting. Right. So I have all these autographs and pictures and stuff like that, but you know, from that that time period. And my dad was so disappointed that I wasn't like gushing over and thrilled. As a matter of fact, I I brought my Mets hat with me, when we went, and he wouldn't let me bring it in. So we had to leave it in the car.
[00:51:47] Unknown:
Yeah. Right. But,
[00:51:49] Unknown:
but that was that. But but years later, my dad and I look, I'm a Rangers fan. My dad was an Islanders fan. My dad liked the Knicks. I liked the Nets. My dad was a Yankee fan, I was a Mets fan. That's always the Wow. That's always the way it was and it was Giants, Jets? Giant. Well, yeah. Well, but I also we also have to be, we have to be Packers fans by default. Okay. Because of a family connection. So Alright. My, my cousin my I guess my second cousin, has a trophy named after him. Oh, okay. The Vince Lombardi trophy.
[00:52:32] Unknown:
Are you saying your cousin was Vince Lombardi? Vince Lombardi. Yes. Yeah. So you have to be a You have to be a Packers fan. Yeah. So You're who's wait. Who's whose side was Vince Lombardi? My mother's side.
[00:52:44] Unknown:
Wow. Yeah. So it was, very very interesting growing up Yeah. Like that. I mean Wow. That that's royalty right there. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, my my my mom used to tell me that she had pictures, because I was an infant, when Vince Lombardi passed away. But, my mom used to tell me that she had pictures of of him holding me as a child, as a baby. Wow. And I and and when after after my mom passed away, my dad passed away, my sister, we we looked through every photo album there was, could not find one anywhere. Oh, no. So, I I don't know. But, but yeah. So, like, by default, we have, you know, that that connection happened to do that. But Yes. But, a couple a couple years ago, oh man, maybe more. Maybe So my dad my dad passed away two years ago, three years ago. So, we're talking maybe ten years ago. Eight to ten years ago.
It was Father's Day. So I I went and I and I bought my dad a an authentic MLB field usable jersey. I had the whole thing done up. I had the big number one put on the back. I had his name, you know, you know Right. The embroidery, all that stuff, and got him a fitted hat and everything. And, I took it to I took it to him, and, you know, just just gotta twist him a little bit, bring it over to him. Dad, happy father's day. Oh, thanks, son. You know, we don't have to do this. Oh, I know dad, but, you know, I love you. I want you to have this. This is, you know, something special, you know. I'd you know. Yeah. It must must be expensive. And I'm like, no. Don't worry about the money. It's fine. You know, whatever. So he Yeah. So he starts opening it up. So he gets to the box, and he takes the cover of the box. And what does he see? He sees Boston Red Sox tissue paper.
My dad's a Yankee fan.
[00:54:32] Unknown:
Yeah. Right? That's blasphemous.
[00:54:34] Unknown:
So Yeah. So he just looked at me, like like gave me a side look. And I was like, oh, just don't worry. Just open it. You're gonna love it. So he he opens up the papers, you know, he pulls out his very own Boston Red Sox travel jersey with his name on the back. It's terrible. The big number one for the number one fan, the fitted Red Sox hat, and he just looked at it. He said, Joseph. It's just this is beautiful. I love it, Joseph. Thank you. I love you pal. He came over, gave me a hug, and all that stuff, and and he took it, and he put it all back in the box, and he walked out of the room with it. And my mom was sitting there, and I looked at my mom, and I was like, well that didn't go where I thought it was gonna go. Right. You know? So she goes, nah. Well, you know, he hasn't been feeling well, so he's probably just in one of his moods. And I'm like, oh, okay. Well, so I'm sitting there having a conversation with my mom about fifteen minutes past, and I'm like, well, where is he? You know, I came here to see him. Where's where'd he go?
So I get up, and I I walk out the living room to the kitchen, and then they have these sliding doors that went out to the backyard. And I see my dad sitting outside in the backyard. And he has a he's sitting there, and he he he he has a cup of coffee, and he has the fire pit going and all that stuff. And so Uh-oh. So I walk out there, I'm like, dad, what are you doing? And I I I looked down, and he goes he goes, I started a fire. And I look in there, and there's the Red Sox jersey, the hat, all that stuff. I was like, dad, what are you doing? Do you have any idea how much that cost?
He was like, well, who's more who's who's more the fool, Joe? And I was like, He turned that practical joke around, didn't he? Yeah. But that's but that was our relationship though. As we got older, we we would we would just zing each other. So, you know, so books like this, you know, remind me of of those stories. So so this is really this is great. I'm looking forward to probably getting this one too at some point. Good. But, Baseball, James, and Bikers is actually,
[00:56:29] Unknown:
there there are three stories in it. Baseball, James, and Bikers is the longest one, and they're all really about those dreams we feel inside of us and those potentials. And Baseball Dreams and Bikers is probably a little bit about me in that, not that I was, but it's about a a baseball prodigy. Parents start struggling. The father loses job, and, they get separated. The father had been a minor league ball player but got injured, so he didn't get to fulfill his dream. And then the kid starts falling off the track a bit. You know, he's an amazing player, but because of the struggles at home, he starts going the wrong direction. Right.
