Calloused Hands, Tender Hearts: John David Graham on Second Chances and Speaking Truth

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
what do you want to do tonight?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
the same thing we do every night.
Pinky, try to take over theworld all right, yo let's get
into it.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Try to take over the world you're preaching freedom
and greatest chaplain in theworld.
Trying to take over the world.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
What up, what up, what up.
I'm going to do my best.
Kj impression hey, what's up?
Do you know where your pogs are?
It is 8.30 on the East Coast.
Kj, as you may have noticed, isnot with me at the moment.
Kg will be here.
He is doing the wonderfultravel and fighting traffic.
So tonight we're going to betalking with John Graham who is

(00:57):
the founder of Good SamaritanHome.
He's an author all around,seemingly interesting guy.
Let's see if he's asinteresting as I hope he is.
I think we are.
We're just talking a little bitoff stage.
John's big thing.
John, tell you what?
Why don't you introduceyourself and just give everybody
kind?
of an idea of who you are, whereyou're coming from and we'll go
from there.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, I won't give you any pretentious nonsense.
Let's say that.
Let's put it this way.
I sense let's say that let'sput it this way.
I've made a lot of careerdetours before I got here, and
it took me about 35 years tofind something that I was
actually good at, and so I'mvery sympathetic for people who
make detours like I did.

(01:37):
I believe heartily in secondchances, third chances and, in
my case, eight chances.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
That's like let's see Colonel Sanders and Hers my
case eight chances.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
That's like let's see Colonel Sanders and Hershey's,
I believe both had Actually it'svery similar except I didn't do
chicken.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
As you say, there's still time, right?
I'm sure there's somewhere inthe market.
There's only so many ways youcan do chicken apparently.
I think great sympathy inColonel Sanders living in his
car for a while, yeah, and Ithink Hershey, the guy who went

(02:20):
bankrupt multiple times, I wantto say Walt Disney struggled
early on for quite a bit as well.
Some of the big names reallykind of had problems and just
were major challenges beforethey found what their track in
life is.
And it sounds like you kind ofwent along that path.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, actually, you're actually touching on the
heart of the issue.
In our culture, we like tothink that you're successful at
20, 25, and you make a millionby 30, and you can retire and
live large at 40 in the south ofFrance, and I found that, at
least for me and I have afeeling I'm typical it doesn't
work that way.

(02:56):
It takes a long marathon toreach a degree of stability, let
alone success.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Oh yeah, I agree, and the crazy thing about how the
world is now is you can evenmake it worse because of the
influencers who hit it big.
So here's a few people like MrBeast and some of the other kind
of weird podcaster influencersand they do.
They make a ton of moneybecause they were early in, they
found a niche and they wentwith it.

(03:24):
But now kids come along andthink, oh well, that's all I
have to do.
All I have to do is be popularon YouTube and I can drive a
Lamborghini and live on theSouth France if they want, and I
don't think the kids these daysunderstand that.
That's not normal.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well, we have.
I'm part of the generation thatgrew up thinking that if we
stand in front of our microwaveand say, hurry up, that it'll
somehow uh, whereas our mothersused to spend all day in the
kitchen and that was actuallythe whole point of it was to
spend all day doing somethingtogether.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
So, john, I assume you belongto the boomers.
Is that your age group?

Speaker 2 (04:06):
I was.
I grew up in the 50s.
I came to age in the 60s.
I made a lot of mistakes in the70s and 80s.
I finally hit stride in around2001.
So let's put it this way Latebloomer is being kind.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, you know, it's funny about that with the
boomers.
I'm Gen X, but my dad was bornin 1935.
So my guess is our fathers areactually pretty close as far as
age goes.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
And truth is that in some respects we are at a
disadvantage because we grew upin the success of the 50s and
60s, and particularly in the 90s, where everything seemed to be
doing so well.
We were making money, hand overfist, and greed was a good word
, gordon, gekko greed.
But our parents grew up knowinghow to sacrifice, knowing how

(04:58):
to work hard and delay and to docommunity events in the
Depression to survive, and theyknew what it meant to ration
gasoline in the war, ration meat, and we had no understanding of
that.
So in some respects I blame alot of the issues we're dealing
with on my generation, whichfelt entitled.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, I blame your generation too.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, good man, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
So delayed gratification.
I read here that you had 200rejections for the book you
wrote.
I want to hear that story.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
You spoke before about the young people thinking
they can be instantly successful.
And I kept reading people whosent out a query to an agent and
suddenly they were picked up bysix or seven agents.
They made a great royalty andthey were a New York Times
bestseller with their firstnovel.
And that's all crap.

(06:02):
It just doesn't happen that way.
Statistically, most books andI'm talking about the vast
majority of all books publishedsell less than a thousand copies
over their lifetime.
The average book sells lessthan 250 copies, so nobody makes
money at books.
So I determined that I was goingto tell a story that I felt was

(06:25):
important and my goal was topublish it.
And so I wrote what I felt tobe a good story and it kept
getting rejection, rejection,rejection.
And I hired an editor who wasabout a third of my age but
twice my intellect third of myage but twice my intellect and

(06:48):
he taught me how to writeemotions.
And I was trained as ajournalist and there's a
tendency to make your writingdispassionate, make it
unemotional, which is actually agood thing for journalists, but
it's very bad for fictionwriters.
So my editor looked at my book,he read it and he said you know
, I just don't like thecharacter.
So my editor looked at my book,he read it and he said you know
, I just don't like thecharacter, I find him to be

(07:12):
offensive.
So we we rewrote him as a realemotional person and it turned
out it changed everything.
After 10 years of writing weconnected with Don Quixote Press
, an outsider publisher,independent.
We call it.
Yes, an outsider publisher,independent, we call it.
And that book took off and it'sgarnered 33 awards and sold
literally 12,000 copies, whichis unheard of for a debut novel,

(07:33):
particularly for an old fartlike me.
So my point was that you writejust to write and if somebody
reads it and likes it, fine.
But you do what you feel youhave to do and that's tell your
story.
And I'm extremely relieved andpleased that others out there

(07:56):
have read it and identified withthe character and felt the
emotions in it.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Now, what is the name of the book?

Speaker 2 (08:05):
The name of the book is called Running as Fast as I
Can, and the idea is that thereare some of us who grew up in a
situation because of birth orcircumstance Maybe it's abuse,
maybe it's a lack of educationor structure, or maybe it's
poverty but we don't have thestructure or the tools to make

(08:26):
it in what we consider to benormal society.
So going to college issomething we may not have ever
understood or afforded.
So we feel like we're runningas fast as we can, but we can't
catch up because we have a limp.
And what I learned was that welike to think life is a sprint,
where you run fast and you'resuccessful, but what I learned

(08:49):
was that life is a marathon, andif you keep running, even if
you're slow, just keep runningyou can reach your goal too.
And so I published when I was75 years old.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Wow yeah, KJ and I, we're both military and that's
one of those things when you goon those heavy ruck marches is
they just say, just lean forwardand just keep moving your feet
and eventually you end up at theend.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
That's right you just keep editing.
Just keep writing.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Absolutely so few of us can go out and win a sprint.
We can, we can all run ahundred meters, but a lot of us,
a lot of us aren't very fast.
But you can train for amarathon, you can train to, to
go the distance, and so itsounds like that's kind of the
core of the book is just keepgoing until you make it.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, what happened?

Speaker 1 (09:42):
was.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
I was trying to share the story of the work I do is
with Good Samaritan Home, whichis a nonprofit I started when I
was 53 and which, after allthese career detours and I'm
being very polite when I saythat, but at 53, I decided to
use our house as a homelessshelter to help people who were

(10:05):
struggling more than I was, andthat turned into working with
the Department of Correction tohelp men and women coming from
prison for housing and mentoring, and we started off with our
own house and we ended up, uh,over the next 24 years we have
now 21 houses and we've helpedalmost 2,500 men and women

(10:31):
restart their lives.
And what I found is that, if Italk about helping people from
prison, that's a nice theory,but with the novel I wrote it
about somebody like you and I,and he, he, he went through the
same struggles as somebodycoming from prison did, but he
never, never was involved incriminal activity.

