Anything Is Good & I Hate It Here, Please Vote For Me Featuring Fred Waitzkin and Matthew Ferrence

[00:00:00] Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, House of a Moment with Erik Fleming, The podcast of our time.

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[00:01:09] I hope you enjoy this episode as well.

[00:01:36] Thank you.

[00:01:46] Hello, welcome to the moment where Erik Fleming.

[00:01:49] I am your host, Erik Fleming.

[00:01:54] Today, we're going to have a good show.

[00:01:57] We're going to have a couple of authors on.

[00:02:01] One is going to talk about an issue that is very prevalent in society

[00:02:06] that we just kind of ignore.

[00:02:09] We see it every day but we don't really do anything about it.

[00:02:13] Then another author kind of details his journey in the politics.

[00:02:21] It's a very fascinating journey.

[00:02:26] And very timely.

[00:02:28] As far as what's going on in the election, which by the way, I hope you all saw that debate.

[00:02:39] I'm going to say this.

[00:02:42] And everybody knows what side of the tracks I'm from.

[00:02:48] But after seeing that debate, they're releasing any question.

[00:02:53] Who should be the next president of the state?

[00:02:57] However you vote down ticket.

[00:03:00] I will encourage you to support people that would support this lady, the vice president of the United States.

[00:03:07] And I'm just going to comment on what you think of the president of the state.

[00:03:08] To be president and vote for people that will help her carry out her agenda in the Congress,

[00:03:18] and even in the state.

[00:03:23] But, you know, if you have a problem after watching that debate,

[00:03:33] and seeing who is the person that should be the leader of the free world,

[00:03:42] then I don't know what else can convince you.

[00:03:46] I really don't.

[00:03:47] Now it'll be her job to figure that out to get you to come on over.

[00:03:53] But if I was undecided and I saw that, it had been a no brain of for me because even if I wasn't a

[00:04:04] loyalist, party wise, I do have a value of the United States.

[00:04:12] I do have a value of the Constitution.

[00:04:14] I do have an incredible respect for the institutions of government.

[00:04:17] And that's why I personally put myself in a position to be a player in that.

[00:04:24] I don't know if the regardless of a smaller role I played.

[00:04:32] That would be the person I would want representing us in the world stage.

[00:04:40] The vice president of the United States really put on a mass request.

[00:04:47] And, you know, I don't know if they're going to have another debate or not,

[00:04:52] and then of course the two vice presidential candidates will have a debate.

[00:04:57] And so we'll see if that trend continues and maybe that might be the thing to swing you with the presidential debate, didn't swing you.

[00:05:07] But that's just kind of my take on in my short take on it because you know,

[00:05:12] we got a picture when I want to get too far but there's also some else I want to talk about at the end.

[00:05:18] So, but I just wanted to offer my take on it.

[00:05:25] I think the vice president did an incredible job in making her case.

[00:05:30] And I think that when it's all said and done, she's going to be duly elected as an ex-president of the United States.

[00:05:41] So have said all that.

[00:05:44] Now let's go ahead and get ourselves started.

[00:05:46] And as always, we started off with a woman in news.

[00:05:50] We're dressed you.

[00:05:58] Thanks Eric.

[00:05:59] In a heated debate, vice president Kamala Harris challenged Donald Trump on various issues,

[00:06:05] provoking an angry response from him while successfully shifting the focus onto his controversies.

[00:06:10] Pop star Taylor Swift, former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney,

[00:06:16] endorsed vice president Harris for the upcoming presidential election.

[00:06:20] A New York Times CNN college full shows Donald Trump and vice president Harris nearly tied in the presidential race

[00:06:27] with Trump leading by one percentage point.

[00:06:30] A search is ongoing for a suspect in a shooting spree on a Kentucky interstate that injured seven people.

[00:06:36] Colin Gray and his 14-year-old son appeared in a Georgia court facing serious charges after the Appalachia high school shooting.

[00:06:45] Hunter Biden pled guilty to federal charges, avoiding a trial just before the U.S. presidential election.

[00:06:51] The U.S. filed money laundering charges against two employees of a Russian news network for allegedly using a scheme

[00:06:57] to influence the 2024 presidential election.

[00:07:01] A judge delayed Donald Trump sentencing in a hush money case until after the election to avoid perceptions of political bias.

[00:07:10] Trump's legal team appealed a $5 million verdict in a case involving E. Jean Carroll,

[00:07:15] arguing improper admission of testimony from other accusers.

[00:07:19] A federal court allowed California and Hawaii to enforce gunbands in certain public places.

[00:07:25] California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill allowing undocumented immigrants access to state-home buying funds due to budget constraints.

[00:07:35] An ex-American Airlines mechanic was sentenced to nine years for attempting to smuggle cocaine from Jamaica to New York.

[00:07:42] And American actor James Earl Jones renowned for his powerful voice as Darth Vader and other iconic roles passed away at the age of 93.

[00:07:52] I am Grace G. and this has been a moment of news.

[00:08:04] All right, thank you Grace for that moment of news.

[00:08:09] And now it is time for my first guest, Fred Wadeskin.

[00:08:16] For Wayskin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1943.

[00:08:23] He went to Kingian College and did graduate study at New York University.

[00:08:28] He lives in Manhattan.

[00:08:31] His work has appeared in Esquire, New York Magazine, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the New York Times book review,

[00:08:38] Outside Sports Illustrated Forbes, the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast, among other publications.

[00:08:47] His memoir, Searching for Bobby Fisher, was made into a major motion picture released in 1993.

[00:08:55] His new book is a novel called Is Anything Good.

[00:09:00] And that's what we're going to be talking about on the podcast.

[00:09:04] So ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest on this podcast, Fred Wadeskin.

[00:09:24] All right, Fred Wadeskin, did I say that right?

[00:09:28] You got exactly right, Wayskin.

[00:09:31] Alright, Fred Wadeskin, the legendary author and novelist, whatever title you've write or whatever title you want to use,

[00:09:40] I am really really honored to have you as a guest on this podcast.

[00:09:45] Because you've written this book and you know, and I'm sitting up here, anything is good.

[00:09:55] And you know, you just look at that in the, in the bookstore and you're like,

[00:10:02] Hmm, anything with what direction is this going to go, right?

[00:10:08] So before I get into the book title and what that means, what I normally like to do with a guest is that I throw out a quote, the kind of an icebreaker.

[00:10:18] So your quote is, I discovered that if you believe you are invisible, you really become invisible.

[00:10:28] What is that quote, me and you?

[00:10:32] Well, I mean what it means to me is it's something that my central character in the story says to himself at one point,

[00:10:43] you know, if we talk about the story from the beginning, I want to talk about his early life,

[00:10:49] but let me get into the heart meat of the book.

[00:10:52] We're talking about it at 20 year period of time with my central character is almost.

[00:10:57] And at the beginning, it was almost of this 20 years.

[00:11:01] I mean, he's scared to death, he's starving.

[00:11:03] He does not where to get the food, he doesn't know where to get some clean water drink.

[00:11:07] And he's afraid of getting beat up by people in the park.

[00:11:11] So he says to himself, what he learns is that if he tries to be invisible, when he's sitting in the park,

[00:11:20] and he's feeling danger around him, that he kind of becomes invisible, sort of like when you look at it,

[00:11:27] at a rabbit sometimes on your lawn or in the field, you'll notice he'll just sit very quietly.

[00:11:34] And you'll look at him and he'll look at you.

[00:11:37] And if you don't chase him, you'll maybe even forget that he's there,

[00:11:40] or at least I think that's the intention of the rabbit.

[00:11:43] That is certainly the intention of my central character around.

[00:11:46] He'll say if he's very quiet, and he pretends he's not there,

[00:11:51] that other people won't notice it.

[00:11:52] That's what it means.

[00:11:53] All right, so let's get into the book.

[00:11:56] Anything is good.

[00:11:57] Why did you pick that title?

[00:12:00] What does that mean to you?

[00:12:04] Well, I picked that title by the title and I got to the end of the book.

[00:12:11] So you know, I think maybe if we tell our audience a little bit what happens in the book,

[00:12:17] then I'll tell you what the title means.

[00:12:19] I mean if you want me to tell you now, I will be a sort of telling the end of the story before we tell them again.

[00:12:24] All right, well that's that's fair.

[00:12:26] So this is a book and it's a friendship story in a way,

[00:12:35] but it really gets into this one particular character Ralph Silverman.

[00:12:43] And Ralph spends a good portion of his adult life homeless.

[00:12:50] Why did you?

[00:12:52] Well, who first of all, who is Ralph to you?

[00:12:58] And why did you choose to write a story about a friend that was homeless?

[00:13:05] And what is, I guess the tack on, what is homelessness mean to you as you tell the story through Ralph?

[00:13:17] We go back.

[00:13:19] We go back in the beginning Ralph was my best friend in high school.

[00:13:21] And he was the smartest kid in my high school. He was brilliant. He was the genius.

[00:13:27] He understood, I was interested in becoming a writer and when I didn't understand what a poem meant.

[00:13:32] I asked Ralph and he told me immediately, his mind was in all, in all facets of intelligence.

[00:13:38] He was at a higher level.

[00:13:41] And we became very good friends. He was a strange guy.

[00:13:44] I mean, he referred to himself as an alien.

[00:13:48] And I found that very interesting.

[00:13:50] I mean, it was just he came from another planet.

[00:13:53] And he would tell me that like when he heard other kids in the school talking,

[00:13:58] in order to relate to them,

[00:14:01] it was like he was translating from a different language.

[00:14:04] And he would have to try to speak their language in order for them to understand.