And, you know, we don't realize that we're going the wrong direction away from the dream. We think, oh, the dream's always gonna be there. And as you and I know, the older you get, you go, oh, shit. Pardon me. I don't know if I can curse on on this. But Yeah. You can say whatever you want. You know, I don't you know, like, sometimes you get years and years away and go, oh my god. What happened? Mhmm. And so the story is really about let's just say there's a bit of an intervention. His uncle's an ex con. He's just getting out of prison. He's the biker in in the book. Okay. Tough tough guy. I won't give any more away, but it's about staying on course because it's very easy to fall off.
[00:57:58] Unknown:
Yeah. I I like I like what you wrote here, in the blurb. You know, Baseball Dreams and Bikers explores the fragility of dreams, the impact of familial bonds, and the unforeseen challenges that can shape lives. Yeah. Wow. Well, I'm looking forward to these, brother. I mean, really, This sounds like good writing. I mean, I don't know. It does. You know, we'll find out. You know, I'll I'll I'll Yeah. Exactly. I'll do the review. I'm still Find out. Yeah. I'm still waiting for my barbecue dinner though.
[00:58:23] Unknown:
Are you? You didn't get it? Not yet. No. When did you sign up?
[00:58:28] Unknown:
Earlier today.
[00:58:30] Unknown:
Oh, well, it's supposed to go out automatically. I will check. I'm a write it down. You know, I these darn softwares, like, they work and then they don't work and, it might have gone to your spam folder.
[00:58:41] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm I'm looking actually right now. Alright. Oh, yeah. There it is. Okay. Perfect.
[00:58:47] Unknown:
You know, that's the thing. Like, all the the servers are, like, watching anything that's coming from, like, email blasts or whatever. So, yeah, there you go. Barbecue. It's a good little story. Barbecue dinner.
[00:59:01] Unknown:
Yes, sir. It looks like it. Not as good as Baseball James Bikers. But Which is which interestingly interestingly enough is the, the book that's being advertised on the on the mailer I got. Say again? The mailer I got, from you. It's, Hello Dreamer. Are your dreams waiting for you? Meet the Dream Seekers. Uncle Bobby, Donnie, Tim, Samantha, with the right influence Yeah. Dreams come true. Yeah. It's, Baseball Bikers and Baseball Dreams and Bikers. Funny we were just we were talking about that. See, this that I'm telling you, it's that it's, you know, they're they're listening to us, these things. They they know.
[00:59:43] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Barbecue dinner is from an earlier, short story book called Leaves Piled High. But I think when we were updating the, the email funnel or whatever,
[00:59:56] Unknown:
baseball games and bikers had just come out. So that's why we were kind of Right. That was part of the sequence, if you will. Yeah. Now when when we spoke last week, we had a we had a great conversation. And, Yeah. You know, I I really enjoyed that. Now now you're a New Yorker, just like I am. Mhmm. Yeah. So so how are things up there in the Big Apple? What's going on?
[01:00:16] Unknown:
That's a loaded question. I live up Upstate. So I live about two hours north of the city in the Catskills or just outside the Catskills. I used to live in New Rochelle and lived in the city and all that, and I I don't think I could ever live in in that area again. Just too congested and all that noisy and too many people. Yeah. So I live in a more farm farming community. There is a college in town, Bard Bard College. But for the most part, it's kind of a mix of farming, you know, people and some some, it's a small college, but just small town, five, ten thousand people, and then there's another town nearest Rhinebeck at another five, ten thousand historic, city. But, so it's kinda nice.
You know, there's two lights in my town. It's a pretty mellow town. You know, nothing
[01:01:00] Unknown:
too crazy is going on here. When I lived in New York, I used to love to go upstate. I I I would try to get up I try to make a trip up at least once a month just to just just to get out of the city, just to get away from it all. Absolutely. Because you can get trapped in there. And I remember I didn't have any money when I was living there, and I felt trapped. Yeah. Oh, for sure. And Yeah. The interesting thing is, like, when when I moved here to Texas, especially in in in Eagle Pass, which is, I'm right on the border with Mexico. Right. So, it's like, you know, people when they when they hear I'm from New York, they're they're, like, mystified. Like, why are you here? Why? Because anywhere is better than New York. That's what that's New York City at least.
Right. But when you but when you start to talk to them a little bit about, like, how the difference between Upstate and Downstate, you know, it's like Oh, yeah. It's two different worlds altogether. It's it's Oh, yeah. You know, I Upstate, they they they think different, act different, vote different, talk different, you know. Yeah.