(10:54):
So my, my theme was that we allare struggling to catch up with
normal people in some way, andso when I talk about second
chances, I'm not talking aboutmen and women from prison only.
I'm talking about you and me.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, I think it's interesting that you say normal
people, because what jumps in mymind is what is normal.
Everybody talks about this ideathat there's this normalcy and
yet we're all on our own.
Nobody can really understandwhat path we're on.
I've jokingly said that, to putit in common terms, that we're
all player one in the video gameand everybody else is an NPC,

(11:35):
Because we don't know what thenon-player character is like.
Like John, I don't know yourlife.
All I know is you're anothercharacter who's in my game right
now and vice versa, and so it'svery difficult to truly
understand what somebody else isgoing through.
We can try, but there's just noway to actually have that
understanding.
We can have empathy, butunderstanding is something

(11:56):
completely different.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
And I think that the Facebook and the Internet has
made normal look like someperfect, particularly AI.
Now that everybody can benormal and with enough AI
manipulation, I can lose 20 or30 pounds without dieting.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
And you can make the walls behind you bend.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
That's exactly right.
But this idea is that we lookat normal, particularly women.
This idea is that we look atnormal, particularly women.
I think it's an awful,extraordinarily difficult time
for a woman, because everythingis geared towards what I call
the hard body look.
She has to look perfect all ofher life.
A woman can never age, but aman looks dignified as he ages.

(12:41):
And you know, talk about sexism.
If I were a woman, I think Iwould be royally pissed at the
way society offers that.
It's just not fair, it's justnot fair.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
The crazy part about that and I've had this
discussion with people is mostmen look at women as they age
and kind of go, okay, they'regetting older, it's no big deal.
It's the women that look atother women and go, oh, look,
how old she is.
At least that's been myexperience.
The fashion industry to me isnot a bunch of men going, oh, we

(13:15):
need to have the perfect woman.
Most men are kind of like, yeah, I mean, if you look at actual
polling and actual some of thepolling that's been done, one of
the things I thought was reallyinteresting I remember seeing a
poll that it said what is themost attractive age and for men
you'd think it would stay atthat.

(13:36):
You know the girls 18 or 19year old girls.
But as men got older, the girlsgot older.
So by by the time a man was inhis 50s or 60s, the most
attractive women were in theirearly 30s, where women
consistently were 18 year oldmen consistently.
It didn't matter what age thewomen were.
They wanted to eat, they wantto look at the 18 year old boys.

(13:57):
So I think it's interestingthat just the difference how men
are seen as visual and weclearly are, how men are seen as
visual, and we clearly are.
But at the same time I'm withyou, john.
I look at women.
I go gosh, you guys have to domakeup and you have to do your
hair.
I don't care.
My wife I can't tell you howmany times I said, hey, we need
to go to the store.
And she goes no, I'm not ready.

(14:19):
I'm like why?
You look great, just let's go.
No, I have to change my shirt,I have to put makeup on.
I go look, it's just me and you, nobody knows.
This doesn't matter.
I think you look great and shegoes well, it's not for, it's
not for anybody else, it's forme.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
I have to be very careful.
I can't speak as an expert onthe role of men and women, or
particularly women, but mylimited observation is you're
absolutely correct that womenare competing against women and
men are far less critical thanthe women are of themselves.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
And men are, I think, as funny as it sounds, because
of how society is, I thinksociety looks at it, the men are
very critical, but most menwhether it's men towards women
or men towards other men, wejust kind of go, yeah, OK.
Whether it's men towards womenor men towards other men, we
just kind of go, yeah, OK.
I mean my, my judgment of howhandsome a man is is pretty
simple.

(15:11):
It's if I wished I looked morelike that person.
He's more handsome than I.
Am Pretty simple, but butthat's not how it really works.
I think we're men are portrayedas this.

(15:31):
We just think everybody's wrongand I think men are very
generally just like hey, it iswhat it is, we don't need to
make all these changes.
I feel, like I said, I feel badfor women in the, in the way
that society has forced the hardbody.
Look, as you said, because it'sjust not fair as a woman gets
older.
You just there's a show rightnow called Hacks on HBO and it's
about an aging female comedianand she's.

(15:55):
It's a wonderful show, it'svery funny, but she talks about
how she's.
You know, she's about 75 in theshow and just hasn't had a piece
of cake in years because shejust has to keep her figure.
She just has to and she getseverything done.
Her young assistant sees herafter a year and she says the
young assistant says to her, oryou know, she says, oh, you look

(16:18):
great.
And she says back to the olderlady well, you look the same.
And she goes that's, that's theidea.
You can't have any change.
And it's really tough because,like, we get gray, we get old,
we go, hey, no big deal.
And women, unfortunately, theyfeel like they're being judged
or seen in negative ways bywhether it's weight or sagging
or, you know, the gray hair.

(16:40):
Hopefully they don't have thegray beard going on.
They probably feel bad aboutthemselves.
But yeah, I do think it'sinteresting.
The judgment is very differentmen, how men judge and how women
judge, especially on appearancenow I'll be fair.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Uh, that women, when they dye their hair, look they
do a far superior job than whenmen try to dye their hair.
I have never seen a man dye hishair that it looks real.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
No, I'll 100%.
I agree with that.
It looks like a cheap hat, sothis is the real deal, yeah.
Well, and that's like my familysays why don't you?
You know you're going gray, whydon't you color it or whatever?
I'm like, I've earned all ofthis.
I don't I don't need to colorit.
This is I've got 50.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
I remember when I was a young and handsome and a hard
body and I was pretty stupidtoo.
So I, if I had to trade and sayold body, young body and stupid
comes in the mix, I think I'llgo with the old body.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, easily easily to be young and dumb again.
I don't wish that on anybody.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
No, that's why this, this concept we all men joke
about.
Well, when I reach a certainage, I can get a young
girlfriend, but you've got totalk to that young girlfriend.
It's not worth it.
I mean, what do you say afterHi?
How are you doing?
What sign are you?

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, yeah, I don't understand this dating, the idea
of dating these days.
It just it's so far beyond me.
Simply because, from what Iunderstand, you talk so I deal
with soldiers and they get introuble for it.
Or I won't even say that theywon't get in trouble because
they won't do it.
They are so scared to evenapproach a male or female.
You know that they want to datebecause they're so worried
about the whole me too thing ofoh, it's going to be taken the

(18:32):
wrong way and I'm going to getreported.
And I just wanted to ask himout on a date.
I remember reading an article afew weeks ago.
Somebody that used to be on theFox show, gutfelt, I guess he
was a guest here and there.
He asked out one of the girlson the show that was I don't
know what.
She was a PA or somebody Askedher out for coffee and he got

(18:54):
rejected by the show becausethey looked at it as a potential
sexual harassment.
And he's like I just askedsomebody out if they wanted to
go to coffee.
She had every right to say yesor no.
But isn't that how you date?
Isn't that how you get to knowpeople?
And nowadays, if it's notonline.
It's not the app.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Back when I was single.
I was a fireman at one time insuburban Detroit and I was the
only single fireman, so theyassumed that I'd be living the
single life.
But I wasn't that interested indoing the bar scene.
But I had one guy convinced meto go with him to a single bar
and he was married, which madeit even stranger.

(19:33):
But I was really ill equippedfor that sort of thing because I
was more academic and I didn'tfit into that semi-military
culture of fire department whereyou you sit around and
fantasize about your life thatyou've read about in some porn
magazine but it's not reallytrue.
So we were at this singles barand I was trying to be cool and

(19:57):
fit in this was back in 1973.
And and I said I saw this girlthere and I said, excuse me, I
was trying to be suave.
I said, what do you?

Speaker 1 (20:12):
think of Kissinger's foreign policy.
You know, it seemed right, itseemed like a normal discussion
starter.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Hey, baby how about that?
Kissinger?
Yeah, he had a hot wife.
Needless to say, I went homealone.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
But the irony of that is the irony is it's probably
better that you went home alone,because at that point, like you
said, after you get past theinitial stuff, what is there to
talk about?
But if you're talking tosomebody, you say, you know,
what, do you think aboutKissinger's foreign policy?
And she goes yeah, I just don'tknow what they're doing in
China.
Now you're like, oh, this issomebody.
Immediately you know, this issomebody I want to talk to well,

(20:58):
it usually doesn't happen in asingles bar probably not.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
I immediately just played the scene from Coming to
America in my head Like where doI meet good women?
And he's like oh, you can't goto no bar to meet a good woman.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, I met my wife and I've been married 48 years
but I met her in a church.
I went back to visit a churchbecause I was living in my truck
at the time and I was travelingthe country and I wanted a free
meal.
And these were good people andI figured I'd get a free meal
and she invited me to come for adinner and I came back one

(21:37):
night, came back the secondnight and I kept coming back for
free dinners and it wasn't longthat I said coming back for
free dinners and it wasn't longthat I said I think this is
better than living in my truck.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
So I married her.
What was her reaction to?
Here's this guy who's coming todinner and he lives in his
truck.
What was her reaction to that?

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Well, that's a very interesting question.
She was very.
We had known each other asacquaintances for several years,
but not intimately.
We were not.
I didn't know any details aboutone another, but we sensed.
But we spent our time talking.
We sat at the table and talkedfor hours and hours and hours,

(22:23):
or went for walks for hours, andthat, to me, is the key.
But her friends all said youshouldn't get serious with him.
You know he's a rake and arambler or he's, he's, he's
going to be a bad character foryou.
And then, when it was threemonths later, like Johnny Cash
said, we got married in a fever.
But three months later we saidwe're going to get married.