[00:14:08] So he was manifestly strange and very brilliant.

[00:14:13] We became very good friends.

[00:14:17] And when he finished high school, he went off the college in the Midwest.

[00:14:24] And he was recognized immediately as we're having a brilliance and philosophy at the dinner for us.

[00:14:31] And even while he was still in college, he was doing philosophy at a very high level.

[00:14:35] And people were referring to him to the genius.

[00:14:39] And when he graduated from college, started a PhD program.

[00:14:44] But it was too slow for him.

[00:14:46] So we quit it and he decided to study philosophy on his own.

[00:14:49] He was conferring with the greatest philosophers in the world.

[00:14:52] John Stuart Mill, one of his mentors.

[00:14:59] And he was living in an apartment in the upper side of Manhattan.

[00:15:05] Working on advanced philosophy and inventing things.

[00:15:09] He had a mind for inventions.

[00:15:11] He was inventing ways to make computers.

[00:15:14] This was the sort of the beginning of computers.

[00:15:16] He was inventing ways to make them faster.

[00:15:19] And he invented something called the Pythagaran,

[00:15:24] which was a kind of music that was based on the one's brain waves.

[00:15:28] And if you listen to it, it makes you a high as if you were smoking grass or a huskish.

[00:15:34] And after going back a little bit more in the sense that when I was a kid,

[00:15:38] I didn't really know anything about his family.

[00:15:41] Later on I learned that his father was came to this country very little money.

[00:15:48] But wanted to make money more than anything else.

[00:15:50] And he became involved with him with a gangster named Sammy the Bouldrovano.

[00:15:55] Some people were part of because he was involved with John Gotti.

[00:15:59] And he's been accused of 19 murders.

[00:16:02] And he was rather rather a business part.

[00:16:07] And the two of them, they owned 14 office buildings in Manhattan.

[00:16:10] Really big ones.

[00:16:11] But they were under capitalized.

[00:16:14] And while his father was doing this kind of dark work,

[00:16:18] Ralph was living in a apartment by himself and fanted.

[00:16:23] But the business started to fall apart at one point because the buildings were under capitalized.

[00:16:30] So Ralph couldn't pay the rent in his apartment.

[00:16:33] And his sister was very, also very intelligent.

[00:16:36] Moved him to a tiny little house near Miami.

[00:16:41] And he lived in a room with only large enough for a small bed,

[00:16:46] and a little desk, where he put his computer and he did his work.

[00:16:49] And the house was owned by a cousin.

[00:16:51] But they didn't get along at all.

[00:16:53] The cousin thought Ralph was crazy.

[00:16:55] And 190 came into his bedroom.

[00:16:57] He grabbed him by the collar and threw him out onto the street.

[00:17:00] Ralph wasn't wearing any shoes.

[00:17:02] He had no money in his pocket.

[00:17:03] And his glasses were broken.

[00:17:07] And he lived in the street for the next 20 years.

[00:17:09] That's how the story began.

[00:17:13] So what made you decide?

[00:17:17] Because it's, you, you describe this.

[00:17:20] It's, it comes out as a work of fiction.

[00:17:23] But it's really based off of a real person.

[00:17:27] So what made you decide to fictionalize this story as opposed

[00:17:33] to just writing biographical sketch of this homeless friend of yours?

[00:17:41] Well, Eric, you know, I think a lot of people don't realize it.

[00:17:44] But most good fiction is based on reality.

[00:17:47] I often, you know, when I talk about this subject,

[00:17:49] I often talk about Ernest Hemingman.

[00:17:52] I mean, the first novel that I read when I was 13 years old

[00:17:55] was the old man in the state, which I fell in love with.

[00:17:58] And I couldn't believe that he came up with a city break story

[00:18:00] and old man going up by himself and fighting a fish that weighed 2,000 pounds

[00:18:05] and then it can see my shrubs to a city break story.

[00:18:08] But I found out later, you know,

[00:18:10] when it 15 years later, that the 20 years before he wrote that novel,

[00:18:17] you met this guy in Cuba, his name was Santiago,

[00:18:21] who's the fisherman, caught the fish.

[00:18:24] And he wrote a two-page article in the Toronto Star.

[00:18:29] Some are rising what happened, the same story that you wrote about in the novel.

[00:18:33] This is true about a lot of great novels.

[00:18:35] A lot of people think fiction or you make it all up yourself.

[00:18:40] But most good fiction makes place initially

[00:18:44] and an event that's placed within the author,

[00:18:46] or with characters that he learned along the way.

[00:18:50] And then his fantasy takes over the day's character.

[00:18:53] That's what I did with the realm.

[00:18:58] So you dive into the world through Ralph.

[00:19:04] You dive into this world of being homeless.

[00:19:07] And as somebody who was reading that,

[00:19:10] it was just like the way things happened.

[00:19:12] This domino effect about this thing.

[00:19:16] And this thing is like one minute,

[00:19:19] this guy was pursuing his dream and you know, living.

[00:19:25] You know, I wouldn't say an affluent life,

[00:19:31] but he was living a good life.

[00:19:33] He didn't have any worries.

[00:19:36] All he could put his focus on what he wanted

[00:19:38] and then in a matter of moments,

[00:19:43] he was on a part bench in Miami, Florida, Miami Beach.

[00:19:50] What is that say to you about the condition of homelessness?

[00:19:56] And especially as we are approaching,

[00:20:00] well, as we are in the middle of an election year,

[00:20:04] why is the issue of homelessness important?

[00:20:08] Well, it's all around us.

[00:20:10] It's all around us except the D.C. not to notice it.

[00:20:14] I mean, I live in New York City and from what I read,

[00:20:17] there's about 200,000 homeless people living in the city.

[00:20:20] But before I started doing the research for this book,

[00:20:23] I mean, the homeless people in the city were part of the furniture of the city,

[00:20:26] and we walked down the street,

[00:20:28] they'd be guys leaning against the light pole or being lying on the concrete.

[00:20:32] My office is on 28th street, which is the flower district Manhattan.

[00:20:36] And you know, your work festival is beautiful flowers,

[00:20:39] there was a lot of lying on the concrete front of the flowers

[00:20:42] towards a menor-wemble with that, some of them with that clothes.

[00:20:48] lying on the concrete without a pillow, maybe on a box.

[00:20:53] But it just sort of blends into the light and you don't think of it

[00:20:58] after a while.

[00:20:59] So you just, you think, as I said before,

[00:21:04] you think of these people almost like the furniture of the city.

[00:21:08] But once I started investigating the story and learning about route,

[00:21:13] I started seeing the people at the homeless people in the city

[00:21:15] and everywhere that I lived in different terms.

[00:21:17] I mean, I started to see that there are brilliant people on the city

[00:21:20] that are homeless and they're caring people that are homeless

[00:21:23] and they're creative people that are homeless.

[00:21:25] They're also bad people that are homeless.

[00:21:27] That might do bad things.

[00:21:29] But I had a whole different vision of the problem

[00:21:34] and the reality at who is homeless.

[00:21:38] The little work that the research that I started doing on this book

[00:21:41] before I wrote it, and while I was writing.

[00:21:45] So I've lived in three cities in my life.

[00:21:48] I lived a group in Chicago, a spent majority of my life

[00:21:52] in Jackson, Mississippi, and now I'm in Atlanta.

[00:21:57] And my next question is based off of a personal experience with me.

[00:22:04] So I've been also very fortunate to travel this country.

[00:22:08] And the most striking image to me out of all of the homeless

[00:22:12] that I have seen and experienced was going to Washington, DC.

[00:22:21] And it seemed like every green space in Washington, DC had homeless folks.

[00:22:28] And the most striking was there's a park right across

[00:22:32] where the Department of Veteran Affairs is in DC.

[00:22:38] And you see this big beautiful white building and it's got the sign

[00:22:44] and then you look at this park and you see all these homeless people

[00:22:48] and a lot of them had their military uniforms

[00:22:51] that they were issued in Kept.

[00:22:54] And they were sleeping in this park right across from the agency

[00:22:58] that's supposed to be taking care of them.

[00:23:03] Out of doing your research, what was the most striking thing

[00:23:06] that you saw and what do you think can be done to fix that problem

[00:23:16] that you saw?

[00:23:18] Well, you know, I saw many manifestations of homelessness

[00:23:22] that were crushing.

[00:23:25] You know, one example that I could give you is there's a late

[00:23:29] I live in Manhattan and none of my houses were little park

[00:23:37] and it was newly renovated, maybe it's a full 14 park bench

[00:23:42] and it's a beautiful place where

[00:23:45] the blind ladies and babies come with strollers

[00:23:48] they come through and the little kids start to play football

[00:23:52] baseball there.

[00:23:54] It's just a little park, very beautiful.

[00:23:57] But about two years ago, a woman immigrated to the park

[00:24:03] and started living on an bench, one of the benchers

[00:24:07] and she had a husband.

[00:24:09] They were living on the bench together.

[00:24:11] In the two years, they lived on the bench.

[00:24:14] They lived on the bench and they smelled.

[00:24:16] They lived on the bench in the rain.

[00:24:19] They covered themselves with a blanket.

[00:24:20] They got drenched, what it was raining.

[00:24:23] They hardly ever moved off the bench.

[00:24:25] They probably went to the bathroom some of the time

[00:24:27] on the bench.

[00:24:29] That's when your husband froze to death in the bench,

[00:24:33] and the lady kept living there.

[00:24:37] There were a couple of ladies in my neighborhood

[00:24:39] that kind of take care of them.

[00:24:45] Sharing and generating.