[01:02:00] Unknown:
It's farmlands, dairy farms, apple orchards, you know, it's beautiful Upstate. I love Upstate New York. It's a beautiful place to live. But, you know, Downstate is just too stressful, man. It's just too noisy, too stressful. Yeah.
[01:02:13] Unknown:
You know, like traffic everywhere. Like, I can't deal with that. Bro, it when I worked when I worked for New York City, I I lived 13 miles door to door. Alright. So from my from my front door to my office door was 13 miles. How long? Long? It would take me two and a half to three hours to get to work every day. And then it would take me about three hours to three to four hours to get home.
[01:02:37] Unknown:
You can just live at the job. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's it's, I mean, that's what it is. Just too many people and, you know, whatever. But so we live up here. My wife has horses. She grew up with horses in in Arizona Nice. And, riding in the desert with her grandfather. And and, so it's nice. You know, we live, you know, we we have acre and a half, but we could see the the mountains, and there's water all around. And it's just great hiking. And, again, much there's too much, pardon me, fucking stress in the world, so I don't wanna add to it. And I don't really wanna be,
[01:03:14] Unknown:
you know, surrounded by it. Yeah. I mean You know, day to day. You know, people people in in that that have grown up in small towns like like this, like here where I am, they don't understand the stresses of living in a city like New York, where Yeah. Everything is just the cost of living is ridiculous. Yeah. The congestion is ridiculous. Like, for example, Eagle Pass, geographically is about the same size as Staten Island. Okay. Okay. So, and that's where I lived, when I lived in New York. I grew up in Brooklyn. I grew up in Brooklyn. I moved to Staten Island, you know, made the the progression to get out. But, but geographically, you know, more or less, it's about the same size as as where I am now.
But Staten Island, when I left, had a population of 630 something thousand people. Mhmm. You know, here, you have a population of just over 30,000.
[01:04:07] Unknown:
So That sounds the least populated Yes. Of the borough. Yeah.
[01:04:11] Unknown:
Yeah. So I try to I try to explain that to people when they ask me about it. And I'm like, they're like, really? That many people? And that yeah. Yeah. I see. You you you take for granted all this open flat space that you have here. Yeah. You know, and where I'm from, there is none of this. It's it's everything is built up. There is no out. Yeah. Do you have if you do get if you do buy a house, you you you're lucky if your backyard is the size of a postage stamp.
[01:04:39] Unknown:
You know, it's it's Yeah. You know, people people that grew up in small towns like this really have no idea how how how blessed they really are. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I'm raising we're raising our daughter in this great little town. Mhmm. Great little school district. You know? I don't know. Few hundred kids in the school, whatever the hell it is. It's just a great positive place to grow up. You know? It's like a little Mayberry in a way. You know? And it's like, man, I wish I had kinda gone to this school and, like, been this in this environment, and, I probably wouldn't have been as crazy as I was. You know? But, you know. You you you you you're born where you are, and you're you're born into the family you're born into, you know. Can't choose them. Can't choose your family. No, sir. You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family.
That's about it. But, but,
[01:05:29] Unknown:
you know, it's it's I I I love it here. I do. I don't see myself ever coming back to New York as far as to live. I do have to get back Yeah. And visit my family, my sister. It's just me and my sister now. Right. My my kids are older. They they live, my daughter, her husband, and and, three kids live in Staten Island right now still. My my son lives up in Pennsylvania, in the in the hinterlands of Pennsylvania. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm kinda wondering if he started picking a banjo yet. That's how far up he lives after in PA. But, I used there there was a place, what was the place? It was called it was, Yulin, New York. Do you know where that is?
It's Yulin? Yulin. It's, I think it was, I think it was, Y U L A N or Y U L I N, something like that. It it was it was right near the border with Pennsylvania. There was a little town called, called Cheahola, Pennsylvania.
[01:06:29] Unknown:
Okay. It's all yeah. That's a couple hours away from here. Yeah. So, I,
[01:06:33] Unknown:
used to go up there a lot, and, I had I had family that that had a, a little cabin up there. And, man, I used to Delaware Delaware River area? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I used to love going up there, man. That that was I I used to love to make the drive. It was it was Yeah. Just beautiful. Just beautiful. People don't understand the difference. You know? They really don't. That, you know, New York is not just Manhattan. New York is a big state. Yeah. It has a lot of ground.
[01:06:59] Unknown:
You know, it's funny. When when I grew up when I was young, and I grew up in New Rochelle, which is, like, ten minutes outside the Bronx, and, you know, just a a suburb and whatever. And I even in my own mind, I would think, oh, New York is just New York City and suburbs. Like, that's all it is. But the truth is, actually, New York is a pretty rural state in general. Some old industrial towns, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, etcetera. But there's a lot of beauty. I mean, Adirondacks, the Catskills, a lot of water. So it's yeah.
It's it's it's it's not it's a you know, Rochester's a million miles from New York City, really. Yeah.
