The o'chilli effect is sponsored by Wall Street, Window dot Com and listeners like
you, Yeah, yeah, Chelly September eleven, twenty twenty three, allegedly,
according to that thing we call a calendar, Yeah, September eleventh,
and it's the Ocelli effect. So here we are. Is it a Tuesday
like it was in two thousand and one? Note it's a Moonday Monday,
and I'm not normally going to broadcast on Mondays, but I made special arrangements
because no more Mondays for the Ocelli effect. But yeah, I had a
couple of guys lined up and I thought of them as equally important. Now
Rob Clark and our friend Doug Campbell over there, and the Lone Gunman guy,
the Dallas Action guy, the Quick Hits guys. They were supposed to
come on here because they could only really book for the eleventh, and they
were going to come on early, and then Rob Clark didn't show up,
So I don't know what happened. I hope Rob's okay and all that.
But I also simultaneously had the book this guest which I am about to speak
with, and why he's an author. He's an interesting guy. Now he
is not you know, he doesn't have a hundred books out there. It's
got two. Right now, I'm going to talk to him about his latest
and I did speak to him about his first, and I gotta be honest,
right out of the gate, I am so much happier to read this
newer book, although I was a little confused for a moment, and it's
a it's not a thick book. It's not crazy stuff. It's not you
know, an academic you know, cinder block, none of that. It's
actually a very short book. It's a very short book. It's a very
small book, but it does contain some substantial things. Chuck is speaking cryptically,
that's right. The name of the book is American Values, and the
author's name is Sam Idolette. I'm pretty sure I pronounced the last name correctly,
and I'm doing my best with that. You might have heard him on
Aaron Franz's show, you might have heard him on my show before. But
as for usual, look, I've got a different style and I'm definitely going
to take this in a different directions. So this book, again another recommends
from me, and I usually don't recommend books that well. I'm not sure
what genre this is. It doesn't matter, you know what. I don't
recommend a lot of books that are not, you know, straight ahead educational,
containing historical information. I read a lot of history, That's what I
do. Yes, indeed, I read some other things. I read fiction
occasionally, not much, but I do read fiction occasionally. Sometimes I read
blended stuff that you know is fictional, but you know it's based on reality.
Or maybe it's OJ's book saying that if he did kill somebody. Never
mind, I'm digressing. I read a lot of stuff, hundreds and hundreds
of books I've read, yes, indeed, but I usually don't spend a
lot of time on books that contained just purely. I know right up front
it's fiction, it's fantasy unless it catches my fantasy, my fancy. I
don't read a lot of imagine stories. Like I hated John Steinbeck when I
had to study him in school. I found it annoying. I like the
style, I liked some of it, but I found it annoying. Some
of Mark Twain's work, at least the crap that they shoved down your throat
in school, I did not enjoy it. Now I explored Mark Twain a
bit, and I enjoyed some of that other stuff he was doing that they
didn't put on the cannon for school. But generally speaking, I didn't like
all that. Shakespeare is great, sure, but also it's you know,
helpful if you want to go to sleep. It contains a lot of great
things. It contains a lot of interesting stories. And you know what,
we're gonna wind up talking about stories, because again here we go. The
name of the book is Simple American Values. And if you go to the
website, which I will remind you about again before we're done, if you
go to the really freshly minted website not too long ago, this website was
put together, and it's a little stopping off point. It is American Dash
Values dot net. That's the site, or a hyphen Maybe it's a dash,
maybe it's a hyphen. You know what I'm talking about here, a
horizontal line going between the two words, uh, you know, about halfway
up on the letters themselves. So American Dash or American hyphen values dot net.
That's the site for this current book. And if you go there and
you click on the link, it'll take you to Aaron Franz's bookshop dot org.
Thing so that you can buy the book through there, you know,
and you're you're helping everybody out if you do that. It's not that expensive.
I recommend the physical copy of this book, or any book, really,
and you can do that. Or is is there a digital version?
Uh? Sam, so no digital there is. There is actually one on
Amazon. You can you can purchase the digital edition. Yeah, but you
have to go to Amazon for that one. Of course you do, because
Amazon, you know, runs way too much stuff. And well we'll leave
that alone. Maybe maybe I'll give you guys the link to the Amazon as
well, because some people have to have their digital books. And I want
you to read this, that's for sure. But again my preference would be
get your hands on a physical copy. And it's not even that many pages,
just you know, right up front, let me see here. I
forgot exactly how many pages, but it's not that deep. And of course
I don't have my magnifier in front of me. How many pages is this,
Sam about? I don't actually remember, no, no problem, but
it's you know what a hundred pages represents exactly the size of this book.
Not very thick. It's like the side the thickness of a commemorative magazine okay,
and uh, you know common sort book size, not a giant book,
but a smaller one. So it's not a huge thing. You're not
gonna get choked on this thing. You could read it at your own pace
depending on who you are. It's not hyper difficult. You're not like trying
to take out of the source and figure out what the hell is going on.
Easily understood but not oversimplified. Now, funny because a title like American
Value, Sam, and I'm gonna wind up just turning it over to you
to get you to explain this. Because I end up with a book this
size and it has a title like that on it. I'm thinking to myself,
I'm gonna get a treatise. I'm gonna get a treatment. I'm gonna
get a thesis that is going to tell me about I don't know, libertarianism
making America great again? Okay, the social ills of the country, and
we should talk about the values and the values that should be and what should
be the core values of it. I'm thinking I'm getting Walter Cronkite's voice ready
in my head for the audio book, because it's gonna just be like,
now we report on the values of America. And the cover has a road
on it kind of reminds me of two things. Some of the old video
games, and there used to be an eye test where they have this road
thing that you stare at and it gets blurry and it clears up, and
it reminds me of that. It's an interesting photo though, and it's got
a road. And to be honest with you, the road is representative to
me of, well, what might remain of American values. And meanwhile,
this is not something that's lecturing you this book. This is different and we're
gonna have to get into it because I've actually read this book in a couple
of forms already. You showed me some of it before it was published.
So now I've disclosed everything I can think of. Okay, So I want
to turn it over to you and have you explained to me after you did
your your first book, and we discussed it on this show, Dancing with
My Fate, it's called and if you go to Dancing with My Fate all
one word dot com Dancing with My Fate dot com. If you go there,
that's the website for that book. You got the little paper dolls on
it. It's green and gray Green writing on a gray book. It is
an interesting book, make no mistake about it, but it's from a certain
perspective. This is a departure from that in my mind by a long shot.
Now I don't know why that is, because it's the same author.
Clearly you've got a style, I can see it. Anyway, Enough of
that, let's get back to American Values, which is the new book.
But if you go and you want a copy of Dancing with My Fate,
I would also advise it. It'll sit in just about the same spot on
your bookshelf as this one does. American Values and Dancing with My Fate are
well, they're similar sizes. They're similar sizes, they're they're bite size for
the literary end of it. They're physically not intimidating books, and they have
some interesting things in them. Both, So there you go. I would
see just get both. But for today we're talking about American Values. So
Sam, now my first question, what provoked I mean, Dancing with My
Fate was sort of a philosophical thing, and I'm being vague about it on
purpose. I mean, you call it a handbook about life and death,
and of course I think of Beetlejuice and that that that handbook there in that
movie. Here I go with the pop culture references. Whatever's wrong with me
today? It's probably just because it's September eleventh, and we might discuss that
before we're done. Anyway, That was Dancing with My Fate? What causes
you to have to write American values? And tell me about the the genesis
of this, because I tend to think it came from a different place than
Dancing with My Fate did. Yeah, yeah, it was definitely and so
so Dancing with My Fate. As you said, it's very philosophical, you
know, and that book. I had a lot of fun talking with you
about it, you know, a couple of years ago when I wrote it,
and ultimately though there was something else that needed to be said, and
I felt it. It was it was a something that I felt that I
needed to get out, I know what it was. And then as I
started thinking about it, it was this. You know, that book is
a lot about acceptance, and you know, there's some things that I really
can't accept and you know, at least in their current form, their contradictions,
their paradoxes, and you know, they're not resolvable in a way that
I can reconcile with. You know, there's you know, horrific abuse,
you know, how good? How can I accept that? And you know
and feel like I have living up to my values right at the same time,
you know, I want to be authentic, you know, like you
said, I don't want to be Walter Cronkite, Right, I don't want
to be you know, I lose are my values? And now I will
go off to you know, the club, you know, like that's stupid,
right, that's a contradiction. I'll go ahead. You know, I'm
sorry, but you're a guy who you know, let's let's make this clear.