(22:45):
So he went to her pastor and herefused to marry us.
Oh, wow.
So I found a college roommatewho was a minister and I
blackmailed him.
I said you marry us or I'lltell your wife what I know.
He married us.
So on our 48th anniversary Isent out cards saying all her

(23:07):
friends who said no.
I sent out a card that said no,no, no, no, no.
We made it.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Two more years and you get to do the whole diamond.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, we're planning on 50.
Well, there's some days shesaid she's never considered
divorce, but she has consideredmurder.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
I think that's probably true of our wives.
Yeah, it's funny you say that II got married.
My wife and I met online.
This was early days whoa yeah,and and we're both lds and she
came, she flew out that night,we knelt down and prayed if we
were supposed to get married andwe both felt like, yes, we
needed to get married.
We were married within twomonths and we've been together

(23:50):
25 years.
And so I jokingly say it's anarranged marriage, just not by a
human father, it's a, it's aheavenly father.
That that made sure.
And, and once you realizeyou're with somebody that you're
meant to be with in that way,it's a lot easier to deal with
any any other problems that comealong.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Actually, you've touched on something very
important that we, uh, we don'tsee much of, and that's the
religious, spiritual element ina relationship, because that
that gives us a sense of, of, ofpurpose and bonding, and it's
it's.
It's hard to explain because itcan be abused and often is
abused and uh, but we would notbe where we are without some

(24:32):
sort of spiritual connection.
Yeah and uh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
As a chaplain, I'm not sure I can agree more with
that.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, it's uh, yeah, I uh, I've, yeah, I've seen the
abuses within the church.
I've seen the abuses withoutthe church.
So I think abuse is part oflife.
It's how we.
We just have to keep lookingfor the truth and you keep, we
struggle through the those whodisappoint us.
And it's interesting, youshould mention LDS, because

(25:07):
that's a very interestingmicrocosm in our country.
It's almost as if you couldplan a place for a study, an
extensive study, in religiouscommunity.
It would be the LDS, I think.
What is it?
80% of Utah?
Is that what it is?

Speaker 1 (25:29):
It's something about.
Yeah, it's something alongthose lines.
If it's not, it might be goingdown from all the people in
California moving in becausethey want to get away from
California and then they votethe same way, which is a bit
ridiculous.
But yeah, it's interesting.
I see these things against LDS.
But then you look at thenumbers and you go we've got, if
not the one of the lowest ratesof divorces, we've got one of

(25:52):
the highest birth rates.
We do more charity than anybodyelse the LDS church.
It's funny that I've seen theargument that, oh, the LDS
church has $ hundred billiondollars.
It's like, yeah, and every yearthey donate somewhere around
two billion dollars every singleyear in relief.
I saw something.
It was a million dollars.
I think it's a million dollarsa day in relief to helping other

(26:15):
people.
And that's before you even getto the service of helping other
people on your own.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
I think it's not without reason that one of the
clearest voices to come throughall of the political conflict
the past 10 years has been MittRomney, and that because he has
a he has a spine and he's he,he's able to look beyond
politics and that to havesomebody with moral fiber in
Washington can make a difference, and that's critical right now.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, I was a really big supporter of Mitt Romney
when he ran in 2012.
And since then, I mean I candisagree.
This is the thing that bothersme.
I can disagree with Mitt Romneypolitically, but when people
say he's not a good person, whenhe's not a good person, when
he's not a good man, that'swhere I have a problem with what

(27:07):
the media did to him duringthat election.
I thought was beyondmalpractice.
The whole story.
The big ones were binder full ofwomen.
Well, if you remember what thequestion was, they were talking
about people in his cabinet asthe governor.
He said, hey, why don't we havethis?
Why don't we have moreinclusive?
Why don't we have more women?

(27:28):
And they brought me a binderfull of women.
And so I was looking throughtrying to find people that I
could bring into my cabinet andthat got spun into this really
weird, disrespectful, yeah yeah,and it just became really
ridiculous.
And so the quality of personthat Mitt Romney is.
I have no doubt I can disagreewith Mitt on different policies,

(27:49):
and that's fine, but as aperson, I think we would be in
an incredibly different place inthis world if Mitt Romney had
won.
And, going back to you, you'vegot a journalism background.
I've got a little one, too.
Background I've got a littleone, too.
If the media had done its jobin 2012 and actually vetted Mitt
Romney instead of attacking him, I think we'd be in a very

(28:10):
different place.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
And I think, the media, as most people do.
They look on people who arecommitted to their faith as
being somehow suspect becausethey assume the worst.
They assume that all priestsare pedophiles, and it's not the
case at all.
Most priests 99% of them, wouldbe above reproach or dedicated
period.
It's just in the same thingwith the Baptist.

(28:34):
You hear stories, but it's notthe norm.
But we like to find reason toblame somebody rather than
saying how can I learn from him,how can I assimilate some of
his characteristics?
We like pull him down to mylevel and I think we're seeing

(28:54):
what we call David Brooks callstribalism today, where we were
dividing and pointing fingers.
Rather than trying to look atpolicies and wrestle with
policies, we're pointing fingersand saying you're white, you're
black, you're green, you'refrom Utah, you're from
California, god forbid.
And the tribalism, I think, isthe greatest barrier that I see

(29:18):
right now.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah, and just to go back to 2012, I think Mitt
Romney was the right candidateat the wrong time.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Good way to put it.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
I don't think in 2012,.
I don't think nobody's beatingObama, I just don't think.
But you bring him in in 2016 ona fresh ticket where you have a
fresh Democratic politician orfresh Democratic candidate, I
think he blows Hillary Clintonout of the water easily, I mean
just on principles and morals.
By then, hillary's reputationhad been degraded so much that

(29:50):
that mitt, I think, would havebeen an absolute phenomenal
candidate.
I think he was just four yearsearly, you know.
I mean, he, just he pulled thetrigger too early and I, just I,
I, you know, it's weird enough.
I thought he'd be a greatpresident.
Um, simply because he had thehe, he had the moral compass and
the empathy to say well, why Idon't agree with you, I can at

(30:11):
least work with you to find aresolution, right.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yes, right, and he was successful in Massachusetts.
Yeah, yeah, many of the thingshe did there were the things
that worked.
Eventually, I believe hishealth care policy was started
before Obamacare.
Yeah, it was yeah, and yeah Iwas, and I think I'm not alone
that there seems to be a dearthof candidates in the past decade

(30:37):
.
That's made it very difficult,occult, and if I could point to
one thing that's the hardest forme to deal with right now is
the immediate backpedaling orflip-flopping from good people

(30:58):
who were doing things that 10years ago they said they were
sincerely opposed to.
But they said I have to or Iwon't get elected.
I have to support that and wefeel like politicians are being
led instead of leading and thatI think if we're not careful,
we're going to lose faith in thesystem itself.
And coming from somebody out ofthe 60s, you know I've been

(31:20):
through it all.
Yeah, I've seen.
I've seen the civil rightsprotests, I've seen Detroit burn
, I've seen Watts burn, we hadcampus bombings almost on a
daily basis regarding Vietnam,and we survived Watergate too.
But now there seems to be notjust a distrust but a disdain

(31:46):
for the rule of law and that, tome, is foundational.
That's very, very concerning tome.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
Well, I think it's funny because and it depends on
what side of the political aisleyou're on you can justify it,
you can say it's wrong, it'sright, whatever, but I will say
yes, the rule of law.
And for me and don't get mewrong, I'm not a MAGA, I'm a
conservative, I'm a conservativelibertarian.
I left the GOP when Trump wasnominated in 2016.

(32:14):
But then I voted for him in2020 and 2024, mainly because of
who he put on the Supreme Court, and one of the things that I
consistently kind of laugh at itare, like you said, the flip
flop.
So, 2029 or 2019,.
you see Bernie Sanders justrailing against illegal

(32:34):
immigration and saying, oh, wecan't have all these illegal
immigrants, it's bad for thecountry.
And then five years later oh,look, how racist is Trump trying
to get rid of these, you know.
And so it's like wait a minute,you just?
We don't have to go back thatfar to find, at this point,
almost any politician who hasdone a 180 on almost any

(32:55):
anything.
There's some people that arevery, very good about.
Hey, this is what I believe.
Certain things it's tough toflip flop Like.
I think pro-life is one of thosethings.
If you were pro-life in the inthe 90s and the aughts, you're
probably pro-life now.
But as far as immigration andsome of the financial things,

(33:15):
even some of the war, like I,I'm not a big fan of going and
fighting other people's wars.
I'm in the military, I'mwilling to do that, I'm willing
to go where I'm ordered.
But at the same time I'm notsure it's the best situation
where we're going into othercountries doing their policing,
basically because we need to gettheir mineral rights, and to me

(33:37):
that's just, that's somethingthat derelict in the duty of the
president, and I appreciatethat honestly that the Trump is
keeping us out of wars, but atthe same time then there's the
threat of oh, are we going to goto war with Iran or whatever?
Unfortunately, that's the world, though.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
I think it was Brett Stevens, new York Times, who
said that there were severalthings, many things, that Mr
Trump got right, that he feltthat the American people were
resonating with.
One was the gender issueconfusion.
There are certain things aboutgender that are basic science

(34:19):
and you can bring in sociology,but science has to be the
primary reason for your belief.
And and then the other thingwas immigration.
You know, we had chaos on theborder.
We had we had seemed to beleadership that wasn't leading
particularly towards the end ofthe term.