[01:07:42] Unknown:
Yeah. And Rochester's a nice place too. I've I've been there a few times. That's where Kodak used to be. Are they still there? Kodak? I don't know. Wow. It's not that nice of a town, but Not well, not anymore. It used to be. It it it Right. At one point Like a lot of old industrial towns. Yeah. Yeah. At one point, it was a really really nice place. Absolutely. Yeah. But, they've been to Buffalo a few times. Buffalo's an interesting place, say the least.
[01:08:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I've only been there, but I mean, it's probably six or seven hours for most. I mean, we're right outside of Kingston. Mhmm. So it's really basically up Route 87 or Interstate 87,
[01:08:21] Unknown:
hour and a half from the city, two hours, something like that. You know? Yeah. Well, I I know where Bard is. I've I've I've been to to to the school. Okay. So yeah. So I I kinda I kinda know where you where you are. But Yeah. Alright. Yeah. But, it's yeah. And and people don't realize just how big New York state is either. You know? It's it's Yeah. You know, from one end of the state to the other. Well, for me to get to to Niagara from from Staten Island used to take me twelve hours, and that was taking the shortcut cutting through Pennsylvania. Yeah. Yeah. So I'd leave New York, go to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and then come back into New York. It would still take twelve hours.
[01:08:55] Unknown:
Yeah. No. I mean, it's long from, say, New York City to Montreal or or Buffalo to Vermont or something like that. No. It's pretty sizable. And that's the beauty of, like, road trips. Mhmm. Once you get on the road and you start driving or riding a motorcycle, you start seeing, oh my god. This is a vast nation we have. It is.
[01:09:14] Unknown:
When I made the drive, last, last year, last November not this one, past the year before. Me and the dogs, we we took a drive from Eagle Pass to New York, for for Thanksgiving. Beautiful. Yep. Long? Yes.
[01:09:30] Unknown:
Right. But
[01:09:31] Unknown:
but, you know, you don't realize just, like you said, how how big this country really is until you just hit the road with it. It's just it's to me to me. And the and the the sights are just absolutely beautiful. There's some breathtaking breathtaking scenery along the way. It's absolutely gorgeous. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. And, you know, and and but I also I found myself just to tie it back into writing. When I made the drive, you know, I I would you know, kinda wax poetic in some of the things. You know? So I was as I was looking at the scenery, you know, I would, like, send little text to my sister and, you know, and she was like, oh, jeez. Here he goes. Right. He's getting he's getting a little more his worse.
[01:10:11] Unknown:
No. This is an important subject you're bringing up, and that is new experiences. New environments, new experiences because it makes us see differently. Right? If you're in the same place, you're gonna have the same thoughts. If you're doing the same stuff day in and day, you're gonna have the same reactions, the same results. But when you go do things like that, it changes your brain chemistry, it changes your thoughts, and it changes your point of view. And this is why it's so important for all of us to be exposed to new things, to go check out this or that. I mean, this country is so vast, and it's it's multifaceted.
Right? Mhmm. Dude, there's so much history and so many different cultures within the country, so much different history within the country. So it's really eye opening when you have those type of experiences because it's all it's very easy for us all to sit on our at behind our desks and and criticize the world or one way or another. You know? But when you get out there and see it, you go, this it expands our minds. It expands our our point of view and ultimately changes our understanding of of reality.
[01:11:23] Unknown:
Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things I've I've always wanted to do, and I and I think that, I think I'm gonna end up doing that probably when I retire, which which would be well, retire from career two. Yeah. Which would hopefully be very soon. I wanna go on a, a historical marker hunt. You know? Okay. Just just just find the historical markers. Go check them out. See what they're all about. See what history took place. There's so much history out there that we don't even know about, you know, in in our own country. And, who knows? Maybe I'll write a travel book. Who knows? Yeah.
Absolutely. Why not? I don't think there's much of a market for travel books though anymore, at least.
[01:12:03] Unknown:
You could,
[01:12:04] Unknown:
reignite it. Or do a travel blog. There you go.
[01:12:07] Unknown:
There we go. Do a travel blog. Travel blog. Look. I mean, there's so many people who love history. Yeah. You know? And if you had historical markers of Nebraska or wherever the heck, because it's it's so interesting because each state and south, North the North was obviously more, revolutionary war. The South was more, civil war. And so, like, you know, there are spots or landmarks that are more kind of connected to our different, points in time Mhmm. In our histories or our different, almost like the rings of a tree sort of. Right. Yeah.
[01:12:48] Unknown:
So this could be a I'll read the blog. Alright. Yeah. I'm gonna hold you to it. You'll be my first subscriber. There you go. You got it. Alright. Well, brother, I I had you for an hour already. So almost. Yeah. Yeah. Almost.
[01:13:02] Unknown:
Butterflies.