In case somebody had not heard that first show with you or didn't hear
you with Aaron, let's just go with this. You know, I'm dealing
with a completely uninformed audience about you. You're a guy who served your country.
You're a guy who had certain beliefs about that, about your life and
what you invested into American values and what you invested in your fate. And
you had something to say in that first book that it felt like, Look,
it was one of those things that you had to get out, whether
you published it or not you were gonna have to write it, you needed
to express it. That's the way I feel about it. I don't think
it was incomplete, like as if this had to be the logical sequel,
like, oh I missed something, I gotta add to it. I don't
think that was the case here. You were definitely looking for something else that
needed to be said. Did it have anything to do with the journey of
the first book though at all? Or was it just something that you know
came about because of well, just your life experience in general. You said,
Okay, I've actually got something more that needs to be said, even
though I thought I got out of complete sentence the first time, I got
something else. Is it something else or is it an addendum? And I'm
misinformed here, No, it's totally something else. Yeah, I mean it
became something else. It began as as a question, which was that question
of well, I want to accept things, but I can't. What do
I do with that? And then it turned into a book because it's a
very important question. You know, it's a question of value. What is
valuable? You know, what are my values? And it's a kind of
a cliche to even asked that question. In America, you know, what
are your values? Like you said, what comes to mind is you know
this, you know, libertarian diatribe or you know, or or on the
other hand, like a socialist diatribe, or you know, kind of a
sly smile and like, you know, a wink, you know, like
the tony soprano wink. You know. And because you added American to the
title, you know, it's not just about values in general, because anybody
could discuss their value system. How it is they weigh the value of other
human beings is very important, definitely becomes part of your ethos, your system,
not just you, by the way, the general you. It's something
that will dictate behavior and does create situations. Now, as somebody who again
had some life experiences, you start questioning things, and that's what that first
book is. What does this all actually mean? What does it boil down
to when I've lived this certain way and now I come to find out that
maybe things aren't exactly as I thought they were at the beginning of the journey.
And if you don't learn something along the journey, then you were asleep,
right, So that's just the way it is. But what did you
learn and what was the value of it. Cool, great, But American
values could be a lot of things. And indeed, when you're talking about
the value, one of the values that always disturbs me, you know,
in its decline, because that could be another thing is a massive critique on
the society, right, it could be another wink, not the happy wink,
but that wink of I see you, you know, and I see
how you've gone wrong, and I'm gonna tell you about that. And there's
a lot of books out there that do that. Not what you were doing
here, but maybe you could have anyway, an open minded guy is what
I end up with at the end of Dancing with my fate. You know
what I'm saying, somebody was not so in lockstep with anybody else's formula that
they can't possibly be exposed to anything else, which at this point in our
society is rare. So, you know, again, let's get back to
that title, the American values, what are they anyway? Because there is
the actions we see, and then there is the rhetoric, and then there's
the guide books and guide posts out there, and then there's our culture,
alleged culture anyway, because sometimes I'm not sure, I mean, it is
a culture in a technical sense, But how cultured is your culture? Wrap
your mind around that, guys. But I mean, you know, here
we go, what does that actually mean? And is there a specific or
a special thing? You know, you hear all the time about the exceptionalism
of Americans, American society American culture. Is it because of its diversity,
as some people will absolutely swear up and down that it is. Or is
it because of a very basic core, you know, realistic way of working
with things, a set of laws, a set of order, there is
a set of establishment. Or is it about the people and the fact that
we're always changing and there is always things in motion here. There's no stagnation
at least in the short history of this country. Again, as it has
existed as a nation state only a couple hundred years, still sort of young
on the world map, right, so as the culture even really realistically been
established. And yet what is one of the most often you sighted headings of
anybody who wants to lecture or write along form something or other or even be
you know, an alleged journalist who's out there just writing off ed pieces everywhere
the American value system. And I decry the fact that I see a lack
of value being placed on human life, and I think that is at the
bottom of every single one of the social ills. We see the fact that
people don't value other human beings and don't think of them as human even in
a lot of cases, don't recognize them as having the same value as themselves
or people that they think are more like them, etc. Etc. And
this is the imbalance that causes the psychosis to be unleashed and terrible things to
happen. That's the most simplistic version of what I see. And obviously I'm
looking to write the book about the ills of the American values. Okay,
I'm not trying to. It's a joke, but either way, that's where
my book would come from if I titled it American Values, what the Hell's
wrong with people? But that's not what you did. So let's get back
to it again about how you started with this, and you have something else
to say, so tell me about it, and tell me about the first
version of this, because the early draft is not what you ended up with
here. So give us, you know, an idea how you started and
how it transformed from what I first saw to what we have now, which
I made very limited comments on you asked me take a look at this and
tell me what you think. I told you a couple of things, and
then, you know, I'm not sure why the book changed, but it
changed. So go ahead and tell us about that, please, and I'll
just sit back and listen. Yeah. So actually, you know, yeah,
Chuck, you know you read through the first iteration of the book.
I think you read through the first few chapters. And it was funny because
I read through the I've read between the lines of kind of your comments and
the introduction. You know, you helped me see that it was boring.
So I went ahead and rewrote it. I don't know if that was your
intention, but just kind of reading how you took it, I was like,
you know what this is, this is not I was going through this
metaphor I'll answer that. Look, I'll answer that real fast. I didn't
say that to you directly, but but it definitely was part of my thinking.
And I'm being I didn't want to be well, I wasn't trying to
be mean. It was just like, look, you said, look,
no, give me an honest evaluation of this, and I read it and
I said, I can kind of see where you're going. You know,
in my head this was the unedited version. I see where you're going,
but you're not taking me there, And that's that's what I saw. And
you know, I wasn't trying to be mean or like, you know,
look at him judging people. He doesn't even finish his book. Yeah,
I know, but uh, you know which, by the way, there
might be some news on that soon, guys. But anyway, you know,
I wasn't trying to be like that or overly judgmental, or you know,
be that jerk that criticizes everybody else but would never do it himself or
anything like that. Obviously, I put myself out all the time speaking,
you know, unedited live in front of people, because it is what it
is. If it comes out of my mouth right, wrong or whatever,
I got to own it. But so I don't have fear, like you
know, I'm one of these guys hiding behind and just critiquing other people.
But at the same time, I knew what you were going for. It
just it didn't quite work. And then when I saw the printed book,
I said, okay, we we have now gotten to that point where you've
engaged with me. Now, so I didn't comment much more. Yeah,
and I wanted to leave it for this discussion. So that's the whole answer
on that. You're right. I was kind of like, you're not you're
not bringing me. You know, you're not getting but you challenged me.
And I appreciate that because you I know you a little bit. I mean,
I wouldn't say we're best friends, but especially since I've been listening to
your show for a long time and I've got a good idea of your own
story because of you know, your audiobook and your reaction to that. I
mean, I got to bring it for real. I mean that was one
of my biggest goals is values have to be real, right, So if
this book is going to be valuable, I've got to dig deep. And
that's what I try to do. In the intro that I put in there
is me and it's deep, and I mean it's it's kind of ugly.