(34:40):
It was downright embarrassing, Ithought, with some of the
Democrats, the end of the term.
It was downright embarrassing,I thought, with some of the
Democrats.
And so my granddaughter, who's18 years old and voted for the
first time, said I think MrTrump is strong, I think he'll
make a good leader and I thinkthat's what a lot of people
voted for.
Whether he's right or wrong, heappeared to be in charge and

(35:03):
what we're finding now was lastI heard it was 159 executive
orders, but it's probably morethat he's simply running the
gamut of radical change.
That may or may not work andit's happening so quickly.
It's creating a great deal ofconfusion and chaos and it can

(35:24):
undermine the basic rule of lawif the courts are not involved
in the process.
That's the big picture.
If you agree or disagree withthese policies, it's still the
rule of law.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, and one of the things I find that's very
interesting is the idea thatTrump is unprecedented what
Trump is doing.
But at the same time I sawsomething for the New York times
.
They went through and they saidhere's all the things that are
unprecedented.
And then it was like Trump'sdone 150 executive orders in his
first hundred days.
Now Roosevelt he did 3000during his term.

(36:02):
But that's different than whatTrump is doing.
So it's like are we reallygetting that nitpicky to say,
well, that's the difference.
It's unprecedented just becauseTrump has been in the first 100
days, as opposed to the entireterm.
And that's where I have aproblem.
I think that's where it'sdisingenuous.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
You raise a good point, a good point about
Roosevelt's first 100 days,because he created the alphabet
soup of agencies and at onepoint he even wanted to double
the Supreme Court I think it wasup to 13 because he wanted to
have more persuasive votes inhis favor.
So if anything, he was verysimilar in his approach to mr

(36:44):
trump.
But when I started thinkingabout that that, what were the
programs that mr uh rooseveltenacted?
They were all about creatingjobs, helping the poor,
relieving suffering and in someways pulling us out of a major
depression.
And what I'm seeing now, basedon this limited time, is the

(37:08):
policies seem to be punishingthe poor, they seem to be
denying support, more so to thepoor than to the wealthy around
the world.
So his first 100 days now seemsto be asking the poor to pay
the price of cost saving,whereas Roosevelt was trying to

(37:29):
rescue the poor.
And I may have disagreed withmany of his policies, but on the
whole he probably saved us in1932 with those policies, you
know to be fair, a lot of thoseexecutive policies came like 38,
39.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
And you know, if we all remember the timeframe,
there was something verysignificant happening around the
world that you know caused forexpert because the united states
was not in a position to notonly defend itself but also
participate in the war.
So a lot of those executiveorders that roosevelt did sign
was in in preparation andramping up the country to go to

(38:06):
war.
So when we, when we say thosethings, we got to be careful, we
got to be careful with with howhistory plays right, because
trump, you 47 and his executiveorders are not quite equal, like
two things are not the same.
You know what I'm saying?
Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
And that's not what I'm arguing.
I'm just saying that there issome nitpicking and one of the
things that John said was whatRoosevelt did with the court
packing was basically he wasgetting younger judges and he
said I'm going to attach ayounger judge to this Supreme
Court justice and then we'regoing to add to the court.
So he was, he was court packingin a way that actually got shut

(38:47):
down by the public because itwas so unpopular, because it was
so unpopular.
So I think one of the thingswith, for example, with tariffs,
I look at it and go it's soshort term so far.
We don't know what's going tohappen.
The tariffs basically came inApril 2nd.
My argument has been and we hadGreg Easterbrook on a couple

(39:08):
weeks ago and my question is isthe whole point of the tariffs,
especially when it comes toChina, is trying to get them to
be a fair trading partner, whichthey have not been?
When they came into the WorldTrade Organization, the idea was
that was going to get China todo to be fair, and they haven't
since day one.

(39:28):
So I've had friends that say,well, it doesn't matter, we've
lost that war to China.
Well, I don't want it, I don'twant to look at it that way.
I don't think we have lost thewar.
I don't think there's any, thatit's unchangeable.
And so if, if it means thatthis is what it's going to take
to try to get on a little bitmore fair footing with China,
I'm willing to at least trysomething that we haven't been

(39:51):
doing since Nixon and Kissingeropened the door to China in 72.
So could this be the right move?
Maybe I just look at it and sayit's just too early to tell,
and I honestly I hope, I reallyhope that Trump is right on
tariffs, because if he's wrong,it's a major blunder and it

(40:12):
could be very, very painful fora lot of people.
But I will say one more thing,john, and I want to hear your
response to that.
As far as the poor go, as achaplain I have a lot of
sympathy and a lot of empathyfor poor people.
But I will say this the UnitedStates is not responsible for
the rest of the world.
For the rest of the world and Ithink it's criminal that we

(40:36):
have kids going to sleep in ourcountry that don't have food and
that aren't able to put food intheir bellies but it's not the
responsibility of the UnitedStates to make sure the kids in
Nepal and Kazakhstan and Ghanaand wherever everywhere else,
make sure that they're takencare of.
There's a point where you haveto take care of your own house,
and if you're not able to, ifyou don't take care of your own

(40:57):
house, then how do you helpothers?
So so, for example, john, let'stransition to what you're doing
.
You could have said, hey, we'regoing to open up our house and
we're going to, we're going tostart the Samaritan home, and,
and we're just going to letanybody in.
But my guess is you still hadsome rules and you still said

(41:18):
these are our limitations.
We can't just take everybody,we can't make everybody coming
out of prison, we can't beresponsible for everybody.
And that's where I think it'sgreat what you've done, I think
it's incredible, but at the sametime, you have to have you have
to have some limits, withoutAbsolutely we.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
We're not a halfway house, it's not a punitive house
, but it's in conjunctionpartnership with the Department
of Corrections.
So the parole officer isactively involved, although we
are not the punisher officersactively involved, although we
are not the punisher.
However, what we do say it's aNavy SEAL tactic, where we start

(42:00):
the morning by saying you needto make your bed, so that when
you go out today you are goingto be rejected for a job six
times over and that's just today.
But when you come back tonight,you're going to see your bed
made and you're going to say atleast I did something well today
, and that gives you control.
And so that idea is that you'reaccountable and your fate is

(42:23):
actually in your hand.
We will try to help you, butyou're the one who's going to
decide if you make it or not.
And so I absolutely believe inaccountability.
But let me, let me throw thisone, and I'm not saying halfway
house in any negative.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
I just look at the term and I'm not an expert by
any stretch.
I just look at halfway houses,a transitional phase, not as a
punitive and I didn't mean it tocome off that way.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Well, just in dollars and cents, it costs $109 a day
to keep somebody in prison.
So you take that, times 50,000men in Ohio and you're getting
into the billions of dollars injust Ohio.
And then the recidivism orreturn to prison rate is upwards
of 50 or 60%, and in Californiait might be 70%, because when
you get out of prison if youdon't have housing, 70 percent,

(43:11):
because when you get out ofprison if you don't have housing
, you're going to go where youcan.
You'll do what you can just tosurvive.
So Ohio developed what they calla community rehabilitation
program, where they we offerwith it's a DRC program, but we
offer temporary housing withmentoring, oversight,

(43:33):
accountability, and the idea iswe don't charge this person but
we expect him to be looking fora job and his own place.
And it's a soft landing, iswhat it is.
And the idea is that if theypay us a third of what it costs
to be in prison, then thetaxpayer is actually benefiting.