[01:13:03] Unknown:
So I know it's getting late where you are. So I get sleepy, Joe. Oh, I that's okay. You're, yeah, you're an old guy. I gotcha. You know? Thanks, man. But, hey, why don't you why don't you, plug your stuff and, tell us where we could find you, and then, we'll we'll, we'll catch up.
[01:13:22] Unknown:
I'll text you, tomorrow probably, and we'll we'll just touch base. Okay. Yeah. As Joe said, you know, author Douglas Robbins, you could find my books on Amazon. Naracon, the Cloak Deception is the one Joe and I were discussing about, the fantasy and kind of other worlds and, you know, it's just other dimensions and, you know, this guy was a a surrogate. And he became a surrogate or he became part of a surrogate family while his family was being attacked. I won't explain how he did, but, essentially, they were procreating when he was sort of being reduced, if you will. Okay.
For
[01:14:08] Unknown:
This is gonna be interesting. Okay.
[01:14:11] Unknown:
Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of good stuff, and I think I really write things that and I'm not tooting my own home, but connect to people because I'm not it's not it's escape. You can you it's entertaining, but I think people see themselves in the books. And that's really why I write them because I see myself in them. Mhmm. And there's an old line that Steven Spielberg had said, like, he makes the movies that he wanted to see. But, anyway, douglasrobbinsauthor.com. You could get the the story of barbecue dinner. It's a sweet little story. It might go to your spam, as we found out. But, you know, lots of good books, and I have a a podcast called The Douglas Robin Show, speaks on similar topics, mental health, education, America, anything that just sort of hits the human human, condition.
[01:14:59] Unknown:
And I would love for you to come back on the show another time when, we could we could talk a little bit more about mental health issues and, some other stuff. I think that'll be a I'm happy to stay on for a few minutes longer. Oh, yeah. Go on. I mean Okay. Sure. That'd be that's fine. As long as you're as long as you're good. I don't wanna, you know Yeah. I wanna interrupt, you know, old man. Mental health is to me the biggest, most important, you know, illness right now that's plaguing our nation. Oh, absolute. I agree with you. Absolutely. I I think, I think, I don't know if it has to do with misdiagnosis or if it has to do with, just, I don't know. Trying to think of how how to how to say this.
I think a lot of a lot of issues with over medication, you know, you know, prescribing things that people don't necessarily need can also, you know, trigger those things. Sure. I think depression is is a huge issue. I I I I deal with depression. You know, I deal with PTSD issues. Yeah. I don't I don't necessarily personally, I don't consider PTSD a mental health issue. You know, I I think it has elements of a few different things that that bring that about. But there are definitely triggers that says set it off. You know, I I It's a struggle. It really is a struggle. And, as somebody who deals with PTSD, and somebody who does deal with depression, it's it's hard sometimes. And, you find that a lot of people really don't understand, and a lot of people really don't wanna take the time to understand what it is that you might be dealing with when you're going through those particular episodes.
Like, I I find myself, I I I get into a into very dark places when I when I get into a depression. You know? Yeah. I think things that I ought not be thinking. I I say things that I shouldn't say. And I contemplate things that I shouldn't. You know? And when you and, I've I've actually lost a lot of friends or quote unquote friends. When I went through those things, especially, in the last couple years, like, like, the audience knows, and I I think we talked about it briefly. I went through a period just a couple years ago where I lost everything in in a very, very short period of time. I lost my mom. Yeah. I lost my dad, my grandmother, my mom, my wife. I you know, all Yeah. All within a year and a half. And, man, I'll tell you, I you know, that that knocked me down. That that wrecked me for a while.
You know? Yeah. And just and more so just recently, I I start been starting to feel more like myself. You know, I took time to rediscover myself, and rediscover who I am, and what makes me tick. You know? Something an old boss of mine had told me, some years ago, when I was transferring out from working in investigations going into operations. He he told me, and and and it and it it hit me just a few months ago. Like, it it just popped into my memory. He said, don't ever forget who you are and where you came from. You know? And for some reason, I guess, you know, I guess somewhere down the recesses of of the of my mind, it it it was time for that to come out.
And that was actually the catalyst. That was the point when I I started to hey. You know what? Let me start doing this again. Let me start cooking. Let me start taking care of this. Let me start doing that, and and, you know, reef you know, finding myself again, and and doing the things that I wanted to do. You know, Yep. I I I had a I had I cracked a joke one time. You know, you know the old saying, you know, happy wife, happy life. You know, I I over this over the past few months, I've come to realize, you know, happy life with no wife. You know, I I I come and go as I please. I do what I wanna do. I go where I wanna go. You know, if I if I wanna if I wanna take a few hundred bucks and dump it on something like that, I can, you know, not have to worry about, you know, somebody barking at me over my shoulder, or, you know, I or if I wanna just load load the kids up in the car, the dogs, and and and take a drive someplace for Yeah. Disappear for a few hours, I can do that.