[00:24:47] They watch out for them.

[00:24:51] But when you spend time with her,

[00:24:53] I have spent time with her.

[00:24:55] You realize that she doesn't know where to go.

[00:24:57] The benchers are only like.

[00:25:00] She doesn't know what the rep-she is going to go into it

[00:25:02] and she's like, you know, a place that homeless people can live

[00:25:06] because she's afraid of getting robbed or hurt.

[00:25:10] And so I watched her for a while

[00:25:12] and then I started to not think about her again.

[00:25:16] In other words, I thought the think about her is part

[00:25:18] of the furniture in the place.

[00:25:22] But then one night I was coming home

[00:25:27] and she was sitting on the bench

[00:25:29] and she was sitting up.

[00:25:30] She wasn't lying down.

[00:25:31] She didn't have the blanket overhead.

[00:25:33] And there was a young man who was a painter

[00:25:35] or an artist that's some sort.

[00:25:38] And he was sitting next to her on the bench

[00:25:40] and I kind of moved close to them

[00:25:42] and I started listening

[00:25:44] and he had a portfolio of drawings

[00:25:47] and they looked really good at drawing,

[00:25:49] she was doing.

[00:25:50] And he was turning the pages to her.

[00:25:52] She was looking at the drawings

[00:25:53] and making suggestions on the drawings like that.

[00:25:57] And our teacher saying, this would be better

[00:25:58] for this work.

[00:26:00] This would be better for this work.

[00:26:03] She was directing him.

[00:26:06] And I was blown away because he was just

[00:26:08] woman that had been living on the bench

[00:26:09] and front of my house for two years

[00:26:10] and I'd sort of taken it, taking for granted

[00:26:13] a craziness, the eccentricity.

[00:26:16] The fact that she groomed himself on the bench

[00:26:18] on the bench that she ate on the beach.

[00:26:20] But here at this one night this actually happened

[00:26:22] like only two weeks ago.

[00:26:24] She was very wise and the direction of art.

[00:26:27] She obviously had a background in art.

[00:26:31] But what does this tell me with this tells me

[00:26:33] is that all sorts of people are homeless.

[00:26:36] My friend Ralph was homeless

[00:26:37] and I mean Ralph was a genius, is a genius.

[00:26:39] The genius, they lived on a park bench

[00:26:44] for nearly 20 years.

[00:26:47] So I think the first of all,

[00:26:48] I mean what it teaches is that homeless people

[00:26:51] are not inferior or, you know,

[00:26:57] they're not repeating myself.

[00:27:00] They're not part of the furniture of the city.

[00:27:03] They're people with feelings and depth and intelligence.

[00:27:07] But we just don't see them that way.

[00:27:09] It's not convenient for us to look them that way.

[00:27:11] Now I can look for example.

[00:27:13] Ralph meets remarkable people in his homeless life.

[00:27:19] At one point he emigrates from Miami Beach

[00:27:22] up to a top of each.

[00:27:24] And there's a park that he stays in there

[00:27:25] and he meets a small woman in her name as Melanie.

[00:27:29] And Melanie has been living on the street for 15 years.

[00:27:32] She has a lover, his name is Wayne.

[00:27:34] It's a top-top kind of keeps order in the park.

[00:27:37] But Melanie was a computer expert.

[00:27:42] She took apart mainframe Texas computers

[00:27:45] and put them together.

[00:27:46] She was a sage in computers.

[00:27:48] She earned a lot of money before.

[00:27:51] She lost her job temporarily

[00:27:53] and then fell in love with Wayne.

[00:27:54] And Ralph started to talk computers with Melanie.

[00:27:58] And Ralph was really smart with computers,

[00:27:59] but she knew computers better than he did.

[00:28:02] There you go.

[00:28:02] That's one story.

[00:28:04] Another thing that I learned, which I thought was very interesting,

[00:28:07] it speaks to your point.

[00:28:10] In homeless parks, very often,

[00:28:12] you'll have visitors from the outside room

[00:28:15] that will go into the park because they want to have a dialogue

[00:28:20] with a couple of people in the park

[00:28:21] because in these parks, almost invariably,

[00:28:24] there are one or two with three people that are sages,

[00:28:27] that really have learned so much from living on the street.

[00:28:31] That they have a deeper intelligence and they're not fed

[00:28:34] with a lot of the superficial values

[00:28:37] that most of us have because we're fortunate

[00:28:39] and let's not live on the street.

[00:28:43] And people actually come to the park

[00:28:45] to learn from the homeless people

[00:28:47] because there's a certain refreshing way

[00:28:49] in which they look at the world.

[00:28:51] That's another example of what you speak to that I think.

[00:28:54] Yeah, and there's a song.

[00:28:56] I don't know if you familiar with this group

[00:28:58] or a rested development,

[00:29:00] but they had a song called Mr. Window.

[00:29:04] And the gist of that story was

[00:29:06] the artist is telling the story about

[00:29:08] this homeless guy who was smarter than anybody

[00:29:11] he had ever encountered.

[00:29:13] You know, it was kind of like an homage

[00:29:16] to Mr. Window.

[00:29:18] That's like part of the chorus.

[00:29:21] You know, it's like, you know,

[00:29:22] I respect you for the human being you are

[00:29:25] even though other people might look at you different

[00:29:27] because your homens, right?

[00:29:31] And the character Ralph,

[00:29:34] there was a guy in Jackson, Mr. Sippy

[00:29:38] who was homeless by choice.

[00:29:41] His son went to college, went to a private board and school

[00:29:46] and that's how I got to know the relationship

[00:29:49] between, I had known his guys

[00:29:51] for the young man's father from a distance.

[00:29:54] I got to know him more intimately

[00:29:55] because I worked at that school when his son was there

[00:29:58] and then his son went on to university

[00:30:01] Mississippi, basketball scholarship,

[00:30:03] he's a coach in all that, but his dad

[00:30:05] is homeless on his own accord.

[00:30:09] And he has taken that role where he had taken that role

[00:30:13] to advocate for the homeless.

[00:30:18] And in Ralph, there was a certain point

[00:30:20] where you have people from the park coming

[00:30:24] to him and asking him for advice

[00:30:27] and basically kind of telling their

[00:30:29] life story to him and it reminded me of him.

[00:30:33] And in a sense Ralph kind of took on that role

[00:30:35] of being not necessarily an advocate

[00:30:38] for him but being a counselor.

[00:30:41] And so that kind of highlights what you're talking about

[00:30:44] about the sage, you know,

[00:30:47] you have these people that everybody respects.

[00:30:51] And why did you feel that was important

[00:30:54] to highlight that aspect of Ralph's experience?

[00:30:58] Well because Ralph was a sage before he went

[00:31:01] into the park and he was definitely a sage

[00:31:04] when he went after the first few years

[00:31:08] when he got his legs underneath him.

[00:31:10] And he learned how to live in the park.

[00:31:12] He was definitely a sage, he was so at that.

[00:31:14] So at that by other people, you know,

[00:31:17] to give them comforts at talk to them

[00:31:18] like the lay psychologists.

[00:31:24] And interestingly enough,

[00:31:26] when Ralph was in the park,

[00:31:28] I would call him time for time.

[00:31:31] You're already, he would call me collection in Europe.

[00:31:33] And I would almost always ask him,

[00:31:35] you want to leave the park, man.

[00:31:36] You want to, you know,

[00:31:37] because it's time to come back into the real world,

[00:31:40] you know, or the world that's not the underworld.

[00:31:43] And he'd say no.

[00:31:44] I like living this way.

[00:31:46] I like living this way.

[00:31:47] There's a ruinous spirit and a liveness

[00:31:49] through it very much like the friend

[00:31:50] that you was talking about before.

[00:31:52] The number of years he didn't want to leave the park.

[00:31:55] Eventually, eventually one day he called me up and he said,

[00:31:58] if I don't get out of the park,

[00:32:00] I'm going to die.

[00:32:01] I know it.

[00:32:02] And then I went down a floor

[00:32:03] and helped him get out of the park.

[00:32:04] But for many years he did not want to leave the park.

[00:32:09] Yeah.

[00:32:12] homelessness has been a part of our literary culture forever.

[00:32:18] I mean, it's in the Bible, right?

[00:32:23] Why do you think we are fascinated

[00:32:27] in a literary sense,

[00:32:30] in a cultural sense with homelessness?

[00:32:32] And how come, in your opinion,

[00:32:34] does it not translate into action

[00:32:38] that needs to be done in a political or a policy sense?

[00:32:46] Well, I think there are two separate questions.

[00:32:49] I mean,

[00:32:51] well, I was speaking to you earlier about reading Ernest Heming when I was 12

[00:32:58] or 13 years old and when I was 16 years old,

[00:33:00] I was reading Jack Kerrewett.

[00:33:02] Jack Kerrewett was a great influence on me as a writer

[00:33:05] because the character that he wrote about,

[00:33:08] he was living in the hills in California.

[00:33:12] He was hitcrackable across the country.

[00:33:14] He was basically a homeless person.

[00:33:16] And not entirely.

[00:33:18] And it's towards the end of his career.

[00:33:19] His family's name is Meg and so many.

[00:33:21] But basically he was a homeless person.

[00:33:23] He was living outside in the rain.

[00:33:25] He was feeling the essence of life

[00:33:29] without the accoutrements of life,

[00:33:31] without glamour, without fancy restaurants,

[00:33:33] without fancy cars.

[00:33:35] And I think that's one of the reasons why he was

[00:33:37] so attracted to many readers

[00:33:42] because he actually tasted the ruinous of life.