I'm putting it out there the same as you when you come on your show
every day and you just put it out there, and I'm exposing myself to
to harsh judgment potentially, you know, and that's okay, bring it on,
because you know what that's that's that's part of the book too, is
that you know, in order to like, in order to find value,
you have to invest something, right, You have to put something in,
You have to have some skin in the game, right And and so that's
where that message resonated with me, because you're someone that has been through quite
a bit and I think you know that all too well, and so it
was a good reminder for me to do the same if I wanted to be
speaking to you on your level and people that you know might be similar to
you, people that might be different from you, people that might have had
a lot of life experience, people that might be it's kind of completely sheltered.
You know. I wanted to be able to to break through that regardless,
and I know that the way to do that is to bring it as
real as I can, but in a way that isn't you know, just
you know like that that that scares people away. So it's got to be
authentic but also but measured. And you knows that. And that's a nice
part of this because look, there's a common ground between you and me.
We have different life experiences, that's for sure. We certainly have different voices
in a in a literary sense in a physical sense of all that. Uh.
And the thing is this, though we can come together on a couple
of things. If you spend all of your time doing nothing but protecting yourself,
no matter what damage you take or do not take in the course of
any events in life, here's the reality. If you spend all your energy
and your time protecting yourself, you're not going to spend a lot of it
living and actually experiencing or gaining anything. So you know the old adage of
fortune favor the bold and all of that, Well, it comes down to
not just be bold. But here's the thing. If you're not invested,
and you're not out there, and you don't put yourself out you know what
do they tell you? What's when some of the first you know, lost
love advice you ever get right, which is, well, you know what,
you gotta get back out there and put yourself out there again, because
if you don't, you'll never gain anything. So if you spend all your
time protecting with holding, where are you're going to go Nowhere? You'll just
spend your time doing that, and time will march on no matter how well
or how poorly you protect yourself. So you might as well invest get in
on it, get a little dirty, and yeah, follow it, go
through you know, experience, move forward, even if it's not always pleasant.
And I think you would agree with all of those sentiments and statements,
right yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean that's that's part of
that's part of what the you know, the ethos of the book at the
beginning is because that's kind of the American way, right, It's like,
roll up your sleeves, you know, get it, get out there and
get dirty and make yourself, make a man out of yourself. No,
I mean that's and that's not a bad thing, right, it's it's weaponized
all the time, right that that you know that there's that there's a you
know, an agenda attached to that in order to you know, sure,
they're their interests and power for sure. But at the same time, you
know, Levi jeans they're tough. You know, you wear them outside.
They don't break down like it's great, you know. I mean that's why
people are wearing them. See in every American story that is you know,
popular, that is romanticized, that's loved. What are they always about?
They've been generationally about that? I mean, I know today. We live
in comic book world, and yeah, there's time periods where Star Wars dominates
the movie and whatnot. But truth is, what do we always wind up
going back to? You go west, you go into the wilderness, you
go forth, and you forge things into wilderness areas, into wild areas,
into the unknown, into the danger zone. All that that is what rings
true, which just about every American, whether you like the Outlaws, or
you appreciate the frontiers, or you want to follow the parties by wagon train,
you know. Right now, one of the most popular things and has
been for I guess the past year or two, is you know what the
story of Yellowstone and going forward and ending up out there in jeez, what
was it New Mexico. I'm not into the series, but I've gotten into
the American idealism of that. That is something that one way or another has
continued to be translated through different generations, the different cultures that have been added
to this country, the different you know, blending in the actual melting pot,
it sustains itself. What is it about? Why do we love Outlaws
in America? Even because they said, all right, I see the situation
and I'm gonna go forward into something. Now, it's not always you know,
it's not always pleasant and everything, and sometimes it's over romanticized. But
even why do we love outlaws, why do we love cowboys, why do
we love gangsters? Why did they love John Dillinger? Okay, why did
Bonnie and Clyde matter to anybody? Because it was still not necessarily about the
criminality or people getting hurt, which some people even try to sanitize. Jesse,
James, Billy the Kid, all of it, right, the era
of the first organized crime really in America, which was cowboys, all right.
They were stealing, they were stealing from each other and ranchers, and
they were forging their own path though, that's for sure. It was independence,
the biker, the American biker, the motorcycle clubs, all of it.
All of our culture at its base somewhere has that ingredient of go forward
and forwards your own path, go into the wilderness, expand and survive.
So that's an interesting thing, and going west is an interesting topic as well.
Let's take a look at the table contents for a moment, okay,
because here we go. American conspiracy. Hell of a thing to start with.
I think I read that right, Is that what it was? Yea,
I'm pretty sure that was the name of the chapter. Chapter names.
I'm not retaining so well. I actually I'm looking at your book as I
speak to you, because I took the overall story together and well stories together
as well. No, let me not get there yet, because I'll be
skipping ahead. American conspiracy. What the hell are you starting with that for?
Tell us about that and you know, give us a thumbnail sketch of
the progression here through you know, part one anyway of the book. Yeah,
so that chap there. You know what really started my mind, you
know, in the name of that chapter is you know a lot of times
there's this idea that conspiracy culture is divisive and that there which is you know,
I'm not going to argue with that if people are saying that, I
don't necessarily think that that's true or false. I'm abstaining from that debate,
right. What I'm what I'm saying in this first chapter is that, you
know, it reminds me of Aaron Franz's piece a while back. He you
know, he had a he had one podcast called the Conspiracy is the Conspiracy?
And to me, that is what defines our The adolescent American experience is
a coming of age into a into a world full of conspiracy sees, you
know, And I used the example we talked about an Aaron's show of the
Kurt showing thing of how you know, I personally, you know, was
subjected to advertisements glorifying chewing tobacco as a child, and you know, emulated
the behavior of people that I saw on television and in a way that you
know, was aping, you know, a behavior that I couldn't understand that
was dangerous for me, and that truth was, you know, and especially
in the nineties, was being concealed from me. And that's commonplace. I'm
not stating anything, you know, some kind of theory of anything you know
out there that's you know, everyone can relate to that. If you can't
relate to that, then, like you said, you kind of have your
head in the sand a little bit, because it's it's just marketing, you
know. This is this is the American experiences that we get old enough to
understand what the symbols mean, and then those symbols are used to try and
you know, give us little nudges in one direction or another direction, in
ways that we don't fully understand. And a lot of times in ways that
a lot of people, you know, unless you invest a lot of time
and research into how it all works, we'll really never understand because it takes
a lot of research to really even understand how the mechanism of marketing works.
Right, And let's stick with tobacco for a second here, because that's a
fascinating topic in and of itself, because Okay, I'm a little older than
you, so and again I'm still not in the era of this stuff was
on TV neither or you you know, you you they had sanitized it from
television and a bunch of other outlets by the time you come along, and
I think I was born, and like, up to the age of one,
it would still be advertised on TV, straight up cigarette ads and stuff.
You know. The Marlboro Man was a TV commercial and all that.
He wasn't just you know, on the signs and stuff. But I also
was inundated with guess what Clint Eastwood would light up every time in the spaghetti
westerns, the tough guy, the dark horse hero. He was lighting up
little cigarellos. Right, every tough guy smoked. I smoked today now I'm
not saying I smoked because Clint Eastwood had a cigar. What I'm saying is
that between that the Marlboro Man, the tough guy symbol, the fact that
every one of those outlaw guys that I would root for in a movie and
a TV show, whatever, in a comic book seemed like they all smoked.
And it was a good way for me to be able to talk to
girls that would come and bum a cigarette off. That was the truth.
Now you come along and they've now gone to Joe Cambell and they've gone to
we'll give you prizes for smoking enough cigarettes again. They did that when I
was a kid too, but it was different brands. But Marlborough was turning
around and giving you cool stuff like pool queues and pool tables and you know,
and everyone that smokes Newports are super smoking hot and just laughing hysterically.