Yeah. That that's probably the one thing that I would tell folks that that deal with, depression and and things like along those lines is that you gotta take time to to rediscover yourself and who you are. Otherwise, it's just gonna the the the depression is just gonna isolate you, and it's gonna it's gonna wreck your life.
[01:19:38] Unknown:
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I Used to battle more with depression, and it's so debilitating. And, like, you you know, you you wonder why you even get up out of bed kinda thing and you're not productive. You feel disconnected and and alone and lonely. And, do you go down that that rabbit hole of, a, I mean, a, self pity. You know, woe is me because I I feel bad and I feel like, you know, I can't get what I want. I'm not, you know, not happy, whatever it is. Like, you feel broken. Yes. And, and it takes I remember it would sometimes takes days, if not weeks, to kinda come back out of it. And like I said, it's just so debilitating. You're you're not productive. All you wanna do is sit around and watch TV or or escape via drugs, whatever it might be, eating, watching something. You know?
But, you know, movement is is a remarkable soother. And, you know, when a baby is crying, you know, mom or dad can help soothe it by picking it up and moving it or driving it around. Babies are known to love being in cars and sleeping. Right. Right? Some parents will just drive around until the baby stops crying and, you know,
[01:21:08] Unknown:
I've done that.
[01:21:10] Unknown:
Right. Right. And so we all need this. You know, this is a vast topic. You know, I don't know if you remember. You know Neil Pert is the drummer or was the drummer of of Rush. Right? Yeah. Sure. So he his daughter had died. Yeah. A drunk driver had hit her. Mhmm. She had just gone off to college, and then his, she wasn't a wife, but his partner, they've been together for twenty years with her. She was so devastated that she spiraled down, and she developed cancer and was also gone in ten months. And Neil Herb was, like, so devastated and lost that he told the other two guys in the band, I can't play. I need to stop. We gotta shut the band down. This is one of the biggest bands in the world. Yeah.
Gotta shut the band down. All he did was ride his motorcycle for two years. Mhmm. And this movement because that's all he could do to to survive was move. And he wrote something like 55,000 miles or something like that. It's a great book of his called Ghost Rider, I think he wrote. He he had written a number of books, but and it was just the only way he knew to protect himself is just ride and ride and ride. And I understand that because that's what I I have a motorcycle also, and I've done not that I have the same, you know, experience or or or or tragedies, but, I mean, there were times that I just, like in o eight, I was working for a corporation, and it was just sucking the life out of me. And, you know, I was like, I'm gonna quit this job even though the recession had just hit. And friend a couple of friends said, where are you gonna leave your job in the worst economy? It's like, yeah. I don't care about the economy. I I gotta survive here. Yeah. And I put my all my stuff in storage. I gave my apartment and just rode for several months.
And it can change your life. It it can, you know, open open you're seeing new things like I was saying. It's fresh stuff. It's not the same shit you're thinking day in and day out. Right. But I think, you know, America suffers from from mental health crisis for for many reasons. And I don't wanna go too far into it, but but, you know, I've done some shows on this, and I've had some psychologists on the show. And we had one, that I labeled mental health in America. And it and, you know, when you develop, right, going through school and and wherever, but mostly through school. Right? You might have parents, you know, that are trying to help, but mostly it's schooling, and you're learning intellectually, generally speaking.
Do math, regurgitate history, you know, whatever it might be. It's it's intellect. And it's often your IQ tests and all these kind of things. So that's been the focus of school is IQ. Mhmm. Now they don't teach you emotional fortitude. They don't teach you emotional development, and this is my theory is this is why you have so many adult babies is because they've never dealt with their shit. So they're the same stuck kid that they were, and I've had my own issues, stuck when they were three, something happened, or eight, or however whatever age, they didn't develop past that because they are not developing it in school or anywhere else. They're not learning tools. They're not learning anything on how to address it. And so you come out of school an adult baby. That's right. You might have an intelligence, and you can do math or or whatever, but you are undeveloped. And to me, the EQ, the emotional quotient or emotional intelligence is is what governs our lives.
It's our belief system. It's where our our fears are are are are hanging out or hiding. This is where depression is, but it's also because we feel disconnected. Right? We're not in a tribe. We're not in in a in a community. We're not in a village. It's often that kind of you're you're isolated. You're alone to do it. You often feel like you against the world. The world's much bigger than you, obviously. And so all these factors lead to mental health issues. So if you only do it's like a car that you have four tires. Right? You keep pumping up one tire, and you go, what the fuck's wrong with this car? Why are you so messed up?
Well, because you've only been paying attention to the one tire. That's why. Right. Right. It's good to hear. So, like, we're so much broader kinda talking about, like, we're talking about some of the riding. We're so much broader than the intellect. We're so much broader than these sort of two dimensional, you know, goals of, you know, college and GPAs and four zero one k's and the the house. And we're so much more than that. The humanity within us is so much broader than that. And this is where you know, I just did a podcast the other day called humanity versus society. It's like the humanity is so much broader because we are from humanity. Society is from us or from certain people, if you will. So it's often the square peg into the round hole. It doesn't work. Right. The humanity wants something different. Humanity doesn't give a shit about genes that make you look nice. You know?