[00:33:47] And then of course he was a good writer, a great writer.

[00:33:50] And he was able to show it to us.

[00:33:53] I think that in the same way that I described

[00:33:57] a few minutes ago that some people go to parks

[00:34:00] to speak to homeless people.

[00:34:01] Because they're looking for the same thing

[00:34:03] in Jack Kerrewett, a guy who's writing.

[00:34:05] A kind of elemental.

[00:34:07] I mean there's so much group in life.

[00:34:09] There's so much comfort in life.

[00:34:12] It's very often you don't feel the basic things in life.

[00:34:14] You don't feel what it's like to be outside.

[00:34:19] When the summer is turning to full

[00:34:20] and you can smell the poor, you smell the poor leaves.

[00:34:24] Your home was the experience of saying to us

[00:34:26] that's where you live. That's where you live.

[00:34:28] What was the second part of your question?

[00:34:30] So that fascination has not led to act well.

[00:34:37] I wouldn't say not led to agivism,

[00:34:38] but it hasn't led to any kind of concrete policy

[00:34:41] to address the issue or something

[00:34:44] that can build consensus.

[00:34:45] We're fascinated as the term used to furniture

[00:34:49] of the park or the furniture of the society.

[00:34:54] And we'll read books and all this stuff,

[00:34:56] but it hasn't translated to addressing the issue

[00:35:01] where we minimize or eliminate it all together.

[00:35:05] I say so many people are loved with making a lot of money

[00:35:09] and living rich.

[00:35:10] I mean, our ex-president wouldn't see anything beautiful

[00:35:16] about the writing and Jack Kerr or Jack.

[00:35:18] And he wouldn't see anything beautiful about the way

[00:35:19] to almost people.

[00:35:21] You have to look deeply and carefully and slow it

[00:35:23] to see the greatness of many great people.

[00:35:28] Now, the question of the problem would to do about it.

[00:35:32] I can't answer that question.

[00:35:33] I know that some people are struggling to do it.

[00:35:36] I read recently that the Governor of California built

[00:35:41] a kind of residence apartment house for homeless people

[00:35:46] for 67 that homeless families,

[00:35:50] but the cost of it was $680,000, but unit.

[00:35:54] The whole we're going to take care of millions

[00:35:56] of homeless people at those kind of prices.

[00:35:59] I mean, it's a very, very big problem.

[00:36:02] We take a different kind of my channel in the world.

[00:36:06] It's a bit, is it the text around so that one feels

[00:36:11] gets the feeling of the room.

[00:36:14] Sometimes the political asper is not so obvious to me.

[00:36:17] The asper is not obvious to me.

[00:36:20] Yeah, one of the things in my mind

[00:36:23] because being a former elected official,

[00:36:27] I was just thinking, isn't it ironic

[00:36:31] that Ralph's father had this big giant place

[00:36:35] that he couldn't use or he couldn't run out.

[00:36:38] And his son, along with thousands of other people

[00:36:42] are sitting without a place to stay.

[00:36:44] Wouldn't it have been something if Isaac's big warehouse

[00:36:49] became a place where homeless people could live

[00:36:52] and be safe and have some, as you say, a cool termist?

[00:36:55] But that's how my mind works.

[00:36:57] And as I said, I just thought,

[00:37:00] when it had been something that had been an interesting

[00:37:02] twist of the story, you don't upset it.

[00:37:05] But like I said, that's how my mind works.

[00:37:08] And that's not what really happened.

[00:37:11] So let me ask you this as we kind of close out.

[00:37:14] This is the seventh novel that you've written.

[00:37:18] And you've been doing this for over 50 years.

[00:37:21] Was there something different

[00:37:23] that you brought to this particular creative process

[00:37:27] and writing this book as opposed to the other books that you've written?

[00:37:31] There was.

[00:37:33] That was kind of a mystical experience.

[00:37:36] You know, I got into about two,

[00:37:38] two thirds the way through the writing in the book

[00:37:40] and I thought it was an important story.

[00:37:42] I thought it was a story that people had to know about

[00:37:45] because it hasn't, I mean,

[00:37:48] a couple of great books written at that home

[00:37:50] and I was just not many.

[00:37:52] And I don't think anything that captures the present

[00:37:55] situation of homeless people.

[00:37:58] And I didn't know how to end the book.

[00:38:00] And I was feeling sad and depressed about it.

[00:38:04] And one night, you know, I felt asleep.

[00:38:07] I woke up in the morning.

[00:38:08] I was still half asleep.

[00:38:10] And I had a vision.

[00:38:12] And I always keep a little writing paid behind my bed.

[00:38:15] And I sat down and I wrote a half a page.

[00:38:17] And I knew what to do when I went to my office at day.

[00:38:21] And I sat down at my computer and I started to write the end of the book.

[00:38:25] Then for the next four months,

[00:38:28] every night, I either had a dream,

[00:38:30] one in a sleep or a dream waking up about what to write next.

[00:38:34] To the last 25% of the book was a dream vision.

[00:38:38] A few are dream vision.

[00:38:39] It never happened to me before.

[00:38:42] And I hope it happens again.

[00:38:43] But at the end of the book is very,

[00:38:46] it's very arresting.

[00:38:47] It's a very interesting and positive story.

[00:38:51] And it came to me in a series of dreams.

[00:38:56] Yeah, it's very, very compelling, man.

[00:38:59] And of course, you've been doing this for a long time.

[00:39:04] So people that have been that our fans of yours would not be surprised of it.

[00:39:10] But I really, really appreciated the detail that you put in.

[00:39:16] And how easy you could immerse yourself in that world.

[00:39:25] It was very, very, very, very well done.

[00:39:30] So what I usually do at the end is encourage people to buy the book.

[00:39:35] So how can people get it?

[00:39:37] How can people reach out to you to talk about the book or other things?

[00:39:43] Yeah, just let people know how people get the book and get the book and get the book.

[00:39:47] I have a website, friendwates.com.

[00:39:51] And I can be reached by my website.

[00:39:53] I'm interested in hearing from fans and answering questions.

[00:39:58] You can also reach me on Amazon.

[00:40:00] But I think the best way to buy the book is through Fines and Noble or Amazon.

[00:40:05] The book is available either in a Kindle or a Heart, Heart, Heart cover version.

[00:40:11] Amazon is very often, or if it's the book at this camp, you put this in.

[00:40:17] And I love to hear from readers dropping you know, if you read the book, it will be great to hear from you.

[00:40:25] Well, for a way to get it, it's an honor again.

[00:40:29] The state again, it's an honor to have you on.

[00:40:33] One of the cool things about having a podcast is being able to meet great people like you.

[00:40:38] And I'm glad that you used your literary skills to address this particular issue.

[00:40:44] And hopefully, this will add to the conversation and make people more sensitive about it and lead to some positive actions to address it.

[00:40:57] So thank you again for coming on.

[00:40:59] Director of Sopo Guy and Joanna Tvok and Lloydon.

[00:41:02] Thank you, sir.

[00:41:04] All right guys, and we're going to catch all on the other side.

[00:41:25] All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest.

[00:41:30] His name is Maph, Matthew, Ferenc.

[00:41:34] Matthew, Ferenc lives in rights at the confluence of Appalachia and the Rust Belt.

[00:41:40] He teaches creative writing at Allegheny College in Medville, Pennsylvania.

[00:41:45] He is the author of I hate it here.

[00:41:48] Please vote for me.

[00:41:49] SAs on rule, political decay.

[00:41:53] And that's the book we're going to be talking about during the interview.

[00:41:56] So ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest on this podcast, Matthew Ferenc.

[00:42:16] All right, Matthew Ferenc. How you doing? So are you doing good?

[00:42:22] Yeah, do it well. We've got beautiful autumn happening and we'll go with that.

[00:42:28] You're doing well?

[00:42:29] I'm doing good, man. I'm just happy to be here.

[00:42:33] And I'm really excited to talk to you because you chronicle the journey.

[00:42:41] My name is a book is called I hate it here. Please vote for me.

[00:42:45] SAs on rule, political decay.

[00:42:49] So you wrote about your experience about running for office.

[00:42:55] And so that was very fascinating to me.

[00:42:57] And I wanted to talk to you about this book and that experience.

[00:43:03] But before we get started, what I like to do is draw a quote kind of an iceberg.

[00:43:10] So your quote is, cries and whispers of bang or a whimper.

[00:43:16] Whatever the case, if we want to be heard, we must raise our voice or lower it.

[00:43:23] What does that quote mean to you?

[00:43:25] Yeah, so that's from Mary Ruffel.

[00:43:28] And that's the kind of dedication quote for the book.

[00:43:31] And there's two important things they'll start with the last one.

[00:43:35] And that's the lowering our voice.

[00:43:37] And when I hear that, what I think of is the best friends or the best writers,

[00:43:43] quoting a different writer, Patricia Hample here,

[00:43:45] they put their armor around your shoulder and they invite you into their life.

[00:43:50] They speak softly in your ear about what it is to be them.

[00:43:53] And that's one of the most powerful forces for social change and political change.

[00:43:58] And that's what I think poetry and writing do in the political context,

[00:44:02] which might be a little bit funny to think about.

[00:44:04] But then the other part is making our voices heard.

[00:44:08] What I'm writing about is running as a progressive Democrat in an extremely right-wing district

[00:44:12] and the unsurprising outcome of losing.

[00:44:15] But trying to get at what we're really losing when voices like that are washed away.

[00:44:21] So we have to raise our voices when we are thought to not exist in certain places,

[00:44:26] because that's the other way.

[00:44:28] We can affect change that might make the world a better place.

