The Ochelli Effect 9-11-2023 Sam Aydlette

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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there? Now go ahead, calling in the truth about the day of assassination. Right, well, what do you want to know? Baker's wild claim? Oswald girl round you New Ruby and Arry answer weapons? Really, I imagine I could claim I have four wheels. It doesn't make me a wagon, but Okay, Oswald was on the juilty and trying to prevent the murder 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 book where Walt Brown utilizes her own words and the known evidence in the case to get at well a different perspective. Let's say you can get Judith Barry Baker in her own words from the author himself signed if you request it by

contacting doctor Brown at KIA s JFK at aol dot com. It's a fun book and it actually dissects the many, many fantastic claims Judith Barry Baker in her own words, thank you for all the great information in Denial the Secret Wars with air strikes and Tanks by Larry Hancock. Secret wars became a staple of US covert operation, and cent are still happening today. Marry Hancock's book

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in nation Building in Southeast Asia nineteen forty five through nineteen sixty one. Get your copy today at Amazon dot com. Why the Vietnam War by author Mike 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,