(43:53):
The inmate is benefiting andhis family, because he's now
paying child support, becausehe's working.
They are benefiting andtherefore the community benefits
.
And that's how.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
I look at USAID and you're not doing this in terms
of you've gone to 21 houses.
You're not doing this in termsof you've gone to 21 houses, so,
as you have more people andyou're having more funding from
the state, you're not takingthat and putting it in your
pocket.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
You're reinvesting it into the broader program, which
I think, oh, absolutely yeah,because because our we have more
staff, of course, but it theidea is, how do we serve more
people?
Because the truth is that we'rethe only housing program in
this whole section of the state,because we're held to such a
high standard that it took agreat deal of training to get

(44:43):
where we are and we're held,we're audited in multiple ways,
by the state and by theaccountants, because you're
dealing with state money, sotherefore you must be
accountable for that.
But think of it this way Thinkof what we're doing.
Well, think of what we're doing,like the USAID money that's

(45:04):
going to Africa.
If Africa, we could go over toAfrica with our diplomats and
say think of democracy, I wantyou to have democracy here, I
want you to elect your triballeaders.
But if people are starving, orif they don't know how to plant
their crops effectively in theirclimate, or if they have AIDS

(45:24):
or other diseases measles forexample and if we can help that,
they see democracy in action.
And that's what our homes areabout.
It's about rehabilitation inaction.
So if we don't show Africa whatdemocracy looks like, china's
going to come in and show themwhat their form of government

(45:46):
looks like.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Which is exactly what's going on.
So, john, we got a questionfrom the audience.
He says is the Samaritan home a501c3?

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yes, yes, we've been a 501c3 for 24 years and,
believe me, uncle Sam watches usclosely.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Hey.
So, John, we're at 45 minutes.
If you want to stay on, I thinkthat I'm more than happy to
keep chatting with you, becauseI think this is I'm cranked,
we're fine, okay.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Great.
So I want you to tell me alittle bit more about that
process and setting up the 501c3and the I guess the whole,
because some people find it tobe a daunting process trying to
set up a nonprofit.
Do you have any tips or bestpractices in your experiences?

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Well, during George Bush's faith-based initiative,
there was a lot of funding putout to get faith-based
nonprofits to get involved.
So some people went into thiswhole work like this, thinking
they could get a lot of grantmoney.
But it's not that simple.
So what we had to do was we hadto set up with the Secretary of

(46:59):
State a non-profit corporation.
Then we had to set up with theIRS a 501c3 application and so
we could be tax exempt, not somuch for donations, because the
state required required we be anonprofit approved by the IRS to

(47:19):
keep us accountable.
And so we couldn't even do thiswith Ohio without this.
But it took.
It took about, I'd say, a fullyear to run through that process
and the IRS scrutinized us morethan a proctologist did.
And because you can't put it inreligious terms, you can't say

(47:44):
I'm doing this because I'm doingGod's calling, because the IRS
man in New York, who may or maynot believe in a God, all he
cares about is how are youlegally set up so that you don't
take advantage of our statemoney?
And so we had to dot every Iand cross every T, and we had to

(48:05):
go back and back and back.
And now we are.
Of course, you're audited withyour tax forms every year, and
that's good because all ourtaxes are public.
So I would say you have to havea board of directors.
You can't run your own show andyou have to meet regularly with
your board of directors andproduce minutes of it.

(48:27):
So what it did was the staterequirements made me more
accountable and it made me andGood Samaritan Home a much
better organization.
And we also are audited by thestate, the Department of
Correction.
They'll come in every year andthey don't look at our finances.

(48:48):
The accountant does that.
What they'll look at is ourperformance, so we can't offer
slums and take advantage ofpeople.
My attitude is what I live inthat house and we try to do that
accordingly.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
You and I were speaking before we came live.
We were talking about insuranceand some of those challenges.
So what all does Good SamaritanHouse when somebody comes to
you and they are able to come inthe door?
What services and what care doyou provide for those
individuals to help themtransition from a bad position

(49:26):
to a better position?

Speaker 2 (49:28):
What I've learned is we can only do what we do well,
but not everything, becausewe'll never do it well.
So we are very fortunate.
Ohio is probably one of themost progressive states in the
country regarding rehabilitation.
They started off about 25 yearsago with what they call the
Ohio Plan, the idea of targetingwhat is the need for men and

(49:52):
women coming from prison and howcan we meet that need, but yet
not simply throw money away.
And what they found was that inthe community is the most
effective way to seerehabilitation, not in prison.
When you go to prison, you doyour short time, you come back
and in the community you have aparole officer, but you also

(50:21):
have services, and so we partnerwith those services and we are
the housing partner and we areheld accountable and we hold
them accountable to maintain asafe house for us.
We don't we don't lock down,but we do monitor, and that
means if you want to leave myhouse, you're welcome to leave.
You just make sure your POknows that.
But if you want to stay, wewill help you stay, and we've

(50:43):
had some people stay.
They stay beyond the programand they actually stayed into
our long-term rentals for 14years.
Oh, wow.
I've had people stay with usfor five, 10, 14 years, and one
man died in our house because hewas 81 and he just died of old
age, but this was the only homehe ever had in his entire life.

(51:06):
Wow, so, and that that, to me,said it all.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Yeah, that's tremendous man.
That's a great story.
Are you guys actively takingdonations or can you take
donations?

Speaker 2 (51:17):
We don't take donations Because number one I
would rather get people to getinvolved in some level.
The truth is, the reason Iwrote the book was to get people
to understand rehabilitation orsecond chances.
So if somebody wants to donate,I would suggest they buy the

(51:38):
book, because it's a veryreadable book.
It's a damn good story.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
We got the link, if you do say so yourself.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
If I do say so myself .
No, actually, the readers havesaid that the reviews have come
through.
Amazon rates things on a fivescale and the reviews are at 4.6
.
And what people are saying is Ifelt Daniel's story, I lived
Daniel's story, I laughed and Icried.
But what I want people to do isunderstand how important second

(52:07):
chances are.
And if somebody could read thebook and say, wow, I'm not alone
, I can.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
And when somebody comes and asks for another
chance.
If you'll give them that chance, that's the best donation I've
ever seen right there.
That's awesome man, I am I amin awe of the entire program and
I just I was able to catch upas I was logging in.
I was able to catch up a littlebit on your author's journey
and how you were talking aboutthe, how you first got published
, and I think you said seventyfive, seventy six.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
I was ten years to write it and I was seventy five
when I published it.
Yeah All right.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
So going in depth, for because we have a lot of we
have a lot of creatives in our,in our audienceking more in
depth about that author process.
I know you kind of touched onbeing rejected and perseverance
being a key to pushing through.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Can you go into a little bit?

Speaker 3 (53:01):
more about that journey and then what it looks
like.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Well, my training is academic training.
I have a doctorate in theology,so I'm trained to be a
researcher.
I was a journalist for a time,so I'm trained to present facts.
So I wrote the first draft ofthis story and it took me three
years and I thought it was agood story, but it had no
emotion whatsoever.
So I sent it out to agents, andthe agents are the gatekeepers

(53:31):
to the publishers, and theagents are the gatekeepers to
the publishers, and the onesthat wrote back said it doesn't
meet our needs, which is apolite way of saying your
writing's like shit.
So, and so I went back and Ihave somebody review it.
I would, I would hire an editorto review it and they would give
me advice and I rewrote it andrewrote it and rewrote it, vice,

(53:56):
and I rewrote it and rewrote itand rewrote it and then finally
, after eight years, I found aneditor who caught the feeling of
the story and he was only 26years old, and but he was, he
had, he felt Daniel, and so heworked with me for two years.
And here's this kid, a third myage, teaching me how to write
emotions, because, coming out ofthe 60s, we are always taught

(54:17):
to keep our emotions in, and sohe taught me how to express
those emotions and at the end oftwo years we ended up with a
story that readers are saying Ilaughed and I cried and I
couldn't put the book down, andthat that, to me, is not just
the message of second chances,it's the message felt of second

(54:41):
chances.
Think of it like Forrest Gump.
It's it.
You look at all that happenedin Forrest Gump's life and you
look at Forrest and at the end,when Jenny dies, you cry with
him.
And that's what I want.
I like to compare it to Titanic.
Titanic, when it was boileddown, was a story about lifeboat

(55:05):
safety and if I were to tellyou we're going to have a
documentary, we're going to geton a boat and we're going to
watch a documentary about lightboat safety, you would fall
asleep.
But if I brought in Jack and Ibrought in Rose and I brought in
an iceberg, now suddenly lightboats are so emotional that

(55:27):
today we're still talking aboutwhy didn't Jack get on that door
in the water with Rose?
Because we felt that story.
That's what I want to do withDaniel and that's what readers
are telling me.
They felt Daniel's story andthey cried with him and they
laughed with him.
And when he was out hitchhikingthrough San Francisco and he

(55:47):
met Sunshine and Mello, you canpicture them they laugh with him
.
And then, when their his friendJames died of a heroin overdose
, they cried with Daniel.
And then, when he met Kate andfell in love, they got excited
with Daniel.
That's that's the reaction Iwant.