[00:44:32] All right. So you're a creative writing professor.

[00:44:36] Yeah.

[00:44:37] And what's the name of the college?

[00:44:39] It's Allegheny College.

[00:44:40] It's a small undergraduate college up in the little extra rectangle on the top of Pennsylvania,

[00:44:45] the Northwest on Lake Eury.

[00:44:47] Okay.

[00:44:48] And so that means you're not a career politician like me.

[00:44:53] Right, right.

[00:44:55] So what was the office that you ran in 2020, right?

[00:45:01] Correct. Yeah.

[00:45:02] So I ran for our Pennsylvania House of Representatives,

[00:45:05] so state House of Representatives.

[00:45:07] And Pennsylvania is, I think it's the second largest legislature in the country.

[00:45:12] It's a full-time legislature with a lot of people, a lot of districts.

[00:45:17] And I decided that yeah, I wanted to throw my hat in the ring for important and petty reasons, both.

[00:45:25] Well, talk about that.

[00:45:26] Well, what was the important and petty reasons why you wanted to run?

[00:45:30] Well, the same reason which is kind of fun.

[00:45:32] The petty started, the person who's been in that seat for a really long time in,

[00:45:37] I can't remember if it was 2016 or 2017 off the top of my head here.

[00:45:41] But he said that he thought that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should save some money by stopping financial aid for college

[00:45:51] for any student who quoting him studies poetry or any other pre-wallmark major.

[00:45:58] And that got me going as a professor of pre-wallmark studies.

[00:46:04] It is context.

[00:46:07] Like that was an attack on what I do and what my students do.

[00:46:13] But then the non-petties, so I was just angry, right?

[00:46:15] So the non-pettie part of it is for me what's underneath that line is the assumption that if you grow up in a certain place and are a certain kind of person,

[00:46:26] you cannot choose your own destiny that you only exist to work in the terms of what someone else has decided the economy is.

[00:46:35] So it's a curtailing of horizons and dreams.

[00:46:38] And what's often told to people who grow up in poverty or people who grow up in rural spaces is that,

[00:46:45] or both, their only use is as labor to provide money for other people to get wealthy on.

[00:46:53] And there's no point in being a poet in, I guess in this context, unless you're wealthy because it's a, quote, useless sort of thing.

[00:47:00] And then he also later apologized to Walmart for that comment, which also was it indication that he was much more interested in, or is much more interested in the support of a large big box company that has decimated small businesses in rural places,

[00:47:21] than actually representing the hopes and dreams of the people around him.

[00:47:24] And so that's what I've faced my campaign on conceptually.

[00:47:27] Well, you know, and you bring up an interesting point because I remember, I spent most of my life in Mississippi.

[00:47:36] I grew up in Chicago, which basically got to tell people why I'm a Democrat, because my precinct captain was a little lead coach.

[00:47:43] So it was like, you know, for birth, it was pretty right.

[00:47:46] It was pretty right.

[00:47:46] I was going to be a Democrat.

[00:47:47] Then I go to college in Mississippi and up standing at like 30 some years.

[00:47:51] And then now I'm here in Atlanta, but during the time I was in Mississippi is when I got, you know, politically active and galactic on that.

[00:47:59] So there was a candidate I worked for who was running for Congress.

[00:48:05] And his claim to fame, he owned a funeral home in downtown.

[00:48:09] And his claim to fame was that when Walmart came to his town, he basically, they were, you know, entertaining coming.

[00:48:18] And he stood up at the Chamber of Commerce meeting and was like, hell no, they can't come.

[00:48:23] It's like it's going to kill all the businesses and all that and everybody said, well, you've got a business that Walmart can't take away.

[00:48:31] So it's like, you know, who are you to tell us what is going to do?

[00:48:36] And sure enough when Walmart came, a lot of those businesses over time started closing and stuff.

[00:48:41] And so just that, that was like a 1988.

[00:48:48] So I mean, that dynamic has been around and it's still kind of a thing.

[00:48:53] And then in the city that I lived in in Jackson, they had built like this Walmart and by the campus and they had the first Sam's club in Mississippi was right next door.

[00:49:04] And then when they decided to build something brand new, they just abandoned it.

[00:49:10] And so it took forever to get somebody else in that property to do anything with it.

[00:49:17] So ironically, the pastor to church I went to was the guy I went to to buy in the building.

[00:49:25] And so he moved his church into that, what used to be because it was a grocery store attached to a two.

[00:49:31] So he just moved the church all in there.

[00:49:35] So you had a platform, so talk about the platform, but there was really and you kind of touched on a little bit,

[00:49:48] but there was really an underlying reason for running other than the platform, right?

[00:49:54] Because in the platform, you've got these talking points, healthcare, education, you know, better highways, whatever we run on.

[00:50:03] You know, put a little push guard or whatever.

[00:50:06] So what was that platform?

[00:50:09] And then, but what was really the gut of why you were running?

[00:50:16] Why was it significant for those particular items for you to run on?

[00:50:23] Yeah.

[00:50:23] So my platform, the number one was healthcare and it was really talking about single payer healthcare.

[00:50:30] There has been for a long time a plan more than a concept of a plan, but an actual plan that's been developed

[00:50:37] for the state, the state's large enough that it could become a single payer.

[00:50:42] And what I learned as I was researching is I was running, is that it would keep the same or lower the cost for greater than 90% of pencil.

[00:50:53] So that was a primary thing.

[00:50:56] And this will get to the underlying motivations as well, then public education investment in that and environmental protection.

[00:51:04] And I knew right that these are obviously instantaneously recognizable as democratic or even lefty democratic values.

[00:51:13] But the county that I live in ranks in the bottom third of per capita income in Pennsylvania and the city that I live in

[00:51:22] has about a one third poverty rate.

[00:51:25] So it's a high poverty area and there are huge problems of access to healthcare if we just look at that one.

[00:51:32] Our hospital, we're lucky we still have a privately owned hospital but the greater bulk of their service is for people who don't actually have insurance.

[00:51:42] And so they have to use Medicaid.

[00:51:45] That creates financial pressures for the hospital as well.

[00:51:48] But essentially what I'm looking at are people are struggling and they've been struggling for a long time.

[00:51:54] And one of the things that holds them captive to that struggle is say they have a really bad job, but whatever they've got healthcare.

[00:52:02] They're not going to quit that job.

[00:52:04] So we actually open up our opportunities for entrepreneurship.

[00:52:07] We open up opportunities to leave a bad boss for going where you want to live.

[00:52:13] Maybe living in a rural space if you're not yoked to employer sponsored healthcare.

[00:52:19] And in my own case, I had a brain tumor surgery and radiation in 2016 and I have good insurance.

[00:52:27] And it probably was last year that we finally paid off the debt that we accrued based on that.

[00:52:35] And I knew doing the numbers myself, my family would save $8,000 a year in a single pair system.

[00:52:42] Even though, quote, taxes would go up or actual costs would go down.

[00:52:46] That contrasts with the perpetual platform of the person that I ran against, which reduces to exactly what you would expect for kind of a low interest right wing GOP.

[00:52:57] No taxes.

[00:52:58] That's like his main thing.

[00:52:59] There should be no taxes.

[00:53:00] He's proud he's never voted for a tax increase without nuance.

[00:53:03] And then he's quote, pro-life and pro-gun.

[00:53:08] And what I would say is the taxes thing is hurting the district.

[00:53:13] And the other two are not helping the district.

[00:53:16] They're just, you know, they're what make people fight with politicians.

[00:53:21] So that was the kind of lack of representation in a place that has continued to struggle since industry started leaving in the 1950s

[00:53:28] that we need a political policy answers to help alleviate the suffering and it's not just getting rid of taxes because when you can't afford to healthcare, it doesn't matter.

[00:53:40] So my dad told me years after I stopped running for office.

[00:53:49] He said he was amazed that I even got into politics.

[00:53:55] Because he said, one, you're a natural introvert and two, you have a low tolerance for BS right?

[00:54:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah, actually allergic to it.

[00:54:06] And so for, for he was amazed that not only did I get in but I was somewhat successful.

[00:54:12] So my question you is, are you allergic to BS and if you are, how did you navigate dealing with that in order to run for office?

[00:54:23] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:54:24] And I'm actually, I call myself a goodgerious introvert.

[00:54:27] So it doesn't make sense for me to get into politics.

[00:54:31] But yeah, I have no tolerance for BS and more than that I have no tolerance for exploitation and unfairness.

[00:54:37] And so what I tried to do is it candid it.

[00:54:41] And it was hard because this was a COVID candidacy.

[00:54:43] So I had to do almost all of my campaigning online.

[00:54:47] And what I would do every Monday, called it Mondays with Matt, and I would do sketch sessions where I'd stick my camera on a big pad of paper.

[00:54:56] And I would sketch cartoons and I would talk about issues.

[00:54:59] And for me, it was about storytelling where let's start with no taxes, no tax increase ever.

[00:55:04] And let's get at the story that creates the BS of that.

[00:55:08] And healthcare is a perfect example, is that to pay for single payer healthcare, absolutely, you do need additional tax except that costs you less than the tax you already pay to your healthcare provider.

[00:55:23] That's not a tax because it's not represented.

[00:55:25] So that was what I tried to do to cut through the BS is hit all of the,

[00:55:29] the stories that circulate and we just accept to be true.

[00:55:34] What does it mean to be a Republican? What does it mean to be a Democrat?

[00:55:37] Most people aren't thinking about this.

[00:55:39] And so they're very susceptible to the stories that keep resurculating.