Humanity cares about connection, living meaningful lives, bringing purpose, love, laughter. That's what humanity is about. Not how many downloads did you get or how many likes did you get or something. You know? So that's kind of my take on is we're not developing the whole person. We're developing a part of the person, and the part that really governs the life that needs to be developed is the part that gets stuck. That emotional stuff, the childhood stuff, whatever. If you're not developing it, you'll be the same person you were when you come out of school, when you're when you're 20, when you're 30. That's why you have so many narcissistic assholes and babies who are 20 and 30 and 40 because they don't know how to deal with their shit. And, additionally, middle aged white men in particular have the highest suicide rate of any demographic.
Yeah. Actually, that's true because, I we did And they've done let me say one thing. And they don't studies that many of these men have less than one good friend.
[01:27:45] Unknown:
That I did that I was not aware of.
[01:27:48] Unknown:
Very good friend. Yeah. I have a
[01:27:50] Unknown:
I did a show, a few weeks ago with, with a guy, and, his name is Jack Cammer. And, he's a he's a social worker, and he specializes in in men's mental health issues. Yeah. And, we we actually talked about that specific thing too, about, suicide rates among adult adult men. And and how as as the age increases, the suicide rate increases. And but the that that's one thing that we didn't talk about is is is the the the friend connection to the whole thing. Like, I I that I wasn't aware of.
[01:28:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, women live longer, and they're more social creatures.
[01:28:31] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, that's true.
[01:28:33] Unknown:
Right? And so the correlation is often friendship, connection, community. Mhmm. You know, what happens when you're all alone too much? Those negative thoughts start eating at you. Right? Yeah. True. But the the other thing too is is, a lot of times in
[01:28:52] Unknown:
in society, they they, you know, if if a if a man is is too open, if a man is too Of course. Too, friendly or too engaging and too inviting into into their life, they they, you know Yeah. Society thinks there's something wrong with that. Yeah. You know? And that doesn't then that makes it even harder for a for a man to develop those friendships.
[01:29:15] Unknown:
Yeah. You know? It it's hard. You know? Right. But that's why there's a there's sort of a movement right now, men's movement of men's groups and things like that where where men can share their stuff. And because, right, men are not taught to you know, boys don't cry, you know, suck it up, but, you know, like Mhmm. All these kind of things. I'll give you something to cry about a sec, but, you know, we're all emotional beings. We all have emotions. No. You know, like and men are often taught to be stoic, and we talk about football. You talk about sports. You talk about politics and work and and do you know, whatever. But, like, you don't talk about that that stuff. But that's more America. I think there are other countries that do actually, you know, encourage them. But that's again, these are we're parts of ourselves.
This is why there's so much anger because a lot of this stuff isn't being addressed. Mhmm. Right? It turns into something else when we can't bring it up and deal with it. You know what happens when you get triggered? Someone hits your button, you you go kaboom. Right? Because you had you got something in there that hasn't been healed or dealt with. So right. But if you develop someone, you mature their emotions, now you have an adult. Now you have an an evolved adult who can make reasonable decisions
[01:30:38] Unknown:
instead of a baby who's reacting and having a tantrum. Yeah. Well, if you if you watch the news at all, you see a lot of that, you know. Yes. And and not to get on the political stuff, but, you know, it's you look at the you look at the people that right now are lashing out against Elon Musk and and or at least in their minds, they're lashing out against Elon Musk Yeah. By damaging other people's properties. Yeah. You know, not realizing that, you know, yeah. Okay. Fine. You you may go out in there and key my car to pieces, but who's that's Elon Musk isn't suffering from that. Right. That's just stupid. Yeah. You know, and then you see and you see the videos of of of, you know, people on the street just screaming in in people's faces because they have a different political view.
And and howling and and and and Yeah. Top of the lung. I mean, to me, that that that's not somebody who's able to cope with reality, You know, and accept other people's opinions and, you know, your opinion doesn't matter unless it aligns with aligns with mine. You know, and I think a lot of that has to do with what you said about, you know, they're not taught that in school, they're not taught that at home, they're and a lot of the immature childish behaviors are more coddled and and more encouraged, you know, to to come out.
[01:31:55] Unknown:
Yeah. And, yeah, we have a real danger in our society right now with with misinformation. Yes. And it it is a on both sides, and it's a dangerous place because it manipulates people. People most people, I think, doesn't matter if you're on the right or the left. Most people are looking for fairness and justice Mhmm. And wanna be treated well. They wanna treat the other people well. You know, beyond that and then you have the manipulation of the narrative. And that's where the real danger is because people are trying to make decisions based upon these narrative or what is quote, unquote news or information, and it's often misleading deliberately.