(56:08):
Sorry, I I get emotional, I getcarried away on this.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
Listen, that was just the the, the iceberg safety
video illustration, just theimagery of just putting that
together, man I am, that is alevel of writing that I am
trying to get to myself, so Ijust I just sit back and just
enjoy it.
Man, that was, that wasphenomenal.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Well, what I had to learn to do and I'm doing it now
with the sequel is I'm tryingto take the story and I take
that was phenomenal a crime ofrape that he didn't do.
But in 1963 in Cleveland ayoung black man had very little

(56:57):
options because Cleveland was inthe midst of its own race war
and he spent 20 years in prisonfor a rape he didn't commit.
So now in the sequel we'repicking up Charles story.
So I'm trying to write what'sit like growing up as a black
man or black boy in Cleveland in1963.

(57:17):
And so I have to say Daniel orCharles, white or black, they
are both emotional.
Tell their stories with emotionand don't let the color be the
only factor.
Tell the story of a young boyand when, when Charles loses his
father to a mill accident, orwhen he's, when he dates a young

(57:42):
white girl who's slow mentally,they immediately assume that
he's he's guilty of rape.
But he didn't do that, but hehas no defense and that's
something we all can identifywith.
So that's how you write emotion.
You don't try to tell the story, you try to get the story to

(58:02):
tell itself.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
Wow, wow.
That's pretty powerful man.
So how has going through thatjourney?
I know you said so the26-year-old kid was teaching you
how to write emotion.
Were you able to take thoselessons and apply it to your
life as you were building outbuilding out the Good Samaritan
home, or did it affect you inany way personally?

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Actually part of Good Samaritan made me stronger for
the book rejections.
Because when we started GoodSamaritan home and we had our
first man coming to our houseyou're going to actually live
with us from prison and, uh,word got out in the community
that we were bringing an, an excon, into our house.
And of course then you factorin race, and this is a rural

(58:49):
white community with nobody saysthe word, but it's always there
.
So there were petitions, therewere calls to the city council,
there were ordinances passed,there were threats.
It got so intense that I hadpolice protection at one point
and ultimately, ultimately, wehad to sue the city three times

(59:12):
to fully establish our program.
But today the city calls us forreferrals because we save them
money.
So but what it taught me wasthat you don't give up on your
dream.
You keep doing your job and inthe book you just take one scene

(59:32):
, one page at a time, and thenyou just keep writing and keep
editing.
So I edited my book and Iedited my life and that, to me,
is the real lesson You're alwaysediting your life.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
I think that's the perfect way.
All right, so we are at the onehour mark, john.
Thank you so very much forcoming.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
My pleasure.
Yeah, like George Costanza says, leave them laughing.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
That was a phenomenal story.
You guys Running as Fast as ICan is available now.
You can go to HTTPS,johndavidgramcom.
Go get the book.
I'm going to buy it.
It is phenomenal.
I can't wait to read it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
By the way, if you're on Kindle Unlimited, it's free
right now.
Enjoy.
Well, there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
Kindle Unlimited.
I definitely had the account,john.
It was great man.
Anything you want to sayoutside of that or any any last
words?

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
I would say that I'm 76 and I never thought I would
be here doing this today, but Iwould be nowhere else.
So you never know where life'sgoing to take.
You Just go down that road anddon't be afraid afraid to try
something new.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Man, I appreciate it.
Thank you so very much, James.
John, excuse me, John.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
I appreciate you my pleasure.
I'm very glad to be here today.
My grandkids were here todayand talking to you guys, it's
like having a couple more kidsaround me.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
Keep us informed about the sequel, because I
definitely want to stay in touchand stay connected, so we can
definitely check on that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
The book.
I'm hoping to finish it inabout two years at most, but
it's called Requiem.
The book I'm hoping to finishit in about two years at most,
but it's called Requiem.
But check out the website andyou can actually contact me
through the website if you everneed to Got it.
You got it, john.
Thank you so much.
Readers can contact me there.
My pleasure.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
Thanks a lot, guys All right, have a great one
brother.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Chappy, that was an amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
That was an amazing interview.
I am so, so excited.
Shout out to John man, that wasa great interview.
I am.
I'm floored, man.
What up, though?
I wanted to apologize for mytardiness.
Traffic was a little bit rough.
We went out and celebrated Maythe 4th at the Columbia

(01:02:00):
Fireflies game, and they didn'tcome out with the victory but
the kids got to run around thebases, so they're happy and they
got a free hot dog.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Was it a Star Wars-themed night?
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
It was.
It was they did a May the 4thcelebration in conjunction with
the reading awards that the kidsgot for the year, so all the
school had their readers thereand it was.
I mean, it was just a greattime and we we enjoyed it Plus
got a chance to get it out andget some sun.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
It's not necessarily, they weren't necessarily into
the game.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Well, neither was my wife, but we got a chance to see
the game so hopefully you know.
My play is that I'm trying tobuild up the tolerance to get
them so we can get down and turnthe field.
But we'll see how that plays.
I don't even want to talk aboutit, yeah that does not surprise
me.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
The little kids in baseball don't generally go.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Oh my son was done.
My son kept asking me at theend of every inning what's the
score now?
What's the score now?

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
Can we leave?
Is it done?

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Yeah, yeah, can we go yet, yeah, no, but yo, you
ready to get into our thing, man, you ready to do our thing?

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Let's go we can let's keep it short.
I'm tired man.
I hit the wall during that.
I was going along like, hey,what's going?

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
on.
We got 30 minutes.
We got 30 minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
You want to go full 30 more you got it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
It's going to be fast .
I promise.
Quick fast, quick fast.
We got to talk about POTUS.
Do we have to?
Yeah, potus and his grandparade, which is in conjunction
with the 250th, which is fine.
I got it.
Price tag and estimates aresaying it's going to cost us

(01:03:50):
$100 million to do the parade.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
I don't know know, have you ever wondered about
stuff like that?
Like, okay, you're going to doa military parade, right, you're
going to, you're going tobasically have a couple of I
don't know a division, maybe two, and some gear march down the
middle of the street.
How in the hell does that cost$100 million?
Now I understand you say well,you have to have the parade

(01:04:19):
route and you have to havesecurity and all that stuff, but
$100 million, like?
How many military parades haveyou been part of?
I've been part of several where, even if it's just at the end
of basic training, where you getoff the field and you go and
you have to do that, right?
Yeah, you know, right, you can.
You can do that and literallyyou could probably do to an

(01:04:42):
entire military parade with fullmilitary units for the cost of
you know you have to, you haveto pay for cleanup afterwards,
you have to provide port-a-johns, you have to provide security
and gas for the vehicles.
I don't understand why youcouldn't do all of that for

(01:05:02):
somewhere around $100,000 to$200,000.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
I'd imagine you could .
But then you throw in theconjunction with POTUS
celebrating his birthday.
Then, you know, cough goes upman Birthday party.
You know, diddy set thestandard with my sweet 16, man.
It just you got to pay to play.
You know what I'm saying.
So it's going to be a grandspectacle.
They're going down PennsylvaniaAve.
I mean, you've been toWashington, right, so you've

(01:05:28):
seen the logistics of trying toget that.
The logistics of trying to getthat is going to be.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Honestly, I have no problem with the parade.
I have a bigger problem.
When the New York Times comesout and says their headlines or
Drudge I think I posted this onDrudge was Trump's birthday
parade will cost $100 million.
It's $100 million.

(01:05:55):
Trump's.
Trump's birthday parade willcost one hundred million dollars
.
And then in the article it'sone hundred million dollars.
And then it says the themilitary celebration for the 250
years of the army or whateverit is you know, and it happens
to be on the same day as Trump'sbirthday.
So Trump happened to have beenborn on June 14th, right?