Oh Newports. Look that's the beach, just pure pleasures. Oh yeah,
pretty girls, the beach, bright bright sunlight. The tough guys got the
Marlboroughs. The hot chicks though, you know the ones that are in the
alcohol commercials. Still those women, Yeah, that's Newports okay. And they
were marketed to specific segments of society, just like the Marlborough Man was sold
to me. I feel like the Marlborough Man is what sold me. They
tried to sell you on Joe Cambell, but by the time the backlash of
cigarettes was there in your age group. Hey, we got a safer alternative.
We're not going to call it a safer alternative because we got a label
on their The surgery General told us to put on it. But how about
some chew that's not going to stick up your clothes. You just gotta spit
in a cup or something, but it won't stick up your clothes. And
you can be like the baseball players, and you can be like some of
these other guys. And you know what, Clint Eastwood was chewing tobacco in
some of his movies. Later there by the time he does Outlaw Josie Whales,
he's spitting on the dog and making the dog run away. Right,
I mean, look at the images I'm conjuring up in my head about chewing
tobacco baseball, right, Clint Eastwood? I mean, how much more?
Even though they were spaghetti westerns, a lot of them, not the Outlaw
Josie Whales. But yeah, that might be more Italian than American, but
no, no, no, that's an American image, that's an American ideal.
And it was still in our magazines when magazines were made of paper.
It was still there, lots of it. And they didn't give you a
warning about smoking on TV. That's a weird thing I see now, violent
sexual content, foul language, and smoking. Very weird to me that they
put that on the same level as shooting a guy eighty times. Maybe it
is the same thing. I don't know, but okay, I digress.
Point is, Yeah, marketing is an incredible thing and it's used for a
lot of different reasons, and of course tobacco is one of those. Well
let's get your consent and let's make you think it's a good idea to do
something that we say is a bad idea. But look, on the other
hand, Joe Campbell as cool as hell, isn't me? Yeah, you
don't want to be one of the you know, straight edge dorks, you
know, And like you said, it helps you get kids girls, man,
you go out, which you know I mean growing up like I I
you know, I went through a phase where I was smoking. You know,
I'm afraid to say that live because I'm ma sure and so, but
like you know, it's true, right, and like you know, I
would go out and I experience is exactly what you said, where like the
older kids, you know, I had a job at the movie theater and
like the older kids and like the you know, the the what I considered
so old because they were like twenty, you know, and they came out
and we would shoot the ship, you know, and I thought I was
cool, you know, and I smoked a lot. You know, I
got a bit of a habit for you know, a couple of years because
I I just you know, I just was trying to fit in and talk
to people and stuff like that. And I think, and I've never gotten
I've never gotten another guy. I'm sorry, sorry, Just just just one
thing real quick before you move on to the point you're really trying to make,
because I love this and this is a great little this is a great
little sub conversation that could be a conversation all in and of itself. Here's
the funny part to me is that I'm thirteen and I'm fourteen, right,
I looked older. And I gotta tell you, the girls that were seventeen
and eighteen looked a lot older and nicer to me than the thirteen year old
girls. So here's the deal, right, they would come and bomb a
cigarette off me. I could start a conversation that was more than a good
enough selling point outside of the addiction I was building right away. So as
a kid like that, you're going, yeah, look, man, there's
some of these hot I mean, I was more of a burnout kid.
I was a long haired you know, being a musician already, that was
another thing. So there was you know, all my peers smoked, all
my parents smoked, so it was commonplace and also was a social thing.
You didn't have to go outside all the time, but you couldn't, like
say, if you were in the mall, they would make you smoke in
the hallway, which meant that you could congregate in the hallway and guess what
else, meet girls. It was about meeting girls, and believe it or
not, my cigarette addiction, starting at the age of twelve, was more
about you know what I'm smoking now that fifteen sixteen year old girls gonna come
over and talk to me and ask me for a cigarette, and she'll stand
here and talk to me a little while, and who knows I look a
little older, it might work. I mean I had a beard and everything
I got served in bars when I was twelve. But the thing is,
that's a story for another day. But alcohol wasn't a problem. The cigarettes
were constant, and they were a lot easier, and nobody bothered you even
if you were twelve and smoking. Back then, it was like not a
big deal. Nowadays, highly judgmental. Get the hell out of the building,
Get thirty feet away from the door. I mean, you know,
go smoke. I don't care if it's a tornado outside, Go smoke outside.
But it was a little different than it was really different, and it
was a social mechanism on top of the glitzy marketing, on top of the
built in meta marketing. Almost because it's in the movies, it's on TV.
Who were the people that are smoking? Tommy Lee, the drummer for
Motley Crue, you know what, He put the cigarette in his nose in
one of his videos and blew it back out of his mouth after he sucked
it in through his nose. I mean, it was like, that's the
way it worked. And I know you, as I said that, you
probably were like, yeah, I remember that in some flashback on the MTB
at some point right anyway, all that goes on, and this is a
part of it, so ultimately the actual point you were trying to come to,
even though I kind of off roaded for a minute here on the cigarettes
again, and I'm gonna light one as soon as as soon as I let
you go go right on over to your next point. I want to go
through this part of it because again we've only gotten into the first chapter.
By title, and okay, conspiracy divisive. It is a common tig thing.
It's the uh, it's the uh what what do we call those anymore?
People get triggered, people get I don't know, set off, whatever
it is they call it. At this point, I'm not keeping up with
all the terms. It's a big way to start a devisive conversation. It's
a big way to identify people. It's an antisocial mechanism as opposed to the
social mechanism that cigarettes was so start. That's what I'm saying is, you
know, it's like, at the end of the day, though, we
went out there and we smoked, and we met really cool people and heard
some interesting perspectives that we wouldn't have heard right, And it's the same today
where you know, there's this idea of you know, oh, there's the
there's this, and there's that, and you know there's there's dangerous and and
you know, but at the same time, you know it's like, well
the bear, you know, you have to kind of do something dangerous in
America to be cool, right, So like it's a it's another contradiction.
And that's the point I think I'm trying to make in the first chapter is
you know, let's let's just admit right like America, if you know,
is full so full of contradictions that it's nearly impossible to navigate your way through
life without either being so sheltered that you're like, you know, Steve Urkel
or you know, you've done something to like be a bad person in some
way. You know, you're you're one of the bad somethings, which is
also totally condoned and glorified and made to look really really cool at the exact
same time as it's you know, dismissed and detegrated and said, oh,
don't do that. You know, there's it's like there's so many things in
our culture that are just like that, where you know, go to the
middle school dance but feet apart, you know. But then you know,
turn on the TV and like Britney Spears is Torkin again, you know,
and it's like, you know, you I'm I'm outing myself of what generation
I came from. But you know, it's like it's it's true. You
know, it's like so confusing, right for a kid. And that's where
I was trying to go, is like, well, at least if we
don't admit that for ourselves, let's admit that for our kids, because it's
true. And we're going to have to reconcile with this if we want to
have any chance of identifying what we value, because otherwise we're just kind of
copping out because like it is a contradiction. Well look, if you ever
reprint this and want to put a book blurb on there, I got one
for you from me, and it's it goes as follows. In America at
this given frame of history, cognitive dissidents is not a choice. It is
the survival mechanism that is simply part of the deal. If you want to
maintain your sanity, that's the truth of it. Anymore, you have to
accept Remember you talked about acceptance before. You have to accept the contradictions,
or you'll just be chasing your tail all day like a dog. I mean,
that's all there is to it, you know. So again, either
you're going to waste your time running in that circle and going nowhere see same
thing like before, or you're going to venture forward accept that. Indeed,
the tough guy who's a good fighter smokes, but he can't really breathe if
he's smoking for a while. You got to accept that. Okay, that's
just the way it is, and you got to accept the contradictions. Right
The guy who gets busted, you know, committing the immoral act is usually
the guy who was out there railing against it. That is a more American
than any apple pie. I mean, that's just the it is. Uh.
Here in Hollywood, we don't condone gun violence unless it's in our movies
and we want to actually profit from it, you know, you know,
like no matter where you turn, it is the constant contradiction. Of course,
you can be anything in the world in America, but if you're not
privileged, you ain't going nowhere near any of this stuff. Of course,
you know. Yeah, justice is equal for everyone, but what did they
say in animal farms some animals are more equal than others or something like that.