[00:55:43] And that was my BSometer, and my anti BS attempts was to explain where they came from, what the history is to that.

[00:55:53] And what the actual reality could be on the ground, if we refused to just say, oh, I've always voted for Republicans, pull the lever.

[00:56:01] And in the same case, always voted for Democrats and pull the lever. If you're not thinking about what they're doing, then you're not really voting for anything other than a false idea.

[00:56:11] So what did you learn about your district or Americans in general, in this process of running for office?

[00:56:25] Yeah. So some of it was kind of confirmation of inklings.

[00:56:30] But one great recognition that I didn't fully realize, well, so I got blown out in this election, 65-35,

[00:56:39] which is basically the registration split.

[00:56:43] But that meant at the ballot box, 12,000 people in a district of 66, 67,000 people, 12,000 of them voted for me.

[00:56:53] And in the campaign and in that it was the recognition that even though it's a big red map where I live, there are a lot of people who are not there.

[00:57:03] And that really helped me understand where I lived, even more and where I've always lived in places like this.

[00:57:10] And the problem of our national politics making it a binary. It's a red state, it's a blue state or a county or whatever.

[00:57:20] That was one of the eye-opening things.

[00:57:23] The other thing that I think this would be in the category of, I kind of knew this was happening.

[00:57:28] But I saw it in a much more visceral way was Republicans don't have to try very hard in a place like Crawford County, Pennsylvania.

[00:57:36] Because since the Republican Party was invented, they've always voted for Republicans almost without exception.

[00:57:44] But it became really clear to me that the Democratic Party statewide and nationally is also not interested in the district because they've given up on the votes.

[00:57:56] And so, in some ways, like that's politics, that's strategy.

[00:57:59] It's not worth their money but that helped me understand the divide we have is that we're not trying to help people understand how it could be different because you don't have political discourse happening.

[00:58:12] That's the thing that I take away as a greatest value of having run was to put a voice out there that wasn't trying to modulate and say, oh, I'm just like the Republican vote for me.

[00:58:23] I think now there's a different way of thinking and I represent these 12,000 people and more who aren't getting what they need.

[00:58:31] And I would say very few people are getting what they need in districts like mine.

[00:58:34] Yeah, and you know that was one of the reasons why I kind of liked Howard Dean when he was a chair of the Democratic Party.

[00:58:44] Because Howard's mentality was if you are a state in the union then we're going to compete in it.

[00:58:53] And now when it came down to the local stuff like in your situation, now the Democrats would put their money in Philadelphia put their money in Pittsburgh and maybe a little money in Harrisburg but every place else.

[00:59:07] We just want to get enough votes to offset whatever else was going to happen, but he was still campaign.

[00:59:14] He came to Mississippi when I ran for the US Senate and all that stuff.

[00:59:18] And then the other thing I wanted to highlight was when you talked about those 12,000.

[00:59:24] I remember I said something either in a speech or something online because online was kind of new at that point, it's like Facebook or whatever.

[00:59:35] Because I literally somebody not from Mississippi created my social media pages.

[00:59:42] But just gave me the password and said, have fun.

[00:59:46] But I posted something they said that I was a blue dot in a red sea call Mississippi.

[00:59:52] And so the responses I said, well I'm a blue dot too. I'm a blue dot too. So we had t-shirts with my logo on there and had a blue dot on there.

[01:00:02] And so people were gravitating to that.

[01:00:06] And you know, I got beat when I ran for US Senate the last time, this was in 2008.

[01:00:13] And because I ran in 06 as well. And so I got like maybe 38% of votes statewide, but it was more numerical votes than ever any black candidate ever gotten at that time statewide.

[01:00:28] So it was like it's Senate because people actually thought I was going win. It was kind of crazy because that was the Obama year and everybody was geeked up and stuff.

[01:00:38] And I'm thinking, really, I mean, people were sending me resumes.

[01:00:42] And PR was trying to book me for that wins after election. I mean, it was crazy.

[01:00:49] But there when you put yourself out there and you put yourself out there in a credible way, you're putting like you said that voice out there.

[01:00:58] And I think that's very, very important.

[01:01:01] And what really impressed me about your writing was that you were talking about how important it is to have that voice in rural America.

[01:01:12] So kind of expound on that because that's really how you keep the book off and talking about why rural America is what it is and why it shouldn't be ignored.

[01:01:23] Yeah, well I love the blue dot in the red sea and the power of what you did in the power of what I was trying to do is helping blue dots see each other because when you're lost in your body yourself, you don't actually recognize how much potential collective power you have.

[01:01:42] And you know, 38 bigger numbers right it's still a loss, but the blue dots like hey wait a minute.

[01:01:48] There's more of us than we thought.

[01:01:51] So yeah, like.

[01:01:55] I grew up in rural America that's to answer your question more directly come and essays to nothings direct itself wondering for wondering back to a point at some point, but you're really good at it so that's why it's it's okay.

[01:02:08] Thank you.

[01:02:09] So I grew up on a farm.

[01:02:13] It was not a full-time farm, but you know, we were an active farm.

[01:02:16] I was in four H as a kid showed goats and at the county fair.

[01:02:22] Grow up as a hunter all of the markers that your quote, supposed to have as a rural kid.

[01:02:28] But I also grew up playing this saxophone and being in musicals at school and a good student and my dad will simultaneously.

[01:02:35] It's first generation college student, but he was also a college professor he taught environmental biology and he's a Republican kind of like an old Eisenhower Republican.

[01:02:45] And so who I am now this is a lot of what this book is about the memoir aspect of it who I am now as a progressive rural person is not.

[01:02:55] What people would think is someone moved out of Chicago right in ancient Chicago and now they've come to the countryside and they're bringing those big city values whatever that means.

[01:03:06] My values came from the farm.

[01:03:08] My values came from growing up on a rural place.

[01:03:10] My values came from growing up in a town that was abandoned by coal companies in the 1970s.

[01:03:17] And that's the storytelling part that is so important that you're not a weirdo when maybe you are.

[01:03:24] You're not necessarily a weirdo. I'm a weirdo is what I'm saying. You're not a weirdo if you come from a place like this and you have these values.

[01:03:34] One of the things that's been most meaningful to me about this book was really personified last week.

[01:03:40] I did a reading for the hometown, for at the college.

[01:03:44] And I got some emails from students. I didn't know in students that came up to me who were saying, you know, I grew up in a rural place too and I was made to feel like I had to leave and I could never go back.

[01:03:57] And it's so nice to hear somebody else saying there's a place for me as one of them said same thing I argue,

[01:04:04] that's who I am. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and I don't feel right anywhere else.

[01:04:10] And that's what's not right about being made an exile in the place that made you and you're part of.

[01:04:19] And that's both politics and not.

[01:04:22] And it's gratifying that blue dot connecting to the larger sea for other people, particularly younger people to recognize,

[01:04:28] oh, I don't have to abandon my home because of who I am.

[01:04:33] Maybe it's not just worth fighting for, but maybe it's a fight that we can make headway in.

[01:04:40] Yeah, and the other thing that really kind of impressed me was the two hours, right?

[01:04:46] Because you talk about that you were only from the district where you running in and that you live in.

[01:04:52] You grew up only two hours away, but you were talking about how you were made an outsider.

[01:04:58] And I remember when there was this guy named Kirk Forteis who was front Tennessee and he went to Purdue University.

[01:05:13] And he was a Republican. He was like a president, a associated general contractor at one time the National President.

[01:05:19] So he decided to run for governor Mississippi because he had established a company in Vicksburg.

[01:05:25] He was running against an incumbent governor who was a Democrat.

[01:05:30] The only time that guy left the state was the surface country in the Navy and he came back and became like the state auditor

[01:05:39] And then became the governor and all that stuff.

[01:05:41] And now he's been like the Secretary of Navy under some Democratic presidents, but he was his godfather was a former governor to state.

[01:05:51] And this Republican guy who was not born in Mississippi who just set up shop to throw literally through rocks in the Mississippi River.

[01:05:58] That's that's they called it ballast and all that, but that was basically his job was concrete slabs in the river.

[01:06:04] He had a contract to do that. He painted this incumbent governor as an outsider and won.

[01:06:11] And it was basically not about the background, but it was about the quote unquote values, the agenda.

[01:06:21] And that's one of the things you had to fight. It was like, yeah, you know I didn't grow up in this particular part of Western Pennsylvania, but I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and I understand what's going on.

[01:06:38] My viewpoint is we can do better. How why was that? Why do you feel that was challenging to people to accept?

[01:06:47] Well, yeah, well I think that's what comes. Your story is the exact example of it is that the dominating idea of what counts as local has nothing to do with actual locality.

[01:06:59] It has everything to do with a powerful group decides what is from that place and then anything else is painted as outside.

[01:07:11] And you know we're seeing that in a huge way just right now it's not too long after the debate between comaline somebody else.

[01:07:21] And the painting, the xenophobia and the painting of monstrosity of immigrants to Ohio, which is not that far from where I am, is the same thing.

[01:07:33] It's it's a way to in a grotesque and harm the you know amazingly harmful way to define people who come and invest in a place is never being allowed to not only be from there but to be considered human in a place like that.

[01:07:51] And you know I didn't have to suffer the depth of that, although I was stalling to my opponents and I was buddies with Nancy Pelosi to my opponents all of these these tropes come out.

[01:08:04] But that's how that definition of locality is weaponized. But that two hours away that I write about goes also in another direction and that's part of what I explore is there's the insult of well you're not from here you grew up to ours way.

[01:08:18] And I would say in a county exactly the same as this one but then there's also people who have values like me who live here who would say, oh it's only two hours to civilization from here it's only two hours to Pittsburgh it's only two hours to Cleveland.