(01:06:17):
So to me, I think it's prettysilly to be calling this Trump's
parade.
If it was Harris doing this,and it was the 250th year parade
and 250th birthday of the USArmy, and she was having a big

(01:06:38):
parade, I'd be like, yeah, cool.
I mean absolutely.
Why not 250 years?
That's a big deal.
I don't know when Harris'sbirthday is.
So but to tie the two, I thinkit's just.
I think it's just another thingof orange man bad.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Instead of going.
I mean, it's another case ofare you mad at them for
reporting it or are you mad atPOTUS for saying it?
He's kind of took the lead on.
This is going to be my paradeand this is going to be the.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
This is Trump.
Here's Trump saying you'regoing to have.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
But if POTUS says, hey, I'm going to have a
military parade for my birthday,right, and then any reporter
comes out and says, well,Trump's military parade is going
to cost a hundred milliondollars, I don't know how you
can get upset at them reportingit that way when the POTUS
himself is saying his militaryparade for his birthday, you get
what I'm saying.
A lot of this is self-inflicteddamage, where if POTUS just

(01:07:37):
shut the hell up, we'd be a lotbetter off.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
But he can't seem to be yeah, but I mean, we've
talked about this ad nauseumTrump's egomaniac, his
narcissism, any president'snarcissism, right.
And so for him to go oh, thisis my birthday parade.
I mean, yes, 250 years for themilitary, but that's for my

(01:08:02):
birthday.
There's a level of look,there's a level of tongue in
cheek and people I do thinkpeople I'm not sure people
realize how good of a trollTrump really is.
I think Trump does this stuffon purpose to get the reaction,

(01:08:23):
and then it's like oh see, Iknew they were all going to
think it was really my parade,but this has been planned.
Planning for this parade didn'tstart last month.
This started two years ago, forthe 250th.
This is a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
The parade, yes, but the route, no.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
The parade was never in.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Washington DC.
I'm just being honest with you.
It was never designed to godown Pennsylvania Avenue until
Comrade Trump said hey, we'regoing to have a victory parade
for my birthday.
I got it.
I'm just telling you.
That's just how it works.
Now, whatever the reasoning forchanging it was, I don't know,

(01:09:07):
but I'm just saying that what itis.
I'm just saying it's startingto look a little.
You know, I'm starting to get ataste for radishes.
You know what I'm just saying.
It's starting to look a little.
You know, I'm starting to get ataste for radishes.
I don't have a problem with itBecause it is.
It is definitely.
Yeah, thank God it would be itwould be one thing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Honestly, it would be one thing if, if two, there
would have to be two realmissing pieces to this to me to
have to make it a big deal,missing pieces to this to me to
make it a big deal.
One doing it on his birthdaythat wasn't June 14th, and two
not being the 250th.
So if he was like, oh, we'regoing to do a big military

(01:09:45):
parade on my and it's going tobe on my birthday, which is on
in August 23rd, and we're goingto do a big parade on that day,
and oh, yeah, well, you knowit's, the military's been around
for 237 years and so we're justgoing to do a big parade, I
gotcha.
But this is, I mean, to me thisis a non, really, it's a non

(01:10:07):
story and unfortunately it'salso the price tag of it has has
been made political too.
Why are you cutting funding forX, y, z, but you have the funds
for this?
And the problem with that is, Imean, all this stuff is.
It's kind of like what my kids,with my kids, when they say,

(01:10:28):
hey, we're going to, we're goingto the store and I want to buy,
I want that toy, right, I wantthat squishy toy and it's only
$5.
And you go, yeah, but that's,that's $5.
I don't want to spend.
And they go well, look at howmuch you.
And then you go through thecheckout and they're like well,
you just spent $180.
Why couldn't I get my $5 toy?

(01:10:49):
It's like because that was $5more.
Like I could, I could do it,but like I have to buy these
groceries, we have to buy thefood.
There are certain things wehave to do.
So a parade, that's a hundredmillion dollars.
Again, I don't know where themoney's going or what it would.
It would have been less underHarris, I don't know.

(01:11:11):
My guess is it probably wouldhave been still a pretty
significant price tag, but itlooks bad.
Like you said, yeah, it looksbad.
But again, when we're talkingabout the money that is thrown
around by the federal government, I have a Would I rather see

(01:11:37):
$100 million build 100 new unitsfor family housing on Fort
Eisenhower that will serve 100families for the next 20 years,
instead of a parade?
Absolutely, but I don't get tomake that choice because it

(01:11:58):
that's, it's just one of thosethings.
It's 250 years they did it for.
I don't know what allcelebrations, but I mean I
remember 1776 I was three yearsold and I know, I know that was
a big deal the bicentennial forthe constitution.
I so, yeah, and 1976, yeah, Imean if we do something, if
honestly for the, if we dosomething honestly for the
Constitution, if we do something, ok, let's say, instead of

(01:12:24):
instead of doing it this yearfor the 200, 250th anniversary
of the Army birthday of the Armyon June 14th If this same
parade was being done July 4thof next year, which is the 250th
of the signing of theDeclaration of Independence or
what we go by Right, even thoughit was historically that's not

(01:12:44):
really accurate.
But let's just go to whateverybody kind of assumes, what
everybody accepts as the birthdate of America, which is July
4th 1776.
Ok, so if this same parade wasgoing on next year, I don't
think anybody would be having abig deal, nobody would really
care, it'd be like hey, yeah,whatever the.

(01:13:06):
I don't even know what's 250years called the bison
quaternion?
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
I have no idea.
I don't necessarily thinkpeople have an issue with the
parade, right, because, like Isaid, the parade itself had been
planned and people, you knowthey were cool with it.
I think it's again POTUS is amagnet, for you know, he's a
microphone magnet, right.
So whatever he says is going toget amplified.

(01:13:31):
You know, good, bad anddifferent.
So when you start, you know andI'm sure the planners of the
parade when they first heard it,it like oh no, this isn't
Trump's parade, this is thearmy's parade and you know,
potus just happens to be POTUSright now.
But when you start giving, Iguess, giving the media a
narrative to spin for you, youknow they're going to do what

(01:13:54):
they do.
But I got to say man, it is just, I've come to the realization
that people are set in theirways, one way or the other Blue,
red, green parties and there isnothing.
We're at the point to.
There's so much distrust in thenation where I don't know if we

(01:14:19):
can get back to commonalityright without, without a massive
Reshaping incident.
Ok, you know, I don't use thatword.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
I know what you mean.
But speaking of I want to, sowe've got about 15 minutes.
But speaking of I want to, sowe've got about 15 minutes.
I want to talk to you aboutthis.
We've very recently had Canadadouble down on leftist policies.
They left Trudeau and went withanother far left guy, Australia

(01:14:58):
.
They had snap elections orwhatever their elections.
They went in another lap,England.
The UK went with what's calledthe Reform Party, which I've
seen some people say, oh, that'spretty far right.
I think it is.
I think it's legitimately notconservative the way Brits use
it, but actually conservative.
As an American I would call it.

(01:15:18):
And then you had Germany andFrance.
France has banned Le Pen, whichis a far-right populist
movement.
Germany AFD they, the Germanintel agency, has called them a
far extreme, far right, eventhough right now they are the

(01:15:42):
highest polling in Germany.
And if you look at the some ofthe things they do, you know
it's, it's funny, the Intel guysand the journalists.
That's just Nazism 2.0.
But if you read what it is, it'slike it's, it's conservative,
it's far right in terms ofshutting down the border,
getting rid of the, the, theproblems, and you know minus,

(01:16:07):
minus the elon musk advocatingfor german heritage and stuff
like like I mean minus the minusthe the nazi isms.

Speaker 3 (01:16:15):
sure it's conservatism.
You've got to understand for acountry like Germany when you
start hearing people talk aboutisolationism and country pride
and then you start having ElonMusk talking about hey, don't be
ashamed of your heritage, now'sthe time to embrace it.
It's okay.
What you did back then wasn'twrong.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
I mean a reasonable person would think it was wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
No, no, no, no, no.
He said it wasn't wrong and youshouldn't be ashamed of it.
That's why I got majorheadlines, but then they blamed
it on him.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
He said you didn't do it, yeah, he said you didn't do
it, but he still.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
But he also said it wasn't wrong and that's what
caused the head.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
I didn't read the wasn't wrong part.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
Yeah, I mean that's what caused it, Because it was
right after the whole.
I love you with all my heartbullshit.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
So the same thing is going on in France.
Like France is banning Le Pen,they're going after Le Pen, um,
through taxes.
So here here, okay, let's, forargument's sake, let's go there.
Let let's, let's say AFD saysyou know what, screw it, we are

(01:17:36):
Nazis, we are.
Screw it, we are Nazis, we are.
We think Now, we don't want tokill.
You know, we're not Holocaust,you know we're Nazis.
To point out where the niceNazis were, we believe we've
evolved.
Yes, we're Nazism 2.0, whichmeans we believe in certain

(01:17:58):
things that Hitler wasn't downwith.
We're not blaming the generalsand we're not just out of World
War Two or, I'm sorry, world WarOne.
So so we believe that that aNazi party's time has come in in
the world to protect us fromthe horrible things that are

(01:18:18):
coming in from other countries.
It's Germany's time to say, hey, it's okay to be proud to be a
German and all that.
Let's say that happens, sure,and Germany is polling.
They have the highest pollingof any party.
At what point do you go?

(01:18:40):
Well, if that's what they want.
I understand there's levels,because we get involved as
Americans.
We get involved and we say lookif the Taliban wants to take

(01:19:00):
over Afghanistan and they wantto keep little girls from going
to school and they want tocastrate little girls and little
boys that aren't doing what,and they're going to throw
homosexuals off of roofs and allthat stuff.
If they had not given safe havento Osama bin Laden and bin

(01:19:22):
Laden had not attacked the WorldTrade Centers.
Right now, afghanistan would beexactly what it was in 2002.
We would not have gone intoAfghanistan, we would not have
bombed them.
We would look at them like anyother country that we look and
go oh they are really Gosh.