I am paraphrasing. Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a quote Courtney
Love from Whole and she she has a line that's like I fake, It's
so real, I'm beyond fake. And that to me summarizes what we're talking
about, because it's not fake, you know, it's it's beyond fake,
because you know, you have like like you said, the gangster missed the
boy myth. You know Ronald Reagan smile. You know, it's so it's
genuine. It's like you just feel like he knows something, you know,
and he probably does, you know. It's the beauty of it all.
Like we live in a time where people forcibly take physical money and force it
into the digital world so that they can obtain a digital product that they can
never put back in their hands. That is just the exchange, that is
the social contract at this point in a nutshell, let me take this pile
of cash, go buy an NFT that I own absolutely but I can never
actually physically put my hands on the thing I own. Let me go buy
a piece of virtual real estate that I can never set foot on. But
I own it. It is part of a map. I can see it,
and I gave tangible energy and effort and resource to obtain it. Welcome
to America. I mean that's what it is. So okay, let's let's
move forward word here, because I want to I want to do this in
a quick way, because I want to give you guys a hint about this
book. I want to give you, guys, the idea of this book.
I don't want to give you the whole hundred pages though in this discussion,
which is why I've lingered on a few topics. But let's try and
move along, sam like quickly through a couple of parts here, because and
I don't want to go down everything on the list. But American Conspiracy was
a great beginner and a great like smack across the nose to give everybody a
quick wake up. We're going somewhere, and you know, tell us about
the different stories that come together here and give us, you know, give
them an idea of the journey that we're going to go on on this well,
I'm thinking about this road on the front cover again, American Values.
And yeah, there is indeed a road with a dotted line and that road
is cracked and it goes off into the distance. And anyway, metaphor on
top of metaphor, Sam tell us about this journey, how does it how
does it flow from there? Sure? Yeah, I mean the first So
the book is set into two sections, you know, American Dreams and American
Deserts. I named it those two because I wanted to highlight the contrast between
the idea of America, which is what we're talking about, which is pretty
easily you know, contradicted, or I mean beyond easy. You know,
it's the contradictions are apparent on the face of it, but then you know
there is something real, you know. And I chose the desert because the
desert is kind of what when you think of America, or I think,
especially when people that aren't American think about America, they think about the desert
because you know, that's in France or in Japan, or you know,
there's so many places in the world where or even in other places where there
are deserts. The American desert is so distinct and unique. You know,
the Grand Canyon and these cowboys traversed these wide open spaces and it's just so
you know, cool, there's something there, you know, and then there's
the image that's kind of superimposed on top of it. But it is there.
And if you go to the Grand Canyon, it's beautiful, it's it's
spiritual, you know, I said, you can feel the presence of something
greater than yourself in that space. That's real, and that's America. You
know, that's all of our birthright if we would, you know, if
we would take it. But you know, taking it has first you have
to identify what it even is well. And there's the problem so far from
that, there's the problem with embracing it or accepting it. Because here's the
other difficulty. I don't know what foreigners necessarily think of when they think of
America, because anytime I've spoken to them about it, you know, they
tell me about the cities, they tell me about the culture, the pop
culture, stuff that leaks into their culture. But I don't know what they
really think of it. I do know that Americans think of deserts, and
exactly the contradictory fashion. They think of deserts as lifeless areas. It's dry,
it's difficult to survive, and that's what they think of it. As
the obstacle. They think of it as the dead zone. In truth,
deserts are teeming with life. I mean, whether you're in the Grand Canyon
or you're having an experience in the mineral rich areas in Arizona, which I
appreciated and visited with. You know what they call Native Americans today, right
those people when I spend time with them there. You want to talk about
a rich setting, a rich idea where you can embrace life, not death.
People think of Death Valley. They think of the dryness they you know,
what do they show us in cartoons that's revealing the dried, bleached bones.
Indeed, there is that in the desert, but there's a lot of
life. And it's not just cacti and scorpions. There's a lot of life.
There's a lot to it. There's a lot of energy. A desert
is something interesting, although most people, unless you're in Vegas, don't really
want to live there. For the most part, here we go. Americans
embrace it, but at the same time it's they're repelled away from it in
some cases, depending on where they're from. Ask an average American about the
deserts. They can name a couple and the first characteristics, dry dead,
difficult to survive, maybe buzzards flying around, bugs Bunny. I mean that's
you know, my age group anyway. I mean, is there a difference
as bugs Bunny, you know was not quite as popular in your time?
Maybe is there a difference or am I misreading that as far as the way
people take deserts to me? No, I think you're right. I mean,
I think what you're hitting on is the idea that I'm playing on,
which is the thing itself versus the idea of the thing right, And you
know, unlike I think a lot of people who would be potentially you know,
railing against the machine, Like I'm the first to admit that I don't
know the thing itself. I've lost touch with that. I'm trying to find
it, you know. That's that's part of this journey is and I think
that's what a lot of Americans are trying to find, is that authentic thing,
you know, what is it for real? Not this glamorized or you
know, glossy or you know, even if it's ugly and dark, it's
like this, it's like a you know, a drama, HBO drama,
ugly, dark, gritty, real, you know, and it's like I
love when HBO or other you know, big big shows and movies say advertise
something as real, you know, because it's inherently not. That's the interesting
part. And here's the other part of it too, is even when you
see an American attempting to embrace the American nature scene in any way, shape
or form, what fascinates me is that the people that do live in the
desert, they want to focus on the ocean. The people that live near
the ocean, they you think the desert and the forest is wonderful. If
they live in the forest, they might want to go see the flat lands,
or maybe they want to see the cities the artificial ecosphere. Right,
It's fascinating to me that they'll tell you. And even if they're studied and
they're well read and they get into something like I said, if you're in
Arizona and you're studying whales, that's great, but they don't know what's right
outside their door. You know. They turn around and they say, oh,
well, you know, okay, you want a natural solution, here's
something you can find blah blah blah blah blah. And they say, oh,
well, where in the hell would I get that from they and you
look it up, and you look up the region they're and you tell them,
well, as far as I can tell where you live, it should
be growing under your feet, like everywhere you go. And they don't know
that. They don't know what kind of trees are in their neighborhood. And
they'll study whales, you know what I'm saying. So there's always that disconnect
and that pole keeping them at a distance from the thing that should be accessible,
which I find fascinating too, and I guess is again part of the
idea of the thing versus the thing and the absolute willful ignorance. And I
do mean ignorance in that they're ignoring, not ignorance like they're you know,
uneducated unaware, But I guess they are uneducated unaware. But that's not the
main point. It's the fact that they're literally ignoring what's right in front of
them in favor of something else that is again very very American. So Sam,
here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take a little break here,
and I want to concisely run through and give people a good sketch on the
rest of this book as we go forward. Sam Idolett is with me.
The name of the book is American Values, okay, and I'm gonna give
you the website right now, but also I'm gonna give it to you again
before we're all done for sure, all right, because American dash values or
American hyphen values either way. Dot net is the website. Go there.
You can buy the book through a link Aaron Bronze's bookshop dot org. Link
is there. All that, and Sam Idolette and myself will return after this.