Mhmm. It's a divisive, misinformation. And to me, that's the biggest danger of where we are right now is the misinformation sort of bubble, and it's very hard for people to to discern what's real and what isn't real. And, they've done studies that, like, people can't tell the difference. But, you know, what I would also say is, like, you know, critical thinking is is not so common. Right? It's it's people often just take too much BS at face value and accept it as truth. Right. And that's a danger. You know, I often wonder, like, what is Elon's motivation really here? Mhmm. Like, he's not laying in bed at night going, oh, if only America was more efficient.
Like, that's not his endgame. And so, like, you know, it's easy to watch people's bloviate and stomp and make big grand gestures because they're good sound bites. It's good video. Mhmm. But there's often something a little more behind it. Right? And so that's why I wonder, it's like, you know, it's not words, it's deeds. And what are the deeds? And so, again, I'm like, this richest guy in the world isn't fucking laying in bed at night wonder worrying about America's, you know, inefficiencies in in governments. And it's so hard to everybody likes to say right or left or blah blah blah. It's a year this year. And these labels, people are so much more than labels. Agreed.
And it doesn't matter which label, but people are so much more than these little petty labels that all they do is create you against me and me against you. And now we're fighting each other. We're now I'm done now, Joe. I think I lost you.
[01:34:32] Unknown:
Are you there? You there, buddy? I think I lost you. Yeah. I think Oh, there you are. We're having a little bit a bit of a Internet connection issue at the moment. But, I just wanna I just wanna go back to something you said about critical thinking, and, and I think a lot of that has to do with the education system in this country. Because in this country primarily teaches people what to think and not how to think. Absolutely. You know, and I and and and you're starting to see the fruit of that after the last, what, thirty, forty years? Regurgitate. Yeah. Exactly. And I think once people lose the ability to to know how to think, this is why we're seeing a lot of these outbursts and these public displays of of instability.
[01:35:17] Unknown:
There's there's a great line, and I don't remember who said it. He said, it's easier to get angry and violent. It's easier to do to to do violence than it is to think.
[01:35:33] Unknown:
I've not heard that, but that makes sense. It does. It it the emotional response Yeah. It's a lot easier, and and it takes less energy to to respond emotionally than it does to to stop and think before you act. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's really good. That's really good. Well, brother, we're having problems here with the Internet. So, Okay. What do you say we, we we wrap this up and then, Sounds good. And then what we'll do is, I will reach out to you, tomorrow and, we'll touch base and we'll have you on again and we'll we'll do we'll do some more talk about this. This is a great conversation, brother. I love talking to you. I knew we connected right away when we had our conversation. So Yeah. So this is fantastic.
Alright, folks. Doug Robbins, thank you so much again for being with us tonight, and, look forward to talking to you again. And, don't forget to, if I buy my if I buy the books through your website, don't forget to sign them. Anytime. Absolutely. You got a deal. Alright, brother. You have a great night. Alright, bro. Take care, man. Alrighty.
[01:36:34] Unknown:
Take care. Bye bye.
[01:36:35] Unknown:
Alright, folks. So we that was, Doug Robbins, and we wanna say thank you to Doug for being here with us tonight on the podcast. Alright. So, I'm not we're not gonna go any further with the, with the the clips for tonight as far as the, the political discussion because we're almost at two hours on the show. So we're gonna we're gonna wrap it up here, for the evening. Alright, folks. So again, just, just to remind you, just don't forget to head over to our website, joerusiello.com or joerus.com. I keep forgetting we changed the website. Joeroos.com.
Head over to the contact section. Send us over any questions or comments that you might have. If you have anything you'd like to ask Doug, just, just send it on over to us. I'll forward it over to him, and we'll get, we'll get some answers, for you. Also, look for that support button, and if you could help us out with a, with a, donation in any amount, we would really, really appreciate it. Also wanna give a shout out to our executive producers, Wayne and Wayne and Rosanna Rankin. Thank you so very much for your contributions and all of your help. And, we look forward to, working on a few more projects in the, in in the coming weeks.
I know, Wayne is up or was up in Alaska, so we're waiting for him to get back so we can, we can connect here again. Alright. Let's see what else we got. Don't forget the socials on x at joe roos. Instagram is not joe roos. Mine's Joe Roux, Facebook, the podcast with Joe Roux, and please head over to Truth Social. Folks, you would love Truth Social. Get yourself an account there. If you're if you're following anything the administration is doing, they will post it on truth social before anywhere else. So, head over there and check it out at truthsocial. You could find me there at Joe Ruse as well.
Alright, folks. That's gonna do it for us for tonight. Don't forget, let's make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride, and we will see you tomorrow night on the podcast. Good night.
Introduction and Technical Issues
Upcoming Guest: Douglas Robbins
Support and Donations
Streaming Platforms and Rumble Exclusive
Signal Gate Controversy
Interview with Douglas Robbins
Mental Health Discussion
Conclusion and Wrap-Up