(01:19:44):
It's really bad what Rwanda didto half its population, that's
bad.
We're going to put somesanctions on them, but as far as
going in and actuallydestabilizing the country
militarily, I'm probably notgoing to do it.
Destabilizing the countrymilitarily, eh, probably not
going to do it.
So, with Germany especiallybeing a first world country, at

(01:20:07):
what point does America say, oreven the world, do they go?
Well, I mean, if that's whatthey want, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
I want to ask you Burkina Faso, right?
So that brings up a great point, right?
So you know, you know what'sgoing on in.
Burkina Faso with the, with theleader right it's, it's American
du jour to to name him publicenemy number one, and the reason
why is because he has a lot ofGaddafi-isms right.

(01:20:43):
He believes in a united Africabased off of the gold standard,
this, that and the other.
So that has kind of piqued theinterest of America, so much so
to where you have the general ofthe Marine Corps calling.
I forgot the brother's name,but they call him existential
threat, right.

(01:21:04):
So if it's okay, you know, tosay, well, if that's what
Germany wants, we should letGermany go, then I think it
should be equally okay to say,all right, if that's what Africa
wants a united Africa we shouldalso let them go.
But we don't do that as acountry and we haven't done that

(01:21:24):
as a country historically.
We've seen to give acquiesce tothose extremists, those Nazisms,
those, those extremist viewsturn a blind eye to certain
regimes, but we put our thumbdown a little harsher when it

(01:21:46):
comes to, you know, ourinterests or people who violate
our interests.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
Which is it's absolutely.
It's absolutely about ourinterests, right.
Absolutely, it's absolutelyabout our interests, right.
So the reason we are, thereason we are so invested in
Ukraine the way we are, isbecause we want the minerals,
yeah, and Africa there's,there's a lot of untapped
natural resources in Africa, andthat's the point.

(01:22:14):
And so it's not it idea thatwe're going to go into Africa or
different countries in Africajust because it's for freedom.
They need freedom, they needfreedom.
But, by the same token, china'snot trying to go in and they

(01:22:36):
have very strong footholds inAfrica.

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):
Yeah, over the last 20 years they they've
established a significantfoothold in Africa, and I think
that's where the United Stateskind of I guess they fell asleep
at the wheel and China just Imean, it's so much so that the
Chinese culture and Africanculture are intertwining and I'm
just like, oh, that is somescary shit.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
Honestly, I'm not sure how much it was, they were
asleep at the wheel as it was.
They were spending tens oftrillions of dollars on
Afghanistan and Iraq withoutanybody going seriously this is

(01:23:17):
the dumbest part Without anybodyever saying, hey, what does
victory actually look like here?
Like, what do we need to do toactually get out of Afghanistan
and Iraq?
And so when Obama came alongand he got us out of Iraq for
the most part, I was like, hey,that's something I can agree

(01:23:39):
with biden pulling us out ofafghanistan, something I could
agree with, how certain things,the mechanisms, no, okay,
disagree but but I think trumpshould, honestly, trump should
have never got.
I don't think trump should haveallowed us to stay in
afghanistan and trumping to thewrong people who said we need to

(01:24:00):
stay Okay.
Yeah that, historically, everycountry does things only based
on their own interests.
There's not a single country Idon't care what country it is
has ever said oh, we're going todo this for you, just out of
the goodness of our hearts andand we don't want anything.
And so it's not an Americanthing the fact that America has

(01:24:25):
become a superpower in 250 yearscompared to some of the others.
And now China the funny thingis we made China a superpower.
China in 1972 was strugglingwhen Nixon came in, and so you
know there's a lot of arguments,a lot of failure, and you know
the businesses and all thatstuff that we can talk about,

(01:24:47):
and that's a whole other thingabout how America went in, and
you know we gave carte blancheto our business people to let
our companies basically move outof the USs to help china at the
same time.
You know china we've both seenthe video china china didn't set
this plan up.
It was the us going hey, hey,who wants to take our jobs so

(01:25:10):
that they can do it for cheap?
And if it had been mexico, ifmexico had said, hey, send those
factories down iphones, hey,we'll build iphones down here,
right outside of Mexico City,you think they would have been
done in China?
Nope, they would have been donein Mexico City, whoever had the
best deal.
And so we've done that.
We have become a country thatis based in the service industry

(01:25:35):
.
We are not a manufacturingcountry anymore.
I think we can be amanufacturing country again.
But I think again, going back tokind of the original point, is
at what point do we let peoplehave their opinions and their
ideas and at what point do weneed to step in?

(01:25:59):
Because communism, as much aswe talk about Nazis and killing
6 million people, not Jews, butalso homosexuals, criminals and
other people that were not,quote-unquote, acceptable
communism in the 20th centurykilled over 100 million.

(01:26:22):
Stalin, stalin it was almostlike stalin saw what and I I'm
not saying this lightly orfacetious it's almost like
stalin looked at hitler and said, oh, that's what he's getting
away with.
Cool, that means I can do justabout anything I want, and he
did.
And Mao was the same way.

(01:26:45):
And the Khmer Rouge, where this?
You know the level of death,and I don't see these far right.
I don't see Le Pen, I don't seeAFP advocating for the murder
of people.
And that's, I guess, where thefrustration for me in terms of
history comes from.
When you have, if you lookright now, you and I have talked

(01:27:08):
about this and you say arethere any political parties
right now that are activelyadvocating for genocide?
The only one I can think of isin South Africa and it's
advocating for the genocide ofwhite farmers, and that's not
okay either.
But there's a point where, look, if I'm a white farmer in South

(01:27:32):
Africa, I'm probably trying tofigure out how to GTFO, how to
get the family out.
Probably, looking at, I'mprobably trying to figure out
how to GTFO, how to get thefamily out.
Yeah, you know, there's stillthat personal responsibility.
There's still that like if I'mliving in downtown Minneapolis

(01:27:56):
right now and my entireneighborhood has turned Muslim
Somalis and I'm saying, oh mygosh, I don't feel comfortable
here.
There's too many Muslims,there's too many Somalis.
Every time I drive down thestreet, they yell at me, they
give me the finger, they doeverything short of violence.

(01:28:17):
Okay, at what point do I go?
I probably need to sell myhouse and get out.
Should I have to?
Well, no, but nobody's forcingyou to, as long as they're not
breaking the law.
You know you have those people.
Oh gosh, you know they do thecall to prayer every morning in
Minneapolis, okay.

(01:28:37):
Call to prayer every morning inMinneapolis Okay.
I mean, I wouldn't want to livein Minneapolis, but I know a lot
of people who are not LDS whodon't want to live in Utah
because of the Mormon influence,so move.
You have that personalaccountability and I just.
It's one of those things that'sreally interesting.
I think it's going to be a veryinteresting next five to 10

(01:28:59):
years, not just in America, notbecause of Trump, but because

(01:29:20):
the world, as much as we look atDemocrats and Republicans, this
is a worldwide red and bluethat people are getting to such
extremes that it's going to beinteresting to see what happens
moving forward in the next 10years.
Are we going to turn into?
Is Palestine writ large, or arewe going to basically go?
Well, you know what?

(01:29:40):
Let's get over it, let's justlive together, let's be happy
and just go from there.

Speaker 3 (01:29:51):
There is definitely a fight for the soul of the
nation, one that we've done acouple of times now.
We've done it a few times now.
I am not concerned as muchabout the future of the nation,
because one way or the other,the nation kind of rebuilds

(01:30:13):
itself.
This one is just different.
This one is just different,right, this one is different.
This was using the tactics thatwe learned and perfected in the
60s, evolving them and thenusing them on the American
populace Manipulation of themedia, turning the populace

(01:30:35):
against them, infiltratinggovernment systems.
It's not party specific.
Both parties do it.
Both parties are guilty of it.
But those are my final thoughts, man, and that's an argument
for another day, another week.
Man, happy May the 4th.
Enjoy yourself, man, enjoy yourrelaxation.

(01:30:56):
We are out of here.
Unless you got anything else,chappie, we up out of here.
See y'all boys next week.
We are out of here, and I gotto remember to take the banner
off this time.
Boom, wait, there we go.
Good night, liberty.
See you next week.
Good brother, talk to you later.

Speaker 1 (01:31:15):
Bye Chief Mayne, what do you want to do tonight?

Speaker 2 (01:31:19):
The same thing we do every night Pinky Try to take
over the world.

Speaker 3 (01:31:27):
Alright, yo, let's get into it.
Try to take over the world.
You're preaching freedom to thepublic Try to take over the
world and bring this chaplain inthe world.
Mr Lance O'Ne, mr lancan, takeover the world.

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