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of John Kennedy. Come on now has a real ecort on the day Kay's
fascination. Go into her claims. Go to Amazon dot com enter Judith Baker
in her own words. You'll get the results for a digital copy of a
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to get at well a different perspective. Let's say you can get Judith Barry
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Swamps. Hey, look, I actually have a little offer that I want
to drop to everybody who's on here and anybody listening, if if you don't
mind, mister Cooper, I'd like to take a minute and make a little
offer and and ask of everybody watching, listening and participating. No, not
at all. Okay. Look, I am continuously building my little network,
and I've got a twenty four seven radio station. Okay, online, it's
got a bit of reach. It's been interesting. I've had it running steadily
without interruption for I don't know, five seven years something like that. But
here's the thing I would love to get, because some people are going to
start paying to run things on my radio station, but I don't. I'm
not looking for money here today. I mean, you know, I'll take
it if anybody's got something they want to give it up, but you know,
because I could use it, but I'm not looking for that right this
minute. My offer is simple. Actually, if you have short audios that
you would like because you have a presentation of tight five ten minutes worth of
something that you think is absolutely worthy of the world hearing. Okay, because
I have listeners all over the world to that radio station. They're not in
huge numbers all at one time, but they're constant twenty four seven. Every
country you could possibly think of tunes into my radio station at one point or
another. It's not huge. It's not like, oh, I've got millions
of listeners. But we do have thousands, and we have thousands of people
that tune in and catch get Mad with Chris Graves and catch the replace and
catch my show, which is the Ocelli effect, and they catch the replace
and they catch Aaron Frowns as the age of transitions. Pretty soon they're going
to be catching a culled priestess on there anyway. And I've got offers to
other people to join us, you know, working on it. But here's
the thing, I don't care if you're a podcaster, or if you're a
musician, or if you're just somebody who's got some great thoughts. So you
take the world needs to here. Do me a favor, record them making
MP three and send them on over to me. I want to start populating
the stream for the next little while with stuff that I'm not charging anybody to
run. It's just good stuff. Send me your good stuff, okay,
blind JFK researcher at gmail dot com. Just email it to me. All
right. You got music, Maybe you're a musician, maybe you're a podcaster,
and you want to do an ad for your podcast because you want other
people to listen. You haven't been a guest on my show Maybe You Haven't
Oh Chili dot Com second and final segment for a Moonday and Monday, an
unusual broadcast in the schedule now because I don't normally do live ones on Monday,
But what the hell I had to I wanted to bring Sam Idolet back
on, not to discuss his first book, although maybe we should do a
show that focuses on both of them, because even though they're separate entities,
they do kind of fit together too. I'm not gonna explain that. I'll
let you guys figure that out, and I'm not gonna ask Sam to explain
it. Don't explain it. Sam. Sam is with me and he's like,
whatever the hell you're talking about, dude, Anyway, no problem.
American Values is the name of this book, and it's not a treatise or
a lecture on what it is you should be doing, should not be doing,
how we're gonna make America. We're not doing that. This is a
journey and it's definitely you know, hinted at indicated by the artwork on the
book, which is a road which I do believe is distinctively American, even
though who knows, maybe this is what roads look like worldwide. I haven't
been on the road in other countries lately. Maybe it is. Maybe it's
not our crumbling infrastructure, our desert in the distance, our lack of understanding
about the thing versus the idea of the thing. Yeah, that sounds like
America to me. And that's what we've discussed so far. But Sam,
you tell different stories in here, and I do want to ask. Unfortunately,
I'm gonna ask one of the same questions Aaron did, and ask you,
you know, how much of this stuff is well just nonfiction you're reporting,
and how much of this is a creation and addendum maybe to a life
experience that you've intentionally laid out. I mean, give us an idea of
how this is structured. Like a reader is going to get some different stories
here under these different chapter headlines, and they're going to get an overall journey.
So give us an idea of how those stories are laid out, and
also how much of it is directly and straight up drawn from life, and
how much of it is maybe tweaked added to in order to make certain points.
And again, we're not going to give you the whole point of the
book. Then you won't want to read the hundred pages, but I encourage
you to do so and go to American Dash or hyphen either way, American
Dash values dot net. That's the website. You can go right there.
There's only one thing to really click on it, you know, and it
is a link to go buy it at bookshop dot org, which is Aaron
Franz's link. So I encourage you use that, and I encourage you to
get the physical book. I'm going to find the Amazon link as well in
case you really want to just have the book. But I definitely think that
having this book it's not going to take up a lot of space on your
bookshelf. It could take up a lot of space in your head though,
depending on how you read it. And you have choices here. Anyway,
Sam, enough out of me. Tell me about this book, the journey,
the different stories, you know, Shoot, go ahead and it'll be
a short segment. But I want to give you the time to tell that
to the listener. Yeah, so we you know, when we left off,
we're talking about you know, dreams versus deserts and the thing versus the
idea of the thing. And one thing I wanted to mention, you know,
is a big key part of this book is you know, exploring like
who is we versus them? Right, because that's a big part of being
American too, is you know, this this debate because you know, it's
not like we have some kind of shared ethnic or cultural background. I mean,
America is a melting pot. So you know, we are potentially everybody
right. I mean, as long as you are here and and and want
to participate in society in some way, you're you know American, right,
and and so that's you know, an important thing to recognize. So you
know, with that, with that being said, you know, one of
the things that's really important in my in my book is kind of a revelation
that we are they right? Like when when when so many people are using
words like they, it's it's very slap dash, it's very haphazard. If
these are things that are you know, kind of assumed or you know,
talked through. But you know, you chuck a lot of times, You'll
you'll bring up the idea of the invisible uh majority of people, right,
I mean kind of hearkens back to Republican silent majority, and that's putting a
label on it, right, But like in reality, the invisible majority or
the It really is just fact that the majority of the people of paycheck to
paycheck more than just a majority, I mean, the large majority of people
work paycheck to paycheck. You know, are are struggling, you know,
are struggling with mental health stuff, have you know, debt, have challenges,
are trying to just kind of get a leg up in the world.
Some perhaps more than others. I think there's obviously distinctions between those things,
but ultimately between the true halves and the halves knots. You know, the
majority of people are are way down on the halves knots. You know that
that's just true, and that's not necessarily like a comment about what ought to
be or anything like that, but it's just a fact. It's a simple
matter of sam Because you've got a bunch of billionaires in this country, which
we do, and you tell me that the mean average of income is somewhere
around one hundred thousand dollars, that means there's a whole lot of people that
got to be making ten and twenty thousand dollars, which, as we know,
especially in the past couple of years, means guess what, you're barely
surviving If that and there's a lot more of them than there are the billionaires.
In order to get to that one hundred thousand dollars, to bring the
mean average down, you need a lot of ten thousand dollars earners, You
need a lot of five thousand dollars earners, twenty thousand dollars earners, thirty
thousand dollars earners. And that's for whole families in most cases. I mean,
my family currently disclosure, you know what, we live on less than
thirty thousand dollars, three of us, right, guarantee it. That's just
the way it is. I'm not trying to cry about it. I'm just
telling you that's the way it is. And the majority of people I encounter
are in about the same boat as me. Where there are one hundred and
twenty thousand dollars or one hundred thousand dollars earners that that mean average represents,
and they exist. But there's a lot of room in order to create that
average between the bezos and me, you know what I'm saying. So,
yeah, there's that reality going and and and not to go off on a
tangent, but I mean I would even say that, you know, depending
on where you live. I mean, this is gonna sound maybe like not
resonant with people, but like a family one hundred grand where I live in
Washington, DC area, where rents are astronomical, it doesn't go as far
as you might think. No, not at all, you know. So
I mean I'm not saying that like people shouldn't be grateful if they make that
much. But it's not like they're like, you know, let's go out
to eat every day. It's like no, but no, you're like,
okay, you're budgeting exactly. I'm from Jersey, right, so in New
Jersey, if I was to take that hundred thousand dollars is there, I
would live on maybe the same kind of level that I do on thirty thousand
here in Georgia. Okay, I'm serious. If I'm lucky. If I'm
lucky, and in some parts of Jersey, I can't survive, I can't
even be there. So real simple, and that's my that's my home.
I miss my home. I'm actually homesick all the time for Jersey. I
love it, love the food, missed the shore. It's not the same
ocean. I don't care if they call it the Atlantic here. It just
ain't bottom line that you and if I went to New York, I mean,
homeless people do better to me in New York begging for change. I
mean, that's the truth. I'm not even trying to be hyperbolic here,
that's just the reality. So it is a regional experience in this country too,
you know where they talk about the outrageous, outlandish taxes of California.