[01:08:34] And that's part of the challenge I'm trying to put also is that progressively minded and liberal folks in rural places have to try to work beyond their assumptions that they never want to become localized to rural spaces.

[01:08:51] Is that for them the escape to the city is the only way they can live in a place like here and that allows the insult of you're not from here to have purchased because they're accepting in a certain way that this can't be their home.

[01:09:10] And I care a lot about geography and like being embedded in landscape and the essay of Scott Russell Sanders writes about this having grown up in a high-move around a military family and then rooting himself in the state of Indiana once he moved there and growing roots as you know using the metaphor of the transplant to become part of that social artistic community.

[01:09:36] And we have to all allow that to happen otherwise you know we're going to get the weirdness of locality that we have.

[01:09:45] Actually I had quick side light here's it I'm always think about this US six goes through our county and US six is the grand army of the Republic Highway so it's named after the union veterans of the Civil War.

[01:10:00] And they're sort of a throwback to him. I mean if my history's right Pennsylvania was a union state.

[01:10:08] Yeah, but all along PA six now you'll see Confederate battle flags and it's such an inversion of and that's like okay big quotes here because it's you know local values not local values at all.

[01:10:24] It's actually completely inverting what it meant to be a Pennsylvania who fought in the Civil War and what they fought for but somehow that's been perverted into quote down home values.

[01:10:39] And that's what people have to be working against because you know there's obviously very specific real harm that comes from that.

[01:10:47] Yeah, I get the irony and all that as well.

[01:10:54] So you come from a state where you have two very high profile US senators John Fetterman Bob Casey.

[01:11:08] President Biden was was born there in Pennsylvania.

[01:11:13] Is there anybody in the in the current political landscape that either locally or nationally that kind of fits in and that you really respect and admire how they how they've campaigned or how they represent it there.

[01:11:30] Yeah, and I'm I'm going to go to Pennsylvania and it's a current member of the Pennsylvania House who is running for state auditor general and I just met him in person last weekend.

[01:11:41] And he's from Philadelphia and that's really important to this story and we're as far away from Philadelphia as you can get in the Commonwealth.

[01:11:48] And he was at our spring breakfast for the you know whatever small number of Democrats were there and that's Malcolm Kenyatta who's running for state auditor general.

[01:11:58] And he has spoken about and recognizes in a very real way that he needs to be present and wants to be present in every part of the county authentically because he doesn't want to be discarded by a rural voter as somebody from Philadelphia.

[01:12:19] And but he's a brilliant speaker the I can't help but tell another story here so the breakfast was at a place called the Baldwin Reynolds House here in towns on by our historical society and it's an old mansion that was built in the style of a southern plantation home.

[01:12:38] Which is very strange in the snow belt of Northwestern Pennsylvania just from a how cold you're going to be in the winter standpoint.

[01:12:47] But it was built by a former justice of the Supreme Court Baldwin and Baldwin was going to move here and Baldwin's claim to fame.

[01:13:00] It claimed to infame is that he was the lone dissenting vote in the honest dot case and so that's why he was building a plantation house here.

[01:13:09] He got sick and never lived here so karma hit him and Malcolm Kenyatta referenced that in his speech to say that you know he's here but his friends are like you're going to an old mansion in northwestern Pennsylvania.

[01:13:22] Do we need to check on you and he said you know 20 years ago 50 years ago there's no way I would have been welcomed here but he's working to demonstrate that there is nothing strange or.

[01:13:36] In the end of the year in the city of San Diego about supporting him when you're coming from a rural place and he's going to be there he's going to put himself on the line to visit and he can his resources of time.

[01:13:46] He's not going to get that money votes in Crawford County but whatever he's going to get is part of that work so in the future.

[01:13:53] And I think he has a very bright political future to these very I mean he's just the most impressive politician honestly I've ever met.

[01:14:01] I think we're going to see more of him in part it is because he's actually invested in making the visit and not pandering you know he could have pretended oh it's so wonderful to be here and there's nothing different about it's like hey I'm a young gay black man in a town that.

[01:14:15] Is in a county that probably doesn't want me here in a majority way and I have so much respect for that.

[01:14:22] Yeah and he has he's he's one of the few like state legislators that has a national profile right and he's he is very impressive but it just reminds me when I ran for you as Senate there is a town in Mississippi called Stonewall.

[01:14:41] And I was speaking in another city and it was this lady.

[01:14:48] White lady who was running for judge and she came from Stonewall and she said I need you to come to my town to campaign and I said well sure you know I was anywhere everywhere in the state all 82 counties I was going.

[01:15:04] So when I get there you know it's like she was actually having a fundraiser and so she wanted me to speak at her fundraiser and it was like this old mill that they have repurposed into like you know kind of like a mall or whatever.

[01:15:22] You know they had like individual shops and all this stuff so anyway.

[01:15:26] I get there the local newspapers there it's white folks it's black folks I mean it's just it was just like an incredible crowd.

[01:15:36] And you know I'm thinking wow she's got a lot of support but they were coming for me because one of the older residents said nobody that had ever run for the United States Senate has ever physically shown up here.

[01:15:49] That's right to ask for a vote and so it was like a big deal you know so it was like yeah you take pictures with us at all this stuff.

[01:15:58] And I felt bad that I didn't win because it's like that those pictures don't mean nothing but if.

[01:16:03] You know but it was but the power of physically going to places where quote unquote you're not supposed to win or anything like that is the essence of retail politics and so.

[01:16:17] Yeah it's very refreshing to hear somebody in this day and age like you say where they target.

[01:16:24] Particularly areas and say okay we're going to go there and we're not going to waste our resources here that's just that's refreshing to me that there somebody especially a young person like him.

[01:16:34] That understands the value of retail politics.

[01:16:37] Yeah so yeah there was some other oh sorry what yeah go ahead.

[01:16:41] No no no well go ahead.

[01:16:43] Well it's really fast there were some other statewide candidates who sent surrogates with the excuse that well you know it's a tight race they have to raise money elsewhere and that's the polarity that's the difference right there is like yeah okay.

[01:16:56] But that means you're not here it means you don't actually care about us.

[01:16:59] Yeah yeah that that's surrogate stuff you know now that I had the money to do it but it was like now the people want to see what they voted for.

[01:17:08] Because one quick funny story if I get to my last question for you.

[01:17:14] I remember I went to speak to the brotherhood of Elx I don't know if you ever heard of that group.

[01:17:22] Yeah yeah but but they had their they had their state convention in Tupelo, Mississippi and so when you see my name the way it spelled.

[01:17:32] Most of the folks thought was you know some white guy don't know whatever but he's coming to speak so it's like okay fine so when they saw me.

[01:17:42] And and then they heard me speak and do all this stuff it was like the folks were coming to me is a well I'm sure glad you showed up because we we thought you some white guy.

[01:17:51] You know it's there running and we were trying to figure out why does how does white guy even knew about the Elx little long spoke to the group.

[01:17:57] You know so it was like and that made a difference so of course then is like hey all there's a black guy running for the seat you know I'm saying and that kind of you know that kind of spreads so the more that you're exposed the better you are.

[01:18:12] So the last question is.

[01:18:18] Well let me combine it one and four personal thing do you do you think you'll ever run for office again and two.

[01:18:27] Why do you think more people don't run for public office?

[01:18:32] Well in the answer to one is related to number two I don't intend to and that's mostly a personal decision and a family decision because it's really hard on people not just the time expended but the mental anguish of running in the context of patron.

[01:18:49] That prevails and I think that's why more people of integrity don't run because there's so much toxicity particularly when you're running against the dominant strain wherever you are you know you're going to get abused.

[01:19:06] And that's a problem that I have no easy solution for in the United States.

[01:19:13] That said, writing this book, telling stories I see as an extension of a political campaign in some ways.

[01:19:22] I'm hopeful that I can have even a greater impact on the discourse of politics through writing than I could even if I had one and then get mired in the position of being in the house where you have to do the very difficult work of legislation.

[01:19:40] But yeah, it's just I can take anything but my family is too empathetic right like it's too hard or you know there were real perceptions of fear and threat that happened when you run into place like where I ran as I ran and I couldn't do that to other people and I it pains me to say that that's a case but that's true across the country there's a lot of people that it would be far riskier for them to step into the arena than it would be for me.

[01:20:08] And I don't blame anybody for not doing it.

[01:20:11] Well, Matthew, your book is very, very timely and I would like for as many people to get a hold to it. So how can people get the book?

[01:20:23] Do you have like a website or how can people reach you to talk to you further about the book or whatever?

[01:20:31] Yeah, so to get the book my favorite thing for you to do is ask your local bookstore to order it for you because then they'll also know the book exists but you can get it from any bookstore or go to wvupress online.

[01:20:42] Get it direct from the publisher my internet website. I'm sold on the inner webs and Matthew parents.

[01:20:52] That's you parents dot com on Twitter can Apple at an MJ parents on Twitter and on Instagram both. This can Apple at john is the what you'll see but that's me.

[01:21:04] All right. Well, in the name of the book is I hated here please vote for me essays on rural political decay and Matthew parents.

[01:21:14] I'm glad you wrote the book and I'm really, really glad that you took the time to be on the pocket.

[01:21:19] Thanks you so much for having me here with great conversation.

[01:21:23] All right. And all right guys we're going to catch all on the other side.

[01:21:43] All right. And we are back. So I want to thank Fred Wateskin and

[01:21:51] Matthew parents for coming on and really for writing these books.

[01:21:58] You need to read anything is good if you want to get into

[01:22:04] mindset of homelessness and how real it is, especially how real people can end up in that situation.

[01:22:17] Right. And then Matthew is his chronic queen is attempt to run for public office is really, really a timely piece in this day and age.

[01:22:34] In fact, he was a COVID candidate and in all of this toxicity toxicity that we're dealing with.

[01:22:48] It's really, really a timely piece.

[01:22:52] Totally different environment than when I was running back in the day.

[01:22:59] So yeah, I'd encourage you to get those books and Matthew's book is I hated here please vote for me.

[01:23:09] So again, I'm glad that they came on.

[01:23:13] A couple of things I wanted to state by the time this airs.

[01:23:19] It will be public knowledge that a moment of air, climming will have been nominated by the Black podcast awards for best news and political podcast.

[01:23:34] So I want to thank you all for your support.

[01:23:41] You know, I want to thank Grace for her contribution to improving the program.

[01:23:48] I want to thank all the guests that have come on to improve the quality of the program and I'm really, really humbled.

[01:23:58] This is the second time we've been nominated.

[01:24:04] We'll find out in the week or so if the podcast won but just again to be recognized, I'm humbled and greatly appreciate it because just not being nominated means that people recognize the work that's being done.

[01:24:25] And you know, to be able to cover the democratic convention and do other things to really try to increase audience and get more people in tune about what's going on in politics.

[01:24:45] Especially from a Black perspective.

[01:24:49] Really means a lot.

[01:24:51] So I wanted to get that housekeeping out of the way, but before I go, I got to say something about what happened with Tyre Kill.

[01:25:03] And I know a lot of people have weighed in on it and all that, but again, as somebody that's been an elected official, a Black elected official, somebody that has been in law enforcement.

[01:25:21] And I'll be real quick without going over whole lot of details and all that stuff, but based on what I saw.

[01:25:33] And in light of the fact that an organization that I used to be a member of.

[01:25:40] Trying to justify the action of these officers and then another organization used to be a member of in law enforcement endorsed.

[01:25:50] The guy who thinks that people are eating dogs and cats.

[01:25:58] Who's a convicted felon?

[01:26:00] You got a law enforcement organization endorsed in the convicted felon over a prosecutor. That's the world we live in.

[01:26:09] Okay.

[01:26:11] But in light of the Tyre Kill situation, it's like I don't care if the officers were black, Latino, Asian, white.

[01:26:25] The when you join a law enforcement agency and they tell you that the mission of the agency is to serve and protect.

[01:26:35] That's not a kid for us.

[01:26:38] That's the commitment you took an oath to uphold the constitution, you took an oath to upload that mission statement.

[01:26:50] And the person that you are stopping for a striped stop, whatever day they were having, it's not a good day for them at that point.

[01:27:00] And if they don't do anything that will cause physical harm to you, you need to realize that.

[01:27:07] Not everybody is going to be a model citizen and have their hands tinnin' to and yes sir, no sir, and not everybody's going to do that.

[01:27:15] Doesn't matter if they black, doesn't matter if they're white.

[01:27:18] I've seen more TikTok in YouTube videos with belligerent white people than I've seen with black folks.

[01:27:24] Right? There's even videos trying to instruct you of how to show up in officer about your rights and all that stuff.

[01:27:34] While I encourage people to be on their best behavior, do reality is I know people are not going to be.

[01:27:44] And so my job or any law enforcement officer's job is to deal with the situation, deal with it as quickly as possible, keep it moving.

[01:27:56] But because you don't need to be engaged or you don't need to escalate anything.

[01:28:08] If you were an officer assigned to a detail at an event, and wanted a people who is considered like a star, it's like literally his banner is on the stadium.

[01:28:24] Right? He may not have this. I don't know what it looks like.

[01:28:28] I think it's just him and uniform, but it's like if it's his home and his office or whatever, you know who this person is.

[01:28:36] Once that person identifies with that, keep it moving.

[01:28:41] If that person doesn't have any warrant, keep it moving, right?

[01:28:48] That's all they're not. Right?

[01:28:52] Because there's some people that you expect to be that way, especially with a celebrity status.

[01:29:01] Because there's some people that it were colleagues in mind that would say, do you know who I am and blah blah this then?

[01:29:07] Oh, that well as an officer, nobody is above the law, so that doesn't really matter.

[01:29:16] Now, you have a better chance of getting out of a ticket if you treat officer politely.

[01:29:24] But, reality is, if you were doing something, it increases enough for that officer to stop you, you're probably going to get a ticket or at least a warning.

[01:29:31] Right? So, regardless of how that person is, that person is not trying to fight you, is not trying to harm you in any way.

[01:29:43] They're not reaching for a weapon.

[01:29:47] Your job is to handle the situation professionally.

[01:29:53] You don't slay them out of a car, slam them to the ground, you don't tell them to stop crying.

[01:30:01] You don't do that. You don't have a time table when a person sits down.

[01:30:12] You know, your job is to handle it professionally. If you handle it professionally, then the situation won't escalate.

[01:30:24] Classic story I like to tell from a jail.

[01:30:28] So, had an end mate didn't want to go into a cell.

[01:30:34] I convinced them to say, man, you know, right now we've got to get you off of the floor and put you in a cell.

[01:30:44] So, it's like, you want to keep sleeping on the floor and it was like, no, I said, well, we got a broom for you.

[01:30:51] So, he's going up and then I guess he looks in the room looking in the cell room and he's like, no, I want to go in it.

[01:30:59] And he literally lays down on the ground.

[01:31:04] You know, he's not going to move.

[01:31:08] So, I could have very easily been like these officers and physically drug them in and slam the door.

[01:31:17] But what I did was I kneeled down and I whispered in his ear and said, why are you trying to be like Rosa Parks right now? Why are you trying to do all that?

[01:31:26] And he was a young man.

[01:31:27] And he looked at me and then he started laughing.

[01:31:32] And he picked up his stuff and he went in.

[01:31:37] I could have very easily been just like those other officers and show my authority and all that stuff.

[01:31:44] But I talked to him like a human being. I used humor.

[01:31:48] And I was able to get what I wanted. There's been many situations where my most empty,

[01:31:56] they tell you this in the academy, whether you paid attention or not, your most effective weapon is your mouth.

[01:32:06] And not barking commands but communicating with a person to understand the situation they're in and trying to diffuse the situation.

[01:32:18] If it gets out of hand, you've been trying to handle it if it gets out of hand.

[01:32:24] But you can throw a weathery gets out of hand and not to the best of your ability. Your most effective tool is your mouth and the words that come out of your mouth.

[01:32:36] These officers didn't do that.

[01:32:40] It's matter of fact, their mouth was as much as a weapon as anything they had on their belt.

[01:32:46] And negative sense.

[01:32:49] And it's destructive sense.

[01:32:51] Now I don't think the officers should be fired.

[01:32:56] I don't think they should be on stadium detail anymore.

[01:32:59] Think if they're going to get an extra job, you know, they can do some else, maybe a parade or something.

[01:33:09] Bezzy, they're going to treat the people that you're the reason why you've got to detail the players of the team.

[01:33:15] I don't think you need that job anymore.

[01:33:17] But, you know, I think sitting on the desk for a couple of weeks reassess your situation.

[01:33:27] Maybe some mandatory training, conflict resolution, training, whatever and an expect them to do better.

[01:33:39] And the only reason why nobody should be fired in my cases because outside of being embarrassed and humiliated, that was about it.

[01:33:49] Although from a black perspective, you know, we deal with that too much.

[01:33:56] And maybe a message should be sent to that extreme but I don't think so.

[01:34:03] But I think a message needs to be strongly conveyed that that is not how officers are supposed to treat citizens.

[01:34:13] Doesn't matter if they're to start playing a routine or if somebody that lives in the neighborhood doesn't matter if they're black, white, Latino, Asian, whatever.

[01:34:28] You've got to have restraint. You've got to have a level of professionalism. You have to have the mindset to de-escalate any situation.

[01:34:39] You know, some people don't understand that rolling down the window is for their safety and yours.

[01:34:47] There's no class that teaches the average citizen how to act.

[01:34:52] But at least not a requirement in any school.

[01:34:57] Now, black families tend to do it on their own and maybe some white families have a talk.

[01:35:04] But there's no class that teaches that unlike the hours of training you had to go through the academy to get your certification.

[01:35:16] So that needs to be in your mind.

[01:35:20] Right? And again, if it's not a threatening situation, then the key thing is to handle that situation as professionally as possible.

[01:35:31] So everybody can be on their way.

[01:35:39] The only racial thing I will say is that you have to look at black people as you may be.

[01:35:48] Because I think part of the issue is that if you look at a group of people and don't think they're human or deserve your respect, then you treat them in a kind of way.

[01:36:00] And maybe you need some sensitivity training or not.

[01:36:05] But this is 2024.

[01:36:09] Literally political movements and corporations and elections that have been determined by the actions of police officers.

[01:36:19] A whole city that's a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri changed their whole city council based on an aggressive action of a police officer.

[01:36:36] Los Angeles is not the same based on the aggressive actions of police officers.

[01:36:46] So when you are out there and we just had a guest talk about how officers are trained, this danger impaired, right?

[01:36:58] We just had a guest break that down to you.

[01:37:00] So I've been through that. I get it, but the reality is that we have a higher obligation as a public servant and we can't let our personal bad day or any past experience determine how we deal with that individual that's in front of us.

[01:37:24] So in TikTok language, do better.

[01:37:31] All right.

[01:37:32] With that, until next time.

[01:38:01] Thank you.