Yeah, but even if you're sweeping floors, you're making better money then some
of the people here doing really important jobs where they're in charge of human beings
and people's safety and all kinds of stuff. I mean, a guy literally
sweeping up in a barbershop and in Los Angeles might make more than a cop
here in Georgia. Telling you that's the way it is, Yeah, it's
true. Yeah, I mean yeah, so you know, so all that's
to say, you know, the reason that's important is because you know,
when we think about what we value, who's we and who say? You
know, it's like the majority of people have certain values, you know,
what are they? You know, and it's it's a way of being,
it's a way of acting, you know, and what's okay you know,
and what's not okay? And we get to define that, and you know,
I think that what's reflected to us in media and in marketing, but
also just in movies and music, and you know, everything is really not
you know, and I know like a lot of times that will be kind
of painted on with more of a right wing you know, Christian Chris Christian
view, but I think let's just let's just put that aside, and you
know, just kind of it doesn't really reflect the daily like Little Wayne's life
does not reflect my experience in any way, you know, you know,
or you know even someone anybody you know, Dean Martin, you know,
eighty years ago or whatever, like over the past, since about the nineteen
fifties and maybe since John Steinbeck, right, the reflections that we're being served
are not accurate. You know, they kind of seem almost attainable, like
especially when I was growing up, like movies like you know, the college
funny college movies of like the frat boys having fun, and it's like it
almost seems attainable until you realize that, like you're probably not really going to
get into a frat because you know, you you don't you know, you
don't know people like that, and you know you might get invited, but
then you're just kind of gonna get made fun of by the actual frat boys.
And you know, the the hot chicks that are in the movies are
you know, only really interested in those guys because they know you know,
you know, And I'm not denigrating like fraternities or anything like that, but
I'm saying, like, for me personally, it was a wake up call,
you know, one that even got to experience college. But like you
know that that idea of like what I saw it kind of seemed obtainable to
me in high school, but then it was quick realization once I got there
that it's like not obtainable at all. Like I'm completely different from that.
And that's the reality for you know. And obviously it's more extreme things when
it comes to like you know, super fame, you know, Johnny Depp
or something that's obviously Brad Pitt, you know, And so I call that
out and then you know, the the ultimate driving conclusion of all of this
without I don't think it spoils the book to say, you know, in
order to find value, we all we have to do is look at ourselves
and the people around us. Like you said, it's and I think there
is a romantic say romanticization about that of like the natural world and let's go
camping and things. But that's you know, you gotta you gotta peel that
back a little bit. And it's like, you know, I just listen,
like I was telling you during the break, like you know, you
were saying, oh, I talked too much. It's like, no,
Chuck, you're you're you, and this is your show. And I listen
to your show a lot because I like hearing what you have to say,
you know, and you keep it real and you bring it and I enjoy
that more so than I enjoy you know, Rachel Maddow talking because she's boring
and she's talking off of a script anyway, you know, and it's not
real. She's manipulate, she's trying to manipulate me. And there's a whole
machine apparatus, you know. And it's not just Rachel Maddow. I mean,
it's it's all of these people, including the people on YouTube that are
claiming to be you know it deep. Like I talked about with Aaron,
It's like there are a whole lot of people out there that are not being
authentic, but you are. And that's valuable to me. And yet I
could never attain the reward that you know, an influencer does on Instagram or
TikTok because I'm not as easily marketable. Right, reality is, you know,
you can market it, you can package it. And we went through
a time period not long ago where reality TV was the biggest thing, and
reality this and that. Right, true crime we're still going through it.
What is a big, huge genren podcast true crime? Well, take a
look at true crime. It's usually about somebody's personalized agenda. And what do
you do. You tune in there to hear about horrible things that you think
are at a distance from you, and you're constantly being reminded because it's part
of the fear porn system that you know what, this could happen to anybody
in any tone America And get ready, because here was a wholesome girl and
now she's dead and so we're gonna find out what happened, and you know,
and and it's like and people lock into that, and they reward that.
They reward people that are going to give them fear porn. They reward
people that are going to show them the terrible I mean, you go to
TikTok today, and I'll give you a weird example of stuff on TikTok or
whatever. There's babies on there that you know, the mamas are shooting videos
of them, and they're sick kids. They're really really sick. I mean,
God Like, you're looking at kids that should be learning how to walk
and crawl and they are immobilized because of an illness, because of their spine,
because of a birth effect or something, and they're on TikTok and they're
monetized because so many people will go there to let their heart ache from a
distance, to have the surrogate experience instead of the experience. And that's the
world. Have the surrogate experience, or you can experience it youself. You
can deal with the scripted, or you can go look at the reality.
And meanwhile, if all you are is an audience member and an onlooker,
what have you actually accomplished outside of helping to fill somebody's pocket and becoming,
you know, a member and becoming part of the thing that is this group,
this group that you never even get into a group to form, but
it is a group right here. We go vicariously always, yeah, and
I mean so I go to Vegas, right, So I think that's what
you're kind of aiming at here, is that in the book, you know,
I go to Vegas, and I'd like to compare social media with a
casino because you know, people to this day, I think, you know,
people really misunderstand the business model of social media. And you know,
we're not the customer, right, you know, the where the rama to
areal that creates the product and then you know we are the the consumer of
the advertisements and things. You know, So the product is that our behaviors
are shaped in ways that their true customers desire. Right, That's the that's
the product. And so you know it's as simple as that ultimately, and
you know, our data is there, is there, you know, material
that they use to create this product, and you know we we give them
that you know, freely all the time. And you know it's, uh,
it's it's something that I wish more people would would take more seriously.
How much how dangerous that is? I think, you know, it's like
it's almost like going up against the ocean, like you think you're safe,
you know, but it doesn't if the if there's a really bad you know,
conditions like it doesn't matter how you You know, Michael Phelps could drown
in the ocean. You know, you're deluding yourself if you think that you
know you can go up against this thing and come out completely unscathed, because
you can't. The entire purpose of it is to manipulate you, and it's
got a billion dollars budget to do it. Seeing an interesting idea here which
you which you definitely convey, whether you know whether it's on the nose or
not, I'm gonna go for it. I think this is relevant and this
is one of the believe it or not, the metaphor keys to this entire
book, which is again only one hundred pages. American Values, American hyphen
Values, or American dash Values. Dot net is the website. But here's
the thing. Social media Vegas. Okay, these types of places, all
this stuff, you got bells and whistles and rewards that come out like buttons.
Attention. All of it is there, with the pretty colors and the
flashing lights to get you to engage with your fingertips, to fund it,
to be the funding mechanism for at the end of the day, it's all
about collecting. Like that line in Casino, all of the trips, all
of the comps, all of the circumstance, all of the flashing lights,
the pretty girls, the free drinks. At the end of the day,
what is it about. Here's a vaults, here's a room with the money
in it, and you walk away broke. No matter what, the house
always wins, and we're going to engage with you on this very basic level
where you're rewarded with the dopamine. And that's it. And that's what I
read in the subtext of your book. Now tell me I'm wrong, and
I'll apologize that I misread your book, but I think that's where it's at.
That's a big, huge key to this. Am I right or wrong?
Oh? You're right. I mean that scene in Casino where they show
where they show the you know, the the mechanism, right where like they're
counting the money and then they just put a little percentage in a in a
bag and then one guy walks in there and picks up the bag, and
you know, it's like three or four people even really understand what's even happening.
Right, But then you know, Joe Pesci, you know, makes
a whole bunch of money, right, Like that's you know, that's that's
that's a very good I think illustration. On the other hand, it's kind
of like messed up because you know, I mentioned Joe Pesci. I mean
this is we're being entertained, right, you know. And then there's even
a movie saying are you not entertained? Like, oh no, I'm being
entertained about how the masses are being fooled. Well, but that's the idy
of it, because look that guy who goes through there and actually knows what
to do and goes in and surgically is just the bagman picking stuff up.
The beauty of it. And Russell Crowe and Gladiator said that that's one of
my favorite lines in any movie anytime. Are you entertained is not what you're
here for? Yes it is. And here's the sad part. That guy
walking in and out of that casino is there to pick up the skin.
It is only a very small part. See the whole gangsterism. They built
a hotel, they did this, they funded it, all that stuff.
It's about that bag What does he have to do in order to go extract?
And he walks through the casino, he sees all the lights, he
sees all the people, a thousand people out there, those thousand people,
what has it boiled down to at the end account nobody understands, a room
nobody sees, and the actual profit that occurs that has nothing to do with
the actual experience of the people who are actually causing this to happen, which
is if nobody shows up at the casino. Donald Trump proved this in real
life. If nobody shows up at the casino or it's not run just so,
guess what it goes under, even in Atlantic City three times. So
anyway, it's a joke, all right, And I know it just pissed
off people. But whatever it is, it is I find it funny.
Sam, Let's let's get wrap a bow on this, because again I want
to I want people to go pick up the book. I want them to
see where it is that you take us on this journey, because it's not
just you making these statements here. You're not just like here, look,
here's two sentences of a metaphor. Bang. This is not means this is
a trip. You are on this road in my mind in this book,
you're on this road. I don't know if that was your entire intent to
begin with, but it definitely became your intent. And I think that as
you take us through and you give us the slices of Americano in different places.
Again, you know, you started with conspiracy, right, and then
let me just go to my reference here. You went to the illusion,
you went to memory, you went to reckoning, great progression there. It
reminds me very much of what do we go through when the stages agree?
Right, and I always put them out of order, but it doesn't matter
because they could be ordered differently, but either way you're gonna go through them.
So one way or another, you could reorder these chapters and you're gonna
go on that journey at some point if you bother to do anything but accept
the cognitive dissonance, accept the constant contradictions. As soon as you start to
question, you have guaranteed yourself the grief cycle, except it's Sam's version of
it, right, this is the way I see it, Okay. And
then the American deserts, the right, American outcasts, American gamblers, American
heretics, American utopia. At the end of the day, whether people believe
we can get to a utopia or we're in one already. You know,
the whole. This is the greatest country in the world. No matter what
you say, don't say anything else, you know, no matter what,
American utopia has to be there. It could be at the front of the
chapters though there in that second part. It could be your beginning point because
you bought the illusion. Oh whoops, we gotta put the illusion first.
Oh that's right, it's in the first part. I'm telling you this journey.
You could change the order of it a bit, and maybe it is
similar to your journey. Not your Sam, I mean you, the listeners.
You the listener, You, the person who's ear I'm in right now,
who I appreciate, by the way, who is actually taking the time
to listen to me run off at the mouth and hearing Sam talk about this
book. I don't want you to just hear Sam talk about it. I
want you go get it. I definitely endorse this. It is a read
that should should provoke more thought on something that, whether you knew it or
not, you should have been thinking about all along, and many of us
have been. I think it is a helper even if you've already been there.
You say to yourself, look, I've already thought through this. Sam.
I don't need to go through this journey. I think you should.
Sam's way of writing about this is different than what I'm accustomed to. Again,
it's not a lecture, it's not a man some judgment. It is
an exhibition. And again I don't know how much of it's real. I
don't know how much of it is you know, straight up, just your
experience. One. I'm glad, yeah you did, but that's okay.
Maybe one of you guys can figure it out after you read it, let
me know, or maybe we'll do a part two with you Sam. So
with that, I turned it over to you. Whatever it is you think
you want to end on, I give it to you. And I'm sorry
it took you an hour and a half. I meant to only take you
an hour. But what the hell? This was worth it, even this
hundred pages. I probably could have read the book tell you quicker guys out
there, but anyway, I didn't. I want you guys to consider this,
consider the conversation. Some of the off roading we did is valuable to
the book, but I think is also relevant and important enough that we had
this conversation. And I appreciate your indulgence and patience. I definitely think you
did well. I don't want to sound mean, but this is an improvement
over the other book. The other book was good, but this, to
me is a clear evolution and is well. I value this book more than
the other one. I like the other one, but I value this book
more because this, to me, is the kind of thing that we should
all be thinking about a lot more. What does this mean? Since we're
here, let's come down to it. Instead of arguing about what America should
be, how we're going to change it with our next vote? Vote harder.
That'll help. Look, if that's what you think is going to solve
it, I'm not going to argue with you, but I gotta say you're
not using your imagination. And I think Sam did here, but he used
his imagination based on a true story. So American values again, American dash
values dot net. That's the website. But Sam, go ahead and give
us a close on this. Sam Idolette has been my guest now for well,
let's see about an hour and twenty something minutes. So again, my
apologies for taking you longer, but I think it was worth it, and
I thank you for indulging me. Sam go ahead, No, thank you,
Chuck for having me on. This is a really cool conversation. I
appreciate that I'm at a fellow casino fan. I love that movie and Gladiator.
I love that movie as well. So yeah, I'd love to come
back on and talk more. I just honestly, it's just I enjoy talking
to you. And let's let me just give out my email Dancing with my
Fate dot Com. There's an email address there, so please do reach out
to me if you have any any thoughts. I'd really appreciate those. Not
too many people actually reach out, you know. I know people are reading
the book because I can see the numbers, but I really would like to
hear from people, even if you even if you hated it, I want
to know, you know, I would appreciate hearing about that, you know,
or anything, So let me know all right back. I'm not like
bombarded with emails at this point, so I promise all right back, and
uh yeah, so all right. So, if you go to Dancing with
My Fate dot Com all one word, Dancing with My Fate dot com.
If you go there and you're on a desktop on the right hand side,
there's a contact button you hit that there's an email address contact Sam. He
likes feedback on his books. Uh, definitely is interested to see what you
thought, how you experienced it. He was even really, uh, you
know, gracious and let me see the beginning of this book before it was
published, before it was finalized, and I appreciated that as well. I'm
not saying he's going to do that for all of you guys, but either
way, if you read the book, I'm very sure either of the books
you'd like to hear back about it, especially American Values. I think you
want to hear more about it, but you still take an emails for Dancing
with My Fate, So American dash Values dot net or dancing with my Fate
dot com. Those are two websites you want to contact them. It's the
Dancing with My Fate. And I'm gonna give you guys links directly in the
show notes and also try and get myself the Amazon links so you guys can
go there. If you really want the E book, I guess go get
it, but I definitely always suggest get the paperback, the hard copy edition,
not hardcover, but hard copy edition. Get a book in your hands.
I don't think Sam's in danger are being deleted or part of the digital
book burning, but you never know. And I'll tell you I always value
a book I can actually hold, even if it's you know, oh,
you can enlarge the other thing and blah blah blah. I don't care.
I like the old school way of reading a book. I know, Grandpa,
get off my lawn. But still it's good to have. And I
really appreciate you taking the time, Sam, and I appreciate this, this
piece of work. And we may have an announcement, you and I in
the near future. We'll see how things work out. Not gonna give you
any more of a teaser than that about some other project. But this book
here, I want people to go get I want you guys to read it.
And again, Sam, idolette, And if you don't know how to
spell that, well, let's take a look over at the website so then
I don't screw it up. And let's let's be clear about the way this
works. Okay, And it's Sam. You know, Sam, that's pretty
simple. I mean you don't how to spell that, I mean, welcome
to the world. And I'm very glad somebody turned on the internet for you.
But Idolette A Y. D. L. E. T T E.
So yeah, Idolette, Sam Idolette is the author. He's uh,
you know again, a nice guy, a smart guy, a thoughtful person
in an interesting author. So I definitely advise that you go get the book,
read it, and hopefully it will provoke thought in you as it did
in me. So the o'chelly effect is done no matter who you are,
where you are, when you are. Want you to recall this, I
am merely o'celly. All of you are indeed the effect. Good